Copenhagen

wow, what a city. I fell in love with Copenhagen. What a great way to end my solo travels! Copenhagen is known as the city of fairy tales and I could not agree more. Everywhere you look, there are these castles, palaces, churches, colourful houses, canals, and hygge. Every time I walked through the streets of the city or turned at a corner, I was impressed how beautiful it all was. Copenhagen is absolutely my favourite Scandinavian city maybe even my all time favourite one. When I arrived I felt like I had already been here, it felt like coming home in a way how weird it may sound. There were cyclists every where, just like the Netherlands. In the trains there are these very handy bike racks where people can store their bike during the ride. I've been hit almost 2 times! I really have to get used to bikes again. Funny thing to note, I almost missed my flight to Copenhagen. I saw they opened the gate but on my boarding pass was a time indicated that we should board later so I went to the toilet. Coming back I saw they announced 'last call'. So I learned to stay at the gate 30 minutes before departure.

Hygge (hoo-gah)
The Danes came up with the Hygge concept which means the Danish way to live well, to create a cosy atmosphere and enjoying the simple things in life. Like the art of creating intimacy, the absence of annoyance, taking pleasure from the presence of soothing things, and cosy togetherness. When I looked around at the people living here, most of them looked very happy, were laughing, and enjoying their time together with people they love. It probably also has to do with the good system they have here. A great concept!

Activities
So, the same as the other Scandinavian cities, they are all quite small and you've seen the city pretty quickly. Still, there is a difference between visiting a city as a tourist and actually living in one. Often the touristic highlights can be seen in a couple of days. I stayed again maybe a little too long: I arrived the evening of Wednesday 19 January and I left on Monday 24 January (I'm on the airport writing this). Fun to note: even here in Copenhagen there is an Old Irish Pub (little reminder to the times in Helsinki), I came across restaurant La Place which I thought is Dutch, and there is a museum of the Guinness World Records. The metro system here is quite surprising when you arrive. There is no driver, everything works automatically. There is basically a big window at the edge of the track with doors that will open once the metro arrived. Actually very efficient and innovative. You can even look to the front and see the tunnel. Other than that, I visited the National Museum of Denmark, famous churches and castles like Christianborg palace, Church of our Saviour, Rosenborg castle, Amalienborg castle, and my favourite Fredrik's Church. Most other castles and churches were closed due to Covid-19. Also, I visited famous gardens, Nyhavn, the mermaid statue, Kastellet, National Gallery of Denmark, round tower, StrØget, and so much more. The whole city looks just incredible. One last thing I want to mention is again the fact that I went out to eat. I read that Danish people only go out for dinner when they have something special to celebrate with others. When I went out to eat, people looked again weird at me that I was on my own. Now, I found it less intimidating because I can more easily ignore it and I know I will never see these people again. On my first night out eating in Copenhagen, I met a very nice Indian girl who was very interested in me and what I was doing here. Luckily, these people also exist.

History
Copenhagen was a small town back in the 10th century. About 500 years later, Copenhagen became the capital city of Denmark. The city's trading in the 16th century was flourishing and expanded the capital. During these years, a lot of the current touristic sites were derived. Copenhagen has experienced and survived multiple serious events, like fires, bombing, and wars. Currently, Copenhagen has 632,000 inhabitants and is known for the city of fairy tales, the happiest city in the world, the concept hygge, its canals, food, and once the home of writer Hans Christian Andersen who wrote more than 150 fairy tales including the little mermaid.

Well, my solo travels and time abroad have really come to an end now. I will be going home after having lived abroad for more than 5 months, basically half a year. What an adventure it was. I have learned so much, I cannot wait to see where I will be in the future. Hopefully live abroad. For now, I will be going back to the life as I was used to, go back to my familiar surroundings and people, except it will be a little different because I am a different person now. I am so proud of myself for doing all this, I would have never thought I would be doing all this just a year ago. I am grateful I even got to do this because I know a lot of people would have loved to experience this but simply cannot. I had the resources and people supporting me. My confidence has been improved enormously, my independence has increased, and my perspectives have been expanded. I learned who my friends are, I learned to have faith and trust in myself, and I learned to be more open when meeting new people or sharing my thoughts. I am so glad I went on this adventure, both exchange and solo travel. I wouldn't have grown as a person otherwise. Here my travel diary ends, at least for my solo travel. I have learned I want to study, live, and maybe work abroad in the future so my journey doesn't stop here.