Copenhagen, Yet Again!

Well this post is a bit behind the times, but I assure you that is because I have been busy.  In fact, I may be slightly drunk even now, as I am composing this lovely collection of sentences and paragraphs.  So please, gentle reader, if you find my grammar or syntax lacking or my style needlessly verbose and opulent, I plead your mercy and forgiveness in advance.  You wanted immersion, so here's some immersion for you!

The current time as I write this sentence is 4:16 AM CEST.  Let us rewind the clock about 20 hours, and begin in Esbjerg.  I awoke in Esbjerg at about 8:00 AM, because for some strange reason the hostel there requires checkout by 9:30, despite every other hostel I've been in having the checkout time at 10:00.  Whatever.  One nice perk was that I paid for a shared room for two nights, but the only guy sharing the room with me left after the first night, so the second night was essentially a private room for free.  This made dressing and packing a much simpler affair, as I didn't particularly need to concern myself with the sleep of others.

After checking out, I began the long trek to the train station, stopping by the grocery for some loaves of bread.  I've slowly begun to develop a habit of purchasing entire loaves of bread and eating them while walking down the street.  This has two primary effects.  First of all, it saves money, as bread is ridiculously cheap.  Secondly, from time to time I get really weird looks from passers-by, as I take bites out of bread loaves.  Both effects please me greatly, but especially the second.

By the time I reached the station, I'd consumed one loaf utterly, and decided to save the other for later.  I was a little anticipatory, because this was to be the first day I'd right the Danish bus system.  Apparently, no direct trains run from Esbjerg to Copenhagen, probably because nobody wants to go to Esbjerg.  But I digress.  I found that the trip wasn't particularly any more difficult - I simply filled out my Eurail flex-pass, and on I boarded (though nobody ever checked tickets, so I really could have just gotten on anyway).  After an hour on the bus, I connected with the three-hour train ride to the capital.  Thankfully, the trains come with power jacks, so I was able to keep my MP3 player charged while watching a bunch of Eddie Izzard shows back to back to pass the time.

Arriving in Copenhagen felt good.  It was almost like coming home - arriving somewhere I was already familiar with.  I made the short walk to the hostel, and the receptionist recognized me from my last stay.  She asked what all I had seen, and after I told her which cities I had visited, she said "Holstebro? Why did you go to Holstebro?"  I replied "It was better than Esbjerg," to which she scoffed and responded "Yeah, you're probably right."  I took this as vindication that my poor review of Esbjerg was not the result of bias, but is rather the national majority opinion.

When I arrived in my room, I met the person who would be sleeping in the bunk above me, a Brazilian girl named Anna.  She apparently had been in Europe for a few months, beginning with no knowledge of English, but had improved to the point that we were able to converse fairly freely.  I was rather impressed.  She had met some guys downstairs who had invited her to come drinking with them that night, and she invited me to come along.  Jackpot!  Finally an opportunity to go drinking as part of a group!

Before then, however, I still had an evening to waste.  As I have been doing rather well in catching up my deficit, I decided to treat myself to a nice dinner.  I got dressed up, and headed out to the canal area to have a nice outdoor dinner while the sun went down.  I found a nice café, which offered a main course entitled "Garlic Steak".  Ordinarily, I'm not much of a steak person, but the opportunity to have a garlic steak had never been offered to me in print before, and I wasn't about to pass that up.  I got a glass of rosé chardonnay blanc, which went very well with the steak.  Good food, good wine, and the sun going down was just a wonderful way to end the evening.  Upon the conclusion of the meal, I stopped by a small shop and got a homemade ice-cream cone, and enjoyed it on my way back to the hostel.

After a run and a shower, I met up with the drinking party at the ground floor of the hostel.  As introductions began, most people didn't bother learning names, but rather simply memorized the nationalities of the people we were introduced to.  I was American, and was going out with two Swedish brothers, Holland, Brazil, Switzerland, Ireland, and England.  We headed down the road to the a bar in the walking-only district, which featured karaoke.  I knew the night was going to turn out well, and budgeted 200 kr for my night on the town.

We started the evening with a few drinks, and chatted among ourselves as there weren't many other patrons.  Occasionally, someone would sing a karaoke song, and then a few more songs would come up without singers.  As I knew one of them, I jumped up on the small stage and sang that song.  As the night went on, the  drinks kept flowing, the karaoke kept playing and the bar began to fill up.  I sang a good deal more karaoke, to much critical acclaim.

At one point, I headed outside to clear my head, as the combination of cigarette smoke and heat was making my head hurt.  Outside, I somehow got dragged into a rap battle (which I managed not to fail at), and had a conversation with one of the Swedes about how much he recommended trying LSD at some point in my life.  I went back inside, had a few more drinks, and decided to head for home, as it was about 3:30 and the sun was starting to come up.  Switzerland came back with me, and we stopped by Burger King for a quick bite on the way home.  I decided that it was probably best to document everything before sleeping, so here I am doing so!

All in all, a great night with wonderful people!