Being a Reflective Traveler

Exploring the city of Copenhagen with an intentional, but curious lens.

While on this walk, I was intentional about exploring my curiosities throughout the city. Throughout this post, you'll see miscellaneous photos I took on this adventure, as well as reflections from the trip.

The Journey

This reflective journey consisted of two parts: my visit to the church and my visit back from the church. The way there was ordinary - time passed swiftly as I twisted around my phone at every street corner trying to determine the best path to take. It felt like every other experience I’ve had trying to tour through a city. The way back, however, was unlike anything I had ever experienced.

What did I notice?

I challenged myself to go “map” free and to navigate back based on landmarks I remembered and general feeling. While intimidating, it allowed me to focus on this outside of the ordinary touring I do in cities I have previously visited.

A really good chai tea latte that accompanied me on my way back from this journey.

There’s a certain smell that illuminates a city before it’s about to rain - a sort of predicable indicator of the day or night to come.

Yet, walking through the streets of Copenhagen, I could not make out the rain to come. The clouds were gray and covered the sky and the streets became dark and cold, but still nothing.

The rain, nevertheless, still came down.

In the States, cars stop, bowing to pedestrians, even when they are clearly in the wrong. None of that existed here - cars whizzed by people in crosswalks and bikes seemed to exist in their own universe.

The social “commuting” norms that I thought were so universally known and followed simply did not exist here.

What did I feel?

There is something jarring about not being able to predict the world’s next move or anticipate how people will react to certain conditions. When moving from Virginia to Washington, I found the hardest obstacle to be orienting myself on a map and navigating to classes in a timely manner. I expected the same to be true of Copenhagen. I was quite wrong.

A theatre in Copenhagen which reminded me of the Barbie movie. Not pictured is the neighboring building, which created a great juxtaposition with the dark colors (as the movie references it, a "Mojo Dojo Casa House").

The difficulty when traveling abroad is not what you do, but how you do it. In International Business, we learn the different techniques to use when negotiating with people of different nationalities and the customs to keep in mind in order to be respectful. Coming to Denmark, I had pocked those tools - knowing certain phrases that were used and certain political stances present in the country. I knew it rained often. I knew not to jay-walk like we are often encouraged to do in the States.

In this case, I had the tools, I had the “what”, but I clearly lacked the “how”.

How do I use the customs? How does politics play into everyday life? How do I know when those negotiating tools can be used? How do I know when to cross the street? How do I know when it will rain? How, how, how?

I still am working on the “how” of living here, but being intentional with my time for this exercise truly allowed me to realize how big of a gap I was missing. Traveling is all about experiencing another world and, as such, is a continuous process of learning and growing. I am beyond excited to see “how” far I’ll grow in these next couple of weeks.