Our Contiki tour wrapped up nicely with a few days respite in Copenhagen. I stayed in a room with Nick, Steph, and Jess and hung out with them as well as Chad & Martymer for the next couple days and also got some serious updating done to my internet presence. The first day I mostly slept, awaking in time to get in on a pizza delivery order and watch part of a movie with Gene Hackman and Hugh Grant that looked spectacularly awful. The next day was a little more eventful. Chad cooked up a nice chicken dinner, and we went out for Marty's birthday to Absalon in Copenhagen. The barmaid took care of us, and the live acoustic act certainly catered to us, not to mention chatting with some Swedish girls in town for the night. All in all, it was a much needed breather, let me assure you.
It was sad to finally leave the campsite, I think that's when it hit that I'm alone again, but by the time I'd made the trek to the train station to get back into the city, the music was going and I'd forgotten my sorrow. I took off to Malmo, which was much less lively than expected, partly because it was too early in the week and partly because the students all go home over the summer. They have a good and well-renowned music scene generally. I met a Dutch guy named Inga (who is aware of his name's female implications in all languages except Swedish), who turned out to be a writer for a Dutch music mag and a bit of an electronica enthusiast/writer. We had a great time at the pub chatting but I'd decided it was time to leave Malmo by the end of the night.
So the next day I was off to Lund for a few hours, a nice place but not much to see, and then I went up to Göteborg (yoo-te-bor) and found my way to a hostel. Which turned out to be the only one with an all night reception, but no rooms. He did offer me the coveted janitor's room, however, which I gladly took. It actually wasn't bad at all. I didn't get woken up, I had the room to myself, and, I slept better than I had in some time. I upgraded to a dorm the next night, and spent the day exploring. It's quite a cool city and very alive, I'd definitely recommend it to anyone travelling through Sweden in July. I took a guided tour on a boat and wound up in a café chatting with two guys and two girls for a couple hours. One of them offered me a ride to Stockholm today since she was heading that way anyway, but given that it's a 6 hour drive and a 3 hour train ride, I had to pass. I went to Liseberg, the largest amusement park in Scandi, since I had free admission, and did splurge on one ride - a wooden rollercoaster. Well worth the 40 minute wait and the 60 SEK which, for my own sanity, I will not translate into dollars.
I made my way back to the hostel to change for a night on the town and wound up hanging around and chatting with some of the other hostellers. Big mistake. I now had three tag alongs, one of whom was drunk out of his tree, the other two who didn't want to go where I wanted to. So we walked along a street nearby and were denied access to one place because the guy was too drunk (if you look the slightest bit drunk, they don't let you in here at all), another because the other guy was not 23, and wound up at this place that I found out from some locals I saw walking by is sort of a joke, called the Red Room. It wasn't sketchy, per se, but I get the feeling they'd use it in a sentence the way we'd use the Barry or something.
And now, today, I'm going to do a little more museum stuff until my pass expires and grab the express train to Stockholm. I've given some serious thought to picking up a phone over here, just because it would be very convenient for calling hostels, orchestrating meet ups, and even checking email away from these cafés I get trapped in. But I would either be paying roaming charges in other countries or changing my number all the time, so maybe I'll hold out yet.
That's all for now. The Contiki trip blog is finally finished. Whew!
With Christmas a distant memory, we headed for Helsinki on Boxing Day, though we were even more tired than before for the most part. I think the average sleep was about 3 hours, and I was below that. Even pancakes and gnutella couldn't bring us back from the dead. Helsinki, for its part, was awesome. It's an absolutely gorgeous city, parts of it modelled after St. Petersburg, but all of it with its own charm - definitely my favourite of the Scandinavian capitals. It also, by vote from both men and women, took the contest for Most Attractive Locals. Amazing considering the competition!
We took a little bit of a tour today, seeing Upenski Cathedral, Church of the Rock (a very impressive church built right into the stone, with a ceiling made of 32 km of copper strips), Senate Square, and so on. Catherine & I strolled through the city and found the famous hot chocolate man, whom we've decided has earned his right to be famous. Then a stroll to Upenski, the harbour, the market (where we picked up some wild strawberries and a few Finnish peas), and ran quickly through Nordstan, a famous department store.
This was to be our last night with the folks departing for Russia, so we went out for dinner at Armadillo, which was reputed to have some tasty dinner. Unfortunately, we didn't book ahead, so we split ways for dinner. I talked to the staff there and they recommended another restaurant down the street with equally good food, called Memphis. I wasn't keen on the name, but about 20 of us went over there and discovered that it was quite tasty. I had a steak, which I'd been craving again (at the moment, I'm craving a cinnamon bun like crazy) and everyones' meals seemed quite good. Some even went back for lunch the next day.
Despite the split, we did all meet (or, given the context, maybe that should be 'meat') up at a pub at 9:00 for drinks and goodbyes. It was a little sad to say bye, but c'est la vie. We walked back to the hostel much later that evening and I'm sad to say that I got us slightly lost, though I credit a large part of that to my own foolishness in asking a drunken Chad for directions instead of a sober one earlier in the evening. The rooms were saunas, and not much sleep would be had tonight.
In spite of sleeping in a steam room, I still managed to wake up and get outside to say a final goodbye to the Russkies the next morning, even though it was just in pajamas and sandals. Goodbyes aren't much fun, I should tell you, but I was determined to do my best. I meant to make the most of Helsinki by exploring that morning, but fell back asleep by accident until almost noon. So I grabbed a bite in town, strolled around, sat in the park, and then made my way back in time to catch the Love Boat.
Ah, the Love Boat. There's not much I can tell you about it other than it's an overnight ferry to Helsinki from Stockholm, but is more like a cruise/party ship. And that's what we did. We sat on the deck in the sun, watching the islands of Helsinki drift by, with buckets of Smirnoff in front of us. We ate an all you can eat/drink buffet which culminated in me becoming general (ask when I get home) and Sean receiving a little pink in the hair, and then went to the disco to party the evening away. Gord & I hung out mostly, and man was he hilariously toasted. Like, let's chat up these two girls who are FAR too young, toasted. Like, walking outside, past the WC, turning the corner, leaning against the ferry wall with one hand, and taking a nice whiz in the rather public walkway toasted. So, it was good times. I didn't have to deal with a stalker (Juaquin), losing a dance off (Chad), or entering a karaoke contest (Anita).
Chad did his best to keep the party going on the bus once we got off, but given our lack of sleep, it maybe lasted an hour. There was front-of-the-bus chit chat, impressions, microphone passing, and so on. Soon, everyone was making the best of our friends' departure... two seats for sleepery. Getting back to Copenhagen was nice, sort of a return to where we came from, older, wiser, and more sleep deprived than ever. We all went for dinner to Rosie McGee's, which was an Amigos style place (down to the Mexicana and live music) and pretty decent all said. The boys were presented with gifts and poems, and the rest of us with heaps of food, and then back to the camp for most of us for a final farewell party that never really got off the ground. I wound up finally talking to Andrea a little and going through all our collective photos, it's too bad that you talk to some people and not others, but it's a necessity on a 20 day trip, I guess.
The morning breakfast was our final farewell for many more of these people, but they will always live on... in their respective countries. Where they will be victims of ceaseless emails and, when the technology is developed, smellograms. I had some doubts going into this Contiki trip, but all of them turned out to be unfounded. I was with 45 great people, had a great time, don't really regret missing Roskilde anymore, and saw some things I likely would've missed on my own. Thanks to all, especially Chadster, Seanovan, and Michelle for making it a great time. Now, back to our regularly scheduled European adventure.
The Contiki tour of Copenhagen was fairly quick, but we got a little history and, though we did see much of the stuff I'd seen the day prior, we got some interesting background and also some things I'd missed like the Little Mermaid statue (H.C. Anderson wrote the original that Disney based their version on).
We also got to check out the famed Carlsberg brewery, which was quite interesting in that it showed the history of beer drinking in Denmark and the development of modern beer brewing methodologies over time as related to Carlsberg. Some things they haven't changed, however. For example, they still use big Clidesdale horses to haul beer kegs from place to place and they have a stable of them for this purpose. Then it was time to taste the fruits of their labour, a nice sampling of beer at noon in true Danish style. An intersting way to start the day. After that, as is par for the course on Contiki, it was free time time. Time.
I took a canal tour which took us near many of the sites of Copenhagen by water but, unbeknownst to me at the time, was unguided. So it was a little, shall we say, dull, if not relaxing. I grabbed myself some lunch (a cheap hotdog - food is pricey!) and an ice cream (well, to wash away the hot dog taste - even if I accidentally ordered rum & raisin) and I walked with Emma and Naomi to this church that resembles the tour of Babylon. There's a big black and gold steeple with a winding staircase on the outside that was a lot of fun to climb, and climb we did. Naomi is apparently a little frightened of heights but she did alright regardless and we snapped a few photos and took in the scenery from the top before heading down again and splitting off. Them to shop, me to Tivoli. I actually did shop a little for a t-shirt since in the morning the weather had been very overcast and cool and it had warmed up considerably leaving me stranded in a sweater and black jeans.
Now, I hear the few of you who made it this far asking, Tivoli? No folks, that's not a typo. Or a type of beer. It's a little amusement park in the heart of Copenhagen and the first one in the world. In fact, it is the park that inspired a man by the man of Walt to build a park by the name of Disneyland some time ago. It was neat in there, a few rides (which were far too expensive to think about riding) and all sorts of themed areas, restaurants, and games. A group of us met up in Tivoli, though I can't remember many of the people that were there at this point, but we hung around for a few hours and then went back to the hostel and hung out in someone's room and chatted while I uploaded some of my pictures which you undoubtedly have viewed many times.
The next morning, we left for Stockholm, Sweden. I sat with Allison on the bus, which was interesting. You see, we have a morning song which is slightly punkish in leanings and inspires her to head bang like crazy. Which is all good, I admire her lack of inhibition, but when you're sitting beside her at this point, those two ponytails are potentially lethal and definitely frightening as well as life-altering. As time progressed, however, the morning headbang would become more integral than the song itself.
It was a long bus ride with the occasional stops and not much for scenery, so we were feeling a little antsy when we arrived. So much so, that I went for a jog (yes, you read that right) with Naomi and Gord for a couple k. At which point I finally had to give up. We went looking for the train station but invariably went the wrong way and wound up at the next stop believe it or not. We made it back in time for din-din, and then a group of us went out that night. We met up with a friend of Naomi's who lived there and brought us to a second-storie bar overlooking the square which was somewhat dead but the place itself was decent and they actually stayed open an extra hour or two for us. It was a great night with some very interesting conversation going on and we managed to make the last train back to the hostel which was a nice treat as well.
The key to understanding the title is this: Danish girls are, well, pretty, and muffin is a word for a pretty young thing. Also, Danish is a type of food, as is a muffin. So you see, it was much less clever than you suspected. However, the point remains that my introduction to Copenhagen was punctuated by oh-so-beautiful exclamation points. Which isn't to say they have round bottoms, necessarily...
Anyway, before I get stuck on metaphors and puns, yes, Copenhagen is a lovely city. Mike and I arrived and, once again, ended up in a hostel about as exciting as a snail race on a salt track. Oops, more metaphor. I wound up in a room with an old lady and two girls from Hong Kong that were asleep both when I arrived mid-afternoon and when we got back that night. They wound up being on my tour (though we didn't talk to each other at all and I had no way of knowing) and when they're awake they're actually quite nice. The important thing is, this old lady (like 80) was in a bed across from me and creeped me out. A lot. And also gave me dirty looks. For entering my own room.
Anyway, we got out of there and explored the city as fast as we could, laughing about our luck, and stumbled on some cool stuff (most of which I would encounter the next day on tour). We met with Carissa (on our tour) and Juaquin (also on our tour) at 9:00 by the Hans Christen Anderson statue. Juaquin was quite amusing, going off and asking local girls for directions regardless of whether they were needed or not, and also snapping photos of local beauties (after asking their permission, we were told). It did come in handy as we found a very local jazz-funk club which felt a lot like Lydia's back home (except Norwegian). The singers would sing in English and then talk in Danish. Most Scandinavians are taught English in school and it seems to be mandatory. I have yet to run into one that doesn't speak English well, if not perfectly.
The next day was officially the first day of the Contiki trip, meeting at 7:00 at the campsite outside the city. So I spent the morning with Mike and the afternoon as well, moreso than intended as we got trapped on the wrong side of the river as I rushed to grab my things and head to the train station. I made it to the hostel just in time for the meeting and observed that I was not the oldest one but actually right in the middle of the pack, which is quite nice. The people on tour seemed to be generally cool too, albeit the Australian:others ratio was a little weighted (I think about 80% Aussies). Which is a nice change from my last tour which was all Canadian.
My first room was with Gord, the only other Canadian, Chris, a guy who worked in Canada for several years but is an Aussie and is back there now, and Rob, another Aussie who is also 24. So it was about as Canadian-friendly a start as could be expected given the numbers. I met quite a few more people at the dinner and, just for Mariah, even ate the mushrooms that came with it. Which I swore I'd never tell anyone back home, but here we are...
Anyway, tomorrow is a tour of Copenhagen, when we first board the Contiki bus, but I think tonight we're going to go out to pub and club. Well, okay, since this is written after the fact, we DID do the pub and club and Carissa had some post-clubbing coffee machine difficulties, and we all had a good time and too many Smirnoff Ice's. They were cheaper than back home!
