vivi torontali

Not caught up? Read Episodes 1-18 here.

It feels like it’s been one day but also a million years since I published my last post. As they say, time flies when you’re having fun. The past twelve days have been an absolute whirlwind– I struggled to balance having guests and being social, working, keeping up with my Danish classes, and getting my required eleven hours of beauty sleep each night. While I’ve had so much fun this past week, I’ve never been more tired.

As I mentioned in Episode 17: The herd is together!, some old friends from my exchange semester in New Zealand came to visit me. I met more Europeans than New Zealanders there, and unfortunately I haven’t seen any of them since last June. As luck would have it, I am one of five people from exchange living in Denmark these days. Two of my close friends, Mo and Sofie, with whom I spent two weeks in a van, planned a trip to visit me from Berlin, Germany, and Groningen, Netherlands, respectively. While a FlixBus is a surprisingly affordable way to travel, a one-way journey from Groningen to Copenhagen takes 13 hours. When Mo and Sofie arrived bright and early Tuesday morning, I put them straight to sleep. It was a nice quiet day for me, as they slept for six hours after the most torturous journey they’ve ever had to endure. I don’t say that lightly– six of us slept in a van from midnight to two in the morning, seated upright, while I did some crazy contortionism in the driver’s seat, all before pulling off the most excruciating seven hour hike we’ve ever done. This 13-hour journey was worse, according to them. We meant to do some touristing around Copenhagen that first day, but in the end I only took them around Ballerup, which is significantly less riveting. That evening I was subjected to the movie KPop Demon Hunters, and the songs are still stuck in my head to this day. I’m not sure if I’ll ever forgive them for that.

The next day after my morning shift at the café we went to see an art exhibition in the Nikolaj Kunsthal titled “Copenhagen–Berlin: Gateway to the World.” I hadn’t heard of the Nikolaj Kunsthal until Mo suggested it, saying there’s free admission on Wednesdays. After spending hours writing an itinerary for us and struggling to find free things to do, the Berliner is the one to come up with this brilliant idea. The exhibition features nine Danish artists currently living and working in Berlin. My favorite work from there is called “Vinyl-Terror & -Horror” by Stille Post (2025). It is a sculpture installation consisting of speakers that play a game of telephone with each other, each having its own physical and sonic character. The whole ‘performance’ is eight minutes long, and I was able to capture the whole thing on video. It’s a bit slow-paced and quiet at times, but it showcases the artist’s brilliance and perhaps also my unrelenting love for audio and anything creative that stems from it.

Another art museum we visited was the Statens Museum for Kunst (SMK). If you think this city can’t possibly have any more art museums to visit, think again– we passed maybe three on the way there from my work. The moment I stepped foot outside the café, I was soaked to the bone from the rain (see Episode 10: The Souper Soaker). It seems as though I have yet to get used to the weather around here. 

The SMK featured a couple of different exhibitions including “Surrealism on Paper” and all kinds of European art from 1300 to the present day. The museum felt like an endless expanse and there was so much to see but not enough time or brainpower to see it all. After standing for nearly seven hours at work and squishing water out of my shoes with every step, I often found myself sitting down and staring at a few paintings. One painting that all three of us were drawn to was “The Fall of the Titans” (1590) by Dutch painter Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem. There’s so much dynamic movement and incredible placement of lighting, not to mention the small butterflies that add an element of life to these men condemned to the pits of Tartarus. 

Some more lighthearted pieces I liked include “How Well We Go Together” (1628-1637) by Dutch painter Adriaen Pietersz van de Venne. It’s a painting of two old-timey owl best friends on old-timey ice skates, and it reminds me of my best friends whenever I look at it. Another fantastic work is “The Concert Hall” (1965) by Danish artist Peter Louis-Jensen, which depicts exactly what I’ve always visualized a symphony’s sound to look like. Last but certainly not least, “To Amuse the Dog” (1915) by Norwegian painter Per Krogh is a slightly abstract depiction of women running around followed by a very small and excitable dog. It makes me think of Nudli zooming around– my mom and I like to joke that amusing the dog is a full-time job.

After taking a bit of rest, it was time for a reunion with all our Denmark-based exchange friends (missing one, unfortunately). We went to an Irish pub called The Globe and shared highlights of our past year and a half. Everyone travelled around the world and had so many incredible stories to tell, it’s a shame we only had so many hours to chat. 

The last day was arguably the most fun. We started the day by plunging into the canals (see Episode 8: La Playa and Episode 11: On the right track). Well, I got coffee and filmed my friends jumping in. After the cold plunge we went touristing around the city. We went inside the Church of Our Savior, one of my favorite landmarks in Copenhagen. I’ve never gone in until that day, but I was always enchanted by the spiral stairs at the top. We also saw Frederik’s Church, though we didn’t go inside because there was a funeral going on at the time. Instead, we moved onto the royal palace Amalienborg, where we were able to see the changing of the guards, completely by chance. It was refreshing to be able to act as a tour guide while also seeing new things myself.

My mom gave a live cooking show to Mo and Sofie on their last night, and we had a lovely family dinner afterward. We invited Natasha over for drinks as well, and later on she, Mo, and my sister went dancing into the night. At four the next morning, Sofie went on her way to pull off another 13 hour journey back to Groningen, while Mo stuck around until 10am before heading off to Aarhus to visit another friend of ours. I was excited to catch up on some sleep and purge myself of the songs they got stuck in my head (“Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters, “Firework” by Katy Perry, etc.). As much as I could use the rest, I had so much to catch up on.

You’ve read so much about artwork I saw in the past week, but now is the time for you to read about all the art I’ve been creating. My gallery application is just about done, and I’m looking forward to attending the gallery’s grand opening on the 14th of November. Additionally, my Mt. Kilimanjaro drawing is coming along nicely. Drawing every 20 meter elevation ranging from 1300-5900 meters above sea level is quite possibly my greatest challenge to date, but it looks amazing so far. I was also finally able to start working on the café’s mosaic project. There’s nothing like taking out my pent-up aggression on some ceramic plates, it’s seriously so much fun. This past week I was able to do a bit of work for the new location, sanding down walls and building some IKEA drawers. Since I’ve been working on a YouTube series for the café, I’ve been gathering some footage, which luckily serves this blog well too.

In other news, my mom decided to start a business in nail tech. Immediately after posting my last episode in which I mentioned that my mom’s potential future boss has been ghosting her, she finally responded saying she won’t be teaching a nail course going forward. My mom was left high and dry and thus took matters into her own hands and earned some online certificates. She recently ordered some supplies to offer some free or discounted services while she’s still practicing so that she could build a portfolio and earn money later on. Sofie was her first test subject (she has some gorgeous nails, the lucky duck), and I look forward to being the next one. If anyone in the Copenhagen area is interested in being practiced on, please let me know– my mother is an incredibly talented woman. She’s also preparing for her first Danish exam in a few days, so please root for her!

Some last bits of news before I end this extra long blog post is that my pet spider, Pokey, passed away. He suddenly disappeared from my window one day and left his web abandoned. I thank you for your thoughts during this trying time, may Pokey rest in peace. Through the tragedy, I was able to make myself feel better by investing in a used espresso machine. It’s funny that my paycheck from my barista job goes toward funding an espresso machine for my apartment. Maybe it’s because I can’t get enough of the work, or perhaps I just have too high standards now that I work in specialty coffee. Either way, I’m still working on steaming the milk well enough to get decent latte art. We’re getting to know each other, it’s how any good relationship starts.

Even though things have been going quite well for me, it’s hard to stay detached from news from around the world, especially in my home country. I’m incredibly proud of anyone who peacefully participated in the No Kings protests. These “very small and very ineffective” nationwide protests of seven million total people clearly got under the king’s skin, so please keep it up. It makes me proud to know that although my family had to flee from this oligarchy, there are millions of people who have our backs and are willing to stand up against ICE and the oppressors in office, in incredibly cool and creative ways. My nationalism shines in times like these, especially because my hometown is all about that “no kings in America” spirit. If by some miracle a federal authority figure is reading this (weird choice in media but ok), I hope you know that if you mess with Boston, the Tea Party can and will happen again. Don’t f*** with Boston. 

Anyway, as always, I thank you for reading this bløg, it truly does mean a lot to me. One discussion I’ve had over this past week is “what would you do if you suddenly got retirement-level money?”, which would equate to about 2 million Euros (there was a lot of math involved in this conversation). Sometimes it feels like I’m writing to a brick wall, so if you can, comment either here or on my social media posts for this episode with your response. My answer: I’d pay off my student loans, make sure my parents could retire, and then invest the rest in a business. I’m excited to read your responses!