Within the first two notes of it sounding, Roz switched off her alarm. Funny, whenever Roz had to set a wake-up alarm, she'd always have a dream of it not going off. She had purposely pre-set her morning "get-ready" music to play "Sun in our Eyes" by her favourite Danish singer MØ, introduced to her by Lærke. As she walked towards the window to let in the morning air, the bustle from the courtyard below grew noisier which made Roz smile with excitement to be a part of the city's chaos today. She threw on her laid out "uniform" then spritzed on her mesmerizing perfume. She then grabbed her mini backpack which contained all the items from her iPhone list, except one, confidence. That didn't go in Roz's bag, but was worn on her face with a big wide smile. Today was the day of new things - New city, new job, new crush, new life. She was almost skipping as she reached the courtyard and her locked bike. She took a moment to take it all in as she hopped on her bike for her inaugural ride on her soon-to-be daily commute to work. The sun seemed to be shining extra bright which brought Roz a sense of relief as her anxiety had unknowingly started to creep back up on her. It was comforting to have so many friendly faces passing by her for the brief seconds she caught a glimpse of them. Maybe her Google research actually was right when it said that Copenhagen is reputed to be the happiest place in the world. With every lovely local she passed, her stress decreased dramatically. Roz was downright chill right up until the moment she pulled in front of the FUNDAMENT warehouse. Roz could feel her calm composed state transforming into a more anxious one. Roz remembered her Dad saying moments before their goodbyes, "Openness and honesty are both very important traits within the Danish culture". So Roz felt it was important for her to take the time to be open and honest with herself before immersing herself into her next adventure. She let herself mentally admit she was nervous and that was okay, because people like Beyoncé get scared too. With that in mind, she parked her bike and strutted towards the front doors of the restaurant just as Queen Bey would herself.

Upon entering the eatery, Roz was overwhelmed by the amount of things that could all be happening within the same moment. This was her debut shift on the wait-staff, and today would only be about orientation and rehearsal before FUNDAMENT's official launch in two days. This inaugural service would be a trial meal for friends and family only. Roz was so excited that Lærke as well as her parents were invited, and she'd be serving them as her first guests. As people were busily completing finishing touches, the restaurant already seemed to be running like a well-oiled machine Roz thought to herself. Suddenly, there was a sharp clapping of hands by who Roz could only determine was the manager.

"Attention everyone. Could I have your attention?" bellowed a voice from the dining area. "Welcome everyone! My name is Lars Pedersen, and I'm the general manager here at Fundament. Today I'm going through the orientation in English because we have our full international crew here. Short of a staff Christmas or Summer solstice party, this will be the only time that we will all be together as one group. But before I go through all those boring details of customer service protocols, shift hour management, restaurant opening and closing procedures, eccetera, I'd like to introduce you all to the founder and head chef of Fundament, Mikkel Jensen." Everyone politely applauded as Lars motioned his arm towards the kitchen, revealing Mikkel - a handsome chap,  mid thirties, with a bit of scruff, longish salt and pepper hair, wearing just a simple grey, designer t-shirt, black apron and black jeans. Roz thought to herself, Lærke never mentioned how hip and handsome her cousin was.  "Thank you Lars for the introduction. Now, those who know me know that I'm a guy of a few words. I let my food, my creations do the talking. So what are the fundaments of Fundament? Well I can say that our menu is based on new Nordic cuisine. And what is that? I can summarize this style of food in three words - purity, simplicity and freshness. We reimagine traditional Scandanavian dishes making use of seasonal foods as well as using ingredients, benefitting from the local region's climate, water and soil." Roz felt a surge of adrenaline as her inner foodie was about to burst from excitement. "Before I go through the menu with everyone, I'd first like to introduce my brilliant team of sous-chefs, because without these folks, we cannot perform our culinary magic." And on cue, a team of a dozen young chef assistants walked out onto the dining room floor. Then Roz saw him, her supposed server crush was actually a sous-chef!

After the applause and many introductions subsided, Lars took centre-stage again. He explained that the wait-staff would now need to sample every item on the menu.  Roz knew this to be a best practice of higher end eating establishments.  After all, servers were often the only line of communication between the kitchen and the restaurant's guests. Not only do servers need to explain different dishes, they are also expected to make informed recommendations and suggestions. And because Fundament's menu offering was so unique, it made it that much more imperative for the wait-staff to be well versed with each dish's gastronomic idiosyncrasies and specific artisanal presentations. A novice server might find this type of menu indoctrination overwhelming, but Roz looked at it as a new taste adventure where she could challenge her highly tuned palette. "Because our sous-chefs are sampling all the time, they will be serving the servers today," Lars announced, then quickly added, "Servers, do not get used to this. This is a one time event. After all, sous-chefs are graded on their cooking skills, not their serving skills."  Everyone lightly tittered, secretly hoping that Lars ominous tone was for comedic effect. Out of the corner of her eye Roz could see that servers were starting to be seated beside their temporary sous-chef server. Luckily Roz's mystery man's table had yet to have a server seated at it. So Roz made a bee-line to the empty table, trying not to look overly obvious, nor too anxious. Roz introduced herself while taking her seat. "Hello, I'm Roz Thurgood and I shall not be your server today," she mused while smiling at the young, handsome sous-chef standing in front of her.

"Nice to meet you Roz, I'm Preben. I'd like to consider myself the brains behind the entire operation here. Unless of course, we get a bad review, then it is all Mikkel." As he made his witty introduction Roz could feel her cheeks begin to glow.  "I'll keep that in mind Preben," Roz said then remarked, "Preben, that is a unique name." Preben just laughed and stated, "Maybe in the UK, but not here in Denmark. I'm sorry, Roz, I'm just assuming you're British because of your accent." "Indeed I am Mr. Ordinary Danish name man," Roz retorted. Preben looked at Roz blankly for a moment. Oh my gosh, it's taken me less than ten seconds to insult him, Roz thought. Preben then chuckled and exclaimed, "I love British humour." Roz let out a  little sigh of relief as Preben quickly changed the subject, "I think I should begin to present the Fundament menu to you." Roz nodded in agreement and with that, Preben took on a more academic tone. With Preben as her food guide, Roz spent the rest of her shift savouring all the delectable wonders of Nordic cuisine. From the Faroese islands she was introduced to something called the kalda borðið (cold table) as well as ræstur fiskur (fermented semi-dried fish). Roz also enjoyed dishes containing Icelandic moss, Norwegian Moltebær cloudberries as well as lingonberries from Sweden.

Before she knew it, Roz was back on her bike making her way home to her flat. As she reflected on the incredibly inspiring day, Roz concluded that she had officially turned the page on her former London life. All the unfortunate events that occured there were now behind her and Roz felt certain there would be no reason to ever revisit her darkest days again.