One day in late January, Chris and I decided that we should take advantage of the fact that we have one of the largest apartments here at our college, and we realized that we could lure some people into becoming our "friends" by cooking up a feast and inviting them to our place for dinner... which is exactly what we did. (Some of Chris' friends like to refer to our place as "the Palace" or, since we're some of the only Americans they've befriended, "the White House.") So, about a month ago, as we were enjoying our delicious Indian curry, naan, and wine, two of our guests casually mentioned that they were going to Copenhagen the following weekend with some of their friends from the MBA program, and would we like to come? Thus began the adventure...
In no time at all, we found ourselves booking flights, arranging lodging, and generally getting excited for what was a very impromptu and random trip. On Thursday afternoon of that week, we cycled to the Cambridge train station where we met up with the rest of the crew... all 8 of them! They had all become close friends through their MBA program which could have made things a bit awkward for me and Chris. However, within an hour or two, we were all joking around and getting to know everyone -- a definite relief.
By the time we arrived in Copenhagen, it was about 11pm and we were all starving (the budget flight we took didn't exactly serve peanuts, much less dinner). So we dropped our bags off at our hotel and quickly began the search for any restaurants that might still be open. One of the first things we noticed as we began to aimlessly wander the streets was the incredible presence of 7-11. There was one on EVERY street corner, and often, they had one kitty-corner from the other... just like Starbucks in downtown Seattle! Anyhoo, back to our search for food: It turns out that there are restaurants in Copenhagen which don't open until about 11pm and then close at 5am... very strange. But we were very happy to find one such restaurant -- a steak house. We didn't even care that it cost us an arm and a leg... we just chalked it up to a cultural experience. After we stuffed ourselves, Chris and I were so ready to make a bee-line straight back to the hotel and crash for the night. But our social MBA friends had other ideas... we ended up in this strange Irish bar called Rosy McGee's that was blasting music from the 80s and early 90s. Classic. At around 3:30am, we finally stumbled home and fell straight asleep.
The next morning, ... well, it was more like early afternoon, we decided to get going and see what we could of Copenhagen. However, after a bit of deliberation, we decided instead to hop on a train and take the 30-minute ride to a small town called Malmo, which is in Sweden! We know, it was such a dorky and touristy thing to do (see us, being tourists with our map), but since we were so close to Sweden, we figured we might as well check it out. The little town was fully geared toward tourists, shoppers, and diners, so that's precisely what we did. 
Check out the strange display of mannequins wrapped in cellophane... you can get a sense of how cold it was by noticing that we are all wearing hats, gloves, and scarves! When the daylight had faded away, we said goodbye to Sweden and made our way back via the train. At this point, we were over half way done with our trip and we still hadn't seen any sites in Copenhagen! Oh well.Our second night out on the town was pretty fun, although this time it put us in bed at 4:30am!! Chris and I definitely felt like the old married couple because we were ready for bed by about 11pm :) To kick off the evening, we went to an Australian bar in order to celebrate Australia Day (one of the girls on our trip was Aussie). Australia Day is sort of a funny holiday in that the Australians are actually celebrating the British arrival and conquer of the indigenous people. I guess it's sort of like the 4th of July, except completely the opposite. After giving due respect to Australia Day, we grabbed a quick dinner at a Chinese restaurant (we couldn't read the menu at all because it was in Chinese and Danish, and therefore we have no idea what we ate that night), and then proceeded to this very popular Danish club called Vega.
Despite the potentially horrible choice in evening entertainment, we actually had a really fun time dancing, people watching, and then delighting in the beauty as snow began to blanket the quiet streets outside...We woke up for our last day in Copenhagen, all a bit tired, but also energized to finally see some of Copenhagen in the daylight. The snow was already beginning to melt, but the effect was still enchanting. One of our friends took the picture below...
Chris and I split off from the group, as we wanted to be sure to see some sites before meeting up with some of my Danish friends from Capernwray. After a delicious breakfast at a local bakery (we had real danishes!), we headed straight for a famous district in Copenhagen called Christiania.
It all started in the early 70s with a group of anti-government hippies who felt disgruntled and decided to set up a kind of self-governing shanty town. They took over some old military barracks and began the settlement of Christiania. Their rules forbid stealing, guns, bulletproof vests, and hard drugs. Somehow, the "no bulletproof vests" rule is not comforting. Until 2004, marijuana was sold openly in permanent stands (kind of like firecrackers on Indian reservations), but the police finally cracked down, making the popular marijuana trade less visible.
Our last stop in Copenhagen was a little cafe, off the beaten path, where we met up with five of my Danish friends from Capernwray -- from left to right, Anders V., Birgitte and Simon, Chris and me, Marie, and Anders B. J. We were so happy that they were able to meet up with us, especially considering that we only gave them about three days advance notice that we were coming to Copenhagen! For those of you who don't know, Capernwray is the name of the Bible School that I attended in England and Austria after my freshman year in college. It wasn't for the purpose of getting a degree or studying theology from a strictly academic viewpoint, but rather to take a year away from the busyness of life and take time to think about Christianity, as well as to meet other people from all over the world. There's much more I could say, but that's it in a nutshell. Back to my Danish friends in the cafe, we only had a very short time to be together, unfortunately, but it was definitely a highlight of the trip. It's amazing how that short year created such unique bonds... and now, six years later, we all still feel very close somehow.And just like that, our time was up. We met up with the rest of our group at the train station, trained to the airport, caught our budget flight back to London, trained again to Cambridge, and finally cycled to our home sweet home.
