But what has surprised me the most is just how much daylight has changed. Less than a month ago I would go home and it'd be dark by 6 sometimes. The sun wouldn't get up until 7:30 am. The days were short and the sunshine scarce. Yesterday I was sitting at home and it was a light outside; I couldn't understand why I felt so tired. I looked at the clock, it was 9 pm! The sky still glimmered with light, I had never experienced that. On the weekend when I go out on late nights of urban ravaging the sun feels like it starts rising at just about 3am or so. It makes me feel extra cool when I feel like I have stayed out all night into the morning. The tilt of the planet makes the days here so long and so worth it. I'm enchanted by that idea. For now until the middle of summer the days are only getting longer and longer and the sun is shining brighter and brighter. I'm into it.
One of the bad (and good) things about having come to Copenhagen in the Spring is that so far I've had the weather be a really relevant part of my experience. When I came here in January it was so cold and so windy that it made it feel like Denmark had shifted all the way toward the Artic. I remember one Field Study where I was so cold I was sure my toes were about to break off. Now I am writing to you all from a clear, sunny, and beautiful Copenhagen. It's so enchanting. Every single day as per the last couple of weeks I have physically struggled to go to class and be inside. Literally, everything is pretty: everyone looks extra hot (I drool every time I walk outside) all the flowers are blooming, everyone is nice, everyone goes outside. It's such an important part of the culture here. I love it.
But what has surprised me the most is just how much daylight has changed. Less than a month ago I would go home and it'd be dark by 6 sometimes. The sun wouldn't get up until 7:30 am. The days were short and the sunshine scarce. Yesterday I was sitting at home and it was a light outside; I couldn't understand why I felt so tired. I looked at the clock, it was 9 pm! The sky still glimmered with light, I had never experienced that. On the weekend when I go out on late nights of urban ravaging the sun feels like it starts rising at just about 3am or so. It makes me feel extra cool when I feel like I have stayed out all night into the morning. The tilt of the planet makes the days here so long and so worth it. I'm enchanted by that idea. For now until the middle of summer the days are only getting longer and longer and the sun is shining brighter and brighter. I'm into it.
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Easter in Copenhagen is a big deal! While the city can seem pretty quiet over the long holiday weekend, I cracked the secret as to where everyone went: many city dwellers take off to summerhouses in the country to enjoy their vacation with extended family members and plenty of food and drink. And that is exactly what I did! On Sunday My Host Dad scooped me and his son along and we made our way to my Host Grandparents house for my very own taste of Easter in Copenhagen.
Denmark holds a lengthy Easter holiday, with almost all stores as well as many restaurants closed most of the week through to Easter Monday. And, at the same time, Easter lunch, or ‘Påskefrokost’, is almost as big a deal to Danes as Christmas dinner and is celebrated as a large family gathering, with a traditional spread of warm dishes as well as cold cuts and open sandwiches. Its just the right type of craziness. This one time the Danes really showed me how to do brunch, I had to take notes. First me and my host family embarked on a 2 hour trip into the Danish countryside. We took a train and a bus to get to the most lovely sights in all of Denmark. Vast patches of green space and spring flowers welcomed Easter in fun and lovely colors. We passed lakes, charming town stations and the clouds drifting by in the sky. When we got to my host grandparents house I just remember sighting in relief as to just how cute their house was. It was decorated to the utmost perfection; a collection of items you wish every grandma would sit down and tell you stories about and charming interior design arrangements you can just tell and quirky cute old person put together. The place was open, sunny, full of narratives and good vibes. My host grandparents speak as much English as I speak Danish, which means nothing. Most of the time interacting with them involved honest smiles, hand gestures (my favorite was when she put both her hands on her heart to signify she liked something while I just nodded) and patience. They had a huge garden with all sorts of bird feeders and flowers. It was the most charming thing in the world. Despite the obvious language, racial, and age gap, my Host Grandparents made sure I felt as welcomed as the sunshine into their home. I sat there while my Host Dad caught up with his parents flipping through family albums and admiring the nice china that my host grandma seemed to have collected. As the sun started to shine harder so did our appetite. Suddenly we were all gathered around the table of plate after plate of food. There were meatballs, ham, a chicken spread, salad, pork, fish.... there was everything I have ever heard about Danish cuisine. Weeks before I had joked to my Host Dad that I had fallen in love with some meatballs that had been on the freezer that I ate in a moment of desperation. I came to find out that my Host Grandma had made them and sent them. Since that day I had bothered my Host Dad to take me to his parents house asap. So he did and I loved it. What is a Danish Brunch, you ask? It's everything that the American Brunch offers except more. And since I had been bragging my Host Grandparents went above the extra mile (or kilometer I guess) to show me what it was all about. Fist there was a sort of cupcake with a ham mix that was just so creamy and delicious. Then came the cold cut ham, a salad with every imaginable seed on it, and herring fish over bread. Then pork and meatballs and cheese and bread and then multiply by two. And of course, we had beers on the side because duh, this is Denmark. We ate, we laughed, and we enjoyed the food. After we sat around, drank coffee, and peaked into the garden where birds flew by. At the end of the lunch I told my grandparents that it was my birthday coming up and they got so excited. When we were leaving my host grandma grabbed me by the cheeks and said 'Happy Birthday!' in Danish. I said 'Tak' and got into the car on my way home with a smile on my face the size of all of Europe. Happy Easter Indeed! I've got this new found love for Copenhagen all over again so this time I decided to explore some of the places I had been neglecting for reasons of better weather and stupidity. As soon as the sun was shining bright and the breeze was blowing it didn't hesitate on me to think that I wanted to head to the beach. I have been pretty much craving the sand, the beach, and the caress of the water the moment I departed from Miami into the unknown. I texted a friend, packed fruits and decided to go to Amager Strand, a great coast beach very close to Copenhagen! I have a odd love for Amager, which is a neighborhood in the southern island off Copenhagen center, mostly because it is misunderstood. The area has a really bad reputation with the locals here, which is odd to me because the whole neighborhood is cheap, has great community annemities and its proximity to nature is desirable! Its reputation in the city comes from the fact that the area used to be the site for the sewage and landfill dump for the medieval city. Since then area has been stigmatized and now stands as an 'Edgeland' in the city. But over the years, the case has been so much different. I think that this beach might be my new favorite part of the city. It was calming, it was beautiful, it was sunny, it was windy, it was everything. When you reach the beach you can see windmills, the bridge over to Sweden, the clear rich color of the water, and many cool architecture features. Let's go back to the clear color of the water: you can really see why Copenhagen is known for one of the cleanest waters in the world, the ocean is so clear and so rich in color it makes you want to take your shoes off and splash the water no matter how freezing it is. You can rent a kayak, try blocarting, take a dip in the ocean, play a game of mini-golf, get a massage, have yourself a nice meal, watch the roller bladers, sit in the dunes, walk into the baths and piers.... the possibilities for discovery are endless! My favorite part is a bath structure called Kastrup Sea Baths. What Denmark lacks in a Mediterranean climate, it makes up for in hardy, sportif enthusiasm, as borne out by this pier structure for sea swimming that forms part of the park. It is a long pier that extends out from the beach into the Oresund, the narrow channel separating Denmark from Sweden. The pier docks with a sculptural, circular structure resembling a palisade. When you walk all the way to it it sort of starts looking like a sea shell too, so when you are in it you feel part of an infinite loop with beautiful chambers to sit and relax. Even more so, it encloses a section of the water that is protected by the curved embrace of a windbreak so that part of the ocean becomes part of the architectural design. Rising from 1.5m to 8m at its highest point, the timber screen shelters you from the wind and also catches the afternoon sun. Its a magical piece of architecture. We walked to it, sat under the sun, watched the brave plunge into the cold ocean and ate our oranges. Walking on the beach was really refreshing too, catching the gust of sand and the wind into our faces. I couldn't get over how nice the water looked and how good Easter weather had been lately! This time Copenhagen really answered me and showed me that a beach day is actually possible in these northern parts of the world. Spring truly exists here everyone, and so does the happiness in my heart.
Living with a host means all sorts of interesting cultural exchanges. The picture above is one of them; mainly that Denmark is a meaty place. After coming back from some fun travels I came home to my Host Dad in full-on Easter mode: waking up early, joking around, and inviting friends over to the house. It was nice to meet some of his friends and see that Danes can actually be social creatures despite their extremely true stereotype of them as cold and seclusive beings. My host asked me what I thought that he should make to eat and I told him that of course he should make pizza because that is such an American tradition (actually scratch that) it's a universal tradition that pizza makes time with friends 10000 times much better. So he did, he made pizza.... or more like a kilogram of meat and a side of bread. So infamous is this that the friends he had invited actually called it the "Jens's special," which is the name of my host dad.
They sat around drinking beers, playing FIFA on the play station and sharing laughs. It was nice to be a part of that. Mostly because this was, in some ways, the epitome of Danish culture. For one, they can't live without meat and that Nordic cuisine involves a general combo of meat-potato or meat-remolade or meat-meat. Also, they tend to be social in their inner circles, which is refreshing because their humor can be amusing and their interactions open and progressive. For last, they love the beer, alcohol is celebrated. I like that about them, that while sometimes unapproachable, they are down for more intimate exchanges and quality time. I was heading back from my 2 day trip to London sitting on the plane with a mix of emotions: somewhere in between yearning the fact my taste of London had been way too short and trying to decide if I had time to catch on sleep on a 2 hour flight. I grabbed the in-flight magazine and mindlessly flipped through its pages about all the amazing places I should go to and drooling over pictures in remote Italian islands with colorful cityscapes. But then it dawned on me: isn't it time I start discovering more of Denmark? The word microadventure hasn’t made it into the dictionary yet, but it might soon. The term – for a low-maintenance mini adventure you can do near home has become a cult hashtag on Twitter and the newest way to channel your inner Bear Grylls without actually having to eat bugs and drink your own piss. The day after I came back from London it was still the middle of Easter Vacation and the sun was shining more than ever before. I decided to grab my bike and hit the dust on the rode. I mapped a general route that passed through some really small nearby towns and looped all the way back. Rather than thinking about it as a stupid alternative to the big and impressive destinations all air companies promise to take you, I thought that if I wasn’t going to be doing this, I’d probably be doing nothing at all. I chose to make the most out of my vacation and the most out of Denmark. I went down the path that leads really out of the city. Past a hill, over the sunny embrace of the open road and in between the seldom family farms that spring up in the landscape. Everything was either a deep shade of green or a charming wash of light blue sky. Sometimes seeing horses would surprise me and I would stop my bike to try to get their attention as if they were dogs. They kept grazing, I kept biking. At some point I reached a part of the journey where I was in between road after road of what looked like a flower field. They were tall yellow flowers that stood up high insatiably trying to catch the last bits of sunshine. This made me happy. I stopped my bike and spent quite a bit of time trying to assimilate to them, walking in between rows, and observing them. Some had just started their journey: their buds were just peaking out; the immature mixture of green and yellow was refreshing. Others were majestically designed with the sole intention to make them stand out beautifully against their green backdrops. There was a breeze so sitting there by my bike and taking in the field was easy. In due time I kept going. When ever the light hit me just the right way I would maneuver my phone in one hand and control the bike with the other just to get a shot. Denmark has taught me this. I feel so comfortable in my bike now that I can be a Dane and only use one hand, if any. I know exactly what gear to use for different slopes. I enjoy speeding down the route and having full range of view to intake where you are going. I saw a little hill in the side of the road at some point and decided to make a little camp to eat the food I had packed for the day. The hill had a little tree on top, the only tree in a vast grass field with a great view. I sat here for another bit of time, watching the seldom car pass by on one side of the road and catching the occasional distant bird who would fly in the sky and make the landscape vivid. I kept going until I suddenly reached probably the cutest small European town ever. It comprised of the most charming library I had ever seen in my whole entire life, a pond and a cool windmill structure among a handful of houses. On my way back home after biking around the small town and passing by others, the clouds started to get real dark and eerie. I hesitated for a minute but then it started raining hard and I was wet. It was liberating. The sun was still shining and the droplets of water were shining like they were diamonds falling from the sky! When the rain was over, probably 5 minutes from home I saw a double rainbow and all of the sudden this microadventure was actually a pretty big one.
I will never be a royal, it don't run in my bl ood. But this type of love was actually meant for us because for Spring Break I made my way to London, where I stole the queen's crown and took over the city. From Princess Diana to Harry Potter to the Covergirl London Look I have literally been hearing about England for about the whole entirety of my life. Almost no history, art, architecture, philosophy or music discussion can avoid London in one way or another so it felt right to venture to the only part of Europe I had a duty to visit (aka we've all seen Prince Harry's pictures and we've all heard Emma Watson speak and we all know what I want what I really really want). Another reason I went was because it was so so cheap to travel there, given that it was Easter Vacation and Barcelona, Milan, or Instabul's prices were so high their eyes were real red. In reality, going to London was a dream come true. London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its founding by the Romans. In this way, it is a leading global city with strengths in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism, transport, I mean the list goes on and on and so does the city. When you land in London you feel relevant. When you leave London you feel relevant. Being that I have so far spent 3 months in Denmark with a language that sounds a little like you've gotten your tongue cutoff, as soon as I landed in London from the airport to the metro I was hooked. I didn't have to tune out the advertisements or the newspapers or the conversations. Suddenly I understood everything. It is such a relief to be in your zone, at least remotely. Yet, all of the conversations sound extremely interesting because they are in a British accent, even their conversations about the weather sound like they are appointing the next sunshine baron. The cool thing is that it rubs off on you like glitter. Suddenly you look at yourself in the mir-ah, not the mirror and you really start driving home the As in fAAther (and lol why have Ts when they always skip them). Even though I almost died from my inability to get used to looking at the right THEN left when crossing the street, London was a magnificent experience. I traveled with two good friends and we stayed at the most charming hostel. Nothing fancy and over the top except the beauty of the blue skies and the shining sun caressing us. We made it there with ease, navigating the tube like professional commuters. The hostel was in a fairly mixed area which was quiet yet hip. It was a walk through typical British row houses with plenty of trees and cute scenery which was as accessible as cheap restaurants of all types and stores for all of your pressing survival needs like cheap wine, midnight snacks, and cookies on the go. It was cool. So far throughout my travels I always end up staying in areas like this, and I think I like them much more than if I would've have stayed in the city centre with the other heap of tourists. When we went for lunch upon arrival, for example, it was fun gossiping about the two old ladies sitting in the semi-italian deli whose accent was so strong it was almost a completely different language and trying to figure out what to order and how. My personal favorite would be when my vegetarian friend, Erik, would order a "veggie sandwich" and they couldn't understand him due to his 'American' accent. It wasn't long at all before we dropped it all at the hostel and headed out for the royal treatment. Firstly, navigating the 'Underground' in London is easy as pie. But really, the London Underground or 'the Tube' is truly underground and it truly looks like a tube. Stepping into it almost feels like going into a time machine: everything is crowded, there are not enough seats and before you know it you arrived to the next station. Unlike Copenhagen where if you miss one station you can easily walk or bike to the next, the London subway moves so fast you forget just how far apart the stations are from one another. London is a big big city. Neither the great fires, the Black Plague, WWII, nor the final battle at Hogwarts have managed to stop this monster from greatness. The first thing we had to do was to visit the queen so we headed to the fab part of life to breath the fantastic golden embellishments and the radiant tulips at the Royal Palace. It's like the Queen knew I was coming because she managed to showoff the most beautiful flower gardens and summon the blue sky with the wave of her hand. The British flag was swaying high in the air and everything seemed so valuable, much like my experience so far in Europe. I wish we would've stuck around her ground for longer but whatever we are busy too and had lots of things to do, people to see, and places to be! One of the things that blew me about London was its emphasis on vast open spaces. Really, there was probably not a single hour that passed in which we didn't engage in swiftly designed public parks and squares, the embrace of natural elements and the come-and-go of the sun. Throughout the UK there is an inherited legacy of first class public parks and landscapes. Today, every town has a park that they can be proud of and many of these are also historically important. Besides weird urban legends, a fish and a chip, and industrialization, the British also invented and shaped the concept of public parks and in turn influenced the creation of parks in North America and Europe. Recognizing the need for places to relax, unwind, and to exercise, the top landscape designers of the day, like Joseph Paxton and John Claudius Loudon, were commissioned to lay out these new parks. During the mid to late nineteenth century, public park and landscape design was a hot topic and dominated professional journals and sections of newspapers just like gardening and interior design pages in today’s consumer magazines. This is pretty refreshing because it makes the experience of the city one giant leisurely walk. We would enter a royal park from one corner, get off on the next and see a church, a great scenic view of the water; we would pass another park and into the financial district. The city becomes a mosaic of public and private. The Easter sun was so beautiful the first day that it was no problem spending it outside wandering the streets of London where size certainly matters when you take a grasp of Big Ben and the London Eye. It's Big and it's Ben, a place I had always wanted to see since defeating The Phantom in Kingdom Hearts and even before then when wondering about the magic of childhood in Peter Pan or perhaps even before that after following @Big_Ben_Clock on Twitter and dying after every post. Regardless, going to that whole area by Westminster Abbey is like stepping into an iconic and historical set. Talking about icons, seeing the Tower Bridge was pretty exciting for me too. Since Fergie proclaimed her London Bridge was falling down circa 2006, I became increasingly interested for bridges overall. Now that I've seen it wide and direct I think that Fergie probably let it down a little too early (typical). The London bridge fell down for a reason I guess because the Tower Bridge was much much better. It's quite a sight. I specially liked the paint job which looks like it is ready for the next Victorian/Renaissance festival. Even though London has this nice bridge and we went around it, up it, and across it, I am still not over it. One of my favorites parts of the day was getting to the bridge from a terrace/plaza by the city hall and glancing at the majesty of it with the perfect backdrop of softly placed clouds and the calming water. While I mostly talk about London through cheesy tourist pictures with exciting world icons, the vastness of British history and the ultimate quest of trying to find the ministry of magic per these pictures mostly: It is also relevant to point out that London first and foremost, in today's context, is a huge metropolitan hub for European development, economy, and society. The word that fits here is impressive. The amount of investment that comes in and out of London is only matched at best by the amount of people that come in and out of London every single day. You feel that energy driving the city, driving you. There are huge architectural developments taking place and the sheer magnitude of its financial and business center is astounding. Modern architecture is a norm now and the impressive form and scale might not compare to the ginormous projects in Asia and the Middle East, but rather provide a substance that keeps London righteously on its map. My favorite was the City Hall building and the modern square surrounding the harbor. Some of the stream-lined vistas and daring architectural elements went a long way. Like for example a building that was a giant spire, another huge skyscraper that bulged out on the center, and one steam punk building that was so righteous. In the other side of the river where the financial center is there was a nice intertwine of old and new, modern and modernist, tall and low, and of national identity and national progress. Walking through these areas felt rushed, the same way you would feel in an action movie: business men moving fast and sweeps of architectural structures coming into you in all sorts of typologies. Here, it felt like what we think of a city would feel like. And since so far I have been to Copenhagen (who is known for a tiny little mermaid), Stockholm (who is known for the underground subway stations), Amsterdam (who is known for picturesque low rise houses built-in right into the canals), and Berlin (who really knows the definition of destruction), London came to me out of the blue uninvited. Bu thankfully it came because I really liked it. Naturally we saw so so many things and had a great time exploring the city. We went to the national gallery, sat around a huge public square with vibrant city life, sneaked into a side church, went to the amazing modern art museum, and even found the time to buy ice cream. At some point I felt like I was living though the pages of my Art History book, recognizing buildings, pinpointing Picasso and Degas paintings and fan-girling about every single moment I thought of anything related to what Harry Potter would've done. It was all a dream, check it: St Martin-in-the-Fields known for being a prime example of the British quest of a national classicist architectural style and the cool new window design: The idea of the covered commercial street which helped morph to the modern market/mall: Shakespeare's Globen Theatre because a plague on both your houses and the ides of March: Tate Modern which is my whole entire modern Art History education housed under one roof and perfect for sneaking selfies in front of unidentified art: The huge St. Paul's Cathedral because you lose if you are a city and aren't in that S.t Paul Cathedral wagon: And also other moments of wandering through Corinthian columns and the like: The last truthful moments in the city we decided to venture a little bit outside into Queen Elizabeth's Olympic Garden, which was pretty out there and stood as a gem for relaxing, playing, and enjoying the sun. It's a huge complex that has brand new developments, a huge mall, and a sports compound integrated with an aquatic center, mountain biking trails, fun playgrounds, a weird twist structure, two arenas, and nice views of the water. It was built for the summer Olympics that took place in London sometime back. It was the perfect ending for a pleasant day and a formal presentation that yes, London is great and yes I like being queen. In the end, after barely 2 days of traveling I was extremely sad to have to leave the city back to Denmark. London definitely deserves more attention than that, my bad. Im just happy that my Study Abroad map includes all these wonderful places
Coming home after Berlin and Amsterdam has pretty much inspired me to make my experience in Copenhagen the best of it. That's why the week before heading off traveling again I decided to get more in touch with the town I live in. It's called Målov. It's a tiny little suburb made up by single-family houses and a housing project, most of which comprise of native Danes. Måløv is considered to be founded in 1193 and has the cutest little church in the world, a bakery, and an oddly large number of hair salons... It was a nice day and it was the weekend so I texted my friend if she wanted to go on a bike ride. She suggested something even better: given that she lives on the other side of the train line she said she could meet me up in my town and then we can go to hers. It was so nice. Copenhagen is planned on what is called "The Finger Plan," where urban development has sprout from the inner city in different fingers of suburban town, a direct response to the U.S model of urbanization that leaves cities looking like one big urban pancake of suburb after suburb. This means that there are 'wedges' of green space in between developed 'fingers' of open space that goes right into the core of the city. It's a smart way to think about the growth of cities and the over all planning for sustainability. Since my friend lives in one finger and I live in the other it was nice to bike across into the vast nature areas. Here are some snaps of Måløv church mostly, where we met and headed to her town. It was charming because there had been a wedding that had just happened when I got there. Like literally there was a bride coming out of the door and I saw the rice being thrown. She looked real pretty and the church looked even better. It's nice because all the weddings and masses are open for anyone to go, when I walk from the station to my house I can read the bulletin board of the church and they advertise it and give a brief description of the event. There is even a cute little pond by it where they took their bridal pictures and now that the spring is coming it looks beautiful. We then biked across into the neighborhood sand nature reserves, and even made pit stops to check out cool architecture and a chocolate bunny factory. It was fantastic.
I really can't stop blogging about how nice the weather has been since I got back. Some days really just blow everything about what I love right off the water. It has given me a new found obsession to get to discover all of Copenhagen's green and public spaces, which are actually many. Some, like on the bridge that connects the center with the hip neighborhood of Nørrebro (and also my fave place to hang out with beers and friends) is completely packed with all sorts of hip people doing hip things. It's as if all of the city's youth comes here once the nice evening sun starts embracing. Other spaces are quiet gems in between neighborhood centers and housing complexes. The breeze of the wind running in between flower and the laughing embrace of little kids in playgrounds make a cute little kingdom out of these. Copenhagen steals my heart this week because it knows where my heart belongs: outside, under the sunshine, in between flowers.
Coming back to Copenhagen from a week long travel break was actually relieving at the end. When the train landed in the central station I felt comfortable. It truly felt like I was coming home. I felt like I belonged. Copenhagen is so understated. It says nothing yet it says so much. I felt kind of inspired to fall in love with the city again so on Monday I decided to go big Copenhagen style: I grabbed my bike, my friends, the sun and we headed to go see the Little Mermaid!
My school is so close to her that its kind of silly that I hadn't gone before. I have just been so busy doing so many other things lately!! Now, if you have been reading you would know that the Danes love going outside on nice days. We bought a couple of beers and headed to the mermaid, which is actually in an old fortress area full with green space and beautiful views of the water and the city. Inside is calm. It's very beautiful. You can go up the mound, which in itself is a huge commodity given that Denmark is so flat, and snake your path around the water. The mermaid is only a small feature on this complex. But what a feature it is. It's not small, but in a world used to huge commemorative statues, skyscrapers, and big processional arches, she comes off and tiny. She is pretty much my size. She is actually right in the water, you have to get off the way to touch her and hop a couple of rocks to see her. She is the cutest. It was a nice day and it's nice to be back in Copenhagen! I'm not sure after this week of lone travelling that I have fully come back to Denmark. I have left behind in Berlin my good vibes, my dance moves, and my dignity. The city deserves them. The city deserve me. Going to Berlin was quite literally the best decision. I was finally able to fulfill my long-lived dream to experience it. And by oh boy I did. It engrossed me in it, it hugged me so tight I didn't want to let go, it swiftly pushed me through its streets, it lead me to dark corners under the earth, it came from behind and covered my eyes. Unlike Amsterdam, which is centrally planned and densely small, Berlin is big and extensive. From one neighborhood to the other, the city unfolds itself in so many renditions, environments, people, and ideas. Everything has a historical undertone. Everything. It is no myth, the war really did happen, and Berlin is real. I was fascinated. The first day there I woke real early and headed out. There are so many things in Berlin to see that are so far apart that experiencing the city becomes like a tackling an exciting challenge. With the war being such a relevant part of the make-up of the city you can quite literally describe anything there with pre-war/post-war superlatives. Nothing is randomly placed, everything has been through historical manhandle. We hear it all the time. Germany is the political wunderkind, its seamless economic recovery a lesson for us all. No one is unemployed. They all work furiously. Rosy-cheeked children frolic in forests without a hoodie or tracksuit in sight. And then there is Berlin, which is impossible to pigeon-hole. Whereas in many German cities you expect to find the pavements immaculate and marshalled by civil servants wearing pressed white shirts and Colgate smiles. Here there is an eerie lack of state officials and more graffiti than under all of Britain’s flyovers put together. And at the same time nocturnal Berlin operates on a time frame all of its own. Most nights I headed out to clubs at 2am and on the weekends the U-Bahn runs round the clock to accommodate early morning revellers. I have no idea how this city works so well. What I do know is that it’s properly grown-up. It's grimy, It's hip, it's a place for memories, lost ones and ones made. The West is rich with beautiful renovated architecture, charming neighborhoods and great boutique life. Cafe's appropriate street corners, people walk their dogs, it's a place you want to go get lost in the playgrounds. The East is rich with an eclectic aesthetic. Graffiti and the remnants of ripped and new posters dominate the landscape. Hip bars and cafes lure you in in a way that a low lit portal might and sleazy corners will. Traveling alone meant that it gave me all the time in the world to see Berlin and see it well. I walked through Mitte the first day there, the part of the city that could be considered the center. From Unter Den Linden to the Brandenburger Gate and Museum Island, you can discover vast sweeps of history here. But Mitte is only a small segment of this sprawling city, which is carved up by rivers and canals, and fringed with lakes and forest. Here is what I saw; It was truly a beautiful day. Everything about the likability of the city met in between the land under my feet and the blue sky above me. I saw a lot of tourists, sat on the big green square and sketched, bought pretzels, and stopped to stare at the mix of architectural styles. The city is almost run by the young and hip, its framework is a progressive directive where people open up, nothing is extremely showy, and its not trying to be something else than a city. I praise it as beautiful and feasible but the city does nothing to hid its "ugly" sides. The opposite is true, it embraces them. One of my favorite parts about Berlin is that much like Copenhagen, it really values the power of its open spaces. As soon as the sun started shining the right way, tables, chairs, and any suitable household object were brought outside for people's enjoyment. This is a city that is not afraid to come out into the urban landscape as it is to go into underground parties. It's a nice balance. My favorite spot was the TierGarden. Quite possibly the Central Park of Berlin, this park drew me in from the minute I crossed the Brandenburger Tor to reach it. I spent some time here. I bought things at the grocery store, had a picnic and explored. Near here is where the Holocaust Memorial is too. Which as much as a tourist cliche it is to see it, it is definitely a memorable stop. Going inside the matrix of concrete blocks is eerie if not intriguing. When you are walking you don't know just who is in the other corner approaching you. You cross each block to form new purposes and encounter meaning in the sameness of form. Nighttime was a completely different story. I went out nearly every day I spent in Berlin. And given that I was alone and visiting, Berlin nightlife really did it. The first night there was the most memorable. I went out to a dance party. Before going I had spent some time at my hostel's bar eating dinner where is was as easy as peasy to pick conversations with fellow travelers. I met many people from many parts of the world, each with a new story to tell or a new joke to crack . I heard about something about a dance club and decided to venture there for the night. Inside was dark, corners were tricky and the bars had an overall "dirty" vibe. With the background music of funky deep house dance music and the buzzing of people, I felt really ready for Berlin. It didn't take too long before I was being dragged to the dance floor by strangers. The rest was history. I danced the night away like I never had. Berlin is uncensored. It is raw. People's soul are so open and given. Whenever I would lock moves with someone else they would embrace it. No one was out to get any one else. Everyone's enjoyment was at stake. Instead was an atmosphere of fun: somewhere to be what you wanted to be. I decided to be dancing queen, duh. Many drinks later, weird encounters in the stalls, music going directly to my soul and the warm embrace of strangers lips and I was ready for a break. I went and asked the bartender for the time and he said "its 8:30 am". How?!?! Where had time gone? I was definitely in the funnest episode of the Twilight Zone I had ever experienced. No one was going anywhere, the music was still playing as loudly as ever, and my smile was still on my face. Soon I came to terms that I must go back, and I did. I gave it my all, and I'm not even mad about it! Some of the next nights I went bar hoping in East Berlin. The amount of hip bars is pretty cool too. So cool vibes were shared that I was starting to think that that was the currency there! One of the nights I was in the same bar as Zachary Quinto, another I was staring at the pink fur plastered on all the walls, another place I sat over a beer and candles and another was right outside under a bridge. Every place as fresh as the next, every experience as cool as the next one. Never fancy bars with over the top bottle service. Never the Top 100 music put on a loop. Never the same graffiti on the walls. Another aspect I'm really into about Berlin is how it has managed to thrive a extensive repurposing revolution: a former Nazi bunker and communist power plant are transformed into iconic monuments of 'underground culture.' That is the norm. Berlin turns horror into beauty. While in many other cities architectural styles can change, in Berlin the meaning of them changes. Bunker turned gallery, Power Plant turned the best club in the world, Nazi prison turned huge artist collective, old brewery turned technology hub, old church turned memorial, war shelter turned horror house, for example. It's incredible. It's a cool way to build on history. I would stumble into these places and would look at them with wonder at to what stories they could tell if they could talk! One night when I was heading out to the East Berlin I got off one of the stations and there was quite literally a party there. And I'm not trying to say that to describe the fact that it was lively with people. It was actually a party. There was a make-shift DJ and a crowd of people dancing. There, in the metro stop. Berlin doesn't follow any guidelines. I could truly go on and on into all the things I saw, like Humboldt University, The needle tower, the French Dom, the Poseidon Fountain, a park, the mall, a mosque, countless public art, the prostitutes, the market, the cheap beer, the City Hall, the concert hall. I did so much all on my own! And for the sake of highlighting the principle of 'Getting Lost,' it is also relevant to point out what happened to me when I tried to come back to Copenhagen after my week long travel. When I had come to terms with the wonderful week I had just had, Germany goes "wait a minute, where do you think you are going?!" Here is the account: After a missed flight from Amsterdam to Berlin and hopping in the wrong train headed to Utrecht, I was completely determined to make it to my train on time, redeem myself and show everyone I am actually a civil and level-headed human being. Since I am a cheapstake, my booked trip back to Copenhagen involved 3 train changes, a ferry, and a long trip through northern Germany. No big deal, I thought, one train here, another train there, what can go wrong. Berlin to Büchen, Büchen to Lübeck, and Lübeck to Copenhagen. That's what my train ticket read. Clear and direct.....Well it turns out that it wasn't so direct and that Lübeck Hochschulstadtteil and Lübeck Hauptbahnhof are actually two different stations. aka I got off in the connecting wrong station! I got off at Lübeck Hochschulstadtteil which quite literally looked like the middle of no where. Crops of whatever they grown in Germany (potatoes probably, on one side, and a couple of buildings at the other). At this point it is Sunday late afternoon, everything is closed, and I had absolutely 0 euros (sorry for party rocking). I got off the platform a little confused as to why 1. no one else was getting off and 2. where was the rest of the station. By the time it clicked to me that maybe, just maybe, this wasn't the right stop the doors were closed and the train was well on its way toward a better place... without me. I thought to myself "maybe it's underground or something, don't give up the hope." So I walked around to face the dirty truth, I had missed the train and I had missed my brain. I saw this one guy who had gotten off and decided to follow him (which in retrospect sounds real creepy but whatever desperate times for desperate measures). I approached him out of nowhere and asked him to help him; I gave him my ticket to show him the mistake I made and he just smiled at me. He was a handsome guy, young, able-bodied, and unlike me appeared to have it together. He told me to grab a bus to the central station so we chatted and walked to the bus station, he made me lose track of my problem. He was so charming. Soon I realized that I had no money, so I don't know why I had walked all the way to the bus station after all. After pretty much begging the guy for money he said he would pay for me and I was feeling a combination of embarrassed and thankful. I kept saying thank you, and smiling at him. He said not to worry. Where ever he is (I didn't even ask him his name) I know he will become the best doctor and will have the greatest life. I get to the right station, step off the bus and a bug flied into my eye. literally, it flies into my eye. At this point I'm blind, rushing to make it to the train, carrying my big bag, and in a city I have never been. I get to the platform searching for my train, bingo the guy had kept it with him after I had shown him my mistake. Long story short I obviously missed the train and had to buy another ticket. Meanwhile I was stuck in the city of Lübeck for 5 hours, here it is: It made it back do Copenhagen just fine. The adventure I had was worth it. Hopefully Germany doesn't forget me because I will definitely be back soon!
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