Notes from Abroad

Trip Stats:
Cities visited: 3
Broken Sunglasses: same one
Major bruises received: still the same 1
Lost clothing: 1 pair of undies confirmed left in Barcelona
Blisters: still ow and getting bigger.
Flights taken: 4
Trains taken: 2

It was a 2.5 or so hour flight to Copenhagen that started with me sitting around Barcelona airport just waiting for the check-in to open. I took one of those cheap flights on Transavia and the check-in is only open for the two hours leading up to departure. The woman in the information counter in Terminal C told me that I needed to go to Terminal A. I had just come from Terminal A and I didn’t see anything resembling a Transavia check-in. But she had to know what she was talking about, right? I got to Terminal A, asked the info desk if this was, in fact, the right Terminal, and upon confirmation I grabbed myself some breakfast and waited until 9:30.

Around 9AM I decided to go look around again – maybe I’d missed the check-in the first time. Still nothing. And looking on the Sortidas (departures) board the closest thing to Copenhagen was Helsinki and I knew that the Spanish word for Copenhagen couldn’t be that far off. So I went back to the information counter (a different window this time) and asked the woman there why my flight wasn’t listed on the departures board. “Oh that flight? You need to go to Terminal B.” “Terminal B?” “Si, Terminal B numberos cuarenta y quatro a cuarenta y seis.” Well, at least I was getting specifics this time. So I headed back to Terminal B. At this point I’ve walked the length of the airport at least 2.5 times and all I wanted to do was get my bag on the plane. I could see it from a mile away – a whole bunch of tall, blonde people waiting under a sign that said Copenhague. At last!

The flight was uneventful. I slept for all but about 30 minutes of it.

Upon arriving in Copenhagen I had to find my way to my hotel for the night. Stupid me didn’t check the second page of my reservation to see if they’d included directions from the airport. The other hostels had included it, but this particular place included a “Click for directions” link instead. Bah.

I had to wing it. In Danish. Which I don’t speak. And all of that crap about everyone in Denmark speaking English? Yeah, that’s everyone but the voice on the Metro train and the maps that tell you where to go and where to transfer. The man at the info desk told me I needed to get to Central Station and circled it on a map for me. Problem: the Metro he told me to take doesn’t stop at a Central Station. He didn’t tell me where or how to transfer. And the machines that dispense tickets for the Metro? Unlike Barcelona and Madrid, these machines only speak to you in Danish.

After fiddling with my ATM card and some bizarrely numbered Danish Kronen, I had a ticket. No idea where I was going, but I had a ticket.

I followed everyone up to the Metro stop and got on the train. Staring at my city map and my Metro map, I couldn’t find a place to get off. I decided to try this one station that looked pretty central and seemed to have a lot going on. I got off, followed the running man signs (apparently the universal symbol for EXIT), and found myself headed toward street-level. That wasn’t right. I knew I needed to go further into the city. I headed back down and got on the same train I’d just gotten off of. Keep in mind that this entire time I’m wearing two backpacks: my big one on my back and my school backpack on the front with my camera equipment and laptop.

I compared some more stations and finally realized that I was wayyyyy past where I needed to go. I was pretty much in the middle of residential Copenhagen. Off the train, across the platform, and back on the train in the other direction. I got off at the same station I’d picked before, realizing that I must have missed a sign somewhere.

I did. The big S sign. It was the same symbol that was listed next to the station that was near my hotel. You had to go out the OTHER way, and look to your left in order to see it. Then you needed to know which line to get on, which direction to go in, and which platform to go to. In Danish.

Having finally gotten on the right train and off at the right stop, I walked up into the city. And walked in the wrong direction. And then turned around and walked back and sort of crossed my fingers that I’d oriented myself properly and I wasn’t all too far from my hotel. I found it. I made it. I made my bed, put on my PJs, and wrote this blog instead of taking a nap, which I’m going to do right now. It’s only 6PM but I AM BEAT.

…intermission…

I ended up doing absolutely nothing my first night in Copenhagen. Happy to have a room all to myself I did a lot of boring things like laundry and rearranging my backpack. I also napped some more. Should I have been out taking advantage of being in a new city? Sure, probably, but considering how dead I was, I think the better route was to get some proper sleep and then be fully charged to put in an entire day of exploring in the morning.

Fast forward to the next morning: I’d decided to get up at a reasonable hour (I think around 10AM?). I was still tired but I didn’t want to be a complete bum. I showered, got dressed, etc. and packed up my bag for the day. The night before I’d looked through my guidebook and the free Copenhagen city map that I’d picked up at the airport. I went through and circled all of the places that sounded interesting and then realized that the walking tour the map had laid out hit all of those sites and then some. It didn’t say how long it would take or how far I would be walking, but I figured it couldn’t be all that bad.

For once I managed not to get lost. And considering how often I’ve gotten lost in the last week, I’m just as shocked as you are! About 1/2 way through the tour I stumbled upon this waterfront. There were a bunch of people gathered around the dock so I went closer to see what was up. It was the dock for a boat tour that I’d read about the night before. I wasn’t planning on taking it, but after browsing the routes and the map and checking the prices I realized I would be dumb not to. The tour was just over an hour long and was only 60DKK. That’s the equivalent of about $12. $12 to see the entire city! My lunch practically cost that much!

I hopped on the boat and secured myself a good seat that would give me the most unobstructed views and photo ops that I could manage, save for this obnoxious guy with both a dSLR AND a camcorder who insisted on standing up and walking around the boat the entire time in order to get the shot he wanted thus blocking my view (despite the signs instructing him otherwise). It took a lot of willpower not to tell him to sit the heck down.

So the boat tour hit all of the major sights and I was back in time to pop into a few more before heading back toward my hotel for the evening. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast the day before and I was absolutely starving, so I picked up a sandwich from a little shop on the Stroget. Nothing special, but my god was I glad to have food.

On my way out the previous morning I’d passed a grocery store that I hoped to stop in on my way back in for the night. I didn’t want a replay of the previous day’s hunger. I picked up a can of fanta, some green grapes, and some haribo peaches (that’s gummy candy…not real peaches. These are more fun).

Once again I was beat. I really think this inconsistent sleep schedule is getting to me. While I’m normally very good at surviving on 3-4 hours of sleep a night (thanks Cornell), getting 3-4 hours of sleep at random hours of the day and going from a place where it gets dark out at 9:30 to a place where it’s not pitch black out until 2:30 in the morning can really throw you off. As April would say – my circadian rhythm is off.

I made it back to my room just in time to avoid the rain storm. And I’m not talking a quick drizzle. This was a full on monsoon that lasted into the wee hours of the morning. I went out for a walk in it just to say I did (and to look for a wi-fi cafe…I’ll do anything for wi-fi) but after finding myself on a street consisting of a never-ending series of sex shops I decided to turn around and head back.

Then there was the lovely fact that my flight was at 7:20 this morning. That’s AM. As in “you need to get up before the sun rises to make this flight” early. Like the morning before I left from Barcelona, I was in a panic that I would oversleep my alarm. Not to mention, I wasn’t too thrilled about the prospect of walking through the streets of Copenhagen in the wee hours of the morning.

I asked the person at the desk of the hotel what the best way to get to the airport would be. I wanted to be there by 4:15 because I have a habit of getting lost in airports. She told me to be at the train station by 3:30AM and that there would be a train direct to the airport at 4:03AM. It would get me there in 12 minutes. Awesome.

As a perpetually early person I decided to get up at 2:15 to make my way to the train station. I figured I’d be better off making it to the train station and then hanging out there or spending an extra hour in the airport rather than a) being freaked out about walking at night and b) missing my flight. So off I went.

I made it to the train station to find out that it’s closed between the hours of midnight and 4:30AM. Wonderful. I follow the little red line with a red dot on the map hoping that it would lead me to the platforms. It did. Then I had to buy a ticket. One problem: the machine doesn’t accept bills and I didn’t have enough coins. I could have used my ATM card, but wouldn’tcha know that Bank of America PINs are 6 digits and Danish cash points only accept 4 digits. I saw a cab waiting by the platforms and asked him if he could change one of my bills. He said no. I walked away trying to think of an alternative. I realized I had Euro coins in my bag so I pulled out the equivalent of 15DKK in Euro and asked him if he would trade THAT. He took pity on me and just gave me the 15DKK. I bought my ticket and down to the platform I went.

It was the wrong platform, of course. Here I am sitting in this sketchy station at 3:00 in the morning not entirely by myself but I wouldn’t call it the best of company. The sign on the platform had a little airplane on it so I figured I’d be good to go. Not so much. The train showed up 2 platforms over and left before I could figure out how to get over there. That was 3:03AM. The next train wasn’t scheduled to arrive until 4:03AM. Right.

So I plopped down on a bench, still wearing my backpacks and pulled out my book. Luckily it passed the time pretty well and as 4AM approached the platform began to fill up with more people. I just hoped that they were actually going to the airport.

The train arrived and it had an airplane on it. If I missed my stop I would have ended up in Sweden, so I needed to be careful. I hopped on and got to the airport in one piece.

This airport was quick and painless thank god and I was off to Rome. I was worried about missing my connection to Sicily, but luckily everything worked out.

All in all I wouldn’t say that Copenhagen is on my list of top cities. It’s a decent city. It has a lot of character and I’m sure if you live there it’s a lot more fun, but as a solo traveler it wasn’t all that special. The sights weren’t anything out of the ordinary and though it felt like I was walking around in my own real-world version of The Sims (seriously…listen to The Sims talk and then listen to some people have a conversation in Danish. It’s pretty much the same thing!), apart from the entertaining use of English (i.e. hotel desk lady talking to 2 Swedish women in town for a Motley Crue concert: “the gay pub…it has…what do you call it? the good vibrations.”), it’s not a city I would make any major effort to return to. If I end up back there at some point in my life, cool. But if this was my one and only time in Sims-ville, I think that’ll be OK too.

Tags: Adventures, City, Copenhagen, Denmark, Journal