Dave's Travel Journals
Ax Murderers and Space Aliens
Copenhagen, Denmark: August 10, 2001
By Dave Fox
I am currently in a severe state of jetlag, and therefore accept no responsibility for anything I am about to write. If you cannot deal with my refusal to be responsible, please stop reading this immediately and go play Pac-Man or something.
It's a rainy afternoon here in Copenhagen. I am staring out my hotel window across a courtyard at a lot of other hotel windows, wishing something interesting would happen in one of them... like an ax murder or a naked person. The Danes are a peace-loving people, so the first of the two is unlikely.
Life leading up to my departure was a familiar, stressed-out blur, with too many things to do, coupled with a deep sense of mourning over the fact that I will not get to see how the current series of "Big Brother" ends.
I sat in my airplane seat for ten hours. Airplanes always feel to me a little like elevators: it is hard to really feel like you are moving, and then --POOF-- you are suddenly in a different place.
Copenhagen's airport has been rated the best in the world, with hardwood floors, no announcements, gourmet restaurants, a shopping center, showers, cheap sleeping cabins, and beer. When you get off your flight you can catch a high speed train right into downtown Copenhagen. Or you can have a beer, but I was too tired to do that.
It wasn't until I actually got off the train and emerged into my familiar hotel-neighborhood near the town center that I really realized I was coming here. It was an odd shock, kind of like waking up from anesthesia, only it didn't make me giggle maniacally like nitrous oxide does.
I wandered through my walking tour route to wake up and jar myself into my tour mentality. The Danes never fail to amaze me with how peacefully they co-exist with each other. I passed a group of about 10 disheveled drunks in a park. In America, I would have gone a different way to avoid them, but I knew here they would not hassle me. For a while, I followed three rowdy teenagers down the street. They were being loud and obnoxious, but when they saw a woman trying to maneuver her baby carriage down a flight of steps, they not only stopped to help, they apologized for not noticing her sooner.
This morning I went to one of the few sights in Copenhagen I'd never seen -- the ruins of Christiansborg castle, dating back to 1167. When I got inside, I realized why I had never bothered to go before: it's boring.
Here is a newsflash for anyone considering a visit to a ruined castle: Big piles of bricks and rocks from 1167 look basically like big piles of bricks and rocks from, say, 1993. The only difference is the 1167 bricks and rocks have boring signs on them telling you they used to be important. (The signs themselves are not from 1167.)
Tonight is my last night of independence for the next two and a half weeks. The tour begins at 5 tomorrow afternoon. It always frightens me to think that 26 people are flying a third of the way around the planet for me to entertain them. I worry that I might wake up one morning and feel boring.
"Hello everyone. Today I am feeling boring so we are just going to sit in the hotel lobby today. Does everyone have a good book?"
I'm not allowed to say stuff like that.
I worry about what will happen if mean space aliens attack Stockholm next weekend. Do we risk it and stay on track? Or do I have to apologize because we have to skip Sweden? There's nothing about things like that in my Tour Guide Manual, and this lack of direction frightens me.
But I'm here now and I have 23 more hours to come to terms with the Central European Time Zone. Then I will be perky and dispense lots of useful information. Or I will make stuff up and hope nobody notices.
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