While studying abroad in Copenhagen last year, I always said the hardest thing to get used to was grocery shopping.

Stepping into that grocery store was intimidating, to say the least. It’s hard enough that everything is in a different language, but the types of products, arrangement, pricing, and even social interaction that takes place in the grocery store are so radically different that, despite how much I’ve traveled, foreign grocery stores still make me pause with foreign unease.

It wasn’t just Copenhagen, either. In fact, grocery shopping in Tokyo was much more difficult, for obvious linguistic reasons. But on the other end of the spectrum, even visiting a convenience store in London, or closer to home, even New York City can be a shockingly unfamiliar experience for someone like myself, who’s grown up in rural America and moved to Washington, D.C.–a city that is, well, remarkably unique. Sure, there’s no language barrier, but there’s still that odd feeling of unfamiliarity. I remember the first time I walked into a Duane Reade–it felt exactly like walking into a 7-eleven in Japan, a Netto in Copenhagen, or a Sainsbury’s in London.

Now the only reason I write all this is because this morning I got that very same feeling walking into a Rite-Aid here in Crystal City.

I walked in and was suddenly stunned by that odd feeling of out-of-place-ness. That feeling you get when you go in a place that you expect to feel comfortable, normal, and consistent, but instead are confronted with an environment radically different from your own–like walking into a foreign grocery store.

There’s nothing particularly remarkable about this Rite-Aid that I can pin this feeling on. The products were the same, the prices no different. Even the layout was remarkably similar to most of the CVS’s and Rite-Aids around the District. Perhaps it was my mood, my state of mind at the time, or my imagination still lost in the book I was reading on the metro.

There’s really not all that much I have to say tonight. In general, I try to restrain from posting entries that don’t have a focus, or an idea really pushing them forward. To me, I feel like writing about my everyday life is–while not necessarily mundane–just a repeat of what you can see on Twitter (@alexpriest) and Facebook.

That said, I felt the need to say something about just how amazing it is to bike in the rain.

So how amazing is it? Really, really amazing.

My love affair with biking in the rain began in Copenhagen and well, it started out as a love/hate relationship. Sure, it felt kind of nice in September 2009, but as soon as it started getting colder (ya know, like the third week of September…) it wasn’t quite as nice. And sometimes it just wasn’t convenient to get all wet whenever I needed to be somewhere and, well, look decent.

But I soon got over that. After biking in Copenhagen for a few weeks, you get used to the rain and the clouds and biking in the dark on winding city streets. You get used to wearing water-resistant clothing and drying out quickly (even using bathroom hand dryers, if absolutely necessary!). And you get used to everyone else being soggy and out of breath from pedaling through the storm, too. It’s just part of life.

Once I got past that, I started to realize just how beautiful a city can be in a rain storm. It’s not always about the sun, or blue skies, or being able to see miles and miles. Sometimes it’s nice to just appreciate the calm and the overwhelming monotony of the rain, drowning out traffic noise, voices, trains, planes, you name it. Sometimes it’s nice to bike along and get absolutely soaked, like I did today, and just enjoy it. You learn to let go and get over it, realizing that there are so many worse conditions to be in than soggy.

Read more »

I love my bicycle (see right). Last summer, I began to bike considerably more than I ever had growing up, and I loved it. I biked almost every day, and even ventured out to bike the entire Mt. Vernon Trail one weekend (quite an adventure for me, anyway–I’m still a beginner!). Bicycling in DC is surprisingly easy, actually, and it’s a shame more people don’t use it as their primary form of transportation. Sure, the city has its hills… like Capitol Hill, and the hill I live on (the largest in the city, actually), but they’re manageable. And the city’s done a surprisingly good job of making it easy for you to take your bike on the metrorail (any time except rush hour) and on metrobuses (anytime you want, there are racks on the front of every bus).

Studying abroad last fall in Copenhagen, I continued my bicycling habit, purchasing a used bike there and using it almost exclusively for my transit around the city–along with the other 60% of Copenhageners who ride bicycles regularly, and 30%+ who commute by bike every single day. In Denmark, bicycle is actually spelled bycykel, which literally translates to “city bike.” It was there I learned about one of my favorite blogs, Copenhagenize (and they’re on Twitter: @copenhagenize).

This past semester I continued biking back here in DC, despite the snowpocalypse, snom attack, and snowverkill. In the past two days, my bicycling has picked up significantly now that I’m working out in Arlington. The choice is pretty simple–I can spend over an hour and $6-8 per day (especially with today’s fare hike announcement)… or I can spend 30 relaxing, healthy, active minutes on my bicycle to get to work.

So why aren’t there more of us out there biking on all these beautiful summer days? I’ll admit I’ve noticed more people on bikes this spring and summer than I remember seeing last year, but we’ve got a long way to go to catch up with Copenhagen. Let’s Copenhagenize DC! Let’s turn this into a bike city. We’re already the fittest city in the nation, so why not really earn that title?

Do you bike? How often? Where to? If not, why not? Do you have any questions about biking in DC? Ask me!

And now trust me, I’m not a hardcore bicyclist. I don’t have a fancy bike uniform, a super-expensive bike, and I’m not one of those people who wakes up at 4am so I can bike 60 miles before work every day. I’m your pretty average kid, who just happens to enjoy riding his bike to work.

Anyway, I’ll leave you with some of my favorite sites for bicycling and public transit in DC–check them out, bookmark them, add them to your RSS feed. You won’t regret it!

• Greater Greater Washington – one of the best transit and bicycling sites in DC, hands down. There is no better source for news on public transit, WMATA failings, and ways to make DC a greater city. They’re also on twitter @ggwash.
• Washington Area Bicyclist Association – pretty much the official source for all things bicycling in DC (but also more geared towards the fancy bicycling pros).
• Bike Washington – the absolute best resource for trails, routes, and almost everything else you could need to bike Washington, DC; definitely visit this site to get an idea for what all is out there!
• Hudson Trail Outfitters – probably my favorite Washington-area sporting goods store, they seem to have some of the most reasonable prices on bikes and bicycle accessories in the city (not that they’re cheap!). They also do full-service tune-ups, repairs, and have a pretty friendly staff.

It’s good to be back.

As I’ve said many times before, Copenhagen was a wonderful experience, but I did miss Washington, D.C., and I missed my friends here more than anything. Today’s been a busy day of reuniting with many of those friends.

For lunch, I met up with several friends in Dupont Circle. We ate quickly, but we must’ve sat and talked for over an hour. Also today was our first chapter meeting of the semester (for my professional business fraternity, Alpha Kappa Psi), and my first chapter meeting since last May, over eight months ago. It’s hard to believe it’s been so long. I saw a lot of the familiar faces–including my little, who sometimes seems like she really could be related to me–as well as a lot of new ones. Since I’ve been gone there’s been an entirely new class of brothers to enter the fraternity and it’s great meeting them as well. Also, my little took a little of her own, making her my grandlittle, and it was amazing to finally meet her in person!

Finally, I spent a little time tonight just hanging out with some of my best friends from this past summer. Even playing Wii with them seems almost foreign, since it’s been almost six months since I’ve held a controller.

Tomorrow is the first day of classes and boy is it a busy first day for me. This semester I’m taking 18 credit hours–six classes worth–and I have five of those classes on Mondays. In some ways I’m dreading the work, but for the most part I’m kind of excited. The classes I have this semester seem interesting, and should make for some interesting lessons and reading. For what it’s worth, they include:

• Public Speaking (probably the one I’m the most excited about)
• Public Relations Writing
• Principles of Organizational Behavior and Management
• Intermediate Statistics (not dreading it, but I know it will probably require the most effort on my part)
• Competition in an Interdependent World (my last general education requirement!)
• Media and the American Mind (an honors colloquium–i.e. special topics–course, should be absolutely fascinating)

I start my internship on Tuesday. Expect a pretty decent blog post on that Tuesday night. I’ve held off talking about it too much just because, to be honest, I don’t really know what to expect. It’s a pretty prestigious internship and I’ve been incredibly lucky to receive this opportunity. I know it’s going to be a great experience, but I want to have some firsthand knowledge before I go into much detail here on the blog. Might need to add a little disclaimer, too–”none of the opinions expressed on this blog are representative of my employer nor it’s clients”.

It’s good to be back. Now time to get to work and kick this semester into gear.

That is, from Washington, D.C., capital of the United States of America, to Copenhagen, capital of Denmark, and back.

And really, it’s kind of like from capital (D.C.) to capital (Copenhagen) to capital (London) to capital (Copenhagen) to capital (Stockholm, Sweden) to capital (Helsinki, Finland) to capital (Brussels, Belgium) to capital (Paris, France) to capital (Dublin, Ireland)… and well, you get the point.

It’s been a long journey. And a fun, exciting, exhilarating one. But one I’ll certainly never regret, nor ever forget.

As we drove down Interstate 66 on Saturday morning, coming up into the District, I began to get that sort of rush that I usually get when I make my way into a big city. If you’re from a big city you won’t understand it, but after spending my entire childhood in a small town, it’s a totally different experience. When you see the lanes widen, the traffic thicken, and the city skyline appear off in the distance, your heart starts beating faster, your mind races, you think of all the potential and opportunity and excitement a city offers that you just can’t really get in rural America (most of the time).

I got that feeling when I arrived in Copenhagen for the first time, too, but it vanished pretty quickly. By the end, Copenhagen began feeling more like the medium-sized city it really is. It’s a fine, fantastic city, but to me at least, it still doesn’t quite match the grand manner-style sheer power that a city like Washington, D.C., New York City, or even London exudes.

Being back in D.C. is a surreal feeling. In some ways, it feels like just yesterday that I was leaving to study abroad. In others, it feels like it’s been years since I’ve stepped foot in the city. The differences between D.C. and Copenhagen are remarkable: people are friendlier here, drivers more aggressive, stores bigger, sidewalks more crowded, bikes totally absent.

The food is better.

In many ways, I even think D.C. is a cleaner city. There’s less graffiti, no glass in the sidewalks (one of the advantages of open-container laws), and less run-down buildings–especially in my neighborhood (northwest D.C.).

It’s younger: a baby-aged city when compared to Copenhagen’s 1000+ year history. But despite it’s young age, I’m in awe of the history that has transpired here. The documents enclosed in our museums; the histories transcribed in our archives; the art, science and knowledge held in our museum vaults — they never cease to amaze me. Copenhagen’s history is fascinating in it’s own right, but it’s ancient history. Modern Danish events lack the passion and excitement of American history. In many ways they’ve moved slowly through the past century, changing passively only in reaction to the world around them, whereas the U.S.–while not always first–changes rapidly, dramatically and often only after fierce debate and struggle.

I’m not saying either one is better than the other–just observations.

The politics–oh the politics. It’s hard to draw a more radical comparison than Copenhagen and Washington. Washington is full of fiery debate, heated rhetoric, flaming insults and scandal. Copenhagen is… silent. Politics seem almost an afterthought in a city that is focused on living “happily”, enjoying their “hygge” and consuming copious amounts of alcohol. It’s not, really–politics play a key role in Copenhagen just as they do in any capital city–it’s just quieter. Changes are less dramatic (for the most part) and less controversial. With a strictly consensus-based political system, and seven political parties that lay incredibly close to each other on the political spectrum, people simply agree more in Denmark.

I’ll be honest, it didn’t get my blood flowing like politics here in D.C. do. One evening at the birthday party of my good friend Laura Bryson (who is starting an excellent blog as part of her New Year’s resolutions), for example, a fellow DIS student and I argued American politics for well over three hours. It was a heated, yet civil, debate, and ridiculous fun. In stark contrast, the most heated debates I’ve seen over Danish politics regard their immigration policy. Even there, most debates end with one side simply being labeled racist and the other “demanding” reform. Feebly.

I learned a lot in Copenhagen. I experienced a country that only a lucky few get to experience. I opted for an experience a little outside the norm, something more out of the way and unexpected than London, Paris, Madrid, Tokyo or Beijing. Denmark is a fascinating little country and Copenhagen is a fascinating little city. It’s got a lot to love (especially if you can get past the terrible weather). It’s not perfect, and to be honest I can’t see myself ever living there, but it was a fantastic experience.

I’m going to miss it.

But D.C. is just another adventure. I’ve lived here for two years already, but I am far, far from scratching the surface of what the city has to offer. Tack this on for another New Year’s resolution: I pledge to experience this city like I experienced Copenhagen. I will take advantage of all it has to offer at every possible opportunity. I want to know the people, the streets, the neighborhoods, the museums and libraries. The events, festivals, restaurants, bars and clubs. I want to see it from every perspective in every season. I want to learn its history and its hidden gems.

I’m glad to be back. Here’s to a great semester. Skål!