Copenhagen Diaries || Why I’m in Denmark

The person who has the highest expectations for me is – me. I know it’s a good thing, but I tend to pressure myself to be the best version of me. And that includes making a good impression on our Danish counterparts. So, hello “first” day of work! But my luck was running low that day. Sigh. We are expected to be in the office by 8:30 AM every day. The travel time from the hotel to the office is around 45 minutes. Since we needed to be punctual, we left the hotel by 7 AM. Unfortunately, we got on the wrong platform and boarded the wrong train. It was going the other way. It was already past 8 AM, and we were still waiting for a train. J (my colleague) previously stayed in a different hotel which is one of the reasons why we got lost.We got there past 9 AM, and our teammates were very worried since they thought we might have gotten ourselves in danger (or something similar).

All in all, it was a good day. It was nice to finally be speaking face to face with people we only conversed with via e-mail and messenger. One of them was nice enough to bring us to a Thai place and treat us to dinner! Hello again, rice! I’m not a fan of spicy food but it really does the job of keeping me warm.

Fun fact: you can bring your bikes inside the train! They have an area for that too, along with a quiet room wherein nobody is allowed to make noises inside the carriage. So cool! (you are not allowed to bring bicycles on trains here in the PH and it’s always very noisy inside) However, there was this one incident where a drunk guy sat beside me (because a lot of people actually drink beer in the train at night) and started talking to me in Danish. I politely excused myself then J and I transferred to another carriage, only to be followed by the guy we’re avoiding. We got off at the next station and waited for another train.

Sleeping on the train because we always have to wake up early for work.

There were also times where I stood out in the sea of navy, black, gray, brown and all the other dull winter colors because of my outfits.

Being on a trip for work meant that we still had the same workload. We worked until late hours (there were two consecutive days where we worked past midnight), in some ways, it’s just like working at a different workstation. On days where we didn’t have time to explore, we ate at the nearby mall – Fisketorvet Shopping Center. And yet again, we had Asian food.

I guess there’s a reason why I got sent to Denmark.. I need to finish what I started. Even if it meant, staying up at the hotel lobby in my sleepwear to work.

There were days where a fellow Asian who has migrated to Denmark (and also a colleague), goes out of her way to feed us more Asian food. Asians unite! We ate at an Asian franchise, Wagamama is in Tivoli. I just love elderflower! I drank elderflower every time I get the chance to do so.

Not only the Asians are friendly – even the Danish were! We get invited for dinner and wine at their homes and get driven back to the hotel when it’s late. I also got a real bad case of the flu during our first week due to the cold and I immediately get offered a cup of tea whenever I cough. Good people, I tell you. 🙂