My Copenhagen experience is coming to an end. I have such mixed feelings about leaving Copenhagen. Part of me is ready to go home, and the other half is not ready to leave this wonderful existence where everyday is a new adventure.
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| Tijana and I at the castle! |
The only reason I am saying that I am ready to go home is that we had to say goodbye to our Danish friends in the højskole this weekend. For their last week, they all left to go to Turkey with the teachers, so now the Americans are left all alone in the højskole for the last week.
The Danish friends I have met here have really made my experience as wonderful as it has been, so when they left I was saying good bye to the Danish experience that I had known for these past four months. It was horrible saying good bye to some of my best friends, because there is a possibility that I will never see them again. Hopefully, I will, but in reality our two countries are very far apart. It is a dismal realization. However, our last week together was filled with great memories. We had an open mike night where Margaret and I did "Proud Mary" and the other Danes showcased some of their talents. We had a night where their parents came and we got to see all their artwork, photography, films, journalism work, and their choir sing! We also walked around the castle with them and had more snowball fights.
On the last night, we had a party where basically all we did was cry and hygge (getting cozy by the fire and sing songs and talk). The højskole provided a lovely finale dinner filled with speeches and songs and then we had an open bar for the rest of the evening. I spent the night hanging out with my best friends Tinne, Tijana, Freydis, Freya, and Kenneth talking about our memories and plans for the future. It was a bittersweet night filled with memories and friendship. The next morning I got up to say goodbye....there were lots of tears and it was very hard to watch them walk away. The resonating sound of emptiness filled the højskole when they left. The common room usually filled with a roaring fire, friendly faces and laughter was still and quiet in the morning light. The student's photography and artwork no longer brightened up the hallways. The lovely højskole I had known and made wonderful memories in was now just a building.
Though Margaret and I were very depressed from our friends leaving, we were determined to make our last week in Denmark a great one. I only have two exams on Thursday and Friday so I had about 4 or 5 days to do absolutely anything. So far we have gone to all the Christmas markets in Gammeltorv, Nyhavn, and Christania. These markets are filled with Christmas or "Jule" cheer. There is spiced hot wine (called glook), roasted nuts, christmas ornaments, knitted Norwegian sweaters, and much more just filling these markets. It was quite Christmasy.
I went to the International højskole in Helsingør, where the other DIS students lived. It was a neat experience because that højskole has students from practically every continent in the world and the base language spoken is English, so it was kind of like being back home.
I also walked to our castle one more time (Frederiksborg) and just walked in the gardens and admired the frozen lake and the snow. I was going to go to the IceBar but unfortunately last night I kind of broke my big toe.....so right now I am confined to my bed for a day or two...the snow is coming in handy as ice. So since I am injured, my plans have been cut short but I may spend the next few days studying and bonding with my fellow Americans about the wonderful adventures we have had in Denmark. Skol!
P.S. I also lost my camera, so the pictures on here are taken by my talented (Danish) friend, Kenneth.
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| Memories...walking to McDonald's haha |
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| Chelsea (American) and I at the final party! |
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| A final walk to the castle... |
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