What made me decide to go to Norway? After all, Norway isn’t really a place that all too many young people dream of going to, right? Well, although I had thought about heading North, I can’t really say that it was on my immediate list of places that I had to go to before I died. Other than my father’s dreams of his very distant Viking ancestors, I can’t say that I even knew much about the country or even Scandinavia as a whole.
Then, one day, I found myself planning a trip in that direction. There was no flight home (through Council Travel) and I was very low on cash and needed to travel for one month. I found that I could get a rail pass for relatively cheap in Scandinavia and that definitely drew me. Ironically, I have since been informed that Oslo, Norway happens to be the 6th most expensive city in the world. And Oslo happened to be my very destination.
Friends en route
A good friend of mine was teaching English in Berlin at the time. We had gotten together only a month earlier in Stuttgart, Germany and had a water pistol war that stopped traffic and made German policemen smile. So, he decided that it would be great fun for me to come visit him in Berlin to meet his fiancé. She was a very beautiful German woman (whom he’d met in San Francisco).
I should note that his entire life leads to a different country every year or so. The funny thing is that he really seems to take on the pride of a full time resident of every place that he lives. So, he toured me around Berlin as much as he could. But, much to his chagrin, I had to leave only two days later. I was really in need of some solo traveling.
So, I boarded the train to Rostock, Germany at the North coast. There, I needed to board a ferry to get to Denmark. My adventure began before I expected though.
A Few Days in Denmark for Free
While waiting to get another train to the ferry terminal, a handsome man came up to me speaking broken German, asking me about the trains. I had been watching him as he walked toward me. He had a large pack on quite similar to my own. My taste in men must have changed since I had come to Europe. I would say that I wouldn’t have found him attractive at home in America. However, here, in Germany, he almost looked adventurous.
He was happy once I spoke English because he couldn’t really speak much German at all. Very quickly, he and I were immersed in conversation. He was very upset about his long term girlfriend with whom he had just broken up with. He was heartbroken and dying for someone to listen to his problems. He apologized for bothering me with his tale of woe. I said, “Hey, it’s ok. You found the right person to talk to. I am a Psych major and I love to listen and help people with their problems.”
I remember looking at him and thinking that I wasn’t attracted to him because he smoked. His skin looked as though he did. But, I quickly discovered that he didn’t smoke. All the same, I wasn’t all that attracted to him despite his beautiful smiling eyes. He was genuinely happy that I had somehow appeared at the very time that he really needed someone to lean on. I was genuinely happy that he had found me as well. He was clearly an honest man.
So, without any real plans, I just took the same ferry that he was taking. It wasn’t the one that I had originally planned on taking. However, I didn’t have any distinct plans, so it didn’t really matter to me. Besides, I could still get to Copenhagen with this ferry. I would just have to take the train once I got into Denmark. So, he bought me a beer and we talked for nearly the whole ferry ride.
As we talked, I watched his eyes glaze over. His eyelids began to droop. The poor guy had been up all night arguing with his girlfriend and was running on no sleep. So, I went outside while he took a nap and felt the air growing a bit colder. I got chills through my body as I was momentarily transported back to the many ferries that I had taken in Alaska the previous summer. The clouds engulfing me covered the landscape and thickened the air and mimicked the views I had seen in the Inside Passage.
As we neared to dock, my new friend asked me where I was going that night. “I think that I will go to Copenhagen,” I said. At the time, I thought that perhaps I would have dinner with him and then take the train to Copenhagen. I also thought that there was a really good chance that he would give me a free place to crash.
