I recently realized I never posted about my last weeks abroad. It’s been pretty crazy since I last posted. My mom came to visit, I came home and immediately went camping in beautiful Maine, and then I got up and moved again to start my new job! I’ve been so busy enjoying being home that I never got around to writing about my last weeks in Scandinavia. I’ve actually been working on this post for a couple months!
After I last posted, things got kind of slow. People were holed up in their rooms, studying for finals or perfecting projects. Also, many other international students started going home. It was so weird to say goodbye to these people who I had spent the last 5 months getting to know. Even though we have Facebook and people travel often, it’s very likely that I may never see these people again. How do you say goodbye knowing that?
One thrill of finals week was going to Distortion. Kind of…
Distortion is yearly street music festival held in Copenhagen. I’d heard about it from Danes and other students at RPI who had studied abroad in the past and had been planning to go ever since I knew I’d be in town (country, continent?) for it. As it got closer, many of my friends backed out of going, saying that they had finals to study for, bags to pack, etc. Finally, we decided to only go to the final of the three days, a Friday. We were ready to go in the afternoon, and headed to building 101 (the student union type building) to meet up with others. We hung out outside, waiting for more people, for what ended up being a couple hours, until it started raining! It had been such a nice day, so that was a bummer. Finally everyone showed up, and we rambled out to the bus.
Pre-Distortion fun!
We took the bus to Norreport, and then people decided they were hungry and we got shawarma, which was very popular there, and cheap compared to everything else (25 crowns). Then we took a train to Christianshavn and proceeded to get lost. Not really, but we didn’t really know where we were going. The city was busy and we tried to kind of follow the general direction of the crowds. It didn’t work at first, but eventually we got headed in the right direction.
Our path led us past Christiania, which I wrote a little bit about in my previous post “Spring in Denmark!” Basically it’s a hippie anarchist commune in the middle of Copenhagen on an old army base. The girls and I decided to make a pit stop here (Bad Decision #1) because I wanted to get a t-shirt for my boyfriend. We ended up walking around a bit after, and met an interesting chap who went by the name Ion the Lion. He followed us to the pond, and sat down near us, playing his guitar. Just a little creepy, but mostly curious and delightful.
Ion the Lion and us
He was carrying around a notebook that he said contained a movie script. He told me I should be the movie star, because I was a queen! He was too strange for me to be honestly flattered, so I told him that I was a princess, thank you very much! I sat down with some of our male friends who’d just found us. The girls left to get beers because they were thirsty and I stayed with Ion the Lion and the gentlemen.
The girls returned with a beer for me, and I guzzled it down (Bad Decision #2). I really should not have, considering that I had already had some alcoholic beverages earlier, but I was really thirsty as well. After drinking our beer and talking to Ion a little more (he told me to find him on Facebook, but I never did), we continued on our journey to Distortion. We walked out of the commune and turned right, following the throng of people. Luckily, by this point, the skies had cleared to once again reveal a beautiful, warm day.
Headed to Distortion!
Christiania was the furthest I’d ever been in this direction, so it was all new territory to me. We kept walking down the road, past the end of Christiania, passing fewer and fewer buildings, going over bridges, until we ended up near some grassy knolls. It was really beautiful and interesting to explore a new part of the city. The crowd of people had consolidated into a line, waiting to get through a gate and pass over the hills to where I expected Distortion to be. I was confused at this point, because I heard music, but couldn’t see where it came from. The path seemed to wind around back onto itself and not go anywhere. When we got to a point where we were almost back where we first came through the gate, almost everyone decided to go home, except me and one other girl (Bad Decision #3).
We passed over many bridges.
Finally we found the end of the line. I don’t have any idea how we got there, because, like I said, it didn’t look like the path went anywhere. Were I to go back, I don’t think I would know how to get where we did. We were in the middle of a warehouse district. The music had stopped There were cups and other trash all over the ground, and people were walking the other way.
We made it…
After that whole adventure, we had missed Distortion! At that point, it was probably a stroke of luck that our night ended early, because it was getting dark, and we were two girls alone with some drinks in us. As you may have noticed, the best decisions were not made that night. My friend and I were now terrified because we had no idea how we had gotten to where we were. But we both put a strong face on and made our way back. Once we got out of the gated area, it was one long road back to the train station, so it wasn’t difficult. Somehow, it was still daunting. We talked ourselves through the night with constant affirmations: each time we noticed things we recognized from earlier in the night, coaxing ourselves through the fear of being along in a foreign city.
Where are we?
We made the long trek back, took the right train, caught the right bus, and made it back to our rooms. Our beautiful and terrifying adventure was over…
I’m hoping to start this blog up again, for myself. I’d had so many adventures this summer, and took few pictures. I hardly remember them already! My next post will be about my mother;s and my trip to Sweden! And then maybe a couple about my summer back in the states. 🙂
Rose Drops 