CPH--not DC, and definitely not LA

So for some reason I have been avoiding this and the whole idea of a blog since my first one, but Dina has inspired me to continue with her ridiculous and very entertaining LA blog. First, Copenhagen is complete opposite of LA (well, not completely....there are hot guys here too). No traffic (sometimes bike traffic), no crazy drivers, no manicurists at health care conventions, actually no health care conventions at all.

Danes are very, very put together. They're intellectual, worldly, sexy, and they know it. They strut up and down Stroget--the main street downtown that is completely cobblestone with boutiques, coffee shops, amazing bakeries and cafes, and bookstores galore--wearing their beautiful fur jackets, high heels that they somehow manage to walk nonchalantly in despite the cobblestones, random patches of black ice EVERYWHERE, and even on their bicycles. I've never seen people function so smoothly and easily in every day life as Danish people do.
And then there are the Americans here, who are easy to spot since there are only about 500,000 people in the entire city, and much less downtown where our school is. We are complaining about the ice "Where the hell is the salt in this city!?!?", complaining about the random piles of snow "O my god. How the hell are we supposed to walk when the sidewalks are blocked by huge piles of snow?? Where are the plows!??!" (I guess nobody has realized you can just walk down the street since there are basically no cars here), and most of all complaining about the cold. Meanwhile, Danes are bicycling, often with a baby carriage on the front of the bike, winding in and out of the snow piles, over the ice patches, without a hat or gloves on while the wind blows in their faces. Always looking sexy too.

So I've been here almost a month now--maybe 3 and a half weeks--and I've been thinking about how weird it is that you can just acquire a new life like this whenever you want. I have new friends, a new man, new favorite cafes and coffeeshops, new methods of transportation, and new habits. But none of it even feels new anymore, even though it obviously is. It just feels like life now. But the one thing that doesn't end is my constant comparisons of life here to life at home--mostly in terms of friends and the atmosphere of the nightlife. My friends here are great and I keep meeting more. They're all fun and interesting people, but it's constantly a struggle not to compare them to how things used to be. The dynamic of my groups of friends at home and school were just much different than the dynamic between new friends--and we all constantly talk to each other about our friends from home. It's a weird concept I think, because why should we just be reflecting on our old lives with each other when we're supposed to be bonding with each other? But I guess the best way to get to know other people is to listen to how they "used to" live and see if it lines up with how you used to live. It's really weird, and I never really recognized it until living here, but it does make me miss DC at times.

And speaking of DC, no matter who criticizes America or how many senators are just fucking things up left and right, or how much corruption there might be in the city, it's better than here. I love living in this wonderful little society where everybody can trust and depend on one another, but I miss the quirks. I miss walking down the street and laughing at the crazy people and seeing people from a million different places in a matter of two or three blocks. I also miss people chatting with other people they don't know on the metro and the streets just for the hell of it--Danes are super reserved and usually keep to themselves. That is, until they're drunk.

Night life here is soooo much different than life during the day. People are still looking sexy and biking around in heels, but the streets are louder and often covered in puke. I think because the society is so "perfect" and put together they love to drink even more. It's the only time when Danish people are just fucking crazy. There are basically no drinking policies here--you can buy booze when you're about 12, you can drink it on the streets, the metro, the train, the bus, or really wherever and whenever the fuck you want, and you are encouraged to drink as much of it as is humanly possible. The coffeeshops all sell alcohol, the 7-11s, the grocery stores, the cafes, the kiosks on the street, everywhere. It is basically the epitomy of Danish culture, right after cigarettes. But its a much different drinking culture than in DC. Here, people go to bars and pubs and just sit in booths with their friends and drink, drink drink, then go to a different bar or pub and drink more and more and more and harass the tables around them or invite other tables to join theirs so they can drink more together, but I haven't really been anywhere like Third Edition or McFaddens or 18th Street Lounge where people tend to mingle with others on their own sometimes, go from dancing to drinking at the bar, to drinking at a table or whatever. I don't know exactly how to describe the difference, but I just know there is one! Either way, drinking is drinking, and that's exactly what I'm about to get ready to do. (Hopefully DC style, since tonight I'll be going to my first Danish gay club!!)

Days 1 and 2

It all started with a couple warm towels being handed to me by a smiling, tall blonde woman. I had just thrown up on my sweater and pants, it was 7 a.m., and my plane was about to land in the Copenhagen airport. I was miserable, but the graciousness of everybody around me made it hard to show my misery. I knew I smelled like puke, but nobody minded. "It happens all the time".

Denmark is full of such people, I soon found out. Smiling, tall, blonde, and gracious.

Yesterday I was walking to get a sandwich with my roomate, Christina, and a scruffy man with a hat on approached us on the street. Instinctively I became nervous, thinking that he was crazy or trying to heckle us as he showed Christina a picture in a tiny book while he muttered something in Danish. If I was still in DC it wouldn't have been unrealistic to assume he was crazy, homeless, or simply trying to bother two innocent young girls. "What did he say?" I asked as we walked away. "He wanted to know if I knew where the address was on that bus pass. He was trying to return it to the man who lost it. I guess he just found it on the ground." He was returning a bus pass that he found on the ground? To the man's home? I'm definitely not in America anymore.

"Take the 5A bus home," Christina told me as she waved goodbye after helping me get into the city, get a bus pass, and find my school. 5:00 came along and I saw the 5A as I approached the bus stop. I ran to catch it, hopped on, and thought that I was on my way home. About 30 minutes later I leaned over to the woman sitting across the row and asked, "Does this bus eventually reach Amager?" "Oh no! You are going the wrong way!" She then proceeded to tell me every detail of what I needed to do to get home, how long it would take me, and did not let me leave without assuring me that it would be easy to fix my mistake and giving me a smile big enough to instill just the amount of trust in her that I needed to make it home.

I have been here less than 48 hours, but I haven't run into a single rude or mean-spirited Dane. I sat by one child on my first bus, and one on the way home. When I got off the bus, I walked by a group of three children with a soccer ball, kicking it down the street. "Who lets these kids roam the city by themselves??" I thought. Then I realized that nothing was going to happen to them--it's Denmark. Nobody would dare harm a child.