I made it across the pond and back by Wednesday evening, more or less in one piece, and have been recovering / rearranging my apartment / hiding from socialization since then. Before I post my trip reports, here are a few general lessons I’ve learned:
- Germans, especially big German men the size of refrigerators, can DRINK. It is not a good idea, when you are a petite 5′2″ Asian girl, to try and keep pace with them!
- It appears that the “in” accessory in Sweden is a beautiful blonde baby. I’ve never seen so many cherubic babies as I did walking the streets of Malmö. Apparently this is because Sweden offers the world’s most generous maternity (and paternity) leave packages. I’m not a kid person, but if I got 18 months worth of paid vacation per tot, I might reconsider the whole birth control thing!
- Denmark is full of windmills. Almost a quarter of the country’s electricity is provided by wind energy. I don’t quite understand the people who think windmills are ugly; they’re like big sleek modern art installations. They’re especially more beautiful considering their function in replacing hideous smokestacks and coal plants. And the people, like my friend Melinda, who worry about windmills killing birds? Even if that were true, I say, bring it on.
- Brussels is a very confusing city for drivers. Six-way intersections, four different kinds of traffic (cars, trams, buses, people), and streets signs that are barely legible when standing in front of them, let alone from the street? We would have been hopelessly lost, had it not been for…
- …Kate, our GPS, saving our asses. If you plan on doing any significant amount of driving in Europe, shell out for a GPS with European maps. It’s well worth the $400. I’m fairly certain Kate got annoyed with us humans at times. Her robotic voice seemed to take on a slightly snippy tone whenever we’d miss several turns in a row, and when in Sweden, flat out gave up trying to pronounce some of the incomprehensibly voweled street names. Any longer and I’m sure she would have quit, or navigated us into a nice Scandinavian ditch. But we’re lucky and very grateful she didn’t! (nice robot, now please don’t rise up and kill your masters)
More notes and observations to come over the next series of posts. Again, I’ll be backdating these to their appropriate dates and times:
Today we set off to explore the lovely city of Malmö. We chose to CouchSurf here because of its proximity to Kristianstad, the town from whence Andy’s ancestors came. I won’t pretend that I’d heard of Malmö prior to this trip, but I’m glad we ended up going here - it wasn’t exactly warm per se, but the weather was tolerably beautiful, and I think we were in more or less the warmest part of Sweden.
Before we set off for the city, however, we had to jump over a number of language barriers. Our host was having some work done on his attic, so he let us know that some carpenters might be knocking on the door to use our sink or borrow some things. Shortly after we woke, someone knocked at the door; Elijah answered it, while Andy and I gathered our things together in our makeshift bedroom. We overheard the following conversation:
Swedish carpenter: *something incomprehensible to us*
Elijah (flustered): “I, uh, I’m sorry - I don’t speak Spanish!”
Swedish carpenter: ¿Es verdad? Ay, lo siento…
Then Elijah says he got even more flustered and switched to some strange pidgin of English and German. Meanwhile, Andy and I were helpfully laughing hysterically.
I was to get some comeuppance later, when we were at a nearby mall searching for an electronics store (Andy had not packed a battery charger for his video camera, and thus began the epic quest for a European one). I attempted to withdraw some money from an ATM, which never posed much of a problem on the continent. Every ATM we passed here snubbed my card, and I worried that it would get eaten by ATM trolls eventually. The line at the mall ATM disappeared, so I thought I’d try it. I mashed some buttons, attempting to see the screen in English, when a woman in line behind me barked (borked) at me. I turned and looked at her with this deer in the headlights look, thinking, “how do you say ‘I can’t speak Swedish?’ again?” (According to Elijah, you say “I’m sorry, I can’t speak Spanish” ;)) Instead of attempting to say something, I grabbed my check card and ran like a rude person. In retrospect, saying something in English would have been about a billion times more polite (or even saying “I’m an American tourist!”, but I wasn’t thinking. Oh well.
We explored quite a bit of the city, due to being lost (even with Kate in our possession). Here are a billion photos because I know you’d rather look at pretty pictures than read my blather!
Is this one of Andy’s ancestors? Don’t quite see the resemblance.
Yep, we’re lost.
A cock in a bush! No I’m not above juvenile humor!
Greedy ducks and geese that kind of came up and mobbed us. Like a fraidy cat I ran away while the boys were having a good time. They don’t know the dark hearts that lurk in birds.
Andy’s on the epic quest for his relatives in the land of the elves.
Another pretty lake in Malmö.
Is Sweden really real? I was there and all, but I still can’t make up my mind.
Fly away, modernist unicorn!
In front of the Malmö house, surrounded by probably what is the least effective moat ever. I don’t think it would even deter invading ducks.
The Malmö house.
At a beautiful dog park by the coast, now dubbed "Dog Heaven" - due to its idyllic features for dogs, not because there were dead dogs there. It had big open spaces for dogs to run around in, obstacle courses, and of course, access to water.
This crazy building here is called the Turning Torso.
Closeup of the Torso. It made me dizzy standing so close to it!
The Oresund Bridge, one of the longest and most expensive bridges in the world. You can drive over it, or if you like, lean over the rail and throw euros into the open sea.
Pretty lego block looking buildings in front of the Turning Torso (yes, I know lego blocks are actually Danish).
Elijah van Winkle wakes up and discovers himself in a land of blonde people, rigid lines and primary colors.
This area was such a photographer’s dream. I’m sad I didn’t get better photos, but I’m no expert!
Can one actually go inside Outside?
We found Noah’s Ark…en! It’s in a little park near where we stayed.
In Sweden there are oversized bunnies and piglets who live amongst the elves.
The homestead Ol’ Gnomy McGnomester and his pet piggies.
Possibly a level in Super Mario.
That’s it for Malmö. Stay tuned for smaller towns in Sweden, and Copenhagen, in the next entry!