First: Happy Easter!! Second: as exciting as it has been to live in Copenhagen and hangout here for the last week or two, my life here isn't as thrilling as chasing whales and exploring London. I decided there are a few things I've wanted to talk to you guys about in this post :) I am going to walk you through the next few paragraphs so you can decide what you want to read about 😚. The next paragraph is going to be my typical catch up when I tell you all the fun things I've seen and done and experienced (might be kind of short 😅). The paragraph after that is going to be me taking you through my journey of self discovery... how I learned how to make meals for myself that I enjoy and aren't just grilled cheese sandwiches because I am quite proud of this unexpected journey ☺️. The last paragraph I will be closing out with before all the pictures I know you are waiting for will be about some things I've learned about the world and myself and the unexpected surprises along the way (that you haven't gotten to hear about! 😁). Feel free to skip around this post and read only want you want or just look at the pictures if that's your favorite part (I like to think of it as a little treat at the end of all my typing as I add them in to the page ☺️).
As promised this first paragraph is going to be a catch up since I haven't shared my life with you guys in what seems like forever (more on this later 🫣). Since the last time I talked to you I have been BUSY with actual school (seems like I never even talk about the real reason I'm here 🤭). Because of the amount of breaks we have from here on out the days I do have classes are full of papers, exams, and group presentations. Most of the free time I have is not something I'm used to, back home my schedule is full of labs, and tours, and work, and organizations on campus. Don't get me wrong I love that life, but I am not used to having unscheduled free time so most of it has been watching gossip girl 🫣. I am currently on Season 6 Episode 9 (EDIT: I finished the show after typing this last night) which if you have seen it before it's the second to last episode if that tells you at all how exhilarating the life I have lived here for the last couple of weeks. I can say I have made some amazing meals and have had the time of my life with my friends. Last weekend we threw an amazing party between my floor and 5th floor. We created the perfect playlist full of 10s hits and we danced all night long until my friends ended up at a casino not too far down the road which I am quite glad I did not join 😂. The goal was to win what they paid for their trip to greece that they are on right now (spoiler alert: they in fact did not make that money back 🤭). Unfortunately we had to get working on our school work the rest of sunday which was again quite boring 😢. This week I only had class on Monday though! For spring break we were lucky enough to officially get wednesday, thursday, friday, and tomorrow off, but both my professors cancelled my tuesday classes! So instead of class on tuesday I got a tattoo!!!!!!! (it is in fact pictured below ☺️). Let me tell you the story of this appointment though... We had originally planned the appointment to be at 9:30, but I got a text from my artist that morning to push it to 10 instead. This worked wonderfully because I was just sitting in a coffee shop nearby working on the work I have to get done for this week. I was feeling very productive and eager for my appointment. Before leaving to the studio I grabbed a cup of coffee for my artist and I was on my way. I arrived there around 9:55 and when I went in the other artists in the shop informed me that that she wasn't working at that studio that morning 😧. I texted her frantically and she let me know that she was 30 minutes away and much closer to my apartment. I would have been much less stressed somehow if I would have just slept in that morning 😂. Maybe I should take this as a lesson to not be so early to things 🫠. Anyways I made it to her studio around 10:30 and we got to work very quickly and by 11:45 the tattoo was complete ☺️... YOU HAVE TO SEE THE PICTURES IT IS INCREDIBLE!! I haven't done too much else during this break. I took a page from alexs book on wednesday and wore the sweater he gave me from his closet and took a trip to the worlds most played disc golf course. It was perfect timing as well because I was able to call him for the first nine holes and he watched me play and always hyping me up especially as I got nervous since I'm truly not that good 😂. It was incredible to step into his shoes even if it was only for 9 holes at the most played course in the world. But I can't say my time as alex ended there. After disc golf I walked over to Kiwi pies in valby. It's a little new zealand shop that sells personal sized meat pies and fruit pies and it was delicious. It was honestly the perfect end to my day of things that remind me of Alex and it was exactly what I needed as I continue the fight of homesickness for him 😢. Thursday I went to one of the bigger museums in copenhagen called the glyptotek because I was feeling quite bored. The sculptures there were amazing and it was so incredible to look into what people looked like forever ago. Once I got bored there and had seen everything I headed back home and I tried out several different chocolate chip cookie recipes in hopes of finding the perfect one. Needless to say I am still looking for the most delicious one 😫 Please let me know if you have the perfect recipe (I AM BEGGING YOU). Anyways the rest of the days up until now I did some shopping and went back disc golfing with Cole when he came back from his trip with his friends (we actually played the whole course together AND EVEN MET DENMARKS BEST DISC GOLFER (we didn't even know who he was at the time 🫣)). This morning the few of us who did not travel for easter made a wonderful easter meal of chicken, deviled (not doubled 😂) eggs, biscuits, asparagus, and of course some potatoes. It was so fun to be able to spend the holiday around the people I care so much for especially since it was my first holiday I celebrated without any family 🥲. It's nice that we have such advanced technology though that I was able to facetime my grandma and talk with her and my sisters so I really wasn't too alone today ☺️. In the afternoon Cole and I took another walk to go find Alpacas at a park nearby (we were unlucky, but we did see sheep!). We also have been seeing sooooo many snails, and I don't know if I have ever seen a snail before in real life so it's so fun to see them here 😁. (I'm going to post pictures for this paragraph and the next paragraph will be below them to split up my words and make this page look less daunting 🫣).
I miss my friends 😢
6 floor!!
Me and Angie at the party 🥰
MY TATTOO 🥰
New Zealand pie shop
One of the many snails we have spotted
Yay I can't wait to tell you all about all the foods I've eaten and made here!! I don't think this paragraph will take too long just a little bit of the unexpected parts I've learned from making food for myself. First thing I learned was meal planning and preparing. When we first started I made the decision to plan my meals and shop for them for the week rather than just go every night and this really helped me with my indecisiveness. I feel like when I'm hungry in the store much like anybody I will grab anything and everything that sounds good even when I don't need any and everything in the store. This helped me not go to the store as much which saves me time on the weekdays and it was kind of relaxing just making my shopping lists on sundays as a little reset. Right now though I am completely out of routine though and have been buying dinner every night since all the stores are closed the entirety of my spring break due to the holiday. It's actually crazy how much they shut down for easter: thursday, friday, sunday, and monday have all been national holidays which means almost every store is closed 😡. ANYWAYS, another big thing I learned for cooking for myself was to make enough and only enough for 2 portions. I absolutely hate eating left overs for lunch and dinner for five days, so instead I make enough for dinner and lunch the next day! If theres any extra I just leave it in the fridge for friday and decide then if I want to eat it or throw it out. This has helped my confidence in making food and has actually made me really excited for making my own meals this summer. Another thing I had not expected was figuring out what foods I like that actually provide nutrients and how to bring them together to form a meal. Searching on pinterest and tasty.com has been a big use to me for what kinds of meals I want to make. My favorite thing I've made so far is pasta with creamy red sauce and meatballs. I think I enjoyed it so much because I wasn't expecting to really like it since I'm not the biggest fan of red sauce. I'm excited to keep learning new recipes and finding favorites. All my meal ideas have been kept in a note on my phone so i'm super excited to look at that for inspiration again! Sorry this paragraph is less for the fam and more for the friends that are starting to go off on their own and making their own meals! This is such an incredible experience to have; I never thought about this side of independence and what it's like to go off on your own since I still have a meal plan at Gustavus this isn't what I have to think about often. Pictured below are some of the meals I've been most proud of ☺️
Swedish meatballs!!
Raiden and I made this two nights in a row because it was soooo good
The cookies I was telling you about
This last paragraph is going to be more of a love note to my experience abroad so far so feel free to ignore this as it's meant more for me 🥰. 2 years ago when I was looking at colleges studying abroad was so far down on my list of things to look for that I'm not even sure it was on the list. I never thought I would be studying abroad. I have picked my path on who I want to be the rest of my life and what I want to do and never did I imagine spending 4 months in copenhagen being apart of that journey. There were several reasons I never thought I would do this; the first being it's so expensive LIKE SO EXPENSIVE. I pay for my own college and I have paid for just about every bit of my time abroad by myself. I'm lucky enough to have a family that could provide me some spending money, but the trips i've been on, the fun things I've bought, the eating out is all on my own dollar. I will say I did work hard and got several scholarships, but those only cover the boring things like tuition. Nonetheless I never thought I would be able to finance this kind of thing by myself and I'm very grateful I can. I also never thought I could go somewhere so far away from everyone I know all by myself. It's awesome because all my friends here did the same thing which is something we can bond over ☺️. I also never thought I would be willing to be apart from alex without seeing him at all for four months. The first four years of our relationship we had spent just about every single day together excluding a couple weeks during the pandemic and his soccer tournaments. Like we did every single thing together and then we went to college. Don't get me wrong we do many things together still, but only on the weekends 🥲. This has been a big change for us and honestly probably a needed one. It's helped us both develop our communication and appreciate the simple act of getting to call each other and talk to each other. I'm glad I did take the opportunity to study abroad and it is never going to be something I look back at and regret not one second of it at least not up through this point 😆. This experience has made me so grateful to be alive and be able to take in the world around me. I never think about how amazing it is to be able to connect with other people and share laughs, and talk with each other, and make meals together, and go on random weekend trips to milan with. Life is so incredible and I don't know why it took me so long to realize how much of a gift it truly is to share yours with other people. While I did my solo travel I realized how much I disliked it because I wasn't getting to share my experience with somebody else. I also realized during this time that it's so incredible to be able to take in all these new things and explore them in the way I want to. Studying abroad also made me realize how special it has been to come to copenhagen at the same time as my friends here. If I came a year later I may have never met Francesca, If I came a year later Alberta wouldn't be living in this apartment anymore, if I came a year later I wouldn't be going on a road trip with Raiden and Angela, if I came a year later I wouldn't have gone to milan with my friends. It's incredible to think that there were so many things against me meeting the people I have here, but somehow some way we all winded up at the same spot at the same time. It's crazy how life works like that. This time has also made me realize how quickly time truly does slip, but also feels like an eternity. I've already been in Copenhagen for 2 and a half months, but each week feels like a decade. There is so much that happens in a semester abroad becuase we have to fit a lifetime of knowing the people we meet just in four months. You plan trips with these people and a weekend away seems more like a week as you go from one monument in the city to the next without stopping to take a break. And then when you separate for a week it seems like an eternity waiting to see them again (my friends are in greece and I miss them so much 😢). This time that I have gotten to make new friends and explore many new places is one I will only get once in my lifetime and I wish it would never end, but in just a short 39 more days I'm going to be back in Minnesota not sure if I will ever see the people who I got to share my semester away with 🥲. I'm so lucky to have ever gotten to meet them in the first place 🥲.
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