A Long Day of Travel (Nathan)
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2010
1
56
59
Trip End
Oct 27, 2010
Where I stayed
Copenhagen, Zealand, Denmark
Friday, October 22, 2010
On the 22nd we packed up our bags and walked down to the train station... not the one right by our hostel, but the one across town, where our train was leaving from. We got there early so we had time to get breakfast, but the place we had breakfast was awful. It was some pig-themed restaurant with the most hideous menu I've ever seen, horrible service, and overpriced, lousy food. We actually told them we were in a hurry because we had a train to catch, but they still took an incredibly long time to do anything. This isn't just bias because we felt we were running out of time... even if we weren't on any deadlines that day, this was the kind of service that anyone would find unacceptable. After waiting at least a half hour for them to bring the check (despite having ASKED for it), we finally just left some money on the table and headed out the door. THEN, of course, they noticed us instantly and chased after us, telling us we had to pay. We explained that we'd left money on the table because we had a train to catch and couldn't wait around any longer, but they said we couldn't do that, and we had to wait for them to get the bill, though at least they did it promptly then. I feel bad for having to resort to leaving the restaurant to get them to do their job, but at least it got us to our train on time.
Not that the train itself was on time. It never came, and we had to wait about 3 hours for the next one. The rest of the day was an endless boring train ride with a lot of switching and stopping, and I think we had to take a bus or something at one point because of the late train, though I may be remembering it wrong. Anyway, it got gradually rainier and darker, and when we finally arrived in Copenhagen, it was pouring and freezing cold. We didn't arrive right in the city itself, but rather in a sort of distant outskirt where all the buildings were brand new and there weren't any features... just flat land and endless glass and concrete skyscrapers, all of them dark and lifeless, with not a soul in sight. In fact, that's what it was like the whole time we were there- I don't think we saw more than a dozen people outside the hotel we were in! We were lost when we arrived, wandering around with our heavy bags in the cold rain... Glennica was tired and distressed, but despite being lost and cold and wet, I
was pretty glad to be off the trains and ready to explore a new
country. It turned out Glennica had absolutely no idea where the hotel was, or if she did, her sense of direction wasn't up to the task of finding it, and since she was the one who booked it, I couldn't do more than help look as we walked around the desolate streets. However, she was the one who did find it in the end, noticing its sign at the top of a building way off in the distance, and that was enough to guide us there.
On the way, we got a little disoriented again, and she asked me to look ahead a bit while she rested. I saw a path leading off into blackness as though the world ceased to exist past a few hundred feet, and what appeared to be a set of functional revolving doors to the right. We decided to try and take shelter and ask for directions in whatever business was open that late at night, and it turned out to be an entire mall! An empty, closed, deserted mall. There was literally not a single person besides us inside, or a single business open. It was like something from The Omega Man, or maybe a Silent Hill game... just utter silence and stillness, though the heat and the lights were working. Why would a mall be open in the middle of the night with all the shops closed and no people inside? We had no idea, but we walked through to the other side, and saw our hotel across the parking lot when we emerged. The Cabinn was a pretty decent hotel, and it was almost a relief to see that there were indeed other people still alive in the world when we arrived.The guy at the front counter was very friendly and likeable, even giving us a free room upgrade, though he screwed up and gave us the wrong room, so we had to go back and forth a couple times to actually get the benefit of his generosity. The room itself was strange, futuristic, almost clinical, with "hospital teal" sheets and a very minimalist design, as though it were some kind of living quarters module on a space station. But it was comfortable enough, and best of all, it was the first place in our travels to have reliable wireless internet in the room without any extra cost. All the others cost some ridiculously expensive rate or, more often, didn't have wireless that reached beyond the lobby. It was a nice change of pace, and definitely a relief after our long travels.
