DAY 2: Stockholm and Copenhagen

Sunday, August 8th 2010

At 5:30 (CET), there was an announcement that breakfast is starting, so we got our stuff and went to the buffet. Both of us ate a lot, although we were disappointed that there was barely any fruit left when we got there. I did find pancakes, croissants and donuts though! We arrived in the harbor at 6:30 - just had enough time to eat and brush our teeth. We got off the ferry, and got on a bus heading for the central station of Stockholm. The bus driver talked funny: he gave a little welcoming speech to all the passengers and the way he said "Welcome. Bye bye" made a lot of people (including myself) laugh. I don't know if that's just the way Swedes speak English, or if it's just that bus driver, but it was amusing.

We got to the central station around 7:15, and tried to find an info-desk, where we could ask whether or not we need to exchange our ticket (purchased in Finland) for a different one. Turns out there is no info-desk, or at least we didn't find one. There was just a lobby where they sell tickets, but that opened at 8:00 on Sundays, so we found some free seats and waited. We managed to spend most of the Swedish crowns that we had in the kiosk. When Pinky was at the kiosk, an old lady was going to sit down in her seat and I spoke Finnish to her, and when she replied in Swedish I realized we're not in Kansas anymore.

At 8:00 the ticket booth opened, but there was such a rush of people that we decided not to bother and just boarded our train hoping that our tickets are valid the way they are. And they were. The train was scheduled to arrive in Copenhagen at 13:30, but it was late (as trains in Sweden tend to be). The scenery didn't differ much from Finland, although there were more horses and cows out in the fields :) The bridge connecting Sweden and Denmark was pretty cool, although the view would've been better if it hadn't been so cloudy. When we were getting ready to get off the train, we met more weird people: some guy asked us if we're American, and said that the way we use the word "like" is very American. I don't know if I should be offended. 

The weather in Copenhagen was quite bad. It was very gray and gloomy, and rained a little. We left our luggage at the train station security lockers, and then headed for the S-tog platform. We were supposed to go to Hellerup, which is where Experimentarium is located. We were promised free entry through some connections :P The S-tog stopped at a stop before Hellerup, and it turned out that it wasn't going any further because of construction work, so we'd have to take a bus the rest of the way. We got there in the end, and followed the road signs to Experimentarium. It was raining quite heavily at that point and we had to walk for at least 20 minutes. It was pretty easy to find though and we did get in for free. There were a lot of kids everywhere (it was Sunday, after all). We went to the Brain exhibition first, and didn't really understand much of it, so we moved on to the activity section, which was self-explanatory and fun.

We then went upstairs and ate at the cafeteria. We both had pasta salad and a brownie, which were tasty and affordable. Then we started exploring the upstairs, which was the most fun - we should've gone there right from the start. The section with the bubbles was definitely my favorite. I tried making a bubble around myself and got to my waist til it popped. We also blew large bubbles, roughly the size of our heads, which was pretty damn cool.

Then there were other fun activities - standing in front of a green screen with different backgrounds, making power by biking, and so on, and so forth. We could've easily spent the whole day there, but the place closed at 17:00, so we only got like an hour and a half. We met up with Pinky's friend Mia, and she drove us back to the main train station, where we picked up our luggage. Mia then drove us to her place, and their friend Majken was waiting for us outside. The four of us ate a traditional Danish dinner, prepared by Mia - ox meat with a wine sauce with mushrooms, hasselback potatoes and tomato salad. The food was delicious. The meat was medium rare and with the wine sauce it was incredible. The potatoes were slightly salty and spicy, and amazing. And the salad was awesome too: mozzarella, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and onions with balsamico dressing. I wish I could eat like that more often. Hands down the best meal of the trip.

After dinner we took a walk around the lake, which was very pretty in the darkness. Before going to sleep, Mia took our map and circled all the buildings and landmarks in Copenhagen that we should see. We also weighed our rinkkas: mine was 11 kg and Pinky's was 12 kg. They sure felt heavier...

-Brain

Day 2: From Stockholm to Copenhagen.

August 8 2010

The night was interesting. We spent the night at the little room with train seats. At some point of the night I took my sleeping bag and went on the floor. I had Brain's mattress on the floor and her sleeping bag as my pillow. I managed to sleep. Which was a miracle. For the entire night before moving to the floor I hadn't been able to sleep at all.

We went to have breakfast in the ship's buffet, and ate so much that our bellies were full of food. So good.

We go the bus from the terminal to Cityterminal, where our train to Copenhagen via Malmö goes from. We were the last ones to get on the bus. We put our backpacks to the luggage rack by the front door. I had to put my bag on top of another bag, because a lot of the space was taken by bags that were light and small and could have easily been placed on the space above the seats. I'm just saying. Our bags probably could've fit above, but no one could've lifted them up, well we couldn't have.

The bus driver welcomed all of us to Sweden. He spoke with a funny accent and he was a little weird. He seemed to be in a very happy mood and the passangers were chuckling as well.
We soon got to Cityterminalen and found our way to the train station. It was really hot, humid in there. The weather in Stockholm was humid and foggy.

Brain was in the ticket office trying to find out whether we'd need to change our tickets that we got in Finland. We went with the train to Copenhagen. I saw we went through Nässjö, the town where my favorite band Backyard Babies is from.

I fell as sleep at some point. I missed Lund and woke up in Malmö. When we were on the train we noticed two guys with weird English accents, not really American, but not British either.

Once we were in Copenhagen already a guy on the train asks us a question, that being, are we American. Because apparently our way of using 'like' is very American.

We left our luggage to Copenhagen's trainstation. Kr 55.00 was what it cost. The trainstations bathrooms are quite a sight. And not necessarily a nice one... It was raining outside.We found the S-tog platform and went on our way to Experimentarium. Mia, who I had met in England couple weeks earlier, had a friend working there and got us in for free. We stood in the entrance and pondered, eventually the ticket sales person asked us if we were Pinky and Brain, and well what do you know, we were. ;)

The Brain exhibition was strange, we didn't really understand. The Sports & Spinach was awesome. You could try all these things and Brain tried 'kill the frog' where you stomp on these things on the floor and try to kill the frogs.. Until we noticed that thing was out of order, so it didn't really work. I tried pedalling. It was a short round course, with uphill parts and downhill parts. You only stood on the pedals, and held onto two strings that were hanging from the ceiling. It was awesome.

At one point we found a life size body, where you could take it's organs out and stuff. Brain tried to put them back, but it was really difficult!

It was 5 pm already and Mia picked us up from the Experimentarium. She drove us to the trainstation and we got our luggage. After a little detour that is. Who knew that one rectangular shaped room, a huge one that is, can be confusing. We took a wrong turn and had to walk all over that place. The Bagagebokse were big enough to fit both our bags in one.

Mia drove us to her place and there was Majken, who I also had met in England a couple weeks earlier, waiting.  Mia has the cutest dog, Chilli! It was awesome to see Mia and Majken again! We drank some champagne and played with Chilli. She's the center of attention really.

Mia was cooking dinner while the rest of us played with Chilli. Mia made the best meal. Seriously we didn't eat this well anywhere else on this trip. It was so delicious. Everyone took couple servings at least and oh my goodness it was good.

At one point there was a funny incident. Majken was explaning what Mia was cooking. She couldn't remember what the meat was in English, so she made horns with her hands and made a sound, like 'moo'. I for some reason immediately thought of moose, and Sasha thought of cows, but it was an ox. Okay, it was funnier there and then...

Brain and I stayed at Mia's for the night. After Majken left Mia took our map and circles places for us to go to, she even called her dad to think of places to see. We had a wonderful host. So thoughtful!


-Pinky

DAY 1: Getting ready to leave, and the journey to Stockholm

Saturday, August 7th 2010

So I left packing for the very last minute, because I'm a master of procrastination. I ended up not taking quite a few items that I originally planned on taking, because the rinkka was starting to weigh a lot. I even almost left out the sunscreen, but then decided to take it anyways. I'll just have to use it generously, so that it gets used up during the trip (it didn't). We also took some things that are probably not necessary - rope, pyykkipojat (laundry boys, lol) and duct tape. Then again, all of those could come in handy (they did).

The journey began around 16:00, when we got a ride to Turku. We hadn't even left the city yet, when it started pouring down with rain. It was also very windy - the trees were bending down and the car was pretty shaky. There were several lightnings and we heard thunder, and it was raining so hard that the sweepers didn't even help. We pulled over to the side of the road and waited for the weather to calm down a bit before continuing. And of course after about 15 more minutes of driving there wasn't even a sign of the thunderstorm anymore - the sky was much lighter and it barely rained. Still, a pretty scary way to start off on our adventure. Hopefully not a bad omen!

We got to the harbor around 18:30, and waited for the check-in to begin, and for the ferry to arrive. We had to wait for about 2 hours, and spent our time observing the people in the lobby. When we got on the ferry, we decided not to leave our luggage in the storage room, and went to sit in the room for the passengers who are too cheap to get a cabin. It was this room that fits maybe 30 people, with several rows of seats basically like the ones in trains or buses.

When we were sitting there, minding our own business, some weird lady started talking to us. Apparently she thought we were speaking Danish, and even after we told her several times that we are from Finland, she still kept speaking Danish to us! I only understood bits and pieces of what she was talking about. Then she gave us a riddle to solve, using some wooden sticks and a cigarette filter. Neither of us really understood what she wanted us to do because she was speaking Danish. Then she left an opened bottle of red wine on the floor between us and left. Pinky somehow understood what the riddle was about and managed to solve it. That was a pretty weird encounter. At some point during the night, the weird riddle-lady returned. Pinky showed her the solution she came up with and it was correct. The lady then rearranged the wooden sticks and started explaining a new riddle. At this point, I was half-pretending to be asleep, so she didn't disturb me. Pinky didn't really get the point of the new riddle, but the lady didn't insist much, took her bottle of red wine and left. We didn't see her again.

The strange Danish riddle...

Note to future self: always get a cabin. Sleeping in the chairs wasn't too bad - I did get a little bit of sleep - but they were very very uncomfortable. It was also very cold in the room. I had my sweater on, and later during the night I also had Pinky's hoodie on. She decided to sleep on the floor in her sleeping bag, and there were several other people that did the same. That probably was more comfortable than trying to sleep in the chairs. There was a thunderstorm during the night. I noticed it when I turned to face the windows and there was a flash of lightning that illuminated the sea. It looked awesome - first seeing nothing but your own reflection, and then everything becoming light for a split second. I have no idea how safe it is to be out at sea during a thunderstorm, so it was a bit spooky. But we survived :)

-Brain