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No real impression of London Heathrow
aside from spaciousness. Meaning long trip from landing to
gate of departure. It wasn't particularly pretty or modern.
Waited in long line for bags to be X-rayed. Was annoyed by
blonde woman in line who had kept fixing her hair on the plane.
Sort of loud and fake. Really, it was mostly her obsessive
hair fixing that bothered me.
Flight 2 not so bad, but I was tired.
I tried to read the new Tom Robbins novel I'd bought at the
Philadelphia airport, but I didn't have the attention span.
Flight lasted about 2 hours. Sleep set in just before food
came. Ate food (weird salad with chicken, onions, potatoes,
roast beef). Accidentally ate piece of beef and obsessed for
20 minutes on whether I was going to get mad cow disease.
Copenhagen airport is lovely. Appears
to be made by Ikea designers. Lots of wood, contemporary seating
fixtures.
Met Chris. Called Mom and Greg. Got
on train for 3 hour ride to Billund.
Very tiring. Actually, no. I was tired,
but the train was relaxing. Then strange guy entered. Thought
he was going to smoke pot when he took out a hash pipe. Could
not look at him, would start laughing. Chris sat across from
me. Seemed like strange guy tried to light pipe and failed.
Began instead carving "2000" in it. Chris and I tried to ignore
him. Later, he colored in the sockets of his skull keychain
with blue pen.
The guy began speaking to us in bad
English about the Vietnam War and mandatory military service.
Hard to understand what he was saying. Fortunately, he left
the train shortly afterwards. He had also stolen approximately
100 napkins, stuffing them into his pants and concealing them
under his shirt during a trip to the restroom.
I ate a weird sandwich, chicken and egg or
something. My whole body felt off-kilter.
Chris told me he had started smoking. When
the woman sitting next to me left her cigarettes on the table,
we debated whether she was returning for about half an hour.
When she didn't, I had Chris demonstrate his smoking prowess.
It was very amusing. And lame, too. Smoking is stupid, and
you can only get away with it if you're in a film noir. And
Chris isn't.
We arrived at Veijle and had to catch a bus
to Billund. We missed the bus by seconds. Chris got angry.
He bought a hot dog. We sat and looked out a large window
at the buses coming in. People outside were dressed strangely
-- some in sweaters, some in summer garb. The wind blew and
it looked like October. I made him pose for a picture next
to the elevator, because I knew my dad would find it funny.
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| Elevator, Veijle Train
Station. "i fart" means something like "in
transit" in Danish. Chris is shiny. |
Checked into hostel. Cost more than
desired, but still cheap. Kr. 380 for 2 people, 1 Kr = 12
cents. $45.60.
Hostel was nice, 10 beds in my room,
2 bathrooms. It was clean. Like a large dorm room with a study
table in the middle. It was called a Konference Room. Made
my bed wrongly at first, but Chris told me how to fix it.
You have to put the comforter inside the sheets so they don't
have to wash the comforters. You can get fined if they catch
you using sheets improperly or not using sheets, but it's
unlikely that they will find you out. In another city, I saw
two girls abusing the sheet rule.
We bought four beers. They smelled
bad but tasted okay. I got buzzed off of one and a half bottles
and Chris drank the rest. Then we went ouside to the Bouncy
Cushion, an air-filled mat that works like a trampoline, but
is dome-shaped. It was about 9 PM. The sun was just starting
to set.
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| Konference Room, Billund.
The beer smelled bad, but tasted good. |
The Bouncy Cushion sported many youngsters.
We didn't see an age limit on the sign, so we took turns getting
headaches and knocking down little kids by the force of our
landings. Felt sick afterward and went to bed. Woman and daughter
entered once I'd turned out the lights. I was asleep before
they were finished getting their beds prepared. It was 9:30
PM. I'd been awake for almost 35 hours.
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| Bouncy Cushion, Billund.
The tall person in the center is Chris. This image has
been lightened. |
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| Bouncy Cushion. Me looking maniacal. |
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