muh birfday
for my birthday last week margie once again concocted a bit of a surprise for me. the number of times she’s done things like this i really should be expecting them, but again i was in total shock.
at lunch time on tuesday we met for lunch, margie with suitcase in tow. “are you going somewhere?”, i asked.
i was subsequently whisked away to the train station (not exactly whisked, we had to fill in some time before our train was due to leave, but it sounds better) where we boarded a train bound for copenhagen. despite being a fast train with speeds around 200 km/h the trip still takes a good 5 hours. there are advantages however over going by plane. firstly, no airports. secondly and probably most importantly, plenty of legroom. it’s certainly a trip i’d have no hesitations about doing again on the train.
after our 5 or so hours we arrived in copenhagen to find michelle waiting at the station for us. something i had sort of expected once i knew the destination, but you never can be sure of these things. as it turns out she had very graciously offered to let us stay in her apartment while she went and stayed with her mother, a little way across town. i know exactly how i would have reacted to the thought of having guests invade my place while i was packing for a move to another country but apparently michelle was quite insistant that we stay there. she can be somewhat stubborn when she wants to.
i’m probably going to say this about everywhere we manage to visit, but i think copenhagen is a place i’d like to go back to. i was expecting it to be rather similar to stockholm, but it’s really not. it’s far more, erm, european i guess. it doesn’t feel as scandinavian somehow. there are pockets of the city that remind me of stockholm, but there were also parts that reminded me of paris (such a wanker, i know). the weather was a bit iffy while we were there, and of course we’d forgotten completely that thursday was a public holiday and almost everything would be closed. so it’s a city that requires further exploration.
all the same, we had a good time while we were there and a fantastic dinner at restaurant olsen (site all in danish, unfortunately) as recommended by michelle’s brother. easily the best beef tenderloin i’ve ever had, and i think the girls were both pretty satisfied with their meals as well.
so thanks to margie for being surprising and inventive yet again, and thanks to michelle for her never ending generosity. check out margie’s album of snaps here and a couple of my efforts over there.