early mornings and late nights
This has been a week of too little sleep, but the many firsts make it worth it!
Tuesday brought my first Danish class, and when I borrowed a bike to visit my friends afterwards, my first bike ride. I already wrote about that, so I’ll skip it here.
Wednesday was a bit ridiculous -somehow, I had scheduled all these little blocks of time with different people in different places, one right after the other. After class in the morning, I met up with Janel, my Canadian friend, at Baresso, a favorite (Copenhagen chain) cafe of hers, to work on homework. Of course, “working on homework” also included talking about the Olympics (she showed me the iconic pair of mittens that her grandma had sent her), expressing shock at the $8 lattes, talking about boys, explaining how the internet works to her, etc. She’s so bubbly — even when we are talking about serious or sad topics — that hanging out with her always lifts my spirits.
After Baresso, I headed over to Norreport station to meet up with Greg, a former UC Berkeley chem student who’s working in a nanoscience lab here before he sarts his PhD program this fall. He arrived here one week before I did, and I count on him to be my obnoxious tourist partner in crime. We rushed over to Vor Frelsers Kirke (which I can say without hesitation is the most beautiful church I have ever been in) to listen to some Bach pieces being played on the organ. It was incredibly beautiful to sit in the huge expanse of the church and let me eyes wander to all the intricate, celestially themed decorations while listen to such dramatic music. Afterwards, we got dinner at an Indian restaurant, my first time at a table service and waiter type of restaurant. It was interesting talking to Greg, since I think he’s the only person I know here who’s not a student of some sort. He convinced me to apply to grad school at UC Berkeley this year, and we spent too long reminiscing about how sweet the Bay Area is. He’s currently trying to decide between Harvey Mudd & Harvard next year, so I gave him my thoughts on Cambridge too.
Next on the agenda was meeting up with Søren at Cafe Retro. Søren’s a Danish student at my school; I met him when he came up to me in the library and started talking about my Andy Warhol bag. He ranks very high on the most interesting people I have met list. We sat at Retro, drinking coffee, reading our books, and making up stories about all the other people around us in the cafe. He seems to know everyone and meet people wherever he goes. He showed me his notebook, which is an incredible collection of notes written in many languages by the people he’s met. The notes range from the “Hey, nice to meet you” type to deeper thoughts on life and the universe. He calls me “American girl” and I hope I can spend more time with him in the future.
Finally, I met up at bar in the same area with some of my friends from school. The website is too obnoxious to link you to, I’m sorry. I had a couple drinks, gossiped, and was introduced to more people than I can keep track of by my friends. And then I meandered home.
On Thursday, I woke up early early to take the train to Malmö (it’s right across the Øresund strait - trains leave every 20 minutes!). I was visiting Jacob, a Swede, at MINC, a startup incubator, for their weekly breakfast. I know Jacob because he met Samuel, an Australian, when he studied abroad there and I know Samuel because he is currently studying abroad at Babson College and trying to work at HubSpot this summer.
I’ve worked in 2 startup incubators before: Sprowtt was in the Palo Alto Plug n Play Tech Center and HubSpot is in the Cambridge Innovation Center. It was so cool to be in the environment again, talking to people working at companies that are trying to solve big exciting problems, and it made me miss the startup scene. Jacob let me know of a couple cool events though, in both Sweden and Copenhagen, that I’m going to try to check out and meet some people at. One guy I talked to said that they were trying to move to San Francisco as soon as possible (something we have in common, I guess). When I asked why, he said it was because in San Francisco, entrepreneurs are celebrated, while in Sweden, most people think you are crazy to do something so uncertain. No one I talked to had planned on being an entrepreneur. After breakfast, I wandered around Sweden for a bit. I think I’ll write a separate post on that, if for no other reason than because I took a lot of pictures.
I headed back to Copenhagen and went to a different Baresso (it’s really the Starbucks of Copenhagen). There, I met a man who spent about an hour explaining his theory of consciousness to me, which was “above spiritual, above physical, above scientific explanations”. I love that I can make meeting and talking to people a priority in my life here. Normally (at home) I would think that I didn’t have time to listen to this crazy guy and help him write a letter to his spiritual master, but here, it’s practically the reason I’m here! and it helps that I have nothing “better” to do :)
When he finally left, I grabbed a croissant and ran off to take the train to Danish class #2. It’s so funny - the class is not required and we don’t get credit for it, so everyone is there for the sole reason that they want to be there and learn Danish. But sometimes, when the teacher reads a word, we can’t help but laugh. The pronunciations are absurd! A three letter word will have every letter pronounced differently than written, and it only gets worse as the words get bigger. We also got a very helpful pronunciation guide, though it trips me up too… V’s are pronounced like W’s when in the middle of a word, unless they’re the first sound in the word, which happens more often than you’d think because sometimes Danes decide just not to pronounce the first couple letters of a word. Especially if they contain an H. Anyway, a useful (for me) word to know is bøger — it means books, and it’s pronunciation is the same as boo-yah! which always makes me smile. I think my favorite word in Danish might be bøgcafe :)
After Danish class, I was looking to going home and finally catching up on sleep, but then I couldn’t turn down an offer to go to Jolene in the meat packing district. Now, the meat packing district in NYC is a trendy place to be, although it might technically be the former meat packing district. Not so in Copenhagen! This is still the meat packing district, and trendy clubs alternate with refrigerated loading bays. The NYT article I’ve linked you to (Jolene’s official website is, I kid you not, on myspace) quotes “If you come here at 4 a.m., you will see all the club kids coming home and all the butchers arriving in their white, bloody clothes”. It was a little creepy. Also, there was a shower drain on the dance floor.
Anyway, despite being exhausted, I had a blast at Jolene - cheap beer, ridiculous dancing, and awesome company. When we got hungry, we headed out into the rain to get some cheap falafel before heading home. I learned that Josephine, one of the girls I went with, actually lives just a couple blocks from me!
Speaking of rain, did you notice that I said it was raining? That means it must be above 0, I think for the first time since I’ve been here!! When I woke up this morning (ok, maybe it was afternoon) I noticed that the rainstorm last night had cleared out almost all of the snow in my flat’s courtyard. 
Walking around today has been a delight — it’s so warm!! (I think the high today is 2-3 C). On the same note,the time that the sky starts to brighten has been creeping earlier and earlier, and it won’t be long now before I no longer have to wake up in the dark.
Ok, time to sign off on the longest post ever. I’m sitting in Paludan Bogcafé by København University, mooching wifi from the library next door. My netbook’s battery is impressive — which means I take it dying as an indicator that I’ve been sitting in one place for too long. Tonight the school is taking all of us exchange students out for a night on the town! It was originally supposed to include a canal tour, but unfortunately, the canals are still covered in ice. I’m still excited to have dinner on someone else’s dime though. Til next time!
Love,
Maia
Notes