| Airport Rush & Insightseeing™ | Finding Pockets of Peace at Copenhagen Airport
From rush to breath at Copenhagen Airport. A practice in finding presence when life feels hurried.
February 6, 2026. This weekend, we're at Copenhagen Airport, ready to fly to the Azores Islands.
It has been snowing all night. Yesterday, while sneak-peeking at my husband scrolling through the news, I saw a headline stating that this has been the coldest January in Denmark in the last 16 years. It sounds true to my memories, and you can see a bit of them here…
I remember the cold was almost unbearable that year, not only because of the low temperatures and the snow staying around almost the whole winter — something unusual here in Copenhagen — but also because then, my third winter here, I hadn't yet learned how to dress for the Scandinavian weather. (Of all the garments I'm wearing, most of them are cotton 🥶).
That was in 2010… let's come back to Copenhagen Airport in 2026.
Portugal in the Winter: A Family Pattern
Our little family of three is here to do something we have tried three other times in our lives: going away for a good part of the winter.
For some rea$on (yes, with an "$"🤑) we always end up doing this somewhere in Portugal… It started 11 years ago with two months in Lisbon — something we did twice — then we stopped for almost a decade, went for it again last year with one month in Madeira, and now it's going to be one month in the Azores.
And let me make something very clear here: the affordability of Portugal as a 1-month "workcation" place is definitely not the only reason: Portugal and its people are a league of their own in terms of cultural wealth, natural beauty, and friendliness.
A snowfall that had lasted the whole night had affected operations at the airport. Cancelled flights, crowded halls and last-minute gate changes…
From Crowded Corridors to Cathedral Hallways
Just minutes before shooting the video you see below, I couldn't take my phone out to film anything because we needed to hurry to our new gate, and also because I needed all my senses present and alert to navigate the crowd without getting run over by other travelers in the same situation as me.
But then magic happened when we turned left to a connecting corridor leading to our new gate... my body immediately noticed the shift... We were breathing a different kind of air.
It was not just the improved quality of the air because of the larger room we were entering, but the energy of the place you see in this video was at the core of this shift. Big, deep, refreshing breath… taking it all in.
This is the Terminal Connecting Finger by Danielsen Architects from 2007. It's an elegant and gracious response to the quite ordinary need of getting people from A to B efficiently and effectively.
So what are A and B?
They are Terminals 2 and 3 at Copenhagen Airport, bridged by this structure sometimes nicknamed "The Whale" or "The Cathedral".
This corridor not only fulfills its practical linking mission, but it also connects something more ethereal... It's the liminal space that bridges the noise and busyness in the gate area of the older terminal to the additional gates branching out from this spacious and light corridor.
(And if you've been around the blog a little bit, you can say I'm very much into liminal spaces... that's an important topic in one of my past blog posts).
As I mentioned earlier, just a few moments before taking the shot for the video, we had been paddling through the rapids of a river of people to make sure we wouldn't miss our flight. And then it all flowed into the peace and spaciousness of this architectural wonder.
Presence does not require silence or slowness. It only requires willingness.
Finding Pockets of Peace: A 1-2-3 Practice
The energy of this bright and airy structure and the way my energy responded to it is the starting point of something I'm trying to do more and more: finding pockets of wonder and awe when life is edgy.
This is one of the aspects of the Insightseeing™ method: finding the extraordinary in the ordinary. Being present enough to be able to appreciate the subtle splendor of everyday things, even when you've just got your head out of a sea of confusion and noise.
I know it. It's not an easy practice or a space you get to by default.
I'm actually struggling a bit to find that space as I write this post. I feel writing this piece is important and fulfilling. Yet I feel silly when I think that today, I've used my first sunny day in the Azores to wash two loads of laundry, treating each of the wet garments as fine steaks on a grill: changing their position as they get toasty on one side so the opposite one that's still wet can also get dry… all this "clothesline gymnastics" to take full advantage of the first bright day of sun of this week in Ponta Delgada (83% of humidity at the moment…)
Anyway. You get what I mean. It's not an easy exercise to find these peace pockets in a busy everyday, but I have something you can use to start this practice.
Here is a simple way to begin training your presence and wonder muscle — even when you are in a rush.
1. Pause for one conscious breath.
Not to calm down. Not to fix anything. Just to notice. Where are you? What is the temperature of the air? What is the quality of the light?
2. Identify one unexpected detail.
In the airport, it was the curve of the ceiling. In your everyday, it might be the shadow of a chair, the rhythm of footsteps, the geometry of a building. Let one small thing interrupt your autopilot.
3. Ask one quiet question.
What is this moment inviting me to notice?
Not solve. Not improve. Just notice.
That's it. Presence does not require silence or slowness. It only requires willingness.
Presence is a Practice
The Terminal Connecting Finger was built to move people efficiently from A to B.
But that morning, it moved me somewhere else entirely. I witnessed myself moving from reaction to awareness.
Life will keep handing us rapids — crowded halls, cancelled flights, humid laundry days in the Azores. But within those rapids, there are pockets of peace waiting to be noticed.
Insightseeing™ is about finding the presence in ordinary times to discover the extraordinary within them.
Sometimes, all it takes is turning left.
- ...Copenhagen Airport has been welcoming travelers for a century? Founded in 1925, Copenhagen Airport began as a modest wooden terminal. A hundred years later, it has grown into Scandinavia's largest airport — yet it still carries traces of that human-scale ambition. (Sources: cph.dk, denstoredanske.lex.dk)
- ...the Terminal Connecting Finger was shaped by light? Designed by Danielsen Architecture, the structure's curved glass façade and skylights were created to capture as much daylight as possible — even during Denmark's darkest months. (Sources: danielsen-architecture.dk, archdaily.com)
A little extra treat...
Here is a video of the minutes leading up to landing at Copenhagen Airport in the autumn of 2025. What you see at the beginning of the video is the Copenhagen side of the Øresund Strait, which separates Sweden from Denmark.
Towards the end of the video, you can also appreciate a bit more of the airport's architecture, with some of the terminals located in airplane-wing-like structures.
In a nutshell....
3 Steps to Find Pockets of Peace
1. Pause for one conscious breath.
Not to calm down. Not to fix anything. Just to notice. Where are you? What is the temperature of the air? What is the quality of the light?
2. Identify one unexpected detail.
In your everyday life, it might be the shadow of a chair, the rhythm of footsteps, the geometry of a building. Let one small thing interrupt your autopilot.
3. Ask one quiet question.
What is this moment inviting me to notice?
Not solve. Not improve. Just notice.