Mark's Travels

10 years of travel blogging from 35+ countries around the world

Tales from Copenhagen, VW sind geiler 17th December 2002 in Copenhagen, Denmark


Finally...

My Route
Photos from Copenhagen are at the end of this blogg. I have good news. My software was demonstrated to a key figure in the VW IT department and he really liked it. A date has been set for project completion. Tomorrow I will be signing a permanent contract with my company, effectively ensuring my permanent stay here in Germany.

On Friday morning I awoke at 4am. Anja was extremely sick. As we drove to Luebeck to catch our bus, Anja had to stop several times along the Autobahn. Eventually we made it to Luebeck, is was extremely cold there. Anja decided to turn back at that point. We said good bye and I boarded the bus. Anja warned me but I didn't listen, the bus was full of Pro-EU Protesters, the sickest group of individuals I have ever seen in my life. Not for their belifes but for their lack of style when it came to dressing and lack of physical activities they took part in (not that I'm one to talk but at least I have plans to get a gym membership!!!). We arrived at the Baltic Sea and boarded a ship. For 45 minutes we sailed across the sea. I went up to the top deck so I could look out at all the ships in the water. At one point a helicopter flew quickly about 10 meters perpendicular to our ship. I did see quite a few shady "business-men" on the ship as well.

Eventually I arrived at the Danish border and we were greeted by the "Politi" whom took our passports and ran background checks on every last one of us. Eventually we were freed and continued our journey to Copenhagen. Along the way I spoke with two girls whom had lived in Montreal and Virginia for a year, they spoke incredible English.

When I arrived at the Hostel we were put into groups and given instructions, unfortunately I didn't understand what they were saying but one of the girls I had spoken with on the bus came over and told me. Once I got my security card, I put my bag in my room, got my digital camera and headed into town. It took about 90 minutes to walk into the centrum. It was absolutely amazing. But as I got closer and closer to the Palace I saw more and more Police. And at times I saw convoys carrying political leaders throughout the city.

Eventually I found myself in front of the Danish Queen's palace enjoying a chocolate milk and a sandwich from 7-11. There was a big stage being set up and I could hear music playing "Will you go to jail for justice, will you go to jail for me?" and I thought to myself, awe crap, this city is full of god damn hippes. It was just then that a bus full of about 40 police officers in riot gear pulled up about 5 meters in front of me and they all got out. I looked at them, finished my sandwich and started to head on. I ended up walking into an Anti-Globalization/American rally being lead by an American. I stood there and listened for about 10 minutes before the police in riot gear came to by.

I headed back to the hostel to hang out in the TV room and watch a little danish TV. I couldn't find any. It was all English except for the Latvian channel. There was about 500 channels on the TV and loads of news channels. I said hi to everyone that came into the TV room and eventually got to talking with a guy who writes technical books for Worx. He had just spent a year in Australia and had come back to Europe from Asia via rail through Russia. He told me a lot of interesting stories about his experiences in Australia, Asia, Russia and Sweden. We eventually decided to head out on the piss. About 8 hours and 600Dkr later we were completely smashed making our way through the centrum of Copenhagen. There were a couple of fights, including a nasty 3 on 1, I came about 1.5M from being hit by a car that wanted to go through a red light and my mate got it by a guy on a bike. At one point we were in a cab on the way to a club that ended up being surrounded by dodgy pimps and even dodgier hoes, we decided to make a u-turn rather than getting robbed the second we stepped out the cab.

The lounge bars and clubs in Copenhagen are some of the best I've been to in Europe so far.

At the end of the night we were trying to find a cab when I ended up chatting up one bird whom looked delighted to talk to someone in English, which is weird because I spoke English everywhere I went and I couldn't imagine why the locals couldn't do the same if they wanted to practice, everyone seemed really fluent.

The next day I went on another walk around the city, I visited a few meusems and a very tall building in which you could see all of Copenhagen, including the longest bridge in the world that connects Denmark and Sweden. One thing I did notice because of the submit going on is that every McDonalds and Burger King were covered with wooden boards to prevent vandalism.

In the evening I found myself at another lounge bar, this one had an interesting crowd, mostly Russians and Latvians with a couple of Danish in amongst them. I noticed the slack laws on drinking with 15 year olds coming into the bar, buying drinks and taking them outside to drink. You can buy alcahol at 15 in Denmark but you need to be 18 before you can drink in any bar or apparently have any scene of fashion.

Saturday night I was awoken by some of the protesters as they returned to the room. While I was sleeping, they came in, turned on the lights (I was on the top bunk) and began yelling and singing in the 2.5M x 6M room. On top of that one of them took the time to tell me why I shouldn't be working and I should be in school. Here is a comparison chart

int Rant (short int Protester)
{

Goto School:
Be piss fucking broke
Go to school 20 hours a week and "have loads of free time to do shit all"
Meet lots of people (Which I do anyway when I travel at the drop of a hat)
And have "fun"

Work:
Make mad euros
Bring meaning to my existence
Ensure my current / future family a comfortable lifestyle
Enjoy 8 Bank accounts and the Mercedes in my drive way
Enjoy being able to travel to foreign countries at the drop of a hat
Enjoy choosing my own hours and working from home

Tell me, How fun is it to be in your late 20's, 25,000K+ in debt and the realization that you have been on the planet for over a quarter of a century and have done shit all, and have fuck all for job prospects because there are people with experience whom are younger and smarter that are walking over you like a dodgy Baltic-whore whom was knocked out by her pimp from being bitch-slapped to many times.

I understand in Germany it is really cheap to go to school and yes anyone could waste a shit load of time there, the key word being "waste". Please, anything you need to know to make money, you can look up on the internet, in extreme cases there are books on every subject. Now if you want to spend 40K to have someone read these books to you during tutorials and to give you a piece of paper for being such a good troll for the past 2-4+ years then so be it. BUT DON'T WAKE ME UP AT 3AM TO TELL ME I SHOULD BE SO FUCKING RETARDED AS TO FOLLOW IN YOUR SHALLOW FOOTSTEPS.

Reality check: School is good for teaching you how to make money. As soon as you know how to make money, you should stop spending it on learning how. How many people have you heard of that became successful after dropping out of university to start their own business. Well, not that many but I've met a lot more people whom did finish university, still have no business sense and have jobs they could of easily had gotten prior to them signing those bank statements for their student loans.

And for anyone who wants to say that school helps you intellectually: being smart and interesting to my landlord will not forgive a late rent payment nor will it ensure groceries for free from the supermarket. I'm certain that the salesman at the car dealership would love to sit and have a cup of coffee with you but god will strike you dead before he'll let you drive off in one of the new 2003 models on his tab. And I ensure you that the repo man strapped with a bullet proof vest will look kindly upon you as he repossesses your piece of shit vehicle for too many late payments.

}

Anyway, back to my story

Sunday was much the same, I took the time to visit a few shops and I bought a Classical CD from a Russian Brass Band whom were playing on one of the main tourist streets. I noticed in the book stores that there is an amazing amount of English literature. To top that, I never spoke nor was spoken too in anything except English with the exception of my first day where I would greet people with "Sprichst du Deutsch? Do you speak English?" Didn't take long before I realized everyone spoke English.

In the evening I said goodbye to the English lad I went out on the piss with and headed back to Germany with the group. I was in a bitter mood heading back and as soon as the bus boarded the boat I headed up to the top deck to get a bite to eat. After my meal I sat at the table looking out at the sea which was just about pitch black until the English lad I had met in Copenhagen came and sat down at my table. Turns out his train took the boat too. We had an interesting conversation which brightened up my trip back home. I finally made it to Luebeck and met my flatmate in a restaurant there, it was really nice to finally be back with the person I feel most comfortable with and away from the freak protesters she hangs out with.


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