I set my alarm today for 7:30. I awoke well after sunrise - at about 5:30. I'm not sure how this whole "midnight sun" thing is going to mess with my sleep cycle, but I
do at least know that I'm solar powered. Not having anything else to do until breakfast at 8:00, I went on a 3.2km run. 15 minutes.
The first thing I'm going to do when I can is find a bank and get some DKK - I got a little in change from the train ticket last night, but spent it on the pizza. I've got a sort of fascination with Danish coinage. In America, change is a hassle (excepting the all-mighty quarter). Here, I want a small pouch to keep an ambiguous amount of change in, ala Robin Hood. While I'm at it, I want a horse that I can sneer down from upon as I throw my coin-purse at some peasant.
"Follow her and report back to me at midnight behind the old church. Bring a shovel and two strong men such as yourself."
Or something like that.
The next thing I'm going to do is find one of the city bike racks and
steal borrow a bicycle for the day. Getting used to how the city is laid out for bicyclists will probably be quite helpful, and it will allow me to cover more ground. I may try to get another night in this hostel - that would give me a chance to get my bearings a little better - take the accommodations for granted. Might even give me a chance to snag one of those primo lockers.
As you can see from the breakdown to the right, I'm still very much behind from the purchase of my rail passes. So, I'll be trying to do Copenhagen on a budget. Here's hoping! :-P
Could you use the corduroy pouch? It's not exactly what you want, but it might be able to work.
ReplyDeleteMidnight sun? Elaborate please
ReplyDelete@KT - The difficulty there is keeping it somewhere I have ready access. It would work fairly well, but it's in my backpack all the time.
ReplyDelete@Krista - The closer one gets to the poles, the more extreme the seasonal daylight becomes. Near the equator, it's barely noticeable, which is why they have wet/dry seasons as opposed to summer/winter. At the poles, you have six months of never-ending day (or nearly so), followed by six months of never-ending night. Scandinavia is the northernmost reaches of Europe, so they have exaggerated seasons (at least by Indiana standards). Since it's currently summer, sunset in Copenhagen last night was about 22:00, and the sunrise at about 4:30. That's 6.5 hours of night. One must also keep in mind that we haven't hit the solstice and Copenhagen is about as far south as it gets in Scandinavia - the effect is more pronounced in Sweden or Norway, and will be greater in the days to come as well.
I like zippered pockets for storing worthwhile change. It's an excellent feeling to dig through your change and realize it comprises enough money to actually buy something, like a meal or admittance somewhere.
ReplyDeleteLove the bike idea.
The sun is whacky; in Alaska it would set at twelvish and rise between two and three. So do the locals just sleep through the sun, or have they bio-engineered themselves to operate normally on 6.5 hours of sleep?
ReplyDeleteRobin hood would never use a coin purse with a push-button latch, the below picture is definitely the way to go.
http://www.leisuregames.com/acatalog/black_dice_bags.jpg
@Alex - Re: coin purses - Hush, you.
ReplyDelete