Saturday, March 11, 2006

   Road trip: the thoughts of an insomniac on a sugar high.

Day one: Ah, the first day, filled with excitement, nerves and candy. I woke up at around 4.30 am, got into the car around 5.30 am and the bus left around 6.20 am. At first I loved it. I really like travelling. It’s spreading my wings and seeing another part of the world. I love leaving when it’s still dark outside and watching the landscape slowly light up. The sun breaking through the night, painting bright red streaks across the greyish blue sky. It was snowing like hell. (That’s probably not possible, seeing that it’s pretty warm in hell but still..) Sure, it looked pretty for a while, the pure white fields, only interrupted by a farm every now and then. Not to mention the bright yellow and red McDonalds billboards… (Every five minutes..) There were lots of wild rabbits and deer out, which is a rare sight for me, seeing that I live in the most urban part of the Netherlands. And then, as if they appeared out of nowhere, the mountains… Just across the border to Germany, they were there. It’s funny, there’s a saying that says that God created the world, but that the Dutch created the Netherlands. I’d almost believe it when I see how flat my country is and how many mountains and hills can be found just across the border. I love mountains, they look so beautiful. But I love the sea and beach more hehe. After a few hours in the bus, I started hating the snow. Those perfect white fields with nothing disturbing them. I wanted the bus to stop, to let me out so that I could runs through that perfect picture, trample the snow, kick it, destroy the serenity. I couldn’t take the complete perfectness. The way the snow covered up the dirt like there was nothing other than perfect white. I wanted to uncover the ground beneath, to show that it was still there and that some white, frozen water could not make it go away. I guess I hate the snow for making the world look better than it is. But this is completely beside the point. Twelve hours in a bus, surrounded by sleeping classmates gave me the chance to think of things I didn’t really want to think about… After a few minutes it was enough for me, no more gloomy thoughts on this trip! I promise. Or at least, I promise I’ll try. They showed Scare Movie 3 in the bus. One word: lame. We had a grumpy bus driver, so that wasn’t much fun either, but yeah. Then the ferry. Ow, I love going on boats hehe. I love the water, the soft rocking. Then another long bus drive and there it was: Copenhagen. It really kind of looks like a big city in the Netherlands, until you try and read the billboards. I was exhausted. I can’t sleep while driving, so I had been up for over 14 hours, with only about three hours sleep before I left. I hardly slept in the hostel either, cause I need time to adjust and get used to a strange bed. The hostel wasn’t that bad, I heard some bad things about it, but I thought it was alright. At least everything was very clean and the showers gave enough water ^_^. I had to share a room with 13 other girls and one guy… (Long story, to sum it up, he is the only guy in our class and he didn’t want to sleep with the guys he didn’t know, so we kindly took him in) There was a nice lounge and the beer was cheap, which is great because alcohol is really expensive in Denmark. We walked through the city for a while, got almost frozen to death and ended up eating in a McDonalds… I lived of off fast food for a week… Day two: Yup, not much sleep as was expected. The beds are alright, but the pillow is just too small… Ow well, I just looked forward to sleeping in my own bed again. We had to work on a project assignment and we got done with that in a few hours. After that, we explored the city for a bit. The weather was wonderful. It was freezing cold, but with a bright blue sky and a nice warm sun. We shopped for a bit (I bought some t-shirts and some souvenirs) and then we went to the ‘Ripley’s: believe it or not’ museum. I loved it! I like to see those crazy inventions of men and freaks of nature. I especially liked the section with weird animals. (A fish with fur, a cow with two head, a goat with eight legs) I don’t care if it’s all a hoax and the creatures are sown together, it was great fun to see. After that, we went back to the hostel, freshened up and relaxed for a bit. Then we went back to the city to get something to eat. While we were walking through the streets, some people decided they wanted to get some souvenirs. The store was still open and they went inside. Some others and I waited outside for them, talking about absolutely nothing but nonsense. And all of a sudden this guy walks up to us and starts talking in Dutch. It’s really weird to hear someone you don’t know talk your language in a strange country. He said his name was Giel, that he was there on a business trip and that he wanted to know what we were going to do. When we said that we ere going to get something to eat, he asked if he could join. Sure, the more, the merrier, so he went with us to this nice restaurant. The food was too yummy. (I had a grilled steak and a baked potato myum!!!) After dinner, which took the whole group about two and a half hours, some of the people decided to go back to the hostel, but the others, including me, wanted to have some fun. (We’re young, we’re free and in a foreign city, we want some of the nightlife!) We went to this nice English pub with great music and Giel went with us. He turned out to be a pretty cool guy, 23 years old. I hate to admit I had a bit too much beer that night. I like drinking but the beers have the size of about two and a half Dutch beers.. (I had four, so you do the math) Ow well, we had fun and got back to the hostel around 3 am. Day 3: After just four hours of sleep I woke up with all the symptoms of a hangover. Great… We had to do a walk through the city around 10 am, so I had to sober up. A nice shower and breakfast did the trick and we were on our way. It turned out to be more of a run through the city, but we did get to see lots of the sights. We went into this lovely church (I love visiting churches in other countries), the royal palace and of course, the little mermaid of Copenhagen. (It’s a statue) After all that running, we had lunch and then we were free to do what we wanted. Some people wanted to visit more sights, but I decided to go back to the hostel. I was exhausted when I went on my way, but the nice walk all alone in the sun with my mp3 shouting in my ear through a beautiful city really refreshed me. There had been a little uproar at breakfast, because apparently, an intruder got into the hostel the last night. Some people say they had seen him in our room, but he didn’t hurt anyone, or take any stuff and I didn’t notice a thing. People tend to blow things out of proportion I guess. We got something to eat later on and stayed in the hostel, playing some pool and card games. Day 4: Once again, little sleep. A girl was taken to the hospital at night, because she really went overboard on the alcohol. You got to know your boundaries, very important! We had the morning off, so I did some packing already and just relaxed. And in the afternoon, we went to a brewery house. It was fun to see how beer was made, but it was even more fun when we got the coupons that allowed us to get two free beers hehe ^_^. So we tasted some and it was great. They have really good beer in Denmark, and I must say, I’m not quickly pleased when it comes to alcohol. That evening we went to a restaurant with the whole group, where we had a vegetarian cold buffet. (I hated it, my dinner has to consist of warm food with meat somewhere on the table) And after that, we went with a smaller group to a karaoke bar. We had so much fun… hehe, singing Lady Marmelade with a few beers and lots of friends is great ^_^. I went back to the hostel with another girl around 11 pm, because I knew I had to get some sleep. Like I said, I can’t sleep on busses and if I didn’t sleep at all, I’d be completely broken. But of course, the others in the room didn’t wan to sleep and one against 14 is pretty weak… that as when I started hating the trip. I’m pretty fond of living my own life, without have to keep others into the account. I had gone with the group the whole week and I just wanted to get it my way once… Day 5: Ow well, I eventually got about two hours of sleep. And at 4.30 am I woke up again. We had to get ready to leave, so I packed the last of my things, got freshened up and got some breakfast. After that, we left for the bus again, and we went back home. The drive home was pretty calm. Most of the bus was asleep and I sat next to a guy that couldn’t sleep either. So we made fun of the sleeping people hehe. And when we got back to the place the bus had picked us up on the way to Denmark, my dad was still somewhere in a traffic jam. So I had to wait. Thank goodness he said I should wait in a hotel a few roads down, where my best friend (who had pretty much ignored me the whole week) and her boyfriend dropped me off. So I just sat there in the lounge, had a quick conversation with this really nice French guy and then my dad was there to pick me up. So now I’m home again, had a great rest in my own bed and I’m typing this post for everyone who wants to know the details of my trip. Overall, it was a great experience, but I would much rather go back on my own or with just my boyfriend to look at things without a whole group of people who want to do something else.

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