Denmark 8/23/24

I fucking hate chess. I don’t know why I suck at it so much. Like, it’s a simple concept: capture their pieces without letting them steal your pieces. So simple but I suck so fucking much. So much! Anyways.

Yesterday I went to dinner with one of the girls staying in my hostel room. Her name, I think, was Tsinhe. She’s from China. I first said hi to her two days ago and we spoke very briefly. Then yesterday when I got back from skating, I showed her some of the clothes I bought and got to know her a bit more. I made a little show of pretending to try on the clothing items. It awarded me with a few laughs.

I wanted to go to this Chinese place for dinner cause they had rice and miso soup, and I thought that’d be best for my upset stomach. I felt bad asking the Chinese girl to a Chinese restaurant, but I was curious about her. Turns out as we were walking there, the restaurant named Bento Copenhagen is not Chinese but in fact Japanese. Yep. Nice Brennan.

When we got there, we realized we needed reservations that we didn’t have, so we moved along. “What’s plan B,” she asked. “I’m thinking of it right now,” I replied through a semi-nervous smile. We ended up going to the Pho Hanoi place I went to the first day I was in Copenhagen. We got so lucky cause they were only taking reservations when we got there, but there was one table that was open for only an hour and the guy working let us take it. Bless that man.

I truly enjoyed my time with Tsinhe. She was a funny girl. We laughed frequently throughout the night. There was one time where I had to catch her from running into a pole: We were walking down the street, me on the building side and her on the street side. She was trying to translate something on her phone and wasn’t paying attention to what was in front of her. I saw the pole but waited a bit to see if she would avoid it. When I was sure she’d hit it, I reached out with my left hand grabbing her left forearm and with my right hand grabbing her right shoulder. Part of me felt bad for touching her so suddenly. A girl walking past us sort of smirked at the incident so I feel like it seemed funny or maybe a bit intimate from an outside perspective.

After dinner, we went to walk around the park on the way to Israel Pads. We would occasionally bump up against each other and rub shoulders or knock hands as we walked along. It felt good to be close to someone else. At the park, we sat for a bit on a bench. I think I could’ve kissed her then. But it just felt weird. Felt very highschoolish, and I wanted to steer clear from that feeling. So instead we just sat in silence for a bit. 

I asked her what she was thinking about. “I thought that flower there was a … you know: Bzzz (flapping gesture). And why it wasn’t moving. Now I know why, cause it’s a flower not a Bzzz.” Laughter. A few moments passed and she asked me what I was thinking about. “A bug flew by and I wanted to catch it and kill it, but I remembered I’m trying to stop doing that. I think I believe in reincarnation.”

The language barrier made it a bit difficult to communicate, but I really enjoyed the night we spent together. I appreciated her mind. Once in the park, there was this huge weeping willow-esque tree; she pointed to it and simply stated, “Look. It looks like a monster.” That made me smile.

I will never see this girl again. She’s a student here in Copenhagen, studying to get her masters in sustainable design. I wish her well and hope that we remember each other for a long, long time.