Copenhagen, Denmark - Day Two - The Only One Awake

The first thing I did was check my text messages turning my phone off of airplane mode. I did not want to receive notifications or any news about was going on. I checked the score and the Sixers had won game 6 woo! They live another day.

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I hurried down these mean Copenhagen streets at 5:00am that means the sun is out that means according to my Tia Juanita, "The day is for work." I grabbed my camera unaware of whatever roll I had packed into it the night before, I scrambled trying not to wake the others in the room. Specifically the man in the top bunk from the South of Spain. It was chilly outside and I made the mistake of taking only a t-shirt the sun was out sort of and the wind was bearable. I walked aimlessly at first kind of just decided to head down the opposite street. Everything was closed. Even the 7/11 doesn’t open until 7am at least in Sweden. To be honest thinking back I don’t remember seeing them in Denmark point stands that nothing was open.

I snapped away.

The streets were long they were beautiful and I enjoy being the only one awake. A whole city asleep it was Friday morning some of these people had to be up for work shortly. I remember thinking of ideas, but none quite did it for me. I almost forgot to mention the discovery of the trip! Suspiria’s Score by Thom Yorke. I stumbled upon on it on the fucking plane! It was marvelous I don’t remember being taken by the music so much when I first saw the film. Unless the film does not keep my attention

The theme song of the trip: Unmade By Thom Yorke a close second would be Cold Little Heart more on that later. I think Unmade takes a life of it’s own on this trip for me. I made my first stop at Next Door Cafe as I was walking down the street toward the cafe. I saw a bakery and of course I had to go in after taking one peek at Scones. Chocolate Scones! The name of this place is fuck I can’t find it, but it is off of Oster Voldgade between the SMK museum and Next Door Cafe. They make the best Chocolate Scones in the whole fucking world they have cool worker named Daniel maybe that narrows it down. More to come on Daniel later.

I eat that Scone like I have never had one in the entirety of my life. If Spain was filled with Chocolate croissants this was filled with Chocolate scones. I finally made it to the Next Door Cafe and there was two people outside a white skinned dude and a beautiful girl. It wasn’t 8am so I wasn’t pressing them. “We are on a break we open at 8am” I nod my head understanding. I sit there for a moment before they snicker to themselves and hurry into the cafe. Borna says, “I can come in” I look up at the menu and without thinking twice I want the house special pancakes.

I took a seat at the table in front of the door and of course I forgot my fucking notebook. Borna looks over at me and we start talking. He is Croatian born, decided to move to Denmark following his girlfriend. When that ended he loved Copenhagen so much he decided to stay. Not only does he speak Croatian He also speaks Danish, Spanish, Italian and English. Europeans leave me fucking marveled they are willing and understanding for the most part. Eventually Emma brings out the pancakes. I devour those blueberry pancakes. At this point I have already received texts from my mom and cousin saying they are proud of Natives.

Emma eventually finds herself outside the kitchen where she tells me she is there living with her boyfriend (broken heart). She is from San Francisco a graphic design student if I remember correctly and makes some awesome pancakes. They were sweet people and gave me optimism for the rest of my time in Scandinavia.

Got my shit from the Generator thinking that I was to catch my train at 3pm no it was at 6pm.

I walked the 2 miles from the hostel to Funders a hip cafe off of Vester Voldgade. This was another nice place I can’t remember now if I had a bread I definitely had my second latte of the day. I continued reading Infamy I was going to finish this damn book!

When I realized it was 12pm and my train was not for another 6 hours I had to fucking move. Not only that but it started to drizzle, so is my luck! I walked another mile to John’s Hot Dog Deli it is next to Warpigs Brewhouse this place was fucking amazing! I am not doing my stomach any help eating all this, but that hot dog was worth it. The fries were kind of bad they had little pellets of salt peppered on to them. It was too much salt. At this point it is raining and I don’t want to get wet, but I also don’t want to spend 5 hours of my trip sitting in a deli.

I ended up at Le Kaff off of Halmtorvet they make a dope tuna sandwich. They were also a nice bunch of people and I spent a long while here rummaging through my head about what would happen the rest of this trip. Around 5pm I made my way to Copenhagen Central Station. It was not a long walk, but I was getting exhausted and good sleep was at least 9 hours away. I sat there waiting for my train to appear on the board. After a moment my train pops up and right by it in red letters, “cancelled.”

What the fuck do I do. Thankfully a man was walking by who had all the answers he was like, “you have to get to Malmo your train will be there waiting for you.” He pointed to a gate. I walked toward that gate. Downstairs on the platform I asked a lady if she was on her way to Stockholm. She said she was. I told her I am going to stick with you. After a moment a whole gang of us were headed to the same destination.

On the train to Malmo (30 minute ride) I sat next to a sweet girl. She had this cool nascar home depot jacket on and this long blonde curly hair. I admired her for a moment and asked where she was going off to. She mentioned she was headed too Stockholm to see her mother. She is living in a coastal town in Denmark going to school. She half Canadian and half Swedish. She hopes to live in Vietnam or Indonesia. I admired her willingness to just go wherever the fuck she wanted.

She asked me questions and those 30 minutes lasted an eternity. We talked about horror movies. She really liked Hereditary, Witch, and The Babadook (not a fan). She was not a fan of Halloween but she appreciated the film. We were both heavily anticipating The Lighthouse and Midsommar and she mentioned that she had never met someone like me who liked horror movies. All she had to say was, “stay” I am a romantic person, but I have a romantic idea of leaving my life behind all of it. Born again.

We split up and I didn’t even get her name. I sat on that 6hr + train ride thinking about her. What a fumble who knows if she would have liked me. I sat next to a Swedish girl who was not having it so we spent the ride like a married couple not one word was shared between us. I got into Stockholm late around 1am. Exactly what I was dreading. I don’t know how Stockholm gets after dark it might slowly transform into Compton or Gaza. I was okay it was well lit and there was a lot of party goers bouncing around the streets. Also what the fuck there was a McDonald’s under an overpass lol

Copenhagen, Denmark - Day One - I Don't Die Enough

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“Preserve your memories they are all that’s left of you” - Bookends By Simon & Garfunkel

I have a difficult time with planes. I am just anxious leading up to the plane trip. Adjusting to the idea of making peace with my death. I am about to fly thousands of feet into the air and if anything goes wrong you are fucked.

Brandon was going to drop me off at the train station, but my mom got home a lot earlier than expected. She wanted to drop me off at Union Station and buy me breakfast, let’s get it. We went to Gus restaurant and I ordered the french toast. Stay away from their french toast It was dry and no amount of honey could wet that up.

On the Fly-A-Way bus to LAX I was thinking about my little sister a lot. Earlier in the day I dropped her off at school and I didn’t give her a kiss goodbye. I have been told she is not my responsibility, but she definitely is my responsibility. It would break me to pieces if she didn’t live up to her potential, because I was not around to guide her the best I could.

What type of a playlist should I put together for this trip? Rap heavy, ultra melancholic songs? rock? I had yet to start the playlist and was not going to yet. I had no idea what the vibe was and at the moment inspiration was non existent.

I guess airports don’t expect people to arrive early because gates aren’t shown until 3 hours before. It probably has some shit to do with security, but it makes for some anxiety when you are looking to post up. I sat at a dusty Starbucks reading Infamy a book about Japanese Internment during WWII. After a chapter I put the book away and started to watch The Turin Horse a movie loosely based on Nietzsche as he grows demented after staring at a horse that would not move. The film is slow and focuses on the life of a potato farmer and his daughter. The shots are beautiful and the scenes are moving even though they are black & white and don’t offer much in the way of dialogue. My favorite scenes were when they would take turns sitting at the window their only form of entertainment/peace. I did not fuck with the post apocalyptic aspect we could have done without it.

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An LAPD cop was waiting by the gate he waved me over to check my bag. I was told by the cop it was a random check. Fuck you!

On the dumb ass plane for 10+ hours I saw three films Gentlemen Prefer Blondes I thought it was funny, Marilyn Monroe was great especially her comedic timing. The Lion King I hope the remake tanks why the fuck are they touching that film! They should take that all-star cast and make a new movie. A Private War, wow I thought Rosumund Pike was great the actors got more comfortable as the film progressed. It grew melodramatic at time, but the topics were difficult and I believe they did the best they could with that subject. I thought the flashbacks were weak and were not needed to accomplish what Pike’s character was already doing via action (irresponsible drinking, spontaneous sex, and her plunges into danger). I thought she was in search of martyrdom.

Mocha in London! Starbucks can get fucked, but it is convenient and aight. I had a Mocha and stale Strawberry Pop-Tarts I had time before my plane. WHERE IS MY GATE!?

I met this beautiful Danish girl. I have forgotten her name she was traveling home from Fiji. She was exhausted after being away for 6 months and was happy to be home. I wanted to ask her if she would guide me around Copenhagen, but I never said it. I kept quiet and she asked how long I would be staying in Denmark. I said one day and then I was off to Sweden. We sat next to each other on the tram to the plane. On the plane to Denmark I met a group of friends traveling to a beer fest in Denmark. The dude sitting next to me I forgot his name as well invited me to have a beer with them while in Copenhagen. I politely declined his offer, but I never said that I didn't drink. I thought that would have bummed them out and they were excited to drink some Danish beer.

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I stayed at Generator Hostel in Copenhagen in Kobenhavn K. All I wanted to do was sleep in a proper bed, but before I wanted to walk, eat and watch Detective Pikachu. I set my route to Palads Teatret and took the Leica (Point and Shoot) along with a roll of color film (Kodak Ektar 100?). The pictures you see here came from that set-up. The black and white film is from a Kodak 400tx roll or a Kodak 100 black and white.

Still

With whatever moments I had

They never let me be better

Wrote a letter hoping an older me would get it

That wasn’t the case

I’m still in my way

Everything I’ve done it’s a wrong done on me

We’ve stared at the cross for a bit too long

How else would we carry you around?

We came together for a laugh

Still I kept it close to my chest

Still I came out of breath

It’s okay to not be who you want to be

I walked down these tight streets, they weren’t as tight as they were in Barcelona. It got packed with people along those dense corridors. I was leaving nothing exciting behind at the Hostel. It was a pair of siblings from Sweden who were just going to go until their money ran out. (They said that would be only about 2 weeks) The girl was cute, but they never offered to have me tag along so Detective Pikachu it is. I was searching for a spot to eat at. I found a restaurant called Greasy Spoon or something like that I ate a burger covered in mushroom sauce. DON’T TRY IT! I was begging for the shits.

Palads Teatret looks like Circus Circus a nasty pink building about a 2 minute walk from Tivoli Gardens. I went inside Palads and bought a ticket to Detective Pikachu. At a supermarket I picked up some dark chocolate and I finished up the color roll of film. Did I start a new one? I don’t think I did, but I might have. (I DID!)

Detective Pikachu was a bore I fell asleep the first 20 minutes and the only great aspect about that whole mess was Ryan Reynolds as Pikachu and the world they built. The real actors were bad and they just had a difficult time not being unnecessary.

I walked back at about 11pm hoping not to be robbed, but these aren’t the streets that I grew up in. I was thinking about the Sixers they were going into Game 6 should I stay awake? Natives was premiering tonight at USC and I had an anxiety about that project trailing back over a whole year following me around mocking me for not having the confidence to immediately tackle it myself. What would my mom say if my name wasn’t in the title cards at the end? What would I do about it? Nic reassured me multiple times that Ramone would come through, but I was dealing with my own insecurities. I was on vacation and I would enjoy it no matter. When I got to the hostel I turned my phone off and fell asleep.