If you could only see one city in Germany, it shouldn’t be Hamburg. But it’s still an interesting city, especially when you have no idea what you are looking at.
In wondering around the main water passages, you might enter a bridge that is designed to cross a canal and find that the same bridge will bend and run parallel to the street, elevating you above the cars and side walks. It seems as though this place was designed to be flooded on an annual basis. And I must say that the amount of glass here in Hamburg is much less than that of Berlin.
In Berlin, people will tend to smash their beer bottles down in a celebratory fashion, as if they actually believed that the thousands of shards they release to the streets are green, clear, or brown diamonds. The best part is, if you are in a bar in Germany and someone breaks a glass on the ground, no one is going to clean that glass up for the rest of the night. It just isn’t efficient to run around with a broom all night to keep your patron’s feet safe.
I myself created some of that glass one night by chiming two empty shot glasses together to the beat of a song. Who I’ve always been able to play the shot glass at home without it turning into the in my feet glass. But lets get on to the good stuff. Scandinavia. The first place in Europe that has felt really, really foreign.
In taking the train from hamburg to Copenhagen, you get to experience a true marvel in technology. The train (along with another) loads into the hull of a ferry to make it across to the island where Copenhagen resides. This process runs so seamlessly that you could easy deny that it is happening at all. But you can’t actually stay in the train for the 45 minute ferry crossing according to two Canadian residents of Copenhagen because “If the boat sinks, you don’t want to be in cased in a steel tube at the bottom of it.” Fair enough, but for some reason all I could think of during the ferry ride was “turducken”.
People always ask me, “Have you been somewhere that was just too expensive?” Up until Denmark, I would have said “No” that’s just a roomer that people with an affinity for fine dining tend to pass. But Denmark is different. I can confidently say it is the most expensive place I have been to on the planet. This is where you will happily pay $3 for a candy bar at a super market. A single measly slice of pizza from a hole in the wall will happily run you $7 and a glass of tap water with your meal is a cool $3. If you were planning on sleeping with sheets in your hostel, don’t worry, it’s only an extra $10.
There are tons of place to shop in Copenhagen and I do need a new pair of sandals. The problem with this is that I’m not quite ready to part with the $100. But what about fine dining? How much is that? You know the kind of place that you are actually sitting down and have silverware. A single dish starts at $40, but that’s only for the restaurants that casually line the city streets.
Surprisingly enough though, my hostel dorm room was only $25 per night. This is about the same price as the cheapest accommodation in Japan. The only difference is, in a Japanese hostel, you feel like you are being pampered by a family. Here, you feel like a rat might round the corner at any moment. The hostel dorm that was this price, was by the way, filled with 65 other backpackers in a single room. A new personal record.
But I’m just being sensational. Don’t let me persuade you to believe that I am having anything less than an excellent time. Copenhagen is said to be the very most happy city in the world. This isn’t because the weather is perfect (though it has been while I have been here). It isn’t because they have some secret society that brews happy elixir either. It’s simply because they have set their expectations at an achievable level. This is fascinating to me, seeing as I’ve got the marketing mindset. This is the same school of thought that would explain why people who have so much are almost never happy at all.
The Danish are distinctly not the people who go off looking for greener grass. They lie back in the field and let the blades caress their faces. Come to think of it, this might be the first western culture that I have found who shares this wisdom on a national level. This is the beginning of Scandinavia and I am beginning to believe all the Scandinavians who I have met along my travels who say “We are Scandinavian, not European. There’s a difference.”
At the second, I am on a high speed train to Stockholm Sweden and the baby who is screaming bloody murder is actually very easily calmed by his mother. (Side Note)
I haven’t rattled your cages about fate based travel in a while, and I think you deserve an update. Originally (a few days ago) I hadn’t planned on going past Denmark, but I met a fellow traveler who had plans to go all the way to Norway to see the fjords. When I saw some fjord-like masses in New Zealand, I thought, “I would be great to see the ones in Norway.” But I didn’t believe that I would go all that way to see them.
We did a little research online to see if there were any hostels open for Stockholm, Oslo, and the other important connecting cites to get to the Fjords. Almost everything was booked up. In addition, in a few towns, It was decidedly impossible. Every single piece of accommodation was taken. And why is this? Because though the sun is burning down at the moment, we are only a few days away from the tourist season closing. In just a few days, all the hostels will close their doors for the year and the weather will get as nasty as one can imagine. The polar bears will regain power of the streets and anyone who defis them will stain those the snowy streets red with their own blood. Well maybe not that last bit.
Allison, my fellow traveler is an experienced camper, and regretted not bringing her camping gear. “If I’d have known, we could just camp instead.” The thought of torrential blizzards and blood thirsty polar bears sprinting through the streets flashed through my head. “Let’s check the weather first.”
As expensive as Denmark is, Norway is actually, a lot more expensive and the cheapest hostel “had it been available, would be $50 per night per person.” We got to thinking about how much that would amount to in only 6 days. $600 bucks, do you think that is enough to buy a full camping set?
It seemed a little wasteful to deck ourselves out for only a few days, but the math was there. It would be the same if not cheaper. Just as we were about to make some amazingly expensive purchases, Alison got a reply from her inquiry to her Mother “Can you find me any obscure relatives to stay with in Norway?”
She sent this message out half as a joke, but of course, happy to see a helpful response. In true fate based travel fashion, her Mom pulled though with this response (Not verbatim)
“Ok, I just got off the phone with your grandma and she says that my Aunt stayed with a second cousin in Oslo just last winter and I’m sure they would be happy to let you stay for a few days.”
She went on to give us 3 phone numbers to call as well as background relation to each one of the contacts. She even gave us correct pronunciations of their Scandinavian names as well as nicknames and back stories.
KuuuCHIIINNNNGGGGG!!! Wammy!!!!
If all else fails (these demi strangers are away for the week, or just don’t answer their phones), we can always just buy that camping equipment that we always wanted, and hope that the weather doesn’t turn evil.