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Journey to Denmark
(stage One. Dubai and Flight to Germany)
Okay, well I haven't really done much since the last blog. We didn't end up going out to Lebanese after all for dinner. Instead we stayed at home and watched some grey's anatomy, not complaining too much. The show is ok. The next day we spent the morning packing and going to the shops to look for a thank you present for eri's mum for all that she did for us. We got her some Danish cookies and some good hand cream. She looked really pleased about it.
It was then 2pm, and the taxi was down stairs. I pretty much slept the whole way. The taxi dropped eri off at the airport and then took us to the youth hostel. (apparently I can never go to another one again, because this one was like the Buckingham palace of youth hostels, and for our own private room it still cost around the same as most other hostels).
That night we stayed in the room. Not really feeling like we want to go out, and not really feeling rich enough to venture out, we had some food and watched some TV preparing to get picked up at 6am by the taxi to go to the airport. But it was good to relax around the pool one last time before going into the wintery abyss.
The airport was annoying because they didn't let us have all the bottles that Sara and organised to take home with her. We ended up having to play around with all our carry on language and put 3 of the Margaret river soft drinks into my carry on, and check it in as normal luggage. After that minor set back, and the line for checking in, we decided to eat at McDonalds and do some last minute duty free shopping with the little Durham's we had left.
We made it onto the plane on time and went to our seats which was the 2 seats closest to the tail of the plane on the left (if you were looking towards the back of the plane) hand side. Not only were they the most annoying positioned seats, the one I sat on for the start of the flight was broken. The head set didn't lock into any other position and the leaning back mechanism on the chair was broken. Basically you had to use your wait to keep it in another position other then fully upright. On top of that the head set I had was broken, as one of the sides didn't produce sound, and the foot space I had was halved by a metal box under the seat in front of me.
Sara and I switched seats about a third of the way in, because she didn't mind all these faults. So we swapped seats, but I forgot to mention the broken head rest. With out tug from Sara, she had pulled the whole thing off. We called from help from the flight attendants, who spent about 15 minutes trying to connect it back onto the seat. As soon as they walked away, Sara asked for new head sets as well, as she didn't like the ones she had. When she got the new ones, they to, didn't have a side working. I decided to swap headsets with her, as she swapped seats with me... and we felt bad, because we felt like we were the 'complains about everything couple' that service people always hate. So the rest of the flight was good and I got some reading of Harry done. We got off the flight and it was now time to try and work out how to get to Denmark!
(Stage Two. Journey from Hamburg, Germany to Århus, Denmark)
We decided to go straight home to Denmark, after feeling a little poor. We went to the flight desk after going through customs asking about the bus that was meant to straight to Århus, but they didn't anything about a bus from the airport. They advised to go to the train station in Hamburg. So I took out 100 Euros from the atm, hoping I had enough cash in that account (I had transferred money from one account to another the day before, and the money was in limbo between the two banks) so we caught a bus from the airport to the Hamburg train station. It was 5 euros each. We got off and walked into the train station to hopefully buy I ticket to Århus. We didn't know what time it would leave or arrive, or how many trains we would have to change to get there. We queried on the price for the 2 of us, and it was 100.60 euros... but at this stage we had only 90... We then changed our mines 3 or 4 times before purchasing the tickets. I think this really annoyed the guy serving us. But we had the tickets and 4 minutes to get on the train.
We were in such a rush, we started to worry. The itenary the guy gave us said platform 11, but we were on platform 6, which looked to be the correct train. We asked a few people, who confirmed, that yes it was the right train. We jumped on the carriage immediately and sat down as the train took off. It wasn't long before we realised that we were in the wrong class. That explained why there wasn't that many people in this section. We confirmed this with the conductor when the lady checked our tickets. We then moved to the next carriage which was over full. We walked pass two compartments. 1 was full, and the other had 2 ppl in it with a lot of stuff sprawled out over the other 3 chairs. We walked straight passed the compartments and into the main area of the carriage, which was completely packed out. Sara looked back at me who was following up behind her. She told me to ask the people in the second compartment if there was room. I gave her a funny look, but asked anyway.
I slid open the door and asked the seats were taken. He gave a weird look before saying 'ok' and the two guys took everything off the seats opposite them for us to sit down. I was worried immediately. They had freshly shaven heads, with lots of tattoos down each of their arms. I was pretty sure they were German skin heads, but didn't want to say anything. (I don't think Sara clicked until a lot later in the train ride, when she saw one of the guys belt buckle with the eagle on it) So it was an uncomfortable 2 or more hrs, but they seemed ok, but you could see them make comments in German anytime they saw the police or someone from another background.
Finally it was time to change trains for the first time. The Germans were also coming on this train as well, but we went to the other end of the train to make sure we didn't bump into them again. We found a seat and got to read and listen to music for the middle section of the trip. The last transfer train was overcrowded, and we ended up standing, holding onto our entire luggage for the last hr of the trip. It was ok, because we had been sitting for so long, but by this time I was ready to go to bed.
We arrived at Århus at about 7:50pm (just think we got the taxi at 6am, which was 3am in Denmark) and I was glad to have finally made it to Århus. Sara's parents were there to pick us up and took us home. We had our first real home dinner since Emma's the Sunday before. After that we just went to bed and crashed.
Today, I've just been dragged around by Sara as she spoke Danish. I think I'm going to have to do a course or something, cause I always feel they are talking about me :P Other then that, I went for a walk with Sara and her dog, Freya. It was cold. Oh and I am going to meet Sara's older brother again. I have met him before, but Sara now is starting to make me worry as apparently now that I'm dating her, its completely different. Hopefully... all goes well.
There aren't many photos of this part of the journey, as the battery was flat, but hopefully my explanations helped you all get a picture. Til next time i Blog! Stay warm!!!! ;)
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