Copenhagen? More like NOPE-enhagen!

Here's my story of why I'll never visit Copenhagen ever again.

Cultural differences, mercury in retrograde

When I moved to Barcelona, I spent my first summer in the city, getting my life figured out. Summers in Los Angeles get quite hot though nothing could have prepared me for the open palm slap of humidity that lurks around every corner of Barcelona in August. Now, each August, Kyle, and the dogs and I take up the European tradition of going on holiday, and this time we broke the month-long trip into parts: two weeks in Copenhagen and then two weeks in Stockholm.

I’ve long wanted to visit both cities, equally renowned for their livability and appreciation for design. They should be perfect. Well gurl, do I have a story for you! I’m currently writing this from a train headed toward Stockholm, three days earlier scheduled. Why? Well, as it turns out, Copenhagen is hyped. I had maybe the most uncomfortable trip of my adult life and I would have a hard time recommending anyone to visit. But as an eternal optimist, let’s start with some of the things I did appreciate about the city.

The flowers of Copenhagen

One of the best things is the natural areas around the city center and the seemingly endless wildflowers that sprout up in every nook and cranny. The flowers were literally my favorite part of the trip. The colors are so vibrant and it makes the city feel wild, bringing a sense of life to the city, which is desperately needs.

I was able to visit Noma, specifically their Noma Projects pop-up. They were serving ice creams bars with candied pine cones and good coffee, and it was cute to be able to walk around the grounds, though it felt very “exit through the gift shop,” and everyone was nice but in a theme park kind of way. Again, the flowers were amazing here. There were three other places where I did have amazing food: Hija de Sanchez, which tasted like the Mexican food back in LA, Ranee’s, super flavorful and spicy Thai food, and Petra Bar & Restaurant, which was a perfectly chill and well-executed hotel restaurant. The big issue is that the Copenhagen is prohibitively expensive, more expensive than London or Los Angeles. Tallying it up, I easily spent over $2000 on food in 10 days.

I went to one highly regarded coffee shop and asked for an Iced Americano. The man told me they didn’t “have a recipe for that” which shocked me. He said they had a good cold brew. I personally hate cold brews, I want espresso not cardboard tasting liquid, but decided to try it because again, this place was well-regarded. It was horrible, and it cost me $14.

Fortunately, I was able to see both Geoff McFetridge’s show In Canadafornia and Barry McGee’s The Nature Inside Me which were both at V1 Gallery. I loved both shows for different reasons. The Barry show was very Barry, a sort of overwhelming cacophony of images and patterns and you get to spend a lot of time soaking in all the details. With Geoff’s show it was fascinating to see his progress as a painter. There was one piece (below, left) that reminded me of a story I had heard recently about how John Singer Sargent painted “Incensing the Veil” as a study in painting whites, and all the different shades and values that can be explored. We don’t get shows like this in Barcelona so the timing was fortuitous.

The people in the city were generally nice, though we mainly interacted with people in service industry positions, so it’s kind of their jobs to be nice. What was surprising is how straight the city was! Parents and strollers and babies oozed out of every corner of the city. I swear I saw 6 gays and 4 lesbians the whole time. Speaking of, I was taking a picture of some interesting lighting (see below) when a teen boy on his bike stopped in front of me and started getting in my face, yelling something in Danish. I told him he needed to mind his own business when he accused me of taking his photo on the street. I really didn’t know what other say, so I walked away, and he yelled “fucking gays!” And rode away on his bike. Did I mention it was Pride Week in Copenhagen? You can’t make this stuff up.

Copenhagen has a general sameness to any ordinary European city. The architecture, the Barbie and Ken doll general attractive appearance of the people, it all felt the same. Like a bougie suburban neighborhood with a great PR and marketing team. There is no texture or tension or tooth or grit to the city. It was raining and cloudy constantly, cold in the middle of summer, and dreary most of the time. So, what ultimately led to my leaving early? It started and ended with the drama of our Airbnb.

When Kyle and I walked into the Airbnb we did a general tour of the place and quickly realized there was no shower or bath in the bathroom, only a shower head that was attached to the sink in the bathroom, and a connected door that led right into a stairwell. None of this was described or mentioned in the listing so we found this pretty shocking, but whatever, you deal with these things at Airbnbs. So Kyle decided to make a TikTok asking if this was common in Denmark, as it was quite foreign for two Angelenos living in Barcelona.

Funnily, the post went viral in the slightest way, and Kyle ended up with a number of commenters saying yes, this was quite common, a lot of apartments have this. Cute. But then the homeowners found the TikTok. They said 6-7 of their friends had also seen it and sent it to them, and they were upset. They said it was an invasion of privacy, that we had done “a commercial photo shoot “which was against the rules. That we had to delete it.

Our hosts were basically stalking our accounts at this point and there was clearly some larger cultural differences coming into play here. Long story short, I reached out to Airbnb, who were incredibly supportive (because we had broken none of the rules nor violated any policies!) and notified them of what was happening. The homeowners escalated the situation and at 8pm on Monday I was told we had to pack up everything and leave the apartment that night. Awesome. Mercury had just left retrograde and it’s calamitous effects were finishing up with us.

So that’s my story. I’m now sitting the lobby of a beautiful hotel in Stockholm, a real city, and so far it’s been a night and day experience. I’m sure many of you have had lovely experiences in Copenhagen, though many friends have already reach out over Instagram sharing similar situations and feelings. I’m in no way trying to villainize the city or Danish people largely, it’s just not a place I’ll ever need to go back to. I look forward to sharing my experiences here in Stockholm, but if you’ll excuse me, I’m headed up to the rooftop to enjoy the sunny weather, a plunge in the pool, and a sauna with friends 😎