A Very Danish Birthday Weekend

Hello everyone - long time no blog! I've been busy exploring the city, starting my classes, and learning how to keep up with the locals on my new bike (more on that later). But even more exciting, I got to celebrate my 20th birthday last weekend in true Danish fashion.

On the morning of Saturday, the 26th, I applied for my Danish Residence Permit. It was a surprisingly fast process and I will soon receive my CPR number (kind of like a Social Security Number) that will allow me to access free healthcare and other fun welfare state perks :) Later that afternoon I met up with Maddie, one of my high school besties, who I coincidentally share a birthday with. We headed to Frederiksberg Palace for a picnic with my flatmates and enjoyed some bread, cheese, and wine in the beautiful palace grounds. That night we met up with a bunch of friends at one of the main squares near DIS and celebrated the clock striking midnight as it became the 27th. Then I took the train back with Maddie to spend the night at her homestay.

The picnic spread

The birthday girls!

6 of the 8 of my flatmates

Maddie's sweet homestay family (Peter, Heidi, and their 3 daughters), gave us the best birthday morning, starting at around 8:30 when they all came into our room singing happy birthday and giving us presents. I was completely surprised and so touched when Heidi gave me a beautiful pair of earrings that matched the pair that Maddie got! We then had some time to get ready before joining the family, as well as two other families from their neighborhood, for a brunch feast. They really pulled out all the stops, cooking up eggs, bacon, sausage, homemade bread, crepes, fruit, cheese, and more. I literally thought I was going to explode from all the food and then they brought us out a birthday cake!! What happened next is kind of hard to describe but all of the families (16 people in total) sang us the Danish version of happy birthday. Before they began, they asked Maddie and I to each pick an instrument - she said trumpet and I said guitar. They all broke into the most energetic and lively song with sound effects of the instruments we had picked. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced and definitely much cooler than the American version ;)

Opening birthday presents with Maddie's cute host sisters

The table for our birthday feast - featuring the Danish flag (a classic birthday decoration here)

Making a wish!

After brunch I headed back to my apartment for a quick nap before joining my flatmates and SRA for a birthday pizza dinner! They sang happy birthday and got me delicious macarons and little cakes from a famous bakery here in Copenhagen called La Glace. I ended the night with a family FaceTime sesh and responded to all the lovely birthday messages from my friends and family back home.

A sweet ending to the night

10/10 would recommend

More birthday wishes!

I have to admit that I had pretty mixed emotions about spending my birthday so far away from home this year. But thanks to Maddie's host family and all of my friends, celebrating in Denmark ended up being an amazing way to kick off my twenties. I can't wait to see what adventures this year has in store.

Best belated birthday gift from the best family ever!