Stay longer and stay with friends
Ground breaking insights from a week in Copenhagen.
It’s 11 am and I’m sitting by the water at a spot called La Banchina on the Refshaleøn island of Copenhagen. A kind of shack that sells natural wine and beer and snacks and has wooden docks out the back where people swim in the harbour and lounge around like seals.
I’ve just finished a bolle med ost og smør (bun with cheese and butter) and licked the sugar from my kanelsnegle (cinnamon bun) off my fingers for the hundredth time this trip and it feels a lot calmer here than when I came with Ebba on the weekend. People are reading and chatting and drinking coffee and I already feel nostalgic even though I haven’t left yet. My arms are brown, my belly a little round, and my legs feel strong from all the cycling.
I came to Copenhagen last Wednesday for design week. The company I work for was hosting a symposium, so I took it as an excuse to come along, help out a bit, and meet the rest of the team in person. The combination of cheap flights and spending time with old friends and new colleagues made me want to stay longer than I needed to. And I’m glad I did because I feel like I’ve made myself at home in a way that’s kind of impossible if you only stay a few days.
It’s made me realise just how great it is to visit a place over and over, in different seasons and for different reasons. This was my fourth time in Copenhagen and my first in warm weather which was really a game-changer. The fact that I had already been a few times meant that I’d done the touristy things and could focus on the sheer joy of living — sitting by the water with beers and oysters in no rush to move on to the next thing, drinking margaritas and dancing till 4 in a flat full of new faces, napping because you can. Slowing things down and living a bit more like a local reveals a different kind of magic to a place, and it’s made me think I should revisit more cities to crack through the tourist façade a bit more and roll around in the good stuff.
I also realised — and this is by no means novel — that the people truly do make the place. I stayed with Ebba, one of my best-ever friends, which is always a hoot, to say the least. To step into her life for a while, talk endlessly, meet her clever friends, drink together, swim together, cycle together, all the good stuff together. I’d happily come back time and time again just for her!
But this time there was Charles as well! Lovely Charles who on Friday night took me to a bar I didn’t know to meet his friends and catch up after 10 years apart. And Isabel too! Who on Saturday morning took me for a swim and Japanese pastries and then some ice cream too, just because (we both had sea buckthorn flavour). I ended up seeing them both two more times, once together and once more apart, and with both of them, it felt like no time had passed at all. The friendship we forged at 17 is just the same now at 28, and maybe even better knowing that we can visit each other in our new hometowns.
In a roundabout way, what I am trying to say is that maybe the next time you go away, why not stay for a while? (wow, a lot of rhyming in that sentence) Get comfortable, get to know the place, see old friends, and make new ones. Make yourself at home a bit!
See you in the next one,
Annabel
p.s. sorry this one was a few hours late… although I’m probably the only one who minds. ok bye!