one lost passport, two chore coats, and three bonus countries
everything I wore, bought, and (over)thought on my honeymoon
In August of 2023, I met up with my husband at the end of a work trip to Norway, and spent a couple days in Copenhagen before coming home. I knew I wanted to go back there for a true vacation, so I bumped it to the top of the list for our (long-delayed) honeymoon consideration. I spent months compiling recommendations, searching through screenshots and other people’s saved places on Google Maps. I made a spreadsheet with all the museums I wanted to visit, restaurants I wanted to eat at, vintage stores I wanted to browse. I hope I can go back again at some point in the future (that’s how much I loved it), but if I never do, I know I made the most of this trip! The original plan was to spend a week in Copenhagen and a few days in Berlin.
WHAT I PACKED
This should be self-explanatory, but just so there’s no confusion… the items with the xes are what I didn’t wear. I kept opting out of the two button-up shirts because they felt too formal; the striped long-sleeve shirt wasn’t as cropped as I had remembered and felt too sloppy paired with any of the pants I had packed. I didn’t wear the swimsuits because we didn’t go to a sauna. (The fact that I packed an extra swimsuit top is driving me crazy. Why?) I ended up wearing all of the shoes I brought only because our plans changed—I could have gotten away with just a pair of sneakers and boots and wouldn’t have missed the other two pairs. Other than that, not too bad! I packed with the expectation that I would wash my shirts after one wear and my pants after a couple of wears (laundry ended up being trickier than I had accounted for, due to said change in itinerary). The leather jacket was perfect (oversized enough, can be fancy or casual, rain-resistant) and I’m glad I only brought that one piece of outerwear (showing admirable restraint).
WHAT I WORE
I think this is every outfit from the trip. You may notice a couple items in these outfits that were not on my packing list…
WHAT I BOUGHT
Explanations to come!
FRIDAY & SATURDAY
We left on a Friday afternoon and landed around 6:00 AM on Saturday in Copenhagen—the weird timing meant no sleep on the plane. (I don’t have that gene anyway, but I imagine it’s lovely to be able to do that.) For the plane, I wore my chunkiest shoes (Loeffler Randall boots my friend Anna gave me earlier this year), bulkiest clothing item (sweater vest), and softest pair of pants (rented Tibi, nominally referred to as ‘jeans’). I’m also wearing a men’s white t-shirt from Uniqlo that I bought the day before we left.
I’d been checking the weather incessantly for the month prior (beautiful and sunny, consistently) but it took a dark and stormy turn (pouring rain and 50 mph winds) just as we arrived. We couldn’t check in until 1:00 PM, and any thoughts of sauna-ing or posting up in a park with our luggage were dashed, so we just… rented a car and sat in it for a few hours with the hazards on lol. I got breakfast at Atelier Septembre while my husband slept, then sat in the passenger seat as the rain pummeled the car, thinking what have I done. (I don’t mind the rain, but most people, including my husband, vastly prefer warm, sunny weather on vacation!)
That evening we ate at Bæst, a restaurant known for its sourdough pizza and homemade meats and cheeses. Maybe this is a Europe thing (or a Denmark thing or a Copenhagen thing), but most restaurants had and highly encouraged doing a prix fixe meal of sorts, which we opted into that evening. Love to outsource a decision whenever possible! For dinner, I changed into my Needles corduroy pants, vintage Norway sweatshirt, and kept the boots.
SUNDAY
This was my least favorite outfit of the entire trip. I really like the fit and color scheme of this sweater vest, but I just can’t bear how dumb the words on it are… why am I walking around in a vest that says “HIPPIES WERE RIGHT”?! “COMMUNITY OF LOVE”?! What does that even mean, divorced from context and woven into a wool/cashmere-blend sweater vest I bought on sale from Rent the Runway? Anyway. I’m selling it, if anyone’s interested. I also don’t like how cropped these jeans are (DL1961, originally rented), even though I love everything else about them.
We walked up the spiral of the Round Tower, a very old observatory still in use today, then through the King’s Garden park to Rosenborg Castle. (I decided that if I am ever as wealthy as royalty, I, too, will commission many portraits of my many dogs.) I popped into a couple of underwhelming vintage stores (will name names if you want them). That evening, we went to a soccer game. The boots continued to serve me well—we walked almost eight miles in the rain and my feet remained comfortable and dry.
MONDAY
Wore my corduroys and the Uniqlo t-shirt again, along with Nike Blazers and a thrifted Burberry wool vest I got in Florida earlier this year. I tried out another bakery, Hart, in hopes of turning myself into a morning pastry person, but I just don’t think I will ever want to start the day with a baked good, no matter how delicious they are! Upon arriving at the Danish Architecture Center, we were told that it was World Architecture Day and admission was free. There, I learned that one of Denmark’s distinctive light fixture styles came about because of blackout restrictions during World War II—they wanted to keep their amusement park open, and needed a way to light it that was invisible from above.
After that, we stopped at Sømods Bolcher, a candy shop and factory that has been family-owned and operated since 1891, and a few more vintage stores: Wasteland, Decades, and Episode. At Episode, we each bought a chore coat (German, not French, as I later discovered) and my husband bought a pair of overalls exactly like these. They look so cool on him! That evening, we biked to a restaurant called Cleo and had oysters topped with watermelon and fermented chili.
TUESDAY
I left my husband sleeping and set out in a pair of Tibi jeans (acquired via the rent-to-buy pipeline), my Norway sweatshirt, and my boots to get an iced Americano on my way to the Museum of Danish Resistance, which ended up being one of the most memorable experiences of this trip. It’s not necessarily a Holocaust museum—it assumes a level of familiarity, and doesn’t explore what happened in the concentration camps—but more so a chronicle of how ordinary people responded when their government was overtaken by a fascist power. (Hmm.) More than 90% (figures range from 95% to 99%, so I’m being conservative here) of Denmark’s Jews survived World War II, most of them by being smuggled out of Denmark and into Sweden on fishing boats. Several things from this museum struck me: how resistance operated on all levels, from official coordination with Allied forces to a group of teenage boys who delighted in destroying and sabotaging Nazi equipment (even after they were imprisoned! they snuck out of their cells at night to continue their efforts!), but also how quickly everyone returned to normal.
At the end, there were audio recordings of farewell letters written by Danish Resistance members hours before they were executed, addressed to friends and family members. The museum is dark, with different sections and alcoves, and I was able to sit alone and listen to each clip in its entirety. There is a direct throughline from the calmness and clarity in those letters and the messages we have received from those who have attempted to enter Gaza via flotilla. A de-centering of the self, a moral certitude, the attitude that they would do it all over again in a heartbeat.
After I emerged, we met up at the cafe in the Designmuseum and split a canelé before walking down the street to the Medical Museum. This was not my favorite museum—lots of potential, but lacked context and organization. (I am now a professional museum critic after this trip, FYI.) We parted ways again so my husband could get some work done, and I went shopping, with the intention of mainly browsing. My first stop was Storm, a boutique whose curation I’d admired the last time I was in Copenhagen. Lo and behold, they had the exact pair of Salomons I’d been eyeing, and I decided to try them on, just for sizing purposes. You can guess what happened. I have barely taken them off since I got them.
(And yes, it does not escape me that I spent the morning absorbed in historical resistance efforts against fascism and spent the afternoon enjoying a pastry and shopping!! Such is travel, such is life!! May we all be so lucky as to deeply contemplate the past and indulge in more frivolous pursuits.)
We walked to a restaurant (Les Trois Cochons) close to the apartment for dinner and had the best French fries I’ve had maybe all year. And I made my offer: would my husband like to shift the rest of our trip to leave Copenhagen a day early, skip Berlin, and go somewhere where the weather was more to his liking? After consideration involving weather forecasts, ticket prices, and the fact that we’d still need to fly out of Berlin, we landed on Nice.
WEDNESDAY
We had breakfast near the apartment at Mad & Kaffe (basically breakfast tapas, which is the perfect way to eat breakfast). After that, we drove to the Louisiana Museum, which is not named after the state, but rather the three wives of the original estate owner, who were all named Louise. There were several large exhibits there, including a retrospective of Kaari Upson, a fascinating multimedia artist who died of breast cancer at 51 in 2021. There was also a large exhibit dedicated to the ongoing Google Street View screenshots of Jon Rafman, a man I don’t imagine I’d enjoy meeting but whose work does make me think about consent, ownership, and beauty. I bought a grey t-shirt with ‘LOUISIANA’ printed all over, then realized it smelled weird (new-weird, not bad, but strong enough that I wouldn’t be able to wear it until I washed it). I don’t know if I would have bought it if I’d realized that, but I’ve already worn it since we’ve been home, so it will get some use!
When we got back to the city, I gave myself license to do a little shopping for our warm-weather detour. I ended up with a striped blue button-up, a faded black ringer tee, and black cotton poplin pants from a store called Boii Studios, which felt very Instagram brand-ish but had reasonable prices and decent fabrications (everything I bought was 100% cotton, and I believe I spent under $150). In hopes of finding flip-flops, I went to a department store (Magasin du Nord) whose online stock checker promised several pairs of Havaianas to choose from that were nowhere to be found. In a moment of weakness there, I bought a black one-piece swimsuit and a cobalt blue HAY tote bag. I’ll use them both, but I didn’t need to buy them. Later that evening we walked to a bar called Lidkoeb, which is housed in a former pharmaceutical factory.
THURSDAY
This was our last day in Copenhagen. I wore my new t-shirt and tote bag and squeezed another wear out of my Tibi jeans. We drove1 to the Maritime Museum, which is about an hour outside of the city. Every museum we went to on this trip was heavily invested in providing an immersive experience—lots of audio components, and exhibits that corresponded to the scale and feel of the content—and this one was no exception. Also, the cafe was strategically (brilliantly!) positioned halfway through the museum.
Afterwards, we walked to Kronborg Castle, which is apparently the castle that Elsinore in Hamlet was based on2, for a self-guided tour. It was unusually empty—we barely saw any other visitors the entire time we were inside. About halfway through, a woman who worked there passed by us and asked, “Do you want to see something secret?”
I answered with an emphatic yes before she even finished her question. She took us down a locked hallway to the area where the ladies-in-waiting were kept the night before big events (bars on the windows so they couldn’t sneak out to fraternize with the men!), then showed us a hidden toilet, and finally led us through some other locked doors and staircases up to the attic.
On the way back, I did some dinner research and decided on a seafood restaurant called Iluka. I changed into my Miami Heat sweatshirt, corduroy pants, and boots and we biked there in the rain. Enjoyed almost everything, took note of the beautifully mismatched dinnerware as well as the seashell serving as a butter dish!
FRIDAY & SATURDAY
This is where the rest of the trip sort of went off the rails, plan-wise… just know that I had a lot of fun even though none of it was what I was expecting to do! We flew to Nice, and as we waited for our suitcases at baggage claim, my husband said, “Okay, hear me out…” The proposition: instead of spending the rest of the trip in France, what if we spent one night in Cannes, then drove a rental car through Italy and Switzerland over the next couple of days, then flew to Berlin to catch our original flight home? Sure.
I changed into my newly acquired button-up and pants in the parking lot, switched out my sneakers for loafers (not ideal for the beach, but the most ideal of all my options), and we met up with a friend and spent about thirty minutes on an admittedly beautiful beach in Cannes.
That evening, I ordered our dinner en français, and tried winkles (very small sea snails that you extract from their shell with a pin) pour la première fois—not my favorite! The next morning, we were informed that it would be ludicrously expensive to drive the rental car into Italy, so the plans shifted yet again. We returned the car and took two other trains through France and Italy, ending up in Milan around 10pm—just in time for a late dinner! The restaurant wasn’t my favorite, but I did try (and loved) Chinotto, which is a popular Italian soda made from myrtle-leaved orange trees.
SUNDAY
We left Milan the next morning and took a train to Zurich, where we had about eight hours to explore before our flight to Berlin that evening. Most shops were closed, but the Design Museum was open, and I was more than happy to spend a couple hours there. The main exhibit was an experiential showcase (Europeans love experiential museums!!) of the work of Susanne Bartsch, a Swiss-born New York City nineties nightlife icon, with flamboyant and intricately constructed outfits from her and her numerous protégées. I bought a t-shirt at the gift shop that read “everyday design” across the arms (you’ll see it below) so that I’d have one more clean t-shirt to get me to the end of the trip. Late that evening, we flew to Berlin, and I lost my navy beanie (RIP) on the subway to our hotel.
MONDAY
Woke up in Berlin with one full day to explore before returning home. Time to make the most of twenty-four hours! This was my first time in Berlin, and it felt a bit like New York in that the subways had a level of grime that I am accustomed to (I say this with immense fondness for both New York and Berlin). I wore my Design Museum t-shirt (which, unlike the Louisiana Museum t-shirt, smelled fine and was ready to wear) and GAP barrel leg pants that I hadn’t yet worn on this trip.
We walked to Annelies for breakfast (a sturdily constructed stack of pancakes and scrambled eggs on toast) then to the DDR Museum (DDR stands for the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, aka East Germany, which was established in 1949 and lasted until German reunification in 1990). Another experiential museum! We started at the wrong end, however, and I mostly absorbed information without the necessary context (not the museum’s fault). From there, we walked to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. (More thoughts about that in the footnote if you are curious…3) After that, we walked to the Brandenburg Gate and read about what it was like when the Berlin Wall fell (did not know until I was an adult that we were using the word ‘fall’ metaphorically… I always just pictured it crumbling…), then past the Reichstag Building.
We split up so that I could go check out some vintage shops (Not Too Sweet, Spatz, and Sing Blackbird… thank you
for the recs!) and I ended up buying two shirts at Sing Blackbird: a crisp, textured Anne Fontaine button-up and a perfectly worn-in Adidas ringer t-shirt. For dinner, we met back up at a cozy pub called St. Bart, and walked through the decommissioned airport in the middle of the city on our way back to the hotel.
TUESDAY
Time to come home! About ten minutes before we landed at JFK, I realized that I’d left my little crossbody bag containing my passport, wallet, and journal (in which I had faithfully documented every day of the trip) on a bathroom stall hook in the Berlin airport. It was a surreal experience in this political climate to encounter hardly any friction going through customs sans identification, not even a metaphorical slap on the wrist—an odd homecoming that underscored the absurdity of borders and the selective theater of enforcement.
Several days later, I received a text from a mysterious number (it was Delta) that read, “We’ve located an item closely matching your lost item. To arrange for its return, visit —.” My bag, contents intact and undisturbed, arrived at my doorstep less than a week later. A happy ending.
For more detailed recs and non-recs for Copenhagen, feel free to message me! It is the perfect city for anyone who likes museums, public transit, and has never honked their car horn (me).
I say ‘we drove,’ but if the driving is taking place in a foreign country, it is never me who is driving…
(I am a philistine who has never enjoyed reading Shakespeare save for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, so that didn’t really matter to me, but it seems to be a big draw!)
This memorial was purposefully designed to be abstract, but after protest when the initial designs were released, its architect conceded to adding the underground museum. (For more context, read this.) However, while the memorial is open 24/7, the museum is not, and while I obviously know the context, I found myself wishing I could access what was intended as a companion piece. I appreciated the disorientation caused by the undulating ground and uneven heights of the concrete stelae, but if I were in charge… I think a better way of illustrating the incomprehensible scale and magnitude of the Holocaust would have been to add stories, facts, statistics, in all different languages, to each of the stelae—the impossibility of taking in all of that information might feel just as meaningful. (In addition to museum criticism, I am now a memorial critic as well… I did order and am now reading a used copy of this book, which is fascinating so far!)
Wow if this isn’t case for cobalt blue!!!!!! 😍😍😍😍
Oh, my gosh, what an adventure, Eleanor! I would never have been able to switch my itinerary mid-trip (I have a lot of travel anxiety and need to have all the details Locked Down), but kudos to you for doing it! I love your cobalt blue toque and the new Anne Fontaine shirt!
What a relief to get your bag back! 💕
Thanks so much for letting us travel vicariously with you…and also for this ginormous newsletter. I know how much work this is.