Bittersweet - Jamie visits in CPH

As I'm sure you're all aware, Jamie visited me here in Copenhagen this week. He flew all the way from Melbourne to Abu Dhabi only to miss his connecting flight in Frankfurt on Friday due to delays, a cruel 1-hour flight out from Copenhagen. Managing to talk his way into getting a replacement flight on the same day 8 hours later, after two and a half months of being apart we were finally able to see each other again. The past week has been an absolute blur, and time has flown by faster than I imagined possible.

This morning, we had to sadly say goodbye again until December, when I come home. Even then, Jamie flies out to his exchange at UBC in Vancouver, Canada only a week after my return. To say this is painful and heartbreaking is an understatement, but these are sacrifices we're willing to make for each other and we know that our time apart will be over next year. I'm sure you can probably sense that feelings are currently quite downcast, but I'm sure I'll be able to manage as I did before, given some time. Thus, this week has been so bittersweet - there is no one I would rather be with, but also no harder goodbye.

Hence the lack of updates as I really have been very AWOL from all social media platforms. I'm sure you're all curious about what we got up to! The first night, as Jamie's plane came in quite late, we actually just went to IKEA for dinner and to pick up some linen for the bed as we were in need of a double blanket, rather than a single. The next few days are more or less discovering parts of the city, eating, resting (jetlag), studying etc.

We went to a football game at Telia Parken! København vs Silkeborg - unsurprisingly København won.

On Monday night, we decided to celebrate our 9 months together by staying the night at the Admiral Hotel, with a beautiful view out on to the river, and by having dinner at The Olive, a brilliant yet still humble restaurant on Nørregade. It was so much fun! I had a risotto dish and pannacotta, whilst Jamie had a peppercorn steak and a chocolate lava cake.

We spent a lot of time in comic book stores as Jamie has a thing for collecting old comics and Copenhagen has some high-quality stores. I kind of felt like Penny from The Big Bang Theory, which we also happened to watch together incessantly at the time.

Comic books featuring left, right and centre

We visited Torvehallerne, an urban, covered marketplace featuring stalls with local produce, gourmet foods, beverages & desserts.

The biggest things we did though were visiting the Copenhagen Zoo and aquarium. These two places would've been first and foremost for me to visit when I arrived here initially, but I decided to hold off because it was something I really wanted to do with Jamie. The zoo was really really nice and incredibly modern. The exhibit design was so captivating, and at one point we had a polar bear swim overhead as we passed through the glass walkway.

The aquarium was also super cool and had exhibits divided into Nordic habitats (I've never seen this before, fascinating), tropical habitats - including a huge shoal of piranhas, and the ocean which consisted of saltwater aquariums the size of a huge room!

One of the greatest achievements we had together was actually putting together a nice little scrapbook of all our travels together this year - London, Venice, Rome, Naples as well as Jamie's visit here in Copenhagen. Thus, here's a little insight into some of the photos we featured!

So yeah, this week has been amazing but, as expected, has come to a rather rough end. I just can't wait to come home. It's getting rather cold now and neuroscience sucks (it's a 3rd-year subject and not in my field so I'm finding it very demanding and difficult to understand). I still have immunology left in my next block, hopefully, I can somehow sit an exam before I leave instead of an online one in January. We'll see.

I'm also in a bit of a pickle as my credit card was cancelled (complicated but it was by my own choice, very stupid I know) and I've had to have another one posted from Australia and so I'm currently stuck here with no card or cash, which is a bit unideal. I've tried to open an account with Danske Bank but as I leave in December they won't let me. I'm managing to eat (somehow) and having Jamie here made the last week a lot easier as I just transferred him money when I needed to buy something. It's kind of comical but I really hope my card arrives soon.