Denmark 2018 - A Spontaneous Journey

Hotel laundry service is so expensive…

In early 2018 I was visiting a software vendor in Paris for some feedback workshops. I had been hard on the road across Europe for about twelve days and was rapidly running out of clothes. When I called the front desk to inquire as to laundry prices, and provided my ‘laundry list’ of clothes, the concierge informed me that the price to clean my wardrobe was roughly 250EUR or around $300USD.

I was so awestruck, I simply hung up the phone and fell flat on my bed. After the shock wore off, I pulled out my phone and started looking at flights to Copenhagen. Why Denmark? My aunt, Christina, lives there with her husband Carsten and wonderful daughter Helena. We had not seen each other in a very long time and I realized that I could probably get round-trip tickets from Paris to Copenhagen (and hotel) for less than the cost of doing my hotel laundry. I did just that, hoping that my aunt would let me use her washer!

Less than a day later, we were calling my parents on FaceTime to surprise them from Christina’s couch. We had an incredible weekend visiting castles, getting early-morning breakfast at the bakeries, and catching up. Helena was doing very well in school and Carsten explained to me the ‘let them fail’ philosophy of her school. I could tell right away that she was a completely fearless child with incredible potential.