After a system failure at the airport in Paris, it was nice to arrive to familiar faces waving a Denmark flag. Their excitement didn’t waver, and it felt like exhaling after a day of holding my breath.

Sushi by the water, ice cream with new friends, bike rides to alllllll the sites, drinking beer with banana juice (I know right 💁🏻‍♀️), house parties where they made me the guest of honour (haaaaave you met Kelly?), a day by an old harbour, and screaming my heart out on the roller coasters at Tivoli.

So many amazing highlights, but the excitement of Emilie and Gosev outweighed it all. I inhibited their cleverly designed and beautifully decorated apartment, making their living room my bedroom and laundry, yet they never made me feel a nuisance. In fact, quite opposite. Their excitement for me to try all their favourite foods and drinks, to meet their friends and family and to experience life as a local was the most lovely experience. I savour the little things like carrying groceries in our bike baskets, blushing after saying Danish words too loudly in public (unaware of what they just taught me to say), and sitting in the park with a drink, the sound of live jazz music in the air and the sun on our shoulders. Or walking the family dog to the beach and falling asleep watching a movie in bed.

Copenhagen, I would love to return. If not just for the herring, the cheesecake from Bertels and to improve my cycling skills, definitely to visit these two beautiful people again.

For isn’t it the experiences that make a place so special? The people, the conversations, the feelings and the incidental moments.

… and these ones I’ll treasure for a lifetime.

For Emilie and Gosev