See the world until I can’t go on, Then maybe I’ll come traveling home
Okay, so Friday. After a day of school, including being let off early, Freddy had to try and orchestrate a way for both of us to get home, as he had come on his moped (top speed 30 k/h guys) and the original plan was to stay at school until 4, for Mathilde to bus over to our school and then take it with me home.
Friday's lunch was good guys ^
With the new time table, however, Mathilde was still in school. Freddy's plan was to get me to take the bus to the train station, where he would drop off his moped (as he had work there later and could just get dropped back) and then together grab the next city bus that would drop us off meters from the mailbox.
This plan would have been great, except for a few key issues that arose. #1- I simply do not "public transport" and as such, was really unsure about which bus to take (after all, the last time I caught a bus by myself turned out so well). I rectified this by asking one of Freddy's friends to help me get off at the right station. The next hurdle was my lack of ability to contact people without wifi. Thus far, this has only caused a hassle once or twice, however this could have caused a massive issue, had said friend not been there with his phone. The third issue really takes the cake however- as it would turn out, freddy's moped had broken down and so he had sprinted to make the same bus as me, only missing it by 30 seconds.
When I arrived at the train station, Freddy was nowhere in sight and I was getting a tad antsy, as unbeknownst to me, Freddy was still waiting at the school to catch the next bus to the station. This gave me a lot of time to think about what I would do if I was left there to die. Would I seek shelter in a local ally? Forage for food in nearby dumpster behind the local super market? Before I could thoroughly plan action plan after abandonment, Freddy showed up and we had to run to make the next bus. While we were riding, who should jump on, but Mathilde, who was confused to see me out of school so early.
We had an hour at home before Freddy had to drop us back to the train station. When we arrived, Mathilde felt it crucial to grab snacks for the 3 hour bus ride we were about to endure, so we stopped at Netto (The danish illegitimate offspring of Woolies and Aldi, also where Freddy and Mathilde work).
Now armed with 2 cans of pringles and 6 drinks, we made our way to the bus. On the way, however, I was met with a weather phenomenon- hail. But not as we know it. I explained to Mathilde that hail in Australia is a big deal. These, often golfball sized chunks of sky-ice can cause thousands of dollars in damage- Just ask any car dealership that has had to drop their prices over "hail damage". Sometimes they can break windows. Hail in Australia is legit. The hail I encountered was the polar opposite. While the quantity of hail was admittedly much higher than at home, the size, good lord, it was so adorable. Like sprinkles from the heavens, the hail was so tiny. It bounced too, like micro pebbles mixed with rubber balls dropping on the ground. It was in my hair and on my jacket and I couldn't help the delighted squeals. This was the cutest hail ever.
The bus ended up late, which made both of us nervous, but finally we made it on to the bus with the sun setting around us. To commemorate this minor success we took some photos and sent them out to my mother and a few other friends that I love enough to share with (you guys know who you are (: ) For those of you that didn't receive it-
However guys, Irony is cruel and moments after we set off, we got a message from Freddy and Nina that it had started snowing in Kolding. I figured out at this point that the snow that has been avoiding me for 16 years wasn't about to give up its game of hide and seek so easily. Three hours and a trip to the smallest bathroom ever (on board the bus, required me to duck at all times) we made it to copenhagen. That was unfortunately not our final destination though, and we had another 40 minutes of train rides to get to the house of Markus and his SISEP kidnapee, Cameron (of NSW). When we made it too the train station, the boys were there waiting for us, which was nice of them. I had a massive sigh of relief when I heard Cameron talk- I swear, I had almost forgotten what an Aussie accent sounds like. Cameron apparently shared this sentiment, and we chatted all things Aussie the entire one and a half km walk back to the house. Once we arrived, both Mathilde and I made a quick dash to the bathroom (It was a long time since we had had bathroom break). There I met Markus' parents, who believe it or not, laughed at me even more than Nina and Uve do. Apparently I'm hilarious to Danes.
The next morning, we awoke around ten to have breakfast, at which point I witnessed the strangest brekkie ever put together-
If you can't tell, that is bread (I actully think it was toasted) with a slice of *Cheese*, topped generously with *raspberry jam*. This was Mathilde's breakfast for the morning (I stuck with cornflakes and a slice of buttered toast.)
Eventually we made it out the door and the four of us hopped on a train that would take us to Copenhagen. Let me just stop it there for a moment. On this train, there was a scene announcing the upcoming stops. This scene was how I learned that in Denmark, nothing is actually spelt the way we think it is. Copenhagen = København, Jutland = jylland, even Denmark is actually spelt "Danmark" here. I told Markus that if it is their name places, surely we should spell it their way? Apparently, the English spellings are so they are pronounced right, as while they may use the same letters, they are pronounced completely different here.
Anyway, we got to the city, and spent the entire day looking around Copenhagen. I annoyed the group immensely by stopping constantly to get photos, but as I told them, who knows when I may get the chance to come back? My constant photography sessions prompted Markus to start taking photos of us as we tried to take photos of the beautiful city (Thanks bud). I could go in to detail about my day, but I think the pictures cover it.
First Impressions- Copenhagen is Christmassy to the max. Also, loves tourists, as there was multiple souvenir stores on every street, albeit at Airport prices (I spent $10 on a keyring).
The architecture here is truly stunning. You really have to be here to appreciate the grandeur of everything, the overwhelming amount of history associated with anything and everything. I still haven't gotten over the cobbled streets that were laid by hand centuries ago.
That being said, one of our stops was to the Lego store. That was pretty sick-
Cameron nearly bought a $200 Apolo 5 (Mars) lego set that is apparently sold out everywhere else in the world, but didn't only because he couldn't fit the *massive* box in his luggage (So close, yet so far).
I saw an amazing feat of endurance that day also. Markus, putting away food like nobody's business. I witnessed, with my own two eyes, that boy eat an entire (Massive) pizza, so casually with, get this- a knife and fork. Let me point out that with both Mathilde and I sharing a pizza, we were still defeated and had 2 whole slices left over.
As the sun began setting (4 o'clock guys, It's getting late) we headed on home.
Next morning saw a more formal kind of breakfast, with bacon and pastry and scrambled eggs and chocolate etc. After packing up our stuff, we took a train back to copenhagen and dropped of our bags in a hired locker. We then took the train one stop to another part of the city
At some point during the day, we made it to the Disney store!!! I could barely walk, it was so full of people Christmas shopping.
At this point, we decided we needed snacks for the ride home, so we went to this strange multistoried store that was a fusion of Ikea and big W. Let me tell you though, you haven't seen anything until you reach the exit. If you look through the next lot of photos, you will see that one possible exit included a fireman's pole, a ladder and a slide, which continued down over 3 stories. My interest in this exit actually sparked two men, at least in their 60's to give it a go themselves. This was one of my favourite shopping experiences purely for this reason.
As we needed more things we went to this, very interesting store-
And then we continued on to Netto. While we were walking, however, we could hear a loud speaker projecting the sound of a very angry man speaking to a crowd. Later I would find out that both Cameron and I had immediately thought of Hitler's speeches, as the anger and passion in his voice was quite terrifying. I asked Mathilde what he was saying, but she said she didn't understand him either. At that point, we saw a man walking with a Palestinian flag, wearing a balaclava, rushing towards a crowd of others waving the same flag and shouting and chanting. In retrospect, I think the balaclava may have just been because he was cold (many people were wearing them as the air was freezing), but at the time, both Mathilde and I got a bit scared. Especially as we had split up from the boys to go to seperate stores. Shopping done with, we headed back outside to meet the boys. We then realised to get to the train station, we had to walk past the writhing crowd. There was like 4 police officers watching the ordeal, and Markus asked them what was going on. Apparently, these were demonstrations that were going on all over the globe- Palestine is looking for people to recognise it as a country, and these demonstrations are to gain support. That eased my nerves a bit, but not knowing what they were saying (more like shouting) still had me on edge.
Eventually we said goodbye to the boys and made it safely onto the bus. However, once again we got a message just after we left, apparently it had started snowing in Copenhagen. Damn it. The snow knew where I was at all times and was enjoying messing with me. I helped Mathilde with her homework and spend the rest of the busride looking out the window. At one point, I saw a blanket of snow covering the sides of the roads, but being trapped in the confines of the bus rendered it unreachable. As we reached Kolding, the small amount of snow had completely disappeared.
I'm going to leave it on this depressing low...
Be kind, Guys!
^^ when snow finds out I'm coming^^