Journey to Denmark – I mean Sweden…
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
For some reason I thought that we didn’t have to get up early today and when the alarm went off I dismissed it and promptly went back to sleep. For those of you who know me this is really quite odd, I’m really not the person to sleeping passed an alarm clock. Luckily for me it was on Sarah’s side of the bed and she kept an eye on the time, only getting up half an hour later than it was set. We had breakfast at the hotel and slowly made the two minute journey over to the station. Our train looked to be a midget, the entire train only taking the space of one carriage on the poster that displays the day’s trains and where they stop on the platform – you have to love German rail! It also didn’t look to have a dinner carriage but thanks to Germany this didn’t mean that we went hungry, I just went to one of the many places in the station to get food and within minutes I had sandwiches, beer, lollies and water. Our train arrived and yes it certainly was a teeny tiny little thing but very modern and comfortable. The ride was around 3 hours until we got to the ferry, then a one hour crossing to Denmark with another two hour ride on the other side up to Copenhagen.
The InterIslander people could really learn a lot from the Scandiline people (the boat that we went on). For a ride that is less than 1 hour, there are at least 4 different restaurants, duty free shopping (which, okay, going between the Nth and Sth Islands you couldn’t exactly do), several different seating environments, plus more. Very, very nice.
We arrived in good sprits after a nice crossing and easy train ride, but after the first hour this disappeared. There was no possibility of accommodation anywhere in Copenhagen t or the surrounding suburbs, the last room available being a 3 star hotel and that only had one family room left at €300 for the night. We found out there was a doctor’s conference on for a couple of days, taking up all extra beds. Unfortunately there is only one way in and one way out of Copenhagen – being the way we came. Not too keen on this we decided to gamble and head across the water to Malmo. It was a 45 minute ride and we had to wait an hour for a train that was meant to go every 15 minutes, I think that we must have caught them on a bad day as it was bedlam and when the train did actually arrive there were twice as many people to seats, so the isles were crammed with people. But we were very thankful to be on a train out of Copenhagen and hopefully to a bed. We arrived an hour later and were shocked to realise that we had crossed our second border for the day and were now in Sweden! To make things even more interesting this was our third currency for the day… We walked into the Tourist information centre and were given the same story of woe that we got in Copenhagen. But at this time we got a good lady and she spent a good hour helping us sort out something. We had two possibilities; one was to take an overnight boat back to Germany, getting in at 10am or go further up the country and stay in a hostel. Not sure what to do we um-ed and ah-ed for a minute and then saw the other lady of the store closing the door and not letting anyone else in. This was like the final straw - we had now been trying to get accommodation now for over four hours. We figured that we needed to make sure that we had a bed for the night, as this was our last chance and I really didn’t want to sleep in the station. Thank god we got the lady that we did as she was so patient and willing - she finally got a hostel on the phone with rooms available and was only another 45 minutes up the line. We gladly took the room and ran for the train as it was leaving in 4 minutes. This train thankfully left on time and as we sat there we tried to work out how to get to the hostel. The train that we got was an express so unfortunately we raced past our stop like a speeding bullet. This was ok though as the main station was only 3mins up the line and we could just jump onto the next train coming back in the direction we had just come from. Apparently trains are not the main form of transport in Scandinavia though, so we did have to wait for a bit but eventually we got a train that thank-god did stop at ‘Ramlosa’ – this was the station we wanted, and we walked the 500 metres to the hostel finally walking in the door at 7.45pm. We had arrived in Copenhagen at 2pm so it had taken 5 and a half hours to get a bed, that’s definitely a record. Thank God we didn’t know that reception actually closes at 8, and that we had made it by just 15 minutes! The extra stress would have been awful! But what an amazing hostel to arrive in, especially after such an ordeal. Definitely the best hostel so far, in fact better than almost all the hotels! It has full kitchen facilities, a TV room with library, free laundry facilities and the rooms are amazing.. Even more good news was that there was a supermarket around the corner that was still open, so we could go and get dinner and then prepare it in the kitchen. That is exactly what we did, but not realising just how much of a kitchen that we got, we bought pre-made dinners from the supermarket but by this stage it was getting onto 9pm so we didn’t have a energy to make a nice dinner – that would have to wait till tomorrow…
posted by Maarty @ 6:36 pm,
