Getting There

Well, Mom wasn’t nearly as cut up as I thought she would be when she said good-bye to me at the airport. She either is used to it from sending Steve off to Italy or she is just plain sick of me being home at this point. Either way, it was a bittersweet farewell. I’m excited to start this adventure Sweden but will definitely miss my family and friends in Minnesota. Luckily I’ll be making new friends and there are distant relatives in Sweden.

The plane ride from MPLS to O’Hare was even shorter than I expected it to be. But of course, my ears were giving me trouble the moment we started taking off. Nothing a couple Tylenol extra-strength quick release capsules couldn’t fix, though. Finding my way through the O’Hare airport was a little bit of a challenge. I walked outside and looked around for some kind of shuttle or tram that would take me to the international terminal but didn’t see anything, so I asked a United Airlines employee at the help desk and he pointed me in the right direction. I took the tram over to terminal five and met up with Karla, my travel companion for this leg of the journey. The plane from Chicago to Copenhagen was the coolest I’ve ever been on. SAS really knows how to fly. Even in economy class, there are touch screens in the headrests that do all kinds of stuff. They play a variety of free movies during the entire flight for FREE. I watched District 9, Cheaper by the Dozen, Kingdom of Heaven, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. I also played a little Tetris and some poker.

Two meals were served on the flight as well. For dinner, we had a choice of either fish or beef stew. I’m not exactly sure what kind of fish it was, but it was delicious and came with green beans and gnocchi, all covered in white sauce. Also included were crackers and brie, a small salad with pepper dressing, two dinner rolls, and a nice slice of cheesecake to finish the whole thing off. For breakfast, we were served a ham sandwich, orange juice, yogurt, and choice of coffee or tea.

Unfortunately, we were seated next to a couple of families with babies, but they managed to behave themselves for the most part except for our final descent. I’m sure their ears were killing them; I almost started to cry along with them. SAS provided two cribs for the babies that locked into the wall right in front of the parents. It was adorable.

Getting into Denmark was easier than getting into Canada! Once I arrived, I just walked right up to the customs agent, slid him my passport, and with no questions, he stamped it and waved me through. Then Karla and I went to go get our train tickets. We first walked up to the automated ticket machine, and although there was a button to translate from Danish to English, we decided to not take too many chances and just go talk to a ticket agent face to face. When we told them we wanted to go to “Vekk-Wah”, they pretty much had no idea what we were talking about. Apparently Karla and I still haven’t quite figured out the correct pronunciation of the city we’re going to be living in for the next 5 months . . . but I’m sure we’ll learn quickly.

So here we sit in this crowded train car. I think we’re in the quiet car, because there are signs all over of a man’s silhouette holding a his finger up to his face, and cell phones with red lines crossing them out. I’m also pretty sure people are pissed at us for taking up so many seats with our luggage . . . but hey, where the heck else are we gonna put it? The train operator already came out and yelled something at me in Danish and pointed at my duffle bag that was pointing out into the aisle. I gave him a “huh?” but he just yelled the same thing back at me so I nodded and just moved the thing. We had a little scare just now too. We pulled into a station, picked up some passengers, then headed BACK in the direction we came from. I assume we switched tracks and are headed in the right direction because the lady we first talked to said we didn’t need to transfer trains at all . . . Well here’s hoping.