Amazing journey to Denmark

Monday 16th of January

In the night between 15th and 16th of January, we left to Denmark. It wasn’t a problem, because we were looking forward to the journey so much. We arrived at 8.00 to Copenhagen and it was time to look for some nice breakfast place and we found it. We ate big breakfast plates, because everyone of us was terribly hungry. When we were full, we left to search culture places by bus. At first we went to Christianshavn. It was interesting place and quite different from what I expected. We took photos a lot because the sun appeared. Weather reminded spring weather and it had cheery effect. The journey continued to center where we diverged to smaller groups. I went to Nyhavn with Sara and then was shopping time. After couple hours we met again in central railway station and took our bags from the safety box. We took a train to Humlebaek where we were next two days. Garba Diallo, from Crossing Borders came to pick us from railway station and he took us to our cottage. We rested a while and then was time to find something to eat. We went to pizza place and after that to grocery. When we arrived back to our cottage we were totally tired so we fell asleep immediately. It was really nice day!

Tuesday 17th of January

Today we had a seminar. A taxi picked us at ten o’clock so we got to sleep for long in the morning and I think that we all needed it. There were groups from many countries for example from Sweden, Denmark (of course) and Ghana. Altogether from over 9 countries.

This caused me quite a lot of problems because the English was spoken in so many different ways. Anyway, I survived that. In seminar had many interesting parts from specialist. Sofia introduced our project, someone talked about eco-cleaning, Garba explained about Crossing Borders and Candela described about Perma-culture and its meaning. I think that I liked that the most even if I liked everything. We also made groups where we talked about eco-inventions. We came up with plenty of ideas!

After the seminar we walked from seminar place to Humlebaek’s modern art museum with other groups. Then we went to eat and watch the film named Bugs to nearby “school” (you’ll go there for example then if you don’t know what to do after high school). Reetta, Lotta and Sofia were so brave, that they tasted bugs after the movie (director of the film had bugs with him).

I think bugs are only sickening!

We were back at cottage at 22.45 in the evening. We spent awhile talking about the day in a living room and then was time to go to sleep.

Wednesday 18th of January

Last day and traveling day!

We went to local eco high school where the students told us about their ecoprojects. They took for example rain water from the roof to the tanks and they had solar panels on the roof. They also calculated how much the school causes paper waste. I don’t even remember all ecological things what they used there. We took some ideas to our head that we can also use these in our school. Their teacher made the round with us on the school after the meeting with students. When we were ready, we left to same place where the seminar was. We ate there very good pestopasta. I loved it!

We left to Copenhagen’s airport by train in afternoon. We had to change to metro during the trip. The airplane left at 20.30 so we spent time on the airport. The evening (and night) was long and tiring and we were at home 3.00 in night, but the whole journey was worth it!

-Alise

Should I have to summarize our 3-day trip into one word, it would definitely be inspiring. In such a short time I gained new ideas, heard motivational stories and of course – learned a lot. Copenhagen alone was a city worth seeing with its impressive amount of bikes and cycling routes, lovely architecture and countless interesting places to see. The best part though was obviously the people.

On Tuesday we had a workshop on empowering eco-entrepreneurship start-ups. Of the day two things have especially been on my mind – Candela Vargas’s workshop on permaculture and all the wonderful stories people had to share. We heard stories from people who’d planted trees alongside roads, people who wanted to have their own ecological enterprise – like making slippers from recycled materials – but also from people who had already done that – one man told us a story about how he had started his own ecological cleaning company. It’s really inspiring and motivating to hear about other people’s dreams, passions and successes.

The permaculture workshop was about how to take action and create new things and culture in a sustainable way. Among many she talked about observing and interacting, catching and storing energy and obtaining a yield. While permaculture as its original form refers to agriculture, the knowledge gained from this workshop can be used in any project, and I’ll sure apply it in the future.

The learning didn’t even stop after the workshop was done, since we visited the local folk high school. There we had the chance to see the film The Bugs with the director of the film answering questions afterwards. We even got a possibility to taste an ant – not something you do every day in today’s westernized countries.

On Wednesday we visited the local high school. There we met students from their CO₂ -committee, whose purpose is to make the school as CO₂-neutral and energy-efficient as possible. What they have done is very impressive – ranging from switching to more environmentally friendly lamps to installing solar panels and collecting rain water. I’d love to – and believe – to see something similar in Finland in the near future.

All in one, the trip was definitely a very positive experience with all the amazing and kind people, useful knowledge and new experiences.

- Reetta


First of all the journey was amazing. It was really well organised. It was nice that the first day after travelling all night was not so tightly scheduled. I especially liked about the tour to the Christiania. I would really love that in Tampere we could also build our houses more freely because the wiew would be more abstract and original. I think someday I would like to go back to the Copenhagen because it would be great to visit in Tivoli.

Garba Diallo was so nice to us during our trip. It was nice that he had time to take us always where we needed to be . Also the little house he organized to us was really lovely. He was really good host.

On our second day we had that meeting (don’t know what else to call it in english). It was really inspiring how people started from so little (like Erik from the ecological cleaning company) and end up with a company. Many people can have an idea but only a few people really do something for to it. Thats why it was amazing that there were so many people had changed from words to actions.

The workshops were intresting because I had an opportunity to share my thoughts and ideas. It was of course great to hear other people lifestories and ideas. When the young women (for some reason I can’t remember her name) kept her speech it was little bit sad that my english were not good enough to understand everything because she had really intresting topic.

After the meeting when we went to Luisiana museum of modern arts. I was really excited because I really love arts. The museum was really intresting because there were so differend kind of artists but at the same time they blend well together. I wish we would have had little more time than a hour.

Maybe the best part of the trip was visiting in the ecological upper secondary school. I thought always that being an ecological school would be really hard but after I saw what they had achieved with their students it kind of gave me hope that it really could be possible to our school too.

After all I think it would have been great if we had had little more time on our trip.

Sara