23 March - Copenhagen
Got up at 5:30AM to catch the train to Copenhagen from Hamburg Hbf because we had to take another train to get to Hbf. Fadime went to work very early. She thought we would be staying for a few days, so she changed her work schedule. She even gave me (Grace) a present -- a cosmetics set, pink!. She cooked eggs and laid out a very nice breakfast--cheese (2 types), tomatoes, olives, breads, chocolate spread, etc.
On the way from Hamburg to Copenhagen, there was a section that's served by ferry. Our train drove straight onto the ferry, together with big trucks and buses, and we got off for a while to go up to the deck of the ferry. It was drizzling and dandy but we managed to have a good view of the sea and another ship that was going not far from us. The ferry was well served by shops (duty free), cafes, lounges, bathrooms (very important for Ersen) and we ate the bread/cookies Fadime made for us--Irfan had stuffed our bags with bread, cookies, orange juice, water, etc. before we left. I slept through the rest of the journey overland. We also saw a big hare (rabbit, brown with white ears) jumping over the rails. Many free range chickens. Many wind power stations.
In Copenhagen, we encountered the most difficult time so far--can't find trains at good times to go to places we wanted to go to: Trains to Oslo were at weird times, only one overnight train to Stockholm with an expensive sleeper and finally no spaces on the train to Bergen, Norway because the Norwaysian Easter break started the next day (everyone was going skiing and taking the train between Oslo and Bergen). After more than two hours of thinking reading, planning, deciding and waiting in line we went back to the first option given to us--going on the overnight train to Stockholm in the expensive sleeper. Finally at 3PM (we arrived at 12 PM) we stepped out of the train station, but still worrying about the possibility of not being able to get a place on the ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki, or to anywhere we wanted to go to. Ah, Easter Holidays!
We had a nice walk in Copenhagen through the shopping district, the cafe street with many boats (but Ersen doesn't let me take a boat trip :( ). There was a very grand square (more of a round place) with guards dressed in big tall feather hats and fancy uniform. We took out our new tripod to take a picture of the square with the marble church behind it. One of the guards shouted to us and we thought it was because we were trying to take picture in the traffic lane. So, we quickly moved to a sidewalk and set up our tripod there. The first picture was a little dark, so we took another one. Just then one of the guards came to us, smiling, and told us that tripods are not allowed in the square. Only hand-held cameras can take pictures. We were puzzled but obediently packed our tripod. Only then did we realized that the first guard was actually shouting at us because of the tripod, not because we blocked the traffic lane! We just couldn't figure out why tripods are banned in that square. Anyway, we walked through the square with our tripod to the marble church.
We then headed to Churchill Park, walked through it to the seaside and found the little Mermaid statue. Strolled along the seaside until we returned to the cafe street (Nyhau). Walked along more shopping streets, confirmed that doner is the cheapest food in Europe and came back to the station. Had a plate of Vietnamese food for dinner. Spicy. We took an early train to Malmo, trying to book the train/ferry for our journey tomorrow in Malmo, since it's Sweden. Unfortunately, the ticket office was closed when we arrived. Checking the availability of tickets on the machine gave us very bleak hopes of securing places on trains. We learned our lesson this time and prepared several (4-5) backup plans for the next day. Hopefully something will work out.
Note: Danish coins have holes in the middle. It is weird. See pictures.
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