By Ashlyn
When I was deciding where to study abroad, I wasn't really taking climate into consideration. It wasn't until I was preparing to leave for Denmark last December and people started asking me, "Did you pack enough layers? Did you bring an extra umbrella?" that I started to suspect I might be in for some bad weather.
Copenhagen in the winter isn't awfully cold. During the past three months the temperature usually hovered in the low 30's. But because it was fairly mild, we didn't get much snow -- just a lot of gloomy grey skies and some rain. Couple this with the sun setting at 4:30 in the afternoon and you might begin to understand why the Danes tend to hibernate until April rolls around.
But once the sun finally comes out -- oh boy. There's a dramatic difference between cold and warm weather here in Copenhagen. In the cold, people scurry from one building to the next. The only folks you see on the streets are those braves tourists bundled in about 400 layers and clutching hot cups of tea or coffee -- that, or the cyclists commuting to and from work. And at night everything closes down early, with students staying in their dorms and families huddling indoors to enjoy some hygge.
In the warm months? Completely different. People look for excuses to stay outside. No matter what day it is or what time in the morning, people are hanging out in parks, sipping beer and enjoying leisurely picnics. You thought there were a lot of cyclists in winter? In the spring and summer the parade of bike riders is endless, and at least five bikes are locked to every vertical object in the city. And you'll find folks out in about way into the evening hours, eating ice cream cones and basking in the lingering daylight. (The sun doesn't set until 8:30 pm this month!)
I often hear some of my friends complaining about the way our semester abroad panned out, weather-wise. "If we had come in the fall, we would have had better weather!" they tell me. And it's probably true -- though the weather is nice now, there are still a few bitterly cold days ahead. Denmark doesn't get warm and stay warm until around mid-May... which is when we'll be leaving. (On a different note: CAN YOU BELIEVE THERE ARE ONLY TWO WEEKS LEFT TO THE SEMESTER? I can't even think about it. Nope. Not happening.)
But, to tell the truth, I wouldn't trade my spring semester for a fall one even if I had the chance. Though it might have been nice to enjoy more sun and to see Copenhagen in summer at the end of August, the daylight would have grown shorter and the weather colder each day. I enjoyed watching the city slowly bloom -- witnessing the Danes (and my fellow American students and I) crawl out of hibernation and finally leave the house to enjoy the sun. If I've learned anything, though, it's this: winter, spring or summer, Copenhagen is beautiful in all weather.