arriving in Copenhagen

the cabbage show, originally uploaded by gorgeoux.

By the time I saw the staircase one needs to climb from the metro station Kongens Nytorv to the surface, I could hardly carry my bad anymore. Traveling with just one piece on easyJet doesn't make a woman's life easy, not even for a few days. Next to laptop, papers, and tools (got work to do) there are clothes, cosmetics, accessories, medicines and other comfort paraphernalia. So we opted to get out of the station by visiting some connected shopping mall, and ended up in the street right next to a flower shop that exposes its colourful cabbages all over this little square, by a cafe. Past this initial warm welcome, not much worked well: the weather is mean, the city—grim, and the Google Maps—useless. We wasted a lot of time and energy in walking round too many streets until we made it to Front, our hotel, and we stayed there quite happily with a Tuborg from the free minibar, seeing there was no way to catch the conference's first day proceedings on time. I bet that won't be repeated as such in the coming days. I also bet we'll learn our way around Copenhagen, without maps, right before we're off.

The funniest and, incidentally, most outrageous bit yet? The metro ticket machines are all in Danish only, and the system is unlike anywhere in the world, so we bought what tickets we could figure to be right, and got on the automated train. Next thing we know, a woman with very good English shows up to check our tickets and to explain that we need to get off, and tick off more of the tickets' odd bits or else she'll fine us terribly. As we did what she said (me wanting to kill her and then ask her questions) still not understanding exactly why, and how it works, we could admire a flock of helpful women like her get off our train to get back in the opposite direction train, one stop to the airport, and supposedly welcome more tourists to what must be the Danish way: we know you're cheating, and don't even try blame it on our complex rules, OK?

Update, October 18th 2008: No train runs without a ticket controller, from what we've seen, which is a terrific irony when compared to the state-of-the-art metro network. It seems Denmark will soon implement a system similar to the British Oyster Card. That may just convince me to go back one day.