The Week of Every Day Adventures

Karsen Odle
Dec 2, 2025
9 min read

Original Post Date: June 01, 2019

Original Post Location: VED MØNTEN, COPENHAGEN, DENMARK

With this being our second week in Copenhagen and feeling more accustomed to everything, Natalie and I decided that we were going to do at least one adventurous thing each day. These ranged from thrift shopping to biking across the countryside. Even though we are going to be here for the whole summer and have more time than others, we did not want that mentality to get the best of us and end up not seeing everything that we wanted to see by the time August rolls around.

Now that it is June, we are getting closer to the summer solstice and already seeing about 17 hours of daylight. The sun is rising around 4:30 AM and setting at 9:45 PM. This is something that is still taking me a while to get used to because it is a strange feeling to wake up at 6:30 AM and see that it is already complete daylight outside.

5.27.19

I rode my bike to class with some of my neighbors, although it was not as enjoyable as normal because the wind was extremely cold, and we were riding against it. For our first photography assignment we were tasked with photographing a stranger. Having waited as long as I could to complete this assignment, because talking to a stranger sounded a bit nerve racking, I walked around after class to the various squares and plazas in the city center looking for someone who would be willing to let me photograph them. After getting rejected five times, I finally found a wonderful lady who was excited for me to photograph her. When I completed this miniature photoshoot, I realized that I hadn’t eaten lunch, so I treated myself to a piece of pie from the American Style Pie Café and then headed home. For the rest of the afternoon I worked on homework while waiting for my roommate to get home. While waiting I also hung out with some of my neighbors and talked about places where we could go on a trip during some of the breaks. Once my roommate got home we went to the grocery store “Netto” for ice cream to try and make her terrible day a tiny bit better.

5.28.19

Sadly, it was really windy and cold again on Tuesday. Which like I said earlier, does not make it very fun to ride a bike to class. In class we talked about the history of photography, and afterwards I rode home and ate a high protein lunch in hopes to help my legs that were still incredibly sore from all the bike riding that I hadn’t gotten used to yet. Later in the afternoon I had my first meeting with DIS as a Student Photographer. This meeting was a small orientation to allow us to meet the other student photographers, as well as the full-time staff that we will be working with. Once the meeting was over I rode around to a few antique stores to look for a vintage Polaroid camera that I could add to my collection. The few places that I went to were not what I was expecting, the only antiques they had were dishes, and they had a lot of them. Each space was packed full of old china and silver dishware.

I then rode home to meet Natalie for our daily adventure. We went to the Church of Our Savior and climbed up its spire to get a good view of the city. This was the first time that I had climbed up to see Copenhagen from above, and it was beautiful. From the top you can easily see Sweden, as well as our housing and all the canals throughout Copenhagen. This turned out to be quite the adventure because there were about twice as many stairs as I expected, and the wind at the top of the spire with fierce. By the time we made it back down to the ground, our legs where shaking, and so we decided to find a cute café to sit in and rest. We ended up going to CHRHVN Café located in Christianshavn (hence the name). On our way home, we rode across the Cirkelbroen (Circle Bridge). Once we arrived at home, we saw that the local Danish students were hosting a get together for all the summer students to attend and give us the opportunity to get to know them a little better. I soon felt right at home with them because shortly after we arrived, we started playing Fishbowl. Which, thanks to the Marozas family, I have gotten plenty of practice at!

5.29.19

It was freezing and rainy outside, so the ride to class was not enjoyable again. Thankfully though the weather changes quickly in Copenhagen, so by the time that I was out of class it was sunny and getting warmer. I waited until Natalie was out of class and then we went to a bakery together that specializes in cheesecakes. Once we finished our slices and Maura had met up with us, we then hopped around the city center checking out all of the local thrift shops looking for Danish treasures. Once we were back home we tried to do laundry. Which ended up being harder than we thought because we did not understand any of the symbols on the machines and the instruction posters were all in Danish. (Thank goodness for Google Translate.) After we finished laundry it had turned into a beautiful day and I felt like it would be dumb not to go out and enjoy it. I decided to ride down to Christianshavn again to sketch and watch the sunset.

5.30.19

This day was a national holiday, so we did not have class. Keeping in line with our goal to go on an adventure every day, Natalie and I decided to go to Malmö, Sweden. Malmö is just a 40-minute train ride away from Copenhagen. The train travels over the body of water known as Øresund. When we traveled to Malmö it was very cloudy and rainy, evidently a trend for the week, so we were not able to see a lot of the ocean or surrounding views. The wind and rain also did not add to the enjoyment of exploring Malmö. While there we walked around the Stortorget (Large Square) and Lilla Torg (Little Square) both were lined with cute shops and restaurants. We also visited the Form Design Center where local students work was being displayed. This work was done by design students at the local college in Malmö. It was cool to see the work that they do in design school compared to what we do in America. For lunch we ate at BarBurrito. This is a restaurant similar to Chipotle except that they make their own tortillas and they also serve homemade milkshakes. In Malmö we also went to the Malmohus Castle and the Old Windmill. Overall Malmö was not too different from Copenhagen except that there were less bike lanes and less people. Riding the train across the ocean was fun and definitely worth it, even though it was a hassle in the beginning. When we were trying to board the train at Copenhagen Central Station, we realized that we could not find Malmö on any of the departure boards. We were able to find the right one after asking for help, but then our train changed 4 times. One of the times we had 4 minutes to get from one side of the station to the other before the train departed, which if we didn’t make it, would leave us to wait 20 minutes for the next one.

5.31.19

During class we went to a photo exhibit done by a local photographer. This photographer takes images for the politicians on a regular basis and in this series, he displayed each of the 90 politicians with their eyes closed. He started this series by keeping the photos where they were blinking instead of just tossing them aside. This was interesting because it portrayed the politicians in a way that we are not used to seeing them. Later in the evening, 13 of us from the Ved Mønten housing rented a couple boats to float around the canals and see the city from the water. It was a lot of fun to just hang out on a boat on the crystal-clear water while slowly floating through the city. This is definitely something that I would recommend, and I am thinking about doing it at least once a week. After we got home Natalie invited the people who were in our boat over for pancakes, which are her specialty. We were really excited for the pancakes because we finally found “pancake” mix and not “crepe” mix. But sadly, the pancakes did not turn out like American pancakes and we eventually gave up and just made them into crepes. Even the syrup we got was weird. Instead of it being maple, it was more like vanilla/caramel flavor. Thankfully one of our friends brought over Nutella and strawberries.

6.01.19

With it being Saturday, we decided to sleep in before starting our adventure to catch up on some much-needed sleep. We had plans with our neighbors to try and find a few of the 6 Hidden Giants. These giants are sculptures done by a local artist with the goal to get more people out of the city. Since the giants are a long way away, we rode our bikes to the central station and then got on the B train (with our bikes) to ride to the neighborhood of Hvidovre. This is where the first giant was located. When researching the giants, it suggests that you use a car when out hunting for them because they are all far apart, but since we don’t have that option, biking it was. When we got off the train at the Hvidovre stop the doors closed before the last person of our group could get off, and we all watched in silence as she rode away with a surprised look on her face. Thankfully the train stops frequently so she was able to get off and hop on the next train back towards us. Since she was safe, it gave us all a good laugh. It was a four-mile bike ride from the train station to the first giant. This was the first time that any of us had been outside of the city center and it was really rejuvenating. There were a lot less people, beautiful little house, no other bikers, and so much space. 40 minutes and a couple wrong turns later, we arrived at the first giant called “Hill Top Trine.” We were able to climb up into his hands and look out over the countryside.

The next giant we decided to visit was down by the ocean. This was supposed to only be a 30-minute bike ride, but it ended up taking us an hour to get there due to the incredibly strong wind coming off of the ocean that we had to ride into. As exhausting as it is riding against the wind, it was still worth it to find this second giant called “Oscar Under the Bridge.” He is built to look like he is falling into the water. After finding this sculpture, we decided to call it a day on the giant hunting and find a place for dinner. We chose a small restaurant called Café Mågen. This was the best and cheapest food any of us had seen since arriving in Copenhagen. Since everyone was pretty exhausted from the long day, we decided to take the train home. This gave us a decent amount of time to rest our legs. Although once we got home, I hoped back on my bike and headed out to take photos for my photography class. Our assignment this week is to create a photo series. I am calling mine The Dogs of Copenhagen, so be watching for cute dog photos in next week’s blog post!

6.02.19

Sundays are my relaxing days, where I try to take it easy and prepare for the week ahead. In the morning Maura and I met for our weekly Bible study and discussed the 2nd chapter in James. I then attended the Hillsong Church. On my way home I learned that my directional skills are still not working here in Denmark as I was going the opposite way I needed to be going. Thankfully I didn’t go too far before I realized and turned myself around. Once I got back home, I submitted my first set of photos to DIS for my work as one of their student photographers. I then spent the rest of the day prepping food for my meals throughout the week and working on homework.

Weekly Overview – Copenhagen Week 2:

1. Places Visited