Hello again!
After being in Copenhagen for around 14 weeks now, I am beginning to picture what life would look like if I lived in this small city. Copenhagen has slowly become a city that I call home, and I would be lying if I said that I didn’t imagine myself living here while shopping at the local grocery store every week or walking to my favorite cafes after class. If I were to become a full-time resident of Copenhagen, Denmark, I can undoubtedly say that my life would look a lot different than it does in the United States. Primarily, back in the U.S., I come from a suburban Connecticut town that is very different from a city. My neighborhood consists of large houses spaced far apart from each other, and I am constantly surrounded by nature and greenery. Also, I am used to driving my car everywhere I need to go and almost never take public transportation. This lifestyle is very different from the one I have been living in Copenhagen. Though small, Copenhagen is a very urban environment. Living here, it is much more normal to walk to most places rather than drive- for example, I always walk to the grocery store, to the gym, or to restaurants and cafes. If a place is farther away than a 20-minute walk, then most people ride their bikes or take the Metro or bus. Here in Denmark, the public transportation system is incredibly fast and efficient, so there are rarely any issues with timing when needing to take the Metro or bus. Evidently, just this one difference in transportation would make my life in Copenhagen much different than my life in my suburban Connecticut town. Since being abroad, I have become much more accustomed to taking time out of my day to walk to my destination, and have also become much more confident with utilizing public transportation. Furthermore, Copenhagen is much different from my home in the U.S. because there is hardly any nature or greenery in the city. This has been tough to adapt to, as I am so used to taking quiet walks through the woods near my neighborhood back at home. I have definitely missed nature being in Copenhagen and have more appreciated the importance of it in my life since coming here. Thus, if I were to live in Denmark, I would most likely choose to live in a location right outside of Copenhagen. I have been fortunate enough to travel to other towns outside of the city, where life is much more similar to my suburban town back home. For me, this environment is where I feel the most comfortable, so I would definitely choose to live somewhere different from my current dorm right in the heart of Copenhagen.
Moreover, if I chose to be a full-time resident in Copenhagen, I would most likely choose to work in healthcare. After studying abroad this semester, I have learned so much more about the healthcare system in Denmark and all around Europe, and I would love to contribute to the welfare system of Denmark’s healthcare. Being able to provide other Danes with free and accessible healthcare would be an incredibly rewarding and enjoyable career, so I would likely pursue a similar profession to the one I want in the U.S. All in all, I believe that though becoming a full-time resident of Denmark would mean that my life would be much different than my life in the U.S., it would most definitely have various perks and would be a great learning experience. I would start to appreciate many new things about urban life as well as the Danish culture, and surely would find ways to make life here similar to life in Connecticut.