Volume 14: Pete back in Europe Part 6
Day 11 - Edinburgh to Copenhagen
Today I was flying off to Copenhagen. I wasn’t sure what impact COVID was going to have on lines at the airport, so checked out of the hotel at 10am, caught the tram from St Andrews square and would have been at the airport sometime after 11am. The flight was scheduled for 3:10pm so this was to be a long day.
The day seemed to get even longer when the flight officially opened for checkin at 12:40pm, only for us to wait 40 minutes after checkin opened before Norwegian Airlines found any staff to check us in. And that was 15 minutes after a chief in a yellow vest doing nothing said it would be staffed within 5 minutes. This seemed a common theme at Edinburgh airport; large groups of people in either yellow or orange vests standing around doing nothing other than to inform you someone who could do something, ie not in a vest, would be along shortly.
Checked in, I cleared security in about 5 minutes, to meet thousands upon thousands of people at what felt like a ratio of 9:1 people compared to pre security. Was anyone actually flying today in this airport? I was not filled with confidence after the delays to checkin and now so many people yet to fly.
The flight to my surprise left on the same day it was supposed to, only a mere hour and a half late, but that wasn’t before we all seemed to be boarded only to sit for an extended period. The pilot, to his credit came over the PA and walked as close as professionally possible to line of saying “I know you’re probably thinking what the fuck are we still delayed for. Seems this airport has fuck all luggage staff so we’re all fucked with another delay”. He framed it much more polite than that, but you could sense in his voice he wished he could have framed it like I just did.
Once in the air I noticed the seat on this Norwegian flight said the seat pocket was for “literature only”. So only Shakespeare? What if I placed something from Chopper Read or Max Walkers “How to hypnotise Chooks”? Does that still count as literature?
Once landed in Copenhagen I noticed the people shared something with the people of Australia; people who insist on stopping in the front of a door way or right before an escalator. It’s unbelievable! People standing in front of escalators like the decision to go down or up is a choice between an escalator to hell or heaven. I’ll give you the whisper; the decision to get on a metro escalator will never carry that much weight! Move! Hopefully these people start standing in front of cars…doing 100km an hour.
I got into the hotel late in the evening. I didn’t have the energy to explore the town, so just had a couple of beers at the hotel bar. My first beer I just pulled out of a fridge, no one looked to charge me for it so I assumed they were complimentary. That assumption soon proved wrong as hotel staff asked me if I wanted to charge me 2nd beer to my room. A free beer while watching the sunset on the 5th floor just before 11pm; a nice way to finish a day.
Day 12 - Copenhagen
My ability to judge distances on Google Maps is on par with the accuracy I would have in judging the pain a woman must feel at child birth, but the stupid thing is at least I have experience with Google Maps. This morning I had my trademark “Oh that’s not that far to walk into town” after looking at Google Maps so set off on foot (too stupid to even acknowledge it was at least 3 stops just on the metro to get to Centrum. That’s Danish for centre and English for multivitamin).
It was the first time I had worn thongs on my feet since London, my left toe was cut up inside the first 1km reminding me why I hadn’t worn them in 2 weeks.
I did my traditional first day activity of finding out how to get out of the city by visiting Københavns H (that’s Copenhagen Central Station to you and me). I’d probably been walking for an hour and suddenly found the urge to hold an emergency crisis meeting between my anus and a toilet, so held the emergency crisis meeting at the train station. It cost me 5 kroner to “get a meeting room”. For that sort of money I would expect better service like what you get in a European toilet nightclub, where they offer you some after shave, some sort of mint and some encouragement “to go out there lady killer!”. Nothing like that at the train station, just clean facilities.
Whilst on the toilet I bought a Copenhagen card (work smarter, not harder) which would give me free public transport and access to many sights around town. One such sight was the Tivoli Gardens a short stroll from the train station.
Inside Tivoli Gardens is an assortment of dodgy carni games and rides to do enough to make you vomit up that popcorn or hot dog you ate earlier. There were rollercoasters and various other rides that put you in a chair (either highly decorated or a simple plain chair), rose you to a few hundred feet off the ground and spun you. You can also have a relaxing ride on a 2 person paddle boat, which is only broken with screams in the background from the roller coasters. Relaxing.
Inside the gardens I had to call out a bird (may have been. Black faced cuckoo) for doing black face, which I can do because I’d purchased a vanilla and chocolate ice cream to promote harmony.
When I left Tivoli Gardens I noticed the Danes were very polite on the roads. No car horns. I witnessed some bloke looking at his phone in his car holding up traffic. Even I was shouting “move you fucking fucker!”. But no horns. The cars stopped at pedestrian crossings, inviting you to cross. Such a polite peoples.
I walked slightly north through City Hall Square (Râdhusspladsen) then east with no great aim other than to understand the city layout and get my bearings. I eventually found myself in Christianshavn, hoping to find a bar on the water. I have a general rule where I don’t drink before 4pm on tour (it’s a very general rule which has many amendments) but as it was before my 4pm I did not stop for a drink.
My first pint was at The Old English Pub just before 5pm a Billy Brownless torpedo punt from the City Hall Square. It was there I noticed my ice cream cost 48 kroners versus 35.91 for my pint. Just when you think you couldn’t love beer more, it shows you its even cheaper than ice cream which is also a delightful product.
The people watching out the front of the Old English Pub was nothing special so I used Google to find some bars near me. My attention was drawn to the Southern Cross. I’m always keen to see how lame an Aussie pub can be in a far off land, so headed there for a couple…hundred. I got there just before 6pm at the end of happy hour, but was somehow still there at midnight.
The barmen was an affable English bloke who continued giving me happy hour prices until 7pm, and we were joined by an American couple from Utah (surprisingly not mormons, more punk inspired with the wife in tight shorts) and then later another English bloke who’d served in the military and was great mates with the barmen. They were such great mates that they both did smoko serval times leaving the bar unattended meaning I could have done self serve. The military bloke had some sort of paper based tab system, where he’d order a drink (including 1 for me) and the barmen would note it in a paper notebook, with the feeling this tab was only sorted once a decade (provided the paper had not been lost or destroyed which would make the bill void). The barmen had been working 12 hour days covering for people, so gave the feeling of not feeling overly obligated to balance the books. At some stage the military bloke and Utah couple went and got pizzas and brought them back to the bar.
I decided it was time for me to leave when I thought I’d lost my phone, only to discover it was in one of the four pockets I hadn’t checked. The panic this induced in drunken me made the Ukraine panic from Russian invasion look minimal.
I’d been in the city only about 24 hours, my only knowledge of how to get back to the hotel was on the metro via Christianshavn. So in my traditional stupid “oh that doesn’t look far on Google Maps” (add 6 hours drinking to that already flawed logic) I headed there. I didn’t get to the station until 12:54am and from the Apple health app could see I’d walked 3.2km after midnight to get there.
I was pretty pissed off with all that walking that I must have been uttering something under my breath about Danes when a group of 20 something’s at the metro asked me why I’d come to Copenhagen. I said I was here to meet Princess Mary. To which one of them responded “I fucked her”. Fair retort, I insult your people, you insult mine.
Home after 1am, racking up 19,500 steps/10.5km of walking on day.
Previous episode
Comments