Copenhagen: Puff, Puff, Pastry

Note: Many pictures are taken with my film camera, shot on Kodak Portra, 35mm.

I’m a big believer in signs and omens. So you can imagine my concern when, just days before boarding a plane for Copenhagen, I bought a book about Denmark and opened up to this:

Did I still go? Yes, of course. But first, a little backstory.

I initially got inspired when I saw The Bear, Season 2.

There’s an episode when they send Marcus, a dessert chef, out to Copenhagen to stage and get inspired. When I watched, maybe it was the song, the shots, I’m not exactly sure, but when he’s bopping those colorful streets and that cheesy 80s song was blasting, I was just exploding with happiness. It was one of my favorite episodes of TV ever, I listened to that 80s song about 1000x, and I said, I have to go to Denmark.

Not long after this, I was on a date when it came out: “You know what I wanna do?” I said (this is about 1.5 drinks in), “I just wanna go to Copenhagen for three days, eat some pastries, then fly the fuck home.”

The next morning, I woke up to an email from Scott’s Cheap Flights — with one very cheap round-trip ticket to Copenhagen, from JFK.

So despite that ominous, front-of-book warning, I went.

Here’s what I knew about Copenhagen: MacBeth was set here, it has some of the most innovative restaurants in the world, and they love Hygge, aka curling up in sweaters and being cozy.

Here’s what I learned about Copenhagen: There are a gajillion cyclists; an unexpectedly large (and passionate) pro-Palestinian presence; it’s the world capital of architecture; they are utterly obsessed with designing chairs; and also, I learned that there’s this widespread mindset to “keep your head down and just blend in.”

I have to admit: Before this trip, I was nervous — dreading it, actually. I had a really bad trip back in 2017. I was curious about living in Detroit, so I went and visited alone for seven days. It was one of the loneliest stretches I’ve ever experienced. It was dark and cold. I knew no one. I was in my AirBnB every night by 7pm, reading until bed. My life in Portland at the time wasn’t exciting, yet I was dying to get back to it. That trip left a scar — I feel it before every solo trip; I never want to experience that loneliness ever again.

I’ve traveled solo since then. Last summer I was in Italy for 3 months alone. And while that had lots of serendipity, I had long stretches of aimlessness.

I knew this before booking. That’s why the trip was only four days. Even if I hit the pit of utter despair, I’d be back home before it hit too hard. But still, as the trip got closer, and especially after I saw that ominous note in the freaking Denmark book, that feeling grew: Why was I doing this again? Why am I flying 7 hours to a cold city for just 3.5 days? Am I an idiot?

I was talking to a friend weeks before leaving. I said I’m going just for a few days, to putz around. “Oh,” she said, “it’s an artist date!” She was referencing The Artist’s Way, when you take yourself to an inspiring place for the sole purpose of taking it in. “Yeah,” I said, “that’s exactly what it is. An artist date.”

It wasn’t the original intention, but it felt good to have it. It greatly dispelled the lonely feeling. Like Marcus the dessert chef, I was here to get inspired, nothing more.

*

“You are in a house of feminism,” she said, leaning back in her recliner.

I didn’t even see her enter the room. I was in a feminist thrift store in some side street, the only person inside, flipping through posters, when I heard these words with a heavy Danish accent.

I’d learn her name, Lin, and that she was the former Art Director of Cosmopolitan magazine at just age 23.

But we didn’t talk much about her life story. For that, she said, I could just Google her. Instead, we talked about my all-time favorite topic: free will.

“It’s all written,” she said. “Every single event in your life, and everyone else’s. So why worry?”

How does that apply to events right now, I asked, like war in the Middle East, or Ukraine, or cities being flooded and walloped by climate change?

“We will all be fine. Darkness always kills darkness,” she said. “This is just the time we’re in. It’s a rebirth. And right now, we just have to live through it.”

“It’s easier for me, because I have purpose,” she said. “I believe I was brought here to save the world. Guys like Putin? They have no purpose. They have no idea why they’re here. So they have to make something of themselves. Puff out their chest and attack the weak.”

As she said this, she pointed out a manikin on the opposing wall. She glued a penis onto the front, right where it should be, and hung a tin lunchbox from it. WAR, it said, in capital letters. “Because that’s where they all originate,” she said.

For Lin, purpose can be found through intuition. She believes in spirit guides. She has hers, we all have ours. They whisper guidance, provide intuitive flashes. They guide you where you need to be in order to fulfill your purpose.

“All they want is for you to be happy,” she said. “They can’t control others, but they listen to your wishes and they give you exactly what you want. We can always ask them for help. But when they help, we need to be ready for the moment.”

“Most of all, the spirit world wants us to be happy,” she said. “Being happy is the only way we can change the world.”

Lin and I talked for about 90 minutes. We didn’t even exchange names until we were about to leave. After that, no emails, no phone number, no social media. As I was walking out, she said to me: “We made a connection, and I thank you for that. We have no idea where this will result, but that doesn’t matter to me. What matters is the connection. The connection is all that matters.”

And yes, I did get my inspiration. So it’s only right that I share it with you. Here are my favorite tidbits from the Design Museum, easily the best museum I have ever been to in my life:

“The future of medicine”: Artists reimagined a future where science and medicine would target emotional issues, not just physical or mental.

This lamp is made out of cow intestines. It’s called “bio-architecture,” when buildings or objects are designed using structures or elements directly from nature.

A chair made of mycelium. Again, more bio-architecture.

And now, the pastries:

I am forever, eternally grateful to Copenhagen. I’ve had trips where the city spits you out (hello, Rome). But this city welcomed me in wholeheartedly, and whether it was my spirit guides or just the way things unfolded, I was exactly where I needed to be every single day.

The four days unfolded beautifully. I got exactly what I came for: museums, walks, and mind-blowingly-good pastries. I have a notebook full of notes, facts, inspiring quotes, ideas, theories, and more. Where it will go, I have no idea. As I learned, that doesn’t matter to me.

All that matters is the connection.