Scandinavia 2008 - Day 12
I awoke my last morning at Rikke's apartment to the smell of Rikke and Anders cooking us breakfast, while they prepared the food I prepared my things. After breakfast we said our good byes and exchanged final music suggestions.
At the station I put my belongings in a locker and rode the train to Humlabek to see the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. All my train rides through Northern Zealand that day were to be short and sweet rides through beautiful country. At Humlabek I turned left out of the station and started walking the mile to the museum. For today I had a very tight schedule with multiple trains, towns and attractions. I had months before figured out how much time I had for each attraction before I had to be on so-and-so train. As I walked along I passed several nice cottages with traditional straw roofs. Loved em.
At the museum, which is quite literally in a small quiet neighborhood between the highway and the sea, I joined the long line formed out front as people queued for entry. The museum was nicely designed, but not to incredibly memorable, which I think is a good thing for a building that is to house art, rather than be the art. They had some nice pieces, my favorite being a video playing in the cinema. The screen was a 10'x15' high definition video of a group of people standing around like they were at a bus stop waiting to go to work. The video was in super slow motion so the people standing there seemed like stone statues. Then the artist released a large volume of water all at once from off screen, and in slow motion you could see as the water came slowly flying in and its sheer power as it knocked several people down. Eventually most everyone was knocked over as the wall of water washed over them. I think one could easily imagine how cool this video was, but its even better in person. After the video I took a short walk amongst some garden art before it was time for me to walk back to the train station. (there were some other good works at the museum including a large exhibition of architecture exhibits and models. Many of them of buildings I had even studied.)
The next train stopped in Helsingor where I had little time to leave the station walk a few block through the charming city center to the point where a large castle guarded the entire channel from Denmark to Sweden. Kronborg Slot (castle) was very large and imposing and I would have loved to have had more time to visit it, but I did have to catch my other train to my next sight: Fridriksborg Slot, the original castle of the Danish Kings.
Fridriksborg slot, built on 3 islands in the middle of a large lake is a true castle in every sense of the word. With moats, large walls, drawbridges, castleations, and rings of soldiers barracks protecting it, it was a large and grand fortified palace. Walking across both drawbridges I crossed another moat and out into a large courtyard on the third island. The castle palace was in a u-shape around the courtyard, which was big enough to assemble an army for war.
In the palace I took the self-guided tour up several flights of stairs and through all three wings. Particularly impressive were the ballroom and the chapel. The kings personal chapel in the back of the small church was extravagant and its walls and ceilings were coated in rare inlaid woods that depicted biblical scenes. I would pit this small interior room against any in the history of lavish extravagance. From the kings chapel I entered the throne room and the dinning room before making my way through the royal quarters. From the royal bedchamber's there was an amazing view of the lake and countryside. The halls were lined with portraits of kings and their families, and even the occasional servant or midget jester. On a small room on another floor, I saw a giant metal contraption that looked like a globe but instead had no skin so that I could see the inner workings and mechanical drives inside it. The outside was decorated in stars and astronomical signs. It was the first ever astronomical globe I had ever scene. It looked incredibly complicated and expensive. But I would have loved to see it in action, the stars spinning around chasing fate.
I had originally planned to stop and see a modern art museum by Zaha Hadid called Ordrupgaard near the town of Lyngby, but I hadn't the time so I continued back to Copenhagen with barely enough time to retrieve my baggage and to catch my train to Goteborg. I had two trains, the first from CPH to Malmo again crossing the Oresund bridge, and then a longer train from Malmo to Göteborg. The train from CPH to Malmo does not allow people to reserve their seats because it is a commuter train. I sat down in one of the few open seats, across from a man of eastern descent. Shortly thereafter a cute blond and her boyfriend arrived. They claimed to have these seats reserved. I moved but they easterner would not. The girl and the easterner got in a real row, and after the man put on his head phones, fully ignoring her, the girl sat in the seat across him (while her boyfriend stood) for the next 30 minutes with a full blown 100-yard stare boring a hole through his skull. It was quite interesting to see the version of conflict resolution in another culture. I am sure at home this would have not have happened in this manner. Either the person in the wrong seat would have giving it up to avoid being shot, or the person wanting the seat would have gave up to avoid being shot. Here in Denmark, no one was shot. Instead I shared some of my McDonald's fries with her boyfriend as we just shrugged our shoulders at each other.
Once on the train from Malmo to Göteborg I was able to relax in my own seat in comfort and enjoy the green countryside roll by. There was a strikingly beautiful girl sitting nearby that helped my mind occupy the 4 hours as well (ok it was Sweden, I had my pick of strikingly beautiful girls of which to busy my mind with). I arrived in Göteborg after dark and had a hard time figuring out which of the nine million different trams to ride in whatever direction to get to my hostel (Göteborg has one of the biggest, if not the biggest, tram systems in the world). Once I found the right tram going the right direction I had a nice chat with another cute swede who helped me with buying my tram ticket. At my stop I then discovered it was a good walk back in whatever direction to a hostel in a building I couldn't find. Once I did, my shoulders aching from my rucksack, I was unable to find my key to my room that was supposed to be waiting for me near some sort of fire escape (the office was closed). Eventually a girl who did work there found me wondering the clean long hall and checked me in. This girl, tall and skinny and no more than 18 or 19, was wearing a large loose blue night shirt. She had long carefree blond hair that ran down to her large bosom that was firmly en cupped by a light-blue lacy bra. She positively spilled out of that night shirt. I stumble and stammered my way through check in as I tried to not stare, but I finally gave up, and I think she didn't mind a bit, other than it took longer than normal to check me in.
It had been a long day, but I found that my room, other than another guy fast asleep with two crutches by his bed, was empty. I changed and unpacked. Before bed I discovered that the bathrooms were a single room with a large shower in the back. The hostel was in a moderately new building and was not constrained by the construction of the past. I closed the shower curtain, turned out the bathroom light, and laid on the blue tile floor for over an hour, napping lightly as the cold shower rained down on me, washing away the heat and sweat of having carried that damn bag a half a-frickin' mile. Before going to sleep I stuck my ipod in the slates of the bed above me, and carved my name into said slats while I watched the movie Juno. Tomorrow should be a pleasant day.
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