The Most Chaotic Weekend of My Life: Losing My Phone in Copenhagen and Surviving a Destination Wedding
What. The. Actual. heck.
The weekend I spent in Copenhagen, Denmark, was — without exaggeration — the most “Tina” weekend possible. If you’re new here and don’t know what that means, buckle up.
The Trip Starts… Tina Style
It’s Friday afternoon. I leave work in Berlin and head straight to the airport. My friend is getting married the next day in Copenhagen to her German fiancé. My phone is almost dead, but I decide to wait until I’m on the plane to charge it because planes always have USB outlets… right?
To this day, I still don’t know if all airplanes have them. What I do know is that the one near me didn’t work, and I was too excited about the trip to care. I figured I’d charge it later.
That decision aged like milk.
The flight was only 45 minutes. When I landed, I snapped a quick picture of the Copenhagen airport and opened WhatsApp to get the Airbnb address where my friends were staying. They had arrived a couple of hours earlier.
I hopped into a taxi, gave the driver the address, and he dropped me off at the location.
Except… I couldn’t find the Airbnb. Or my friends. Or anything that looked familiar. I reached for my phone to double‑check the address — and that’s when it hit me.
I had left my phone in the taxi while it was charging.
Lost in Copenhagen With No Phone and No Friends
I ran after the taxi, but he was long gone. And suddenly, I was officially lost in a foreign country, with no phone, no way to contact anyone, and absolutely no idea where I was supposed to be.
This is exactly what I mean by a “Tina weekend.”
I asked someone nearby for help and had them call a taxi to take me back to the airport so I could try to track down the taxi company and my phone.
I ended up being at the airport for five hours.
Five Hours of Chaos at the Copenhagen Airport
I tried logging into my online banking on a customer service computer to find the taxi transaction, but the security settings were so strict that I couldn’t get in. Thankfully, a very kind Danish woman helped me the entire time. She asked me to describe the area where I’d been dropped off and even gave me directions for taking the train to a few possible locations.
None of them worked.
So I went back to the airport and ate Burger King — my emotional support meal.
I tried to remember my boyfriend’s phone number or my friend’s number (the one getting married), but my brain was too overwhelmed to recall anything. It was almost funny: I was already living in Germany at the time, constantly confused by life there, and now I was in another foreign country, even more confused than usual. At least in Germany, I could speak a little of the language. Danish felt like a completely different universe.
The Breakthrough: Calling My Brother in Minnesota
After hours of trying to come up with a plan, I finally remembered my brother’s phone number back in Minnesota. Thank God it was still the same. He answered — though he admitted he almost didn’t because it was a random international number.
I asked him to find my boyfriend on Facebook, add him, ask for his number, call me back, and then give me the number so I could call my boyfriend and ask him to contact my friend in Copenhagen.
It was a whole chain reaction, but it worked. Bless my brother and my very patient boyfriend.
Once I finally got my friend’s number, I called her, got the address again, and made my way to the Airbnb. I arrived around 11 p.m.
And yes — I was the maid of honor.
The Wedding Weekend (Finally)
On Sunday, before flying back to Germany, a few wedding guests came with me to the Copenhagen police station to try to locate my phone. No luck. I flew home phoneless and kept calling the taxi company for days, but it never turned up. My boyfriend and I emailed each other until I could get a new phone.
Looking back, this trip makes me laugh so much. It was terrifying in the moment, but honestly, such a ridiculous, unforgettable story.
The beach wedding was beautiful. The Airbnb had bikes for everyone, so we spent the weekend riding around the city. I found the best Nutella ice cream of my life. And Danish people speak such good English that half the time I forgot I wasn’t talking to Americans.
I also gave a wedding toast while slightly tipsy and embarrassed myself — very on‑brand for me — but it was heartfelt and emotional and perfect in its own chaotic way.
I don’t have any photos because… well, the phone situation. But I hope you still enjoyed reading about my Copenhagen adventure.