Day 1 - Leaving Home

Well I've arrived in Copenhagen this afternoon which to my body seemed like morning. It's 6 hours ahead of the eastern time zone. Where to start? There's so much that happened. Preparations to travel from Fort Wayne to Chicago with my parents went well and we left early to avoid traffic. We actually were so early that when we got to the baggage check-in we had to wait nearly an hour an a half, but we didn't mind. Especially considering security was the next thing to go through and my parents could go past that point. I met up with Maggie, my travel buddy and fellow exchange student in Purdue's biomedical engineering program, before I checked my luggage in (by the way I am proud to say that I only needed 1 suitcase and kept it just barely under the weight limit). So baggage check-in, then security. It's not like I wasn't expecting to get through, but everything went smoothly. I didn't remember that I had liquids in my carry on even though I said no when they asked. Either they let me off easy or didn't notice :/ I may never know although there's a slight chance they might not let me back in to the U.S... More waiting after I got everything packed back into my carry-on and put my shoes back on. By more waiting I mean about 4 hours so I wasn't kidding when I said we got there early. Better safe than sorry though. I had time to explore the international terminal, but really there wasn't anything of great interest from gates 1-5 or 16-22 apart from the moving sidewalks. Maggie and I had two restaurants to choose from and neither of us had a strong preference so we went with the one closer to gate 12, our gate. It was a Mexican restaurant and the other was a Chinese one. I didn't order much and it was a good thing because we got fed quite a bit on the plane, but I didn't think about that ahead of time. After dinner we still had to wait a little while but the time passed quickly as Maggie and I talked. I felt like I was telling stories a lot, but that was what was coming to my mind I suppose. Since we had the cheap tickets we boarded with the very last group (which reminds me of Brian Regan's joke about crazy anxious people crowding the gate like it's that last helicopter out of Vietnam). I had a pretty good idea where my seat was located so I didn't say anything when the flight attendant mistook me for a Dane and directed me in Danish :) However, Maggie pointed out the seat numbers which were nearly out of my sight because my eye level was slightly above the level of the overhead racks. So I found my seat and after some introduction found out that I had sat down next to a fellow cheese head and his wife who was Swedish (not a cheese head). My other seat buddy was from Illinois and heading to Copenhagen to meet his wife who had gone ahead of him because she worked for a Danish company. He let me borrow his book called "Know Your Danes" for the flight. It included a bit of subtle humor which of course made it more entertaining to read. Shortly after we had reached cruising altitude and we were allowed to unfasten our seatbelts we were served dinner. I ate everything they offered apart from the coffee which would have hampered my efforts to sleep. Since we were flying overnight I was determined to at least try to sleep, but naturally with my long torso and preferred erect posture my head was almost entirely above the top of the seat. I used the blanket Scandinavian Airlines provided as a neck pillow though and slept for a while. There was some turbulence, but I felt at ease most of the time and when I didn't I just prayed. God always provides me with peace when I need it. Near the end of the flight breakfast was served which I appreciated despite the fact it was noon in Denmark. After landing and leaving the plane we went through a line to check our passports (just to make sure no one jumped on or off the plane during our flight). Then I received my very first stamp in my passport booklet. Baggage claim was next and fortunately not too busy. I almost missed my bag because I thought it looked too small. Maggie and I went to the ATM's and withdrew some Danish kroner and we had to remember that 1 dollar is about 6 kroner. We had planned to take a bus, but the attendant at the ticket counter suggested we take the train. Maggie and I didn't want to wait in the huge line for the train ticket counter so took on the challenge of using the automated ticket machine. We only had to cancel the transaction once and restart so I would say that was pretty successful. However, we almost missed our train though because the time on the ticket is actually the latest time you can board any train and we were going to wait until that time came if we hadn't asked another person waiting. The central station was a couple blocks from the hostel we had booked a room at so we rolled our luggage there. Once checked in we couldn't figure out the elevator so we carried our luggage, but only up one flight of stairs. It was pretty small, but that was expected. We met some people in the lounge area mostly from other countries and traveling through Denmark. Then Maggie and I went for a walk around the canals until dinner time. We had heard the hostel was serving free dinner around 6:30 for the first 50 people so we made it back well before then. The dinner consisted of bread and chicken/potato/carrot stew. After dinner I read and wrote for a while and then we went out to see the town after dark. We especially liked the pedestrian only roads where there were many shops. After that though we were both exhausted and we decided to go to bed around 10pm.