18-20 March 2014: Denmark

In preparation for my trip to New Zealand, I thought I'd, y'know, finish up my blog posts from this spring.  Sorry about the lack of timeliness.  I suck.  But, on the plus side, pictures!

My flight from Estonia was entirely uneventful.  As I stepped into the bathroom after my flight, the first thing I saw was a plug that looked like this:

I'M A PLUG =D

 I do not think the shape of Danish plugs is an accident.  Denmark seems like a country that's so happy even their plugs constantly need to be expressing joy.  In fact, as I left the Copenhagen Metro, heading to my Couchsurfing host, a guy just outside the Metro greeted me with a pleasant "Welcome to Denmark!"  I was used enough to Finland/Estonia's character by now to be terrified by the intrusion and walked quickly away.

Denmark also offers iPhone reparations.  For those who lost property in the Great iPhone War of 2011.

What's this "Couchsurfing" thing, you ask?  Think airbnb or VRBO, but without a financial transaction.  Basically, the thought is to find people around the world willing to put visitors up in their home, in exchange for the opportunity to have a cultural exchange and the chance to meet someone new and interesting.  Best of all, it's free - it's definitely nice to bring something with you for your hosts, or, at least, to do the dishes or something for them, but it's not required.  Basically, it combines some of my very favorite things: meeting new people, learning new things, experiencing places like a local would, and being frugal.  Most excellent!

The user experience of finding a host is kind of like online dating.  Basically, you write a little message about who you are and what you're doing in the place where you're surfing and why you'd like to surf at someone's place.  It's completely acceptable for prospective hosts to turn you down if you ask.  Unlike online dating, though, there's also a system of references, where former surfers/hosts can leave messages describing their time with a prospective host.  (My hosts in Denmark were taking a bit of a risk with me because I didn't have any references.)  This can really help in finding someone fun and safe.

As soon as I saw my Copenhagen host Jen's profile, I immediately dashed off a message to her and started praying, basically.  Jen seemed really cool - she had a ton of good references, worked in a "biohacking" lab (basically, open source science; so anyone who wants to can wander in and do experiments, more or less), had a very fun profile, lived in apartment in a cool place, and, best of all, grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, of all places.  I figured for my first host, it couldn't hurt to stay with someone who would seem a little familiar.

True to form, the first thing Jen asked me to do when I entered her apartment was to take off her shoes.  I was in the process of taking off my shoes, because, really, what else would you do when you enter someone's home?  (On a related note, it still weirds me out when I'm taking off my shoes after entering their place and people start insisting that I leave my shoes on.  "Oh, no, you don't have to!"  But I want to.  It's really uncomfortable to have shoes on in a house; it's abnormal, unless you are expecting that I'll be leaving right away.)  We were immediately best friends.

She tried to set me up with a spare bike outside their house.  As we tried to get it unstuck, the key wouldn't fit in the bike lock, and she didn't have oil to fix the problem.  Jen thought a bit, then went up and got her hair oil, which fixed the problem.  But, alas, the bike had a flat tire, which the bike store couldn't fix in time for it to be useful to me.

There are seriously bikes EVERYWHERE in Copenhagen.  The only other place I've seen such crazy biking obsession was Amsterdam, which is also a pleasant happy city right on the sea.

Regardless, I walked into town to see some of Copenhagen.  The National Museum of Denmark was a disappointment.  Not so much for its organization or style (quite nice) or the price (free!), but because of the disturbing lack of Viking paraphanalia.  Seriously.  There were only like 5 rooms with Viking stuff in them.  THAT IS THE POINT OF DANISH HISTORY.  VIKINGS HAPPENED.

On the plus side, though, while walking to the teensy-tiny Viking section, I happened to walk behind two older ladies, who were ambling slowly in front of me.  One of them turned backwards and said something to me in Danish.  "Sorry?"  She switched to English.  "We noticed you seemed to be walking faster than us.  Do you want to go ahead of us?"  "Oh!" I said, "That would be very nice!  Thank you!"  "We're getting old!" said the one talking to me.  "Oh, no, you're not!" I said, walking past them.  Have I mentioned that I love Danes?

After the museum, I wandered further around Copenhagen.  I stumbled on a beautiful church that I wasn't expecting to exist after hearing it chime on the hour.  The building was beautiful inside, with a huge dome and ornate decorations.

Kierkegaard?

Unfortunately, my attempts to see the anarchist commune of Christiania were prevented by the extremely confusing system of bridges of Copenhagen, so instead I had to hurry back to Jen's apartment.  She and her SO, Magnus (who's a Dane) treated me to a delicious meal: meatballs in a (thankfully mild) curry, with lemon mousse for dessert.  One of my pet peeves is the sound of silverware scraping against dishes, but I managed to struggle through it in order to eat every last scrap of that mousse.  I also gave them a huge bar of white chocolate with blueberries that I had purchased in Estonia.  We chatted the night away, and she shared with me some Minttu, a minty (surprise!) alcohol from Finland and told me stories of the knife throwing that she apparently saw everywhere in Finland.

Jen and Magnus had a rug that was the exact same colors as my shirt.

The next day, I set off to the train station to head up to Aalborg to see my friend Bailey.  I made sure to stop by Christiania, which was very disappointing at 8:30 in the morning.  Apparently it is too early for anarchists to be out and about.  I boarded my train for Aalborg.  My notes on my train ride say "crying baby", "happy baby", so apparently there were small children.

In Aalborg, I met up with Bailey, as well as my couchsurfing host there, Mads.  Mads is pronounced "Mess", by the way, in case you thought other languages might make more sense than English.  Nope!  After getting my stuff situated at Mads's place, Bailey and I decided to tour around Aalborg together.  We tried to take a selfie outside the local church... and, no sooner had we done that, but a Dane freely offered, with no provocation, to take our picture.  Oh, Danes!

Heading into the church

Bailey and I had a lovely time chatting and catching up, as I heard stories of her time in Denmark.  You can read more about her adventures at Bailey Abroad.  Finally, we circled around to dinner, and had a delicious meal at a sort of brewpub in town.  On their menu, they had "a refreshing, cool glass of milk" (yes, in those words) listed as an option, much to my entertainment.  My readers will be shocked to learn that I had beer instead.

Mads, my host, was a surprise.  He volunteered to host me the week before (this is another feature on Couchsurfing... when you ask any individual to host you, you can also basically put out an APB asking for help, and Mads was willing and able to do so), and I accepted, in part, because I didn't really have anywhere else to stay on Aalborg.  He turned out to be a wonderful guy: very friendly, and with an interesting job helping arrange conventions for Japanese culture aficionados in Denmark.  He liked basically all of the games that I like... yes, he had played basically every single Paradox game (and loved them all) and had run a game of Mafia (although it went by Werewolf among his cohort) with about 120 people playing in it.  He even drank more milk than me in a week.  Than me!

I spent the night at his place, then, in the morning, had breakfast with him and Bailey at a delicious pastry shop called Penny Lane.  Penny Lane wasn't too far from the bus station to get me up to Frederikshavn, the port that would get me to Sweden.  My bus ride was uneventful, and I started wandering around Frederikshavn.  But both of the restaurants I had looked up cost more than the Danish currency I had left, and not even the Friends café could save me.  So, I started milling about, until I finally found something that had something for the money I had left.

It was good I did so.  As I sat down and ate my mediocre sandwich, I saw an old lady motor past in her scooter.  She was wearing a jaunty red hat.  But it was a terribly windy day in Frederikshavn... as days in Denmark all tend to be.  Her hat flew off her head.  I continued monitoring her progress as she looked around and scooted over to the hat.  She tried picking it up herself, but wasn't able to.  At this point, I decided to take matters into my own hands.  Disobeying TSA guidelines, and leaving my baggage unattended, I went outside, gave her the hat (to which she said "Tak!" and something else, to which I modestly said "Nej, nej," because I had no idea what else to say), and made sure she got off safe and sound, hat in hand.  I felt reassured that I was doing my part in repaying Denmark the favor of a most excellent visit.

From there, I headed up to my ferry and boarded it.  It was... pretty bad, with the deck I was sitting on featuring a terrible disco-themed live band.  Blah.  I guess nothing could compare to my first ferry with the mysterious witch.  Next stop: Göteborg, Sweden.