Day 3 - Copenhagen to Stockholm (almost)

Edinburgh to Stockholm - a Journey

I’ve slept in. It feels good. Bellow’s merry assurances on yesterday’s train that it will rain all day in Copenhagen proved to be bollocks. The sun shines.

Before getting up, I wonder what will ache in my body today… turns out, it’s everything – only less than yesterday.

So I begin with stretches. Once more, tentative, then more expansive. In less time, with less pain, my back, hips and knees let me know they are OK. Perhaps this sort of resistance training really is actually good.

The sun is shining, but the weather app forecasts trouble ahead. The dilemma is what to pack. I have limited space. The optimist in me opts for my swimming costume, aiming to head to a swim spot I’d checked out, north of the Little Mermaid. The pragmatist in me nods firmly toward the hat and the jacket, laid out last night. I want to take my laptop to write, but that won’t work in the tiny day pack I have. Notebook it is, then.

The big rucksack is re-arranged – stuff I might need near the top, heavy stuff in the middle, as I promised my knees yesterday – then stored downstairs. The hotel offers full-day bike hire, which I take… only to realise, when I collect it, that I will not be whooshing about on an e-bike today, but styling it out on a 3 geared, basketed, old skool classic. I ask my knees if they will bear with me. They hold off responding.

Then I’m out. Day Three of Euro City Bike riding means I’m more confident, but still alert. In the midst of people who grew up cycling the city, I’m fully aware of my amatuer status. So I follow previous rules:

Go steady.

Stay Present.

If in doubt, get off the bike.

Find a confident person and follow them, especially over tough intersections.

Style it out and then find your own path.

My life in a bike ride metaphor?

North. The water in the bay looks grey and choppy. I’m not familiar enough with the waters to risk swimming alone in the conditions, so I let that plan go. In that case, I’m Little Mermaid bound. I’ve met her before, in 2016, when I was coaching a Regional VP here in Copenhagen. Back then, I arrived around mid-afternoon and felt listless. The hotel had bikes, so I really went for it, cycling as much of the city as I could in an afternoon. When I got to the Spring Gardens, I realised I was close to “Den lille havfrue” and headed toward her. The whole space was mobbed - bus loads of tourists, throngs of selfies and I could get no sense of her. I resolved to get up early and return the next day.

I did and cycled out on quiet streets before 7am.

Photos from early morning 2016

She sits a few metres off shore depending on the tide. Back then, without the throng of attention and people, I got close to her and spent a while around her. I got a sense of what she sits through, day by day. The storms she must weather, the history that has slipped past, the hundreds of thousands of people who have rocked up, snapped a pic and mentioned Ariel. She was bigger than I expected, but still compact for a statue – not quite person sized. Looking away from the shore, her gaze pointing out seaward, mouth unsmiling, her tail tucked neatly beneath her, resolutely pointed at the land, she was sad and somehow beautiful.

The things we do for love, I think.

(I thoroughly recommend early city wandering, by the way. Depopulated places speak differently to crowded ones. You hear something in the quiet dawn that gets drowned out as the day progresses. Get up, get out, get coffee and get back before most of the world has found their feet. It will offer you memorable moments.)

This morning, I arrive in her presence at peak tourist time yet again. Buses huddle together, decanting hundreds of people, who then begin companionably looping around each other to get a photo. I wave at her from a distance, take photos of the people taking photos of a statue and I keep going.

Today I’m shit at city cycling. It might be my heavy 3 geared bike, the relentless wind blowing off the bay, or the sense of the locals whizzing past me. It might be me getting unnerved by cargo bikes, or hearing the impatient mutter of the fabulously dressed octogenarian lady, as I forget to cycle on the right. Whatever it is, I decide it might be time to stop for some of that famous Danish bakery action. The skies are darkening when I park up the bike and by the time I’ve ordered coffee and some delicious sticky apple thing, the rain has begun…and then it hammers it down. I’m happy – tucked up and writing, but it becomes the pattern for the day – shower dodging my way round.

When the rain stops, I move. At some point, I cycle three times up and down Nyhavn thinking I’m taking a cool on-the-move video of the famous bright coloured buildings and eateries. I get sworn at by actual cyclists, more than three times, but it’s ok – I’ll be Insta Famous.

When I check the footage, later, I find I’ve pointed the camera the wrong way and I have three reels of my shoulder and neck.

There goes the Influencer career.

More fun is Inderhavnsbroen -a shifting bridge, just further on from Nyhavn. From the instruction to “stop on the blink” (Dr Who fans amongst you will appreciate I was looking for Weeping Angels at this point) to watching a whole section of road slide back, allowing a container ship out of harbour, I’m happily geeked to be seeing this. I do geek out at good engineering and technology. I love watching clever stuff work, so I’m delighted to spend a few minutes just pausing as the infrastructure shifts around me.

I’m crossing the bridge to get to Broens – a collection of food trucks, huts and shacks where some of the best up and coming chefs on the Copenhagen scene test their culinary theories out. If you watch “The Bear”, you will have seen Carmy honing his skills at Noma (not in my price range) and get a sense of how serious the food scene is in Scandinavia. Hot dogs, pastries, delicious smoked or pickled fish, fusion Asian.. it’s all there for the taking. So I spend a pleasant hour wandering, testing stuff and settling on some smoked oysters and a Burger that makes me want to ban all fast food forever.

And the rain comes down. And down. And down.

For a solid hour, it pours. I’m happy – burger and beer on the go, but when it clears, I take advantage and head off. My intention is to head out of the city circle, to the Home of Carlsberg. However, a broken pedal and another intense downpour means I hobble, wet and defeated, back to the hotel. Rather than battle the weather, I settle in to dry off my stuff and write. I have no room, as I’m on the night train to Stockholm later, but the very kind staff give me coathangers and I hang my raincoat, denim jacket and trousers in the roasting luggage room. Within 3 hours, everything is dry and I’m 1,000 words up.

I go out one last time, around 6pm when the sun finally emerges, following an impressive thunderstorm that brings Tivoli Gardens to silence. I find a bike with two working pedals and head west, purposeless, but just for fun.

Around 8:30pm I hand the bike back , collect the rucksack and point myself to the main station. I have a connecting train to catch to Hässelholm, then onward on the sleeper to Stockholm. I arrive too early at Copenhagen Central Station. There are too few places to sit, it’s too quiet and I become very alert. I find a bench and a young man, reeking of booze and BO, dirty and presumably homeless, comes to sit right beside me, his hip pressed against mine. In moments like this my social conditioning comes into deep conflict with my instinct. I don’t want to be a snob, an arsehole or pathetic – and every fibre of my being is telling me to move. I stay seated way longer than I need to, phone away, hand on passport, until I remind myself that no-one is watching, that I’m here alone and my job is to keep myself safe. I get up and move to the only remaining open place – a juice bar playing fake versions of Justin fecking Timberlake. This is dire.

I drop £7 on a juice I don’t want, but it’s the price for feeling and being safe. Throughout my journey, I have resolutely put my safety and survival first and tonight is not the night I’m going to change that…but I feel adrift. For the first time since this jaunt began, I feel lonely and isolated, far from home and fearful. I berate myself for my arrogance and foolishness. That sense of “I should have stayed home and worked on the business” hears its cue and rushes into the limelight. And so, in an over-lit, badly soundtracked, excessively priced juice bar, I have a minor meltdown.

I sit with it for long enough to assess if this is instructive or destructive… and my strong sense is this one isn’t designed to be helpful, so I do what I now know I need to do in these situations, and I reach out to my loved ones. Sending messages, asking how folk are, bringing myself back into connection and balance. B, replies immediately, reassures me, reminds me of home and love. Amanda contacts me unbidden – the Universe knows I need her – she’s brewing ideas and futures. When I say I’m feeling low, she sends me umpteen TERRIBLE Swedish folk on spotify playlists until I’m laughing.

I can do this.

After days of German trains, the change of platform and late arrival of the in-bound connection is a bit of a shock. I have an allocated seat to the back of the train – something which will later become significant. We move from Copenhagen, across the bridge into Sweden and on to Malmö. This 2 hour journey should take me to Hässelholm for 11:15pm. From there I have booked a cabin in a sleeper train to Stockholm. It leaves a little after midnight. I’m a little excited about the sleeper, it feels like an adventure.

Sadly none of this plays out. At Malmö, we are held for 15 minutes outside the station, then for more time at a distant platform where we are asked to disembark. There are people on the track ahead, seemingly. The guard is kind, assuring. We will get you to your Night train – there are 10-12 people who are booked on it. Sure enough, we are asked to re-join the train to get moving again.

As time moves on, that assurance feels hollow. The night train will leave in 25 minutes.. 15 minutes..10 minutes… the very helpful information on the train screens is deeply unhelpful. Ball of anxiety rolling, I’m checking Google maps in real time to see where we are. I have also begun the plan B, but it’s fuzzy. We arrive in Hässelholm with 3 minutes to go and the guard announces that everyone for the night train will need to run, but they will hold the train for us.

I am pack on, hand on the door and out like an elephant ready for stampede…I’m overtaken by the whooping chimp-energy of 5 young guys, flying past me with minimal baggage. I can hear others behind me, someone with a rolling suitcase, swearing – but I’m a woman on a mission. I run, pushing my legs and lungs. I’m at the wrong end of the train, so have far to go, but I keep going. I see the chimps dash up the stairs ahead, two at a time and over the bridge to platform 6. Stairs. LOTS of stairs. Bollocks.

I keep going, running at a lumber with my heavy pack thankfully tucked around me. A woman overtakes me and this pushes me on more, taking the stairs with as much pace as I can muster, lungs starting to burst. I can hear the suitcase behind me and a male voice yelling. I just keep going.

Across the bridge, on to escalators, I rush down them, nearly falling as my pack pushes me forward, but I’m on the platform. The woman ahead of me is one door up, hand on the door handle, I grab the handle closest to me and pull. Nothing catches.

I try again.

Nothing.
I look at the woman and see she can’t open the door either.

I’m breathing hard, hot and not able to process fast.

Then the Chimp boys are above us, running along the train corridor, screeching with joy and victory.

What?

I go to try the handle again, but it lurches right, slowly moving away from my grip and for a second I don’t comprehend what is happening, looking around for a guard to fix the door.

It is the blood curdling screech from the woman behind me, rolling suitcase abandoned on the platform, her slim form kicking at the now-moving train, that brings me to realisation:

They have left without us.

The train is inching forward so slowly – If the door opened, I could easily jump on. I try running, yelling, I genuinely believe they will stop. But the train simply gathers momentum and rolls slowly into the night. Suitcase woman is livid, furious, screaming . God knows what she will miss as a result of this. The man, seconds behind her, also throws his hand up to slap the train and flops down on a bench, head in hands.

I click immediately into fix mode. I’m alone in a rural town in Sweden in a mostly closed train station after midnight. None of the people on the platform look like they are in any position to be helpful. I’m breathless, hot, filled with adrenaline. I need an out.

I phone home.

B picks up – it’s after 11, but he’s mercifully awake. I’m incoherent, furious. He asks if I’m safe. I say – I honestly don’t fucking know. I mean I’m obviously not entirely safe, but how unsafe, how dodgy this place is or isn’t, I have no clue. My reconnaissance shows no taxis, no person in charge at the station and at least one less-than-salubrious looking man who’s swaying about. B keeps me on the line as I babble and re-tell the story. He finds me on my tracker on Google maps and locates three hotels – one of which is less than 500 m from where I am. As I rage and bluster, he books me a room.

He is calm, steady – sends me the booking. Keeps me on the line. I’m still in narrative mode, right in the drama. He steers me out of the station, telling me he can see me if I walk. The hotel is close and looks… very posh.

It’s after midnight, so the door is locked, but the kind, pragmatic receptionist lets me in. This happens, she says. Not often but sometimes. We will call the train company tomorrow, they will repay you.

And so Day 3 ends, not on a sleeper train as expected, but in a single bed in a posh hotel in the middle of rural Sweden, my plans for the next day are shaky, but I’m safe, if a little wired.

Read Day Zero Here - Edinburgh to Cambridgeshire

Read Day One Here - Cambridgeshire to Cologne

Read Day Two Here - Cologne to Copenhagen

Read Day Four Here – Hasselholm to Stockholm