Day 5 - Angelholm to Copenhagen
My last day in Sweden - so many good memories of this
country and the beautiful people I met.
I arose, grabbed some coffee and breakfast, and helped
everybody get ready, as a large family outing was planned
to a town further north to see an art exhibition.
While we were doing so, Thursten’s eldest girl, who was
roughly 3, had a tic on the back of her neck. Apparently
she had previously gone to a hospital to have one
removed, and was quite scared at the prospect of having
another one removed.
She made quite a bit of noise as the others were
approaching readiness, and I felt for her - never having
had a tic myself I would be scared as well.
Once things were prepared, and it was a matter of
rounding up the children more than anything else, I was
attacked with a spray bottle by Loki and Lagertha’s
daughter. I chased her around for a bit, picking her up
from time to time and mock dunking her into a water
barrel, then placed her down for the game to begin again.
I wasn’t going on the day trip with the family, Aslaug and her parents were going to come to the house to pick up
some things they had left after Midsommar, so I said my
farewells to the Swedish clan (with a little tear in my eye),
and waited out the back, playing my uke a little bit and
updating my journal notes.
Once they had arrived, we loaded up the car, and Aslaug’s parents drove us to the Angelholm train station, where
our train was just about to arrive. We said a quick good
bye to Aslaug’s parents, and ran to the platform...
Only to find that the train had been delayed about 10
minutes due to the lightning storm the night before.
We had a laugh, started chatting, and skyped our mutual
friend back in Australia, who was sitting up enjoying a
glass of wine and was very happy to see us both.
He had attended a Midsommar festival in the past, and he was ecstatic that I got to experience one as well.
The train took a little longer than 10 minutes to arrive, so we skyped a bit longer, giving us the chance to find out
some more information on what was happening in
Melbourne.
Aslaug and I caught the train when it arrived, and had a
good chat during the 20 minute trip.
Once off the train, and back in Helsingborg, we walked
away from the train station to the watch tower that stood
on the top of the hill that I had spied from Aslaug’s
balcony and wanted to check out.
It had been there since the 1300s, and as we headed up
through the different rooms I realised that not all ‘castles’
are massive like the Queen’s in England... many are little
more than a tower that a lord sat in and ruled over an
area, although when I say tower it was still 20 meters
across or so.
The view from the top of the tower was pretty spectacular, allowing us to see across the water to Denmark, and back
across Sweden as well. My fear of heights kept me back
from the edge, but I was able to take a couple of pretty
good panorama shots.
After checking out the tower, we headed back to Aslaug’s place and had a chat and some very tasty strawberries out on her balcony. It was a great way to kick back.
After this, Aslaug told me she wanted to take me to one of her favourite stores in Helsingborg.
We went for a short stroll, and it turned out that it was a
lolly store. There were soooo many different types of
lollies there. I filled up a bag and added just over a
kilogram to the weight of my bag.
Which wasn’t an issue as my bag only weighed about
11 kgs - pretty light for traveling.
Walking back from the lolly shop, we decided to stop off
and grab a bite to eat - a burger joint took our fancy, we
ordered and sat down in the courtyard adjoining the
burger place.
We chatted for a bit, before I looked at the time and
figured I should go and grab my bag while we were
waiting for the food to come out, so that I would be
able to make the train that would get me to
Copenhagen for my flight the next morning.
Making a quick dash, I headed to her apartment, packed
my bag, and managed to make it back about 1 minute
after the food arrived.
Perfect timing!
We chatted some more while we ate, and at the end of the meal I made a Swedish faux pas - I crushed the can after
finishing my soft drink. In Sweden they recycle a lot of
stuff, and despite my good intentions of not wanting the
can to blow away, Aslaug laughed, told me off, and
suggested we should move before the waitress came out
and told me off.
We headed to the train station and bought my train ticket. Aslaug took me down to the train, which was just about
to leave, so we said a hurried goodbye and I jumped on.
The trains were still a bit out of whack due to the storm
from the previous night, so it was extremely crowded.
The trip to Copenhagen was due to take about 1 hour 45 minutes, and although I knew that the train would clear
The trip to Copenhagen was due to take about 1 hour 45 minutes, and although I knew that the train would clear
out at Copenhagen airport, there was only 15 minutes
after that stop until my final destination. I didn’t want to be this crowded the whole time.
Fortunately the train did start to clear out as people got
off at different stops along the way, and even though I got some more space, there were 4 mid to late teens in the
same area as me.
One of them immediately drew my gaze - he was wearing a blue tracksuit - top and bottom - with his hat on
backwards, looking as though he thought he was the bee’s knees.
Sadly for him (but much to my amusement) he looked like a right tosser.
I made sure that I kept my sunglasses on so that he
couldn’t see me looking at him, but the smirk on my face might have given me away.
Shortly before the airport, a guy roughly my own age
jumped on the train, and asked me something in Swedish. I responded that I didn’t speak the language, and he
asked in English if this train was going to Copenhagen
airport.
I replied that it was, and we struck up a conversation.
He was travelling to China on business, and the train he
had previously been on stopped at the station where he
boarded. We chatted about travel, the midsummer festival, and various other things, which made that leg of the
train trip go a bit faster.
He got off at Copenhagen airport, and he was a nice single serving friend.
The train arrived at the Copenhagen Central station about 15 minutes after this.
I disembarked, and set about trying to find my accommodation for the night. Across the road from the train station was the Copenhagen Tivoli. For those not in the know,
it is basically an amusement park, with lots of rides (from what I could see on the outside), complete with the
screams of people riding on the roller coasters as well as
the ones that raise you up and drop you so your stomach
feels like it’s going to jump up your throat.
It was about a 10 minute walk to the hostel that I had
booked into, and quite easy to find (helped by a screen
shot of Google maps). The Copenhagen Downtown
Hostel was quite impressive - it had a full bar on the
ground level, where the reception was, and I had a
sneaking suspicion I would spend most of the night
in there.
After gathering my room key, I jumped in the small
elevator with 3 women (my large trundle bag making
it a right fit), and I got out on the 4th floor and found
my room.
I dropped off my luggage, hit up the facilities, then
grabbed my laptop and note book and headed back down to the bar.
I grabbed a pint, and established that for their happy hour
(8-9pm) they had 1 liter beers for 50 Kroner. That equates to about $10 Australian - pretty good, as it is hard to find a
pint for that much, let alone twice that volume.
I fired up the computer, and started typing up a few of
these blog entries (which is when in finally found the time to start posting about my trip), and enjoyed my first pint for the night.
I finished my pint just as happy hour started, so I lined up my first liter of beer.
It certainly helped with the writing process and got the
creative juices flowing. The second liter probably started
to inhibit my writing skills, but I managed to sash out another day of my trip.
Once happy hour was over, I sought out a power point to
charge my laptop, and located one on a half empty table, where I sat down next to a lass that was chatting to a guy across from her.
Unfortunately the power points along that wall didn’t
work, so I wrote until the battery went flat, and asked the girl if she was willing to look after my belongings while I
had a tactical facility stop and a cigarette, in exchange for a drink.
She laughed, said I didn’t have to, but wouldn’t say no.
I had a tactical, a smoke, grabbed a drink for myself and
her, and helped myself to handful of popcorn from a bowl that was on the bar.
Another lass sitting at the bar gave me a look of
indignation, and I then realised that it was HER bowl of
popcorn, not one of those bowls of nibblies left on the bar to stop people from getting too drunk. I apologised
profusely and let her know that I made a mistake. She accepted my apology and offered me some more popcorn.
I joined the lass back at the table, just as the other guy
was leaving. We struck up a conversation about our
travels, where we had been and where we were going, and once my drink (and hers) had run out, I rinsed and
repeated the tactical/smoke/drink process. She accepted
the second drink as well for looking after my stuff.
A bit later in the night a Canadian guy came over and
joined us. We were chatting for a bit before he asked me
how I was so comfortable chatting with randoms, and
asked for some pointers.
I informed him that people like to talk about themselves,
so you only need to have three things in mind to get the
conversation going - past present future.
Ask the other person a question about their past (where
they had been traveling, what they used to do for work,
etc), or present (what brought them to where they were,
what do they do for work, etc) or future (where were they going, what did they want to do, etc).
After giving him those three points to work with, I asked
him questions about each of those.
And sat back.
He and the lass had a conversation about each of the
questions I asked, and it was only when the conversation was dying off that I asked another question, and sat back.
When I did it the third time, he looked at me and realised what I was doing.
He nodded his head and said that he got it.
Things were a little bit fuzzy by this stage, as I had drunk about 5 liters of beer and most of it on an empty stomach due to the early dinner.
I seem to recall him asking me out to share a cigarette at
that stage, that he provided, and I started feeling very ill
at that point.
The rest of the night was a bit of a blur that involved me
spending a lot of time in the bathroom, before managing
to drag my sorry arse into bed around 2.30am.
And I had to be up around 5.30 the next morning.
Poor life choices.
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