Goin' to Copenhagen
The next morning I got up at 9:00 AM, packed my bags, and wondered what my day was going to be like. Will I end up back at Yvonne's place at night? It's always a possibility, if no one offers to give me a lift.
Yvonne lived near a big roundabout, one exit of which is the entrance to the Autobahn, going to Berlin as well as north, where the road ends in a ferry terminal. So she walked me to this roundabout, where I then proceeded to wait, my sign "København" in hand.
I guess a hitch-hiker must stay optimistic, but I also remember this time wondering "Is anybody going to stop?!?". The roundabout was not that optimal because there was really nowhere for a car to stop without causing at least a bit of annoyance, if there was somebody behind him.
But after an hour somebody did stop. Wilhelm was going to Lübeck with his son and his son's friend, in a station wagon full of luggage. I was amazed that he stopped at all, lucky for me he was a very nice guy, although the kids would've probably preferred not having to sit under my backpack for the next hour or so.
At this point I've already disproved 2 common hitchhiker assumptions: somebody driving a luxury car will never give you a lift, and neither will a car full of family.
Wilhelm works in Lübeck but his wife and son still live in Frankfurt. So he commutes 500km (one way) every once in a while. I found it amazing how one can spend half his day on the road, driving, probably being bored out of one's mind and thinking of what else one could be doing then...
He was also driving to work (on a sunny Friday afternoon, poor man), so first he dropped off the kids in Lübeck (so I've been to Lübeck too, ha ha), and he drove me to a gas station quite some distance away north of the town, further than his exit actually, but what a nice man he was, going out of his way.
"Damn, only 2 cars here." was my first thought. But hey, the day was young, anybody going up this road must be going to take the ferry and to Denmark, so I was still optimistic. 20 minutes later I already got a ride to Copenhagen.
Again it was with a family, who were going to go to Sweden for their vacation: Ulrich, his wife Heidi, and their daughter whose name I unfortunately didn't write down. They were having lunch at the gas station, and as I approached them I was expecting a no. But they generously said yes as well. It turns out they also used to hitchhike to get to places as they were young, and that's probably a big advantage for me.
Salzwedel
Ulrich and Heidi come from Salzwedel, somewhere between Hamburg and Berlin and in the place which is formerly East Germany.
From the pictures on its Wikipedia page it looks like a nice place, though it looks more like a village than a city.
We drove north to the island Fehmarn (looking in Google Maps at the nice beaches, it looks like this region is worth a visit too), to the ferry station at the end of Germany - actually it was fascinating to see how the Autobahn ended: it ended at a ferry station (To be correct, it wasn't an Autobahn anymore at that point, having turned to a regional highway long before that). My ride said that they always have good luck at this point: the gate to the ferry usually closes just in front of them, and the ferry sails away. But today we didn't have to wait long and got on the first boat we saw.
It was a sunny and warm day, and it was beginning to look Danish: waiting at the terminal were many Danish cars.
It was my first time on a ferry like this, and it seemed everybody else knew where they wanted to go; there was a restaurant, a duty-free store - where a lot of people were buying tax-free booze, a money exchanger and one thing which doesn't involve money: the outdoor viewing decks.
It was a short ride across the Baltic sea (GMaps says it's only 18.5 km), but there were giant ships there, presumably because it's a shipping lane. Did I mention it was a blue skies warm sun kind of day?
Now I mentioned before about the tragic ending to the KFC saga. Apparently it makes my stomach a bit... well let's just say the trip to the bathroom was necessary, and I had to clench for the rest of the way...
The rest of the way, I napped. When we finally made it to near Copenhagen, I wondered where to get off. The family I was with were travelling further to a lake in Sweden, so they were just going to pass the outskirts of Copenhagen on the highway.
Now as I mentioned I've been to Copenhagen before, as an excursion with a car full of students on exchange. We needed to get to the Technical University at one o'clock at night, and after making a wrong turn we got utterly lost. Somewhere we took an exit off the highway, so that we could retrace our steps and take the right turn, although through the inability to coordinate, everybody wanted to be the navigator, and we got even more lost.
On this day, we decided to just take an exit on the highway, drop me off, and they could get back on said highway. So we did just that, and it was surprising to me how the exit looked like the exit we took that night. Wow, was I retracing my steps? But I wasn't a hundred percent sure either.
There was a bus stop on that road, that leads to Copenhagen, so I got off there and we bid our goodbye's.
Since I hadn't thought it through, there I was, some 8 KM's away from Copenhagen (says a road sign), with no Danish Kroners. Actually I had 17 DKK. A bus ride costs 19 DKK. So I pulled out my sign again and stood beside the road a few meters before the bus stop.
A lady which looked Indian looked at my sign and looked perplexed. Then a man said "Well, it's that way, but it's so close that no one will stop for you. You can take a bus from here and it will get you there.". After realizing I had no Kroners, he offered to buy me a ticket. Phew, I was relieved I didn't have to walk to the next money-changer.
The bus was quite full, and we rode across the busy suburbs of Copenhagen. I was amazed at how built up and busy the place looked, and at most, at how... eastern it looked. There were a lot of ethnic shops and people you wouldn't classify as "Danish", because a "Danish" in our minds (well my mind anyway) is white-skinned and blonde. The ethnic shops were also typical, with clutter decorating their entrances. I found it awesome, "Wow, a real life multi-cultural metropole."
I forgot to mention in the introduction that on this trip I was planning to mostly couch-surf, but yes I that's what I was doing. CouchSurfing is a website where you can offer people a place to sleep (for example a couch in your apartement), or just some company who'll can show them around your town, and in reverse you can ask people all over the world if you can sleep at their place.
So Inge in Copenhagen was about to be my first couch-surfing host. First I needed to reach her, so I needed to make a phone call. For that I needed money. I got off the bus at its final stop, Nørreport station, and luckily that area had a couple of money exchangers. I went into one, and was greeted by the hottest, friendliest Danish blonde ever. I asked her how much it would cost to stay in the city for 2 days and she was very helpful and friendly. Maybe it was standard procedure, but boy did I feel welcomed.
After exchanging the EUR 40 I had in my wallet, I made the phone call, which apparently woke Inge up. She had been partying the day before and was a little out of it. She asked if we could meet at 6 PM, which meant I had 1 - 2 hours to kill. After standing around the outside of the station people-watching (and seeing a few more hot Danish blondes), I decided to walk around the area. Only then did I realize, I was pretty close to the old city centre, with its pedestrian zone. I didn't walk far, because I had my huge backpack on my back, so I found a public square and just took a seat on one of the benches, trying to let the truth sink in that I was in Copenhagen.
At 6 PM I was back at the station, and met Inge, and we walked to her place to drop off my bags. Inge lives in Nørrebro, an area with a high percentage of immigrants (50% according to Wikipedia) and "counter-culture" supporters. She likes it because she feels it's more vibrant and colorful. The funny thing about the counter-culturalists, she says, is, they rebel and live differently because they want people to pay attention to them, but because Denmark is so tolerant, they are accepted too, making their rebellion mute. "It's hard to rebel when your mother always says 'I support you!'.", Inge said.
I felt the area was also a bit run-down, with bikes and bike carcasses all over the sidewalk and grafitti filled walls. Most of the grafitti was of the number "69", and behind it lies a fascinating story of a youth center that was torn down after it was bought by a crazy Christian sect. The story of the big March 2007 riots in Copenhagen made the news, but I paid little attention to it, so it was surprising to realize that an empty rubble-filled lot we walked past was the same building that had started it all.
It turned out part of the reason to the run-down look of the area is the destruction the rioters did, so perhaps the area isn't actually that bad.
Inge lived in a small one-room apartment, typical for Copenhagen which is running out of island-space. What I found amazing was her bathroom, which was a closet they modified so there's a toilet, a small sink, and connected to the same water-tap was a hose you can shower with. Where does one stand while showering? Inside the closet, covering the walls and doors with a shower curtain...
She also had big bookshelves and a lot of books, in particular in Russian, which I could not read at all. One amusing one was travel guide to the USSR, which she said she got because she wanted to collect books about countries that no longer exist. The book was cool too; with the dangers, tips and tricks for travelling to behind the Iron Curtain.
After a short break at her place, we went out to grab some dinner, grabbing some burgers at a hip little restaurant. It was a bit pricey, but damn, its size and taste justified the price, a whole plate full of burger and salad, which I sadly didn't manage to finish (that's how big it was). We went out in t-shirts, but because of the chill and darkness (the sun still sets in Copenhagen, but the twilight gave out really cool colors), we went back to her place to sleep.