Dear Mom, You Can Probably Skip This One...

So I think I have learned my lesson. When you get carded in a country where the drinking age is 16, just turn around and head straight home. Or at least to a different bar. This was my Thursday night, and I now understand what happened when you start you night at KulørBar. Anywhere that gives you unlimited beer for 60kr and hands you a plastic mug when you pay your cover is not a classy place.

Now I can say I’ve been there, and I’m pretty sure they will never see me again. The night started with some delicious gin and tonics (the difference between a fifth of Gordon’s and Bombay here is 12kr!!! That’s like a $2 increase) and then we all went out. Even though KulørBar is not my style, I did at least get my moneys worth. In true European style, the club didn’t really start to fill up until around midnight, and by then I had fully utilized my plastic beer mug.

I decided to make friends and complimented this guy on his suspenders which I thought were hilarious. So we danced for awhile and then went outside and talked about Europe. He is a German finance major who was named something maybe with an M? I'm sure he had a name. But anyways. Next some girls start talking to me about America and petting my hair and telling me how pretty I am. If getting hit on by Swedish lesbians was on my life list, I could definitely check that off now.

I go back inside and don’t immediately see any of the girls I came with, but I found my German friend again and we danced until I ran into some of the girls from my house. We’re all getting ready to leave and I decide to go hang out with this German guy in Frederiksborg. We have to take the metro to get there, which is super cool. I love public transit.

So were hanging out in his kitchen and he starts kissing me, and is literally the worst kisser I have ever experienced. I mean it’s kissing, how hard can it be? It was like being eaten by a fish, but not like a cute goldfish, like an enormous German fish. There is this weird pedicure spa across from my school called fish kiss, and you put your feet in these fish tanks and the fish eat off all of your dead skin. It sounds gross, and the real life metaphorical equivalent of sticking your face in those tanks is also gross. Therefore, I promptly decide it is time for me to return home.

He offers to walk me back home which is nice because I'm not very familiar with this “bro”. I thought he was just going to walk me to the metro but he actually took the train with me as well. We had trouble getting the ticket machine to work, so we just got on anyways. And of course the ticket checker comes by (which is really rare) so we just handed him our tickets from the trip over. I don’t really understand Danish on the level to communicate with an officer of the law, but I can only assume that was enough because I did not get arrested.

Once we get out of the metro I realize that I am going to be lucky if I make it home. The streets of Copenhagen are the foundation of a 1000 year old merchant town, and needless to say that even if you can remember that you live on St. Kennekestræde and pronounce it so that someone can understand you, it’s a windy circular pattern of cobblestone walking streets. However, I made it home without having to turn around once. I just started walking in the right direction until I recognized the right streets. I was very proud of myself.

My navigational success was pretty short-lived. Our buildings are built all together with large doors that were once use to get carts into the courtyard and you have to get through them to get to the main doors of each of the houses. Well my ID card which is supposed to scan on the keypad and open the door did not give a shit that it was 3:30 in the morning and that I wanted to go to bed. So I go down one door which is also student housing to try that one, still no. I'm about to go around to the back entrance to the courtyard when I remember that I have one and only one phone number here. It’s my friend Evan who goes to UW, so we pretty much got super excited about meeting each other. To be fair, I was excessively excited because everyone I have met here is from an east coast private school I have never heard of. Evan was probably a 6 out of 10 amount of excited.  Anyways, I give him a call and he’s just returning home from a show. He lets me in and we eat some toast and hang out until we realize its almost light out. I am immediately wide awake and decide I want to walk to Nyhavn to watch the sun rise.

We walk down to the harbor and its super amazing. The streets are relatively quiet. I decide that it would be a good idea to get onto one of the boats. Just casually commandeering a large sailboat like a pirate. This is me on the boat, I'm pretty excited about how sneaky I'm being.

Then we make it to the harbor just in perfect time and watch a pretty sweet sunrise. Obviously in Seattle you get sunset over the water but here it was sunrise so that was pretty cool. I mostly sat on the dock and drooled over Noma and the amazing pink sky.

On our way back, we walk through the palace, which isn’t actually a palace but it’s where the royalty lives. It’s a square with four identical mansions and at this time in the morning its absolutely beautiful. We are the only people there with the exception of the guard, so we were literally just standing there watching them walk and change posts and all you can hear is the water and the clicking of their fancy guard shoes. It was a super intimate moment for me and I'm sure the guards also felt the same.  Then I decide that I want to see if I can distract them, but I think they saw the sneaky look on my face because they wouldn’t go back to their post and stand still. They all kept walking back and forth in front of it.

So now it’s around 6:30am and the city is starting to wake up. It’s funny to walk past people on their way to work as well as Danes who are still dressed from the night before and who are drinking coronas while they run down the street. I stop at the 7-11 for some of the best and cheapest croissants in the city and walk back out to the lovely view of some guy getting a blowie in the middle of the street. He’s slumped up against a front door and what I'm now pretty sure is a prostitute is just going after it. It was like a very aggressive and sloppy car accident where you just can’t look away. I mean I'm pretty liberal, but the idea that this is happening in front of my eyes in broad daylight was pretty weird.

So I finally make it home, suddenly my ID card magically works again, just in time for a power nap before class. I did in fact make it to all 3 of my classes the next day. Like a boss.