my blog

boston + copenhagen trip

there are many things i could potentially title this blog, but the working title for this was "the glizzy that made steph my mortal enemy", and no i will not explain. i'm not particularly interested in good titles. what if its a good title and someone new reads this blog and realizes how annoying i am?? scary.

in 2022 i had a streak of a few books where boston was mentioned in each book which made me think after 14 years its finally time to visit nathan, friend of the blog since 2010 :) this second visit i feel like i have a better understanding of boston/cambridge/somerville. not really. better doesnt mean good or well, but a nice improvement from our trip in 2024 which probably wont be blogged about. boston feels real to me now and not just a location where i have friends. does that make sense?

we kept building upon the bit (or maybe real idea) of moving to boston and getting an Evil Job in kendall square nearby third time together so i can continue to eat the levantine dog (i loved the mustard and actually ate a spoonful of it because i loved it enough to ask them about it. they offered the spoonful. i didn't ask for a spoonful... i did enjoy it though) and whatever ice cream they have on rotation and albius's legacy, genuinely the best vanilla ice cream possible.

our first day we arrived and took the commuter train to salem. salem is fun! and it felt like a fieldtrip, in a good way. if you were ever the high school aide on a trip with a bunch of elementary school kids this is the same feeling. except you are both the high school kid, the elementary school kid, and in your 30s. salem|674 bunghole|691
this guy actually yelled at me from across the street so i thought he got mad at me for taking a photo of him outside the bunghole. which is fair. but i think it was something like "do you know what a bunghole is" crazy thing to yell, btw. so he was explaining the actual origin of bunghole, and not what i was originally thinking, while yelling it across the street. google bunghole and let me know how that goes.

sean|700

the only photo i have of sean. we were only able to hang out with sean once before we went to denmark and he went to ireland. the group chat went european!!! hanging out meant trinas and listening to the halo 3 title screen until deciding to go to pops pinball, and same thing when we came back. honestly dont remember because trina herself will pour you an incredibly strong drink. i also had my first mimosa there. and i like orange juice more. champagne tastes like dusty bubbles and is ruining my orange juice.

this trip includes a lot of museums. we went to mass moca specifically to see james turrell stuff. cavu was soo nice, i think the clouds added to it. cavu couldve been improved with three things, 1. pillows, 2. blankets 3. and a 1.5 second long fart, referenced in a google review that my experience lacked. very fun to buddy up with olivia for one of them and my reaction is just like "wow its so dark" and shes like "oh its like platos allegory of the cave". LOL. mass moca is a good museum. it has re-ignited my taste for museums. the building is extremely vibey. that is my self-imposed limit of one "vibe" and all its variations per post. but i also really enjoyed laurie andersons exhibit. in this blog post i must say i love Texture. possibly because its interesting or maybe because ai smoothes everything. like "ai art" smoothes in both texture and brain folds. sol lewitts stuff up close was pretty interesting. mass moca|594 mass moca 2|619 sol lewitt|700 sol lewitt|609 mass moca|614 mass moca|679 garbage|554
a lot of the exhibits here are best experienced instead of seen. so thats why i dont have much to say. mass moca is huge!! great experience. maybe my favorite out of all the museums we went to this trip? mass moca is a good museum for people who go to museums which makes me sound pretentious. or its a good first museum because its more interactive? i dont know!! i am a fan of contemporary art which tends to be looked down on. but contemporary art feels more relatable although it can be a hit or a miss. its easier to judge art when you don't have longevity as a filter out for what is "good".

or next half day we spent trying to kill a roll of film so nathan could drop it off for development. some people treat photography as an art... not me!! i love taking pictures more than i like looking at them. but we also went to the harvard book store so i could buy on the calculation of volume 4. the goal was to read this together on the trip... we did not do that. i literally brought that book to denmark and i dont even think i read one page.

okay so the real question from many people in my real life was "why denmark?". bro why not?? i'm pretty sure denmark is also an uncommon choice for my first trip to europe. i'm not very well travelled outside of the states. we were mostly in copenhagen, except for the few hours we took a train north to the lousiana.

but in reality this is the reason
my mortal enemy steph
please take this as an invitation to recommend me spots.

we spent 5 days in copenhagen. which is long enough for a city and not enough for a country. but i feel like we got a decent idea of how copenhagen is. copenhagen would probably be great in the summer. april is slightly chilly. i had only my one jacket and one sweater and i was cold!! i'm also weak, nathan and nick seemed to be faring better than i was. i would love to go back. thats my general opinion of copenhagen. if money isn't an issue... go. i do have some things saved in aarhas and odense... so maybe one day i'll go to proper denmark. i get bored in cities no matter how wonderful they are.

my favorite part of traveling is generally not itinerary based. its finding something and then having it consume my thoughts. like BMO, elderflower and rhubarb (on its own, no strawberry). my favorite things are walking around and pointing at things until the point of exhaustion where only a cafe and nice bev and snack would possibly cure my "exhaustion". it makes for boring travel blogs. but i like having these positive association with things on my trip and the rest of my life. i do feel some guilt with having done nothing worth noting, but not enough guilt to plan a real itinerary for trips.

as a lover of public transit it was really easy to get around. m3 is just like the yamanote. we didnt try biking. i have no idea how to ride a bike in a city like that. i'd get binked by a car so fast or hit a pedestrian. the trains are nice. we did a 5 day pass which worked out well, since we just hopped on whatever and only needed to buy a train ticket when we went to the louisiana.

nyhavn|648

we went to nyhavn which is the most touristy thing we did. and then we ate hot dogs. i love hot dogs, so you probably know what i thought of it. but man i love remoulade!! there was a slight horseradish taste to it which made the hot dog extra yummy. would highly recommend. we walked around and immediately did shopping. we went to a bookstore where i bought the last few books i needed to finish the international booker this year, and one book by danish author cecilie lind called girlbeast which i have not read yet, even two months later. oops. its genuinely important to me to buy books that are written by local authors, and i genuinely appreciate when bookstores have a local authors section. this was one i know wasn't published in the US. nathan and i also looked at the danish versions of on the calculation of volume. buy books from independent bookstores you guys!!!!

courtyard|658 nude coffee|683
i love the amount of coffee cups that end up on your table when drinking pourover at cafes. genuinely.
park|656
nick went to a pedal store and spent a lot of money. architecture is really interesting! i loved the courtyards in buildings, street lamps and how it seemed like every building has the same level of floors. it makes the city feel somewhat small. the cobblestone made it a bit more tiring to walk. magnolias were also blooming. i love magnolias. absolutely beautiful. our first day there was super sunny so people were laying out in the park in bathing suits. quintessential spring day. duck|687 dinner|640 mirror pic|623
we stayed at a hotel about a 5 minute walk away from the meatpacking district. basically newly gentrified but the area was good!! we went to a lot of places within this area... kodbyens is, ismageriet , hart bakery, kodbyens fiskebar, camping, and motorious which recommended me to go to donn ya doll a few blocks away for womens clothes and i did buy a jacket, shirt and two pairs of socks.

hart bakery|456
bmo|491
this was the start of the BMO journey. i got a spandauer and cardamom bun. nick and nathan got the BMO. i need to learn how to make sourdough so i can make these at home for nick. and hart bakery has no real line. its chaotic. i waited for our coffees while nick and nathan got a table and i had to ask them for nathans coffee... its just drip coffee.
flan|560 bike|588 danish design museum|761
we went to the danish design museum for our activity for day two. because as much as i like not having an itinerary, you gotta do something besides shop and eat. my SD card broke here!!!!! the danish design museum was my least favorite out of the three museums that we went to. its not a bad museum just up against two heavy hitters. the current exhibit was japanese modern posters and hokusai, so i personally enjoyed that. theres a lot here though.

we tried to find an electronics store to buy a replacement SD card which ended up being somewhat difficult on a saturday night at 6pm. we went to magasin but they told us to go to DJI which was like a block away but closing or closed. so we had to go to a the elgiganten in fisketorvet. i bought the slowest SD card in existence, but it was the only place open and available. having a slow SD card is a good option if you want a film-like experience without the price and time spent waiting on photos.

ismageriet|594
we ended up going here two nights in a row. we shouldve went more!! i got an apricot pie flavor the first night and the second night i got some things that were in danish but i had to keep asking what flavors were for allergy reasons she was like 'oh probably not this one' a few separate times. i wanted something that would go with coffee. i ended up with foldebolle. ? who knows.

we started our day at rug. rug meaning rye, but its also right next to the train station. i got a cardamom bun, nick got a BMO and we got other food, a proper breakfast situation. nathan met us there and we left for the lousiana.

louisiana 1|447
love this stupid ass picture
bird|432

louisiana 2|553 yayoi kusama|616

the louisiana was my second favorite museum of this trip. thank god the weather was nice this day because we could see sweden. outside grounds on the louisiana are incredibly nice. basquiat had an exhibit. i liked some of the sophie calle stuff, and other stuff i actually despised. the separate building which had the kusama infinity room was sooo nice. i was obsessed with it. loved the diving board and the sitting room. nick ranked the louisiana first, he loved the basquiat exhibit. i do think its worth leaving copenhagen for the day. nathan|547

on the way back to the station we got somewhat lost and got stuck in a cemetery...

after the lousiana we went to reffen... highly recommend if you're going with a few people so you can get multiple things and share. we ate and stayed long enough to watch the sun mostly set, but it didn't completely set until 9pm.

reffen 2|705 reffen 3|661 copenhill|541

on our last full day was mostly spent meandering.. like a light lunch at torvehallerne because i love markets. andersen & maillard for a BMO and coffee, some last minute shopping before dinner and of course, to help nathan kill his roll of film. rock|599

camping|467

we went to camping. this place was so fun and a great way to spend our last night in copenhagen. incredible playlist for any millennial. millennial poptism playlist for these trying times.

bosch bosch|482

our flight left around noon or something. i dont remember. we had enough time for breakfast and coffee. we went to juno the bakery which i hate to admit is incredibly hyped but worth it. i loved this almond croissant. their internet was out and we couldn't pay with card and for the first time ever i had no cash on me... we had to wait a while to pay. i think this was also the best BMO. i also got a cardamom bun, again. after we went to prolog good cups from oh oak.

juno|515 prolog|354

after getting our stuff from the hotel it was sort of hectic, the train to the airport switched platforms pretty last minute. then the airport was crazy busy. after we got through security and immigration we walked directly onto the plane because everyone boarded and there was no queue. SAS is a good airline and they absolutely stuff you. when we landed back in boston we ran into problems here too!!! fun! first off, it was crazy that ICE was waiting there as soon as we got off the plane. but then nick got selected and we got all of our bags checked... fun!!! i think he gave up when he got to my bag tbh. i think we were all tired from traveling and nick had laundry to do.

our last partial day in boston started by getting coffee from ogawa coffee, then george howell coffee. after being fully caffeinated we went to porter square books where i ended up buying the employees written by danish author olga ravn, which i hope i like more than the wax child. after we went to cafe mami to eat the famous (to nathan and i) hamburg steak, at the suggestion of the girl who works at a bookstore in sf saying boston had a really good hamburg steak and didnt give us a name because she didnt remember. man it had no business being that good. if ground beef wasnt $6/lb i would learn to make this. i hope nathan and sean go to cafe mami to eat the hamburg steak... for nick and i.

porter square|490

how do i even end a blog post about travel?? i went home?? lol

copenhagen links.