Travel Writing

I slowly unhinged my clasped eyelids from the tight slumber they had just enjoyed. I groggily detached my torso from a contortion of sheets and grabbed a hold of a window ledge to steady my rouse. As I maneuvered towards the curtains, my vision was blinded by complete perfection. My nose pressured against daintily frosted windows; I felt as if I was in a Danish snow globe.

Growing up in New York meant I was graced with the presence of snow every winter. To me, the first time falling flakes appear each season stirs up tender emotions. To mask the earth in hues of pale color brings on feelings of vulnerability, but ones to which I openly enjoy.

With my thoughts transfixed on my first Danish snow, my head lazily danced through breakfast with my host parents and my usual morning routine. “The snow,” I told my host parents, “yes of course I could handle it.”

But as I turned on my Danish and butchered an always awkward ‘hej hej’ (goodbye) to my host family, I opened the front door to a new country…

In a foreign land, trying so hard to assimilate into an unknown culture, my sentiments of perceptibility were only exacerbated. As feathery ice crystals daintily descended from the still-black sky, an ivory cloak of snow covered the cottages in suburban Denmark; my world was beautiful.

As often happens, I don’t plan ahead. My daily routine to class also includes a fifteen-minute bike ride up hill to the train station. In Denmark with sky-high taxes and a concern for the environment, everyone chooses to ride bikes, everywhere. Winter weather is something I can handle, and I had just gotten the knack of maneuvering my bike like a real Dane. But biking in a blizzard, these people are nuts…

My American winter nostalgia was soon forgotten as legions of white crusading snow swarmed the suburban air right before my eyes. The unplowed streets that lay ahead of me were truly daunting and the flimsy tires of my vintage bike were nothing compared to the menacing blizzard. The environment aside, this just might be a time to use your cars, I thought.

I pedal harder and harder, with almost no avail, the process is tedious. Danish bikers whiz past me confidently, probably with chains on their tires. Under layers of coats sweat begins to form and clings to my clothing and skin.

My thin cotton gloves, now damp with weather, meekly protected my bitter cold fingers, which look permanently formed around my handlebars. As fifteen-minutes turns into thirty I finally see my destination: Hillerød Station. Around me, slower riders trudge up the last hill just in time for the next train. My grumbles turn to amazement and admiration as I realize the Dane’s dedication to bikes. Even through windy gusts and snow day battles, biking is their mode of transportation.