So imagine this.  You get off a 9 hour plane ride (man do I hate long flights!).  I do not understand people who like to get on a plane, I’m not afraid of flying and short flights are easy peasy, but flying to Europe, kill me now, I don’t know how you west coasters do it either!  Anyway, we flew to Europe on SAS, our first time with them and I was sooo impressed.  They have a program where you can bid for upgrades so we were upgraded and it made a world of difference but still, when we landed in Copenhagen I was feeling rough (not big on taking pills either but next time I might consider it).  Our flight, like all flights from east coast to Europe, was a redeye, so we landed at like 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning.  Even though none of the signs were in English, the Danish are so kind and friendly it was totally easy to navigate the airport, so we cabbed it into town and kind of wandered around bleary-eyed until we happened upon this little piece of heaven, a tiny little espresso shop in Nyhavn.

Ya’ll, have you ever gone anywhere and when you got there, it just felt like home?  That is how I felt about Denmark.  We walked into this cafe all strung out with our suitcases, sank down into overstuffed leather sofas, ordered our Americanos, and just let Scandinavia wash over us.  Here’s the thing about Scandinavia.  Everything there is perfect.  The Scandinavians have such an attention to details that even this random little espresso shop was like a design daydream.  It was like a magazine layout, and it was just a little coffee shop.  But when they started playing 22, A Million by Bon Iver (THE best album of 2016 hands down by far), and not only that album but my favorite song off the album, I knew this place was just, right.

I can’t explain it in a blog post or pictures, but Scandinavia changed my life.  Have you ever met someone who makes you want to be a better person (and I don’t mean a guy, for me I have 3 women in my life who, whenever I’m around them, inspire me to be a better person) and Scandinavia was like that.  The attention to detail and design, the sense of civic responsibility and the greater good (for example, when there is a Don’t Walk signal, even if there are no cars coming for miles, literally everyone waits to cross, they’re not rule-breakers) and general civility just blew my mind.  Suffice it to say, I’m in love, and designing even harder than ever to fund my future Scandi travels, lol!  Get on the list I’m feeling all inspired!)