Mike Takes Denmark-and develops a mild hatred of the Danish transportation department.

Homecoming: Day 16—> day 17

“I have 100kroner and I need to get back to hostel or I will be stranded here- please, take me!”

My Saturday night in Aalborg, Denmark seamlessly transitioned into Sunday morning, a night done right with techno music, drinks, and random Erasmus students from around the world. Seeing as this was my last night in Denmark, I did it right and I did it hard. In other words, I stayed up all night with Peter and the guys dancing and drinking, trying to be “cool” with the ladies, which as I mentioned last post, is a very difficult task considering the socially-bipolar collection of women in the clubs.

4am: I enter the hostel lobby, stumbling around, trying to tell the dude behind the counter I need a taxi in 15minutes; it took a while- but I did it! And I will say this: if you plan on staying out all night, make sure you are packed before you go. As some of you reading this might guess that was me- YOU’RE WRONG. I packed up my schtuff before heading out because I knew I wasn’t going to be able to see straight come time to leave and whudathunkit I was right. The warm shower to “wake-up” didn’t help either, especially considering how small it was. I think I honestly fell into the walls enough times to count, but I wasn’t, I was actually considering getting a road brew while I waited for my taxi! No, don’t worry, I didn’t. I did however buy a Twix for the taxi ride.

What will eventually be concluded with this post is how much I have developed a mild hatred of the Danish transportation system, in regards to flying. It will be discussed in the following stages (somewhat in that order, but maybe not exactly):

1. Ridiculous and redundant hours of operation;
2. Robots that are not helpful;
3. Asshole Customer Service agents;
4. Danish websites changing dates of trips;
5. Faulty trip reservation system;
6. Non-compliance with said hours of operation;
7. Inability to resolve conflict (quickly).

So, 4:30 rolls around and I’m at the airport, which has just opened. This, in the first place, seems counter intuitive when you have 6:30 international flights that require you be checked in at least 2 hours before the flight. I’d actually gotten there a little bit early, but only a few minutes, so that was nice. Anyway, I went over to the self-service kiosks, the electronic mah-doogies, to print of my boarding pass. Low and behold—there is an issue with my reservation. The machine, with all of it’s wisdom and power, wouldn’t tell me why my reservation code wasn’t working. So of course being as intoxicated as I still was, I get a little upset and decide to talk to someone to help me out. I waddle over to the customer service counter to see what I didn’t want to- NO ONE AT THE EFFING COUNTER. Why open an airport if there is going to be NO ONE to be there? I don’t get it! No service agents were there, in any of the kiosks and no one was behind their respective counters! At this point, I was drunk and now very pissed off, so I did what any self-respecting drunk American would do while they waited for a service agent: I played Angry Birds- and then passed out against the column I was propped up against. Like I said- I was pissed.

When the dude finally showed up, he tried to not pay attention to me as he gets his “area” ready for the day. I really had no right to have been pissed at him (yet) because I had done the same thing when I worked coffee. I couldn’t help anyone until the store was ready, so I would just pretend they weren’t there, as he was doing to me; I had just gotten served. When he finally came over to the counter, he wouldn’t stop speaking Danish, even despite my constant “nei, nei, Taller englesk, takk..” (even though it’s Norwegian/Danish, they can understand it, so he should have stopped SPEAKING IN DANISH) and it was not helping my pissy nature. As it turns out, the genius came up with the conclusion that I had purchased the ticket for February, not January.

FÆN [google translate it- I won’t say it here].

Looking at his screen I saw that the reservation was in fact made for February, yet I would have sworn on any holy book that I had clicked January. The idea that the Danish site changed my month isn’t too far fetched considering it wasn’t the first time a travel site had switched ish up on me during my travels. Even though it actually is pretty far fetched to say the Danish travel bureau sabotaged my flight to Amsterdam, I like to think I didn’t commit the foul. This is where the guy becomes a dick- he would not BUDGE on getting me on the flight. Before I could even finish asking to help a brotha out, he cut me off “Nope, no, we don’t-we can’t do that. It’s against policy.” The non-internet price for a ticket was upwards of $400 , and there was no way I could afford that, so I told him I needed to get on the flight because I couldn’t afford to stay in Aalborg another night. His response?

“Do you have a credit card?”

"Do you have a credit card?!” Are you kidding me?! It’s almost 5am and this chode was trying to commit extortion of the reasonable kind, but it was ridiculous. I can’t say that the US is any better, but I’m sure they would have tried a lot harder to get me on that flight. This guy actually walked away from me while I was trying to work something out! Chode aside, I backed away from the counter and took inventory of my decreasing currency. I had spent the last solid bit of Danish kroner to get to the airport and my US accounts were beginning to dwindle below the point I marked to have a reasonable move to California upon my return to the West Coast, so I had begun to float up the shit river. Luckily, I found 100kroner in my back pocket; unfortunately, my taxi ride out had cost me over 200kroner. Again, I did what any reasonable drunken American would do if they found out they were stranded and broke in a foreign country- I played Angry Birds, but when I couldn’t break down the effin pigs’ defense, I got even more angry and decided that I needed to get a game plan together. I decided to try my luck with a taxi-driver and ask for a ride back. In other words, I begged some guy, who turned out to be a douche, to give me a lift back to the hostel for the rest of my money. He reluctantly agreed, but was a dick the entire way back, which I think is completely unnecessary. If I were a taxi-driver, I would be up for helping out a brotha every once and a while, especially when the clubs were closing and I would definitely make up the loss very quickly from all the extremely drunk bastards around town.

I get to the hostel and explain to the new person behind the counter that I had just checked out but missed my flight and needed to use the internet. She was cool about it and let me ‘chill’ out in the lobby for a spell. And THANK GOD FOR FACEBOOK. I never thought I’d say that, but without it, I would have been EFFED because I was losing my cool and my mobile phone definitely did not have enough credits to call the states and talk with the parentals. My mom happened to be online and with the her help, I was able to regain my chi and think logically about things: I needed another flight and a place to stay for the night because I was running drunk with only 2 hours of sleep 27hours earlier (if that makes sense). After getting my to-do list busted out and booked, my parents were my knights in shining armor and wired me some extra cash to help with the room and food for the day.

Seriously, my parents are best. If you disagree, you can go f*ck yourself.

I eventually got a room and slept until about 3pm, which felt absolutely wonderful. Oddly enough, when I had reserved my new flight, it said there was a complication in purchasing the ticket, yet the confirmation I was emailed said everything was taken care of. All day after waking up, I called the customer service hotline, but being freaking Sunday, no one was there. I was quite concerned because I really could not afford another night in Aalborg. I gave up and decided to figure it out in the morning at the airport. In the evening time, I met back up with Peter and his Danish-American pal for some drinks to watch the Packers-Bears playoff game. Soon enough, a Belgian dude (that we all think was completellyyyy full of shit) and bought us all a bunch of beer, which was great.

FAST-FORWARD TO THE NEXT MORNING

I want to go on record and say that I did not get drunk that night, because I’d be a huge dick if I used the money my parents sent on booze; however, I did forget to set my alarm to wake up in time, and with going to bed at 3am and needing to be up at 5am, this was a bad new bears. Luckily, I had a dream that ended abruptly with me (yes, me) walking up to me in a dream and yelling at me- “YOU FORGOT TO SET YOUR ALARM, ASSWAD!” It actually freaked me out to the point where I abruptly jerked awake and fell out of my bunk. I looked at my iPod and saw that it was exactly 5am.

F8ck yeah.

Showered, taxied, and waiting in the airport, I go again to the freakin robot-kiosk and it says that my confirmation code had a problem…

F8ck.

I decide to keep my cool this time because (1) I wasn’t drunk, and (2) I had plenty of time to figure it out. Except the CHODE behind the counter wouldn’t tell me what was wrong because he couldn’t figure it out. I had the idea that it was my debit card (which had been acting up lately) and told him but he assured me that it wasn’t. So he tells me to wait 15minutes until their office opens [at this time, I had just about under an hour before my flight took off]. Once the time comes around to call the office, ChoderBoy calls them up and guess what- no. one. answers.

30minutes later (20min until I had to be on the GD flight), a lady called me over to the other counter and told me my credit card hadn’t been accepted- INCONVIEVABLE! Well, instead of saying that, I do one of those slow head turns toward Chode, who doesn’t make eye contact with me, and turn back to pay the lady with my other debit card. With my flight paid for and moderate hatred for the Danish travel system, I shoved some bitches (guy bitches and girl bitches) out my way to make it to security. At this point, I had 10min to board my flight. LUCKILY, I got through security lickety split and the gate was literally right there after you got through. I boarded my flight literally putting my belt on. I think I finished putting my belt on when right before I sat down in my seat.

Often times I’ll end a post with words of advice, but in all honesty, I may have messed up originally, but the Danish [assuming the rest of the country is just as incompetent as Aalborg] are horrendous at customer relations; thus, my advice is such- avoid flying in Denmark.
Considering the rest of the day was spent in an airport and flying, I will end my Danish leg of my blog with this:

CONSIDER DENMARK: TAKEN!!

I hate this place…

MIKE OUT!

Mike takes Denmark: part 2!!!

Homecoming: Day 15—>day 16

“I’m really horny!"’

I’ll admit it: I passed out on the floor once we got back to the hotel. Am I embarrassed? Hell no, I meant to do it! I needed some energy for the night because as I mentioned earlier, I wasn’t going to leave Denmark without checking out the night-life. Luckily for me, I had been in contact with a fellow Surfer who had invited me out. After Christian passed out, I snapped out of my drool-filled coma and cleaned up a bit (put on deodorant) and left to meet up with Natalia, an Erasmus student from Poland. We didn’t stay at the apartment for long since people wanted to hit Jomfru, granted the clock at just struck midnight:30, the party, my friends, was just beginning on Jomfru.

Lights.
Dancing.

Katy Perry.

Techno.

Dancing.

The night was pretty epic. I mean, there really isn’t much to talk about considering I danced and drank with people I vaguely knew, which was fun. I think one of the highlights of the night was while dancing, I kept feeling this bumping behind me. Of course, being the optimist, I think it’s some gorgeous Danish model that for some reason was getting my attention for a good techno session; it was a drunk dude. Slight embarrassment, yes, but the dude was dancing with an equally, if not more, intoxicated gal. This made to be the WORST dance team in the world as they were knocking into absolutely everyone on the floor. Luckily for me, I was a first hand witness to his downfall.

I was dancing with Natalia and her friend when this guy says something in this gals ear while dipping her, trying to neck, right? I guess that’s what single guys do- the dip and neck and whisper sweet nothings into a chick’s ears even though she can’t hear a damn word he’s saying. Being not nearly on their level of wasted, I was able to hear it just fine. The dude actually did this, I shit you not; he dipped her, nibbled on her neck, and then whispered- “I’m horny” in her ear, very nonchalantly. When she couldn’t hear him and asked him to repeat it, he said louder and probably more proud: “I’m horny!”

I have never seen anyone as drunk as she was at that moment become as sober as she seemed to become; she stood STRAIGHT up, almost robot-like, and walks in a direct-route to the bathroom [my guess- to hurl], again, like a robot. Simultaneously RIGHT at that moment, a loud “BARBARA STREISAND” came over the bass system and I’ll tell you what- I nearly lost it. I was laughing so hard from his EPIC fail and the song that I nearly pissed myself on the dance floor. You might not think it’s hilarious, but try having hundreds of people scream, “BARBARA STREISAND” in complete techno-unison; it’s hilarious.

ONTO THE NEXT PARTY (the next night, Saturday)

Christian was gone and I was contemplating not going out because of my early flight (those of you who know, know this is the reason I hate the Danish customer service industry)- but then after a good push from my pals in the states, I decided to head out and rock Denmark one last time.

Bar #1: Robin [ referencing Robin Hood]. Time: approx. 10:30pm

Fantastically cheap beer, especially when you say you’re American- People LOVE IT! There were two Danish “bros” that were absolutely enthralled with my Americaniness that they kept buying the rounds, which of course, would was mondo appreciated. Apparently, they love Los Angeles, Seattle, and how businesses are open on Sunday. Things were going great until they started mentioning hard drugs. I could SWEAR one kept rubbing his own nipples. Once they left to go into the ‘smoking room’ (an area with a 3/4 wall surrounding it), I paid my bill and peaced out to another bar, one with more….dancing! Boom!

Bar#2: Dunno, Didn’t see the name. Time: approx. Midnight

Way more dancing going on, myself included. The worst part was even though the ratio of men to girls was technically man-favored, Danish chicks will either dance with you- or not. There is NO middle-room, which is where I was. I consider “middle room” to be just dancing around having fun, nothing resembling the virtual kama-sutra. But as I said (and my soon-to-be-new friend Peter would later confirm for me) that Danish chicks are TOUGH. If they don’t wnat to dance with you, friendly or otherwise, they won’t have ANY of it. So, because of all the debbie-downers, I just decided to grab some beer and see what happens. Sure enough-nothing of circumstance.

Enter Peter Knox- the local Irishman.

Standing 6’1’’, blonde, and wearing a tight black tee, Peter’s out for a good time with some friends of his, a couple of which are Erasmus students with Natalia. He notices I’m drinking alone and instantly says “Cheers!” and I clink pints. “Who ya hear with, man?” says Peter. “No one, my man, no one,” says I. “Alright then- hey miss! And another beer for my friend here!”

Peter Knox- my new friend.

I’m not going to lie, I forget his buddies’ names, but they were pretty alright dudes. We got some drinks at the bar, and then I noticed the guys putting their jackets on and I guess we were moving to another bar with a better ‘crowd’ i.e. there weren’t enough beautiful ladies for my new posse. Boom, new bar!

Bar #3: I want to say….Hollywood Boulevard. Time: nearing 2am

2 beers and 3 cigarettes and the dudes wanted to bounce- and bounce we did. By then, it was getting late and I should have gone to bed, since I had to be at the airport in 2 hours; HOWEVER, no way I was going to let this night end so early because why…? I was in freaking DENMARK! Cripes! So anyway, we ran off to the next bar down the street to rock the night away.

Bar #4: Alright…way past the point of remembering- not gonna lie. Time: Somewhere around 3am.

We go to a fancy place down the street, a legit disco-teck- dancing platforms, bar in the middle of the room, and a 50kroner cover charge. As Peter and his crew mentioned, this places fellas-to-gals ratio was greatly in the guys favor, but as I had mentioned, Danish girls are hard. What this means for me is A LOT of mean glares from people I didn’t know when I became pushed into them by people actually more drunk than I was. It’s absolutely crazy! I wasn’t looking for anything than but some dancing and fun-having, but these club goers, the ones wanting to go home with EVERYONE with the opposite sex were making life miserable! Good thing my posse were all out for just having some good time. Beers in hand, and away we went! I left the incredibly mean Danish girls to all the club sharks- it just wasn’t for me. All the FREAKING perfume and over-stenched cologne was an ABOMINATION to nostils and I was having fun chatting it up with the dudes and getting the occasional wink from the ladies. Coincidentally, I got the most winks and looks only after people had heard my American accent. It was a mounting proof that foreign people, women in general, love the American. However, this American accent doesn’t mean diddly when you’re in a club with bass system that literally shakes your bones.

Ah, so is life.

In any case, it was now 4am and I was running late for the my airport appointment, so I booked back to the hostel. I needed to be checked in to the airport at 4:30am..ruhroh! WORTH IT! It’s 4am and I was about to discover just how much I hate Danish customer service.

….to be continued…

Mike Takes Denmark!

Homecoming: Day 15

“We underestimated by a power of 10!”

Quick pre-cap [yes, no recap, but precap. Yes, the word doesn’t exist, according to Microsoft LiveWriter, but it can suck it]

I would like to say we took it easy after the Norwegian Sea and in terms of being touristy, this is completely true; however, in terms of relaxing, this is completely untrue. The two days following the epic battle of Man vs. Nature (which ended up as a draw, seeing as I bitchslapped a Jellyfish and we all fell in the Norwegian Sea), Christian and I prepared for Denmark by working over time in the woods. We didn’t want to leave his dad with all the work, so we busted ass and rocked it out. The day before Denmark, we went into Kristiansand for last minute shopping, but let’s face it- we’re dudes; we don’t shop. Instead, Christian bought a sandwich and I got coffee and eventually pistachio gelato.

Consider Kristiansand: TAKEN

Now onto the greasy greasy of Denmark…

First off, we had an entire day of awesome fortune, and honestly, if one thing would have gone wrong, we would have been effed in some way or the other.

• We almost missed the Ferry because SOMEONE took forever getting ready (it was mmeeeeeee);
• When we arrived, our tram to the train had pulled up and was about to leave, so we ended up booking it down the crowded path. It looked like this;
• When we got to the train, we couldn’t figure out how to use the electronic-automatic ticket buying-thingie, so we went looking aimlessly for the ticket counter. By the time we got our tickets, our train was blowing the final whistle for boarding- so we ended up running to that, which looked kind of like this;
• Once we got to Aalborg, Denmark, we had NO IDEA where we were going, but we just kind of started wondering and ended up being right down the street from our hotel, when we finally got wifi and checked our google maps;
• Finally, and most importantly- the beer was cheaper than in Norway.

Once we finally checked in and headed out, we found out one MAJOR piece of information that I wish someone had told me, and because of this, I will say this to you all:

Aalborg has NO tourism/VERY LITTLE to DO

Totally serious. We went to a few places, all of which were the worst, most boring places we’ve visited:

1. Aalborg Cultural Museum- Horrible. Worst displays ever and completely non-interesting;
2. Utzon Architectural Museum- Boring. It is literally just drawings. Nothing fun or cool at all;
3. The Modern Art Museum- the best by far, but still, nothing that exciting. The museum in Oslo was much better because a lot of the art was about issues, not some random clashing of lines that some people call art;
4. The Military-Garrison Museum- looked ballin’, but was closed for winter.

Now, we did hit up one place, the Maritime Museum of Aalborg which had a pseudo- chronological display of Denmark’s maritime history, which as it turned out, was pretty radical. “Why was it so awesome to see all these boats and ships and stuff? Haven’t you seen other maritime museums on your trip?” And the answer is yes; however, none that ended with a MOTHALUVIN SUBMARINE!

and then A MOTHALUVIN HELICOPTER!

In all honesty, Aalborg is a very scenic destination spot and I can see where a lot of it’s tourism comes with the warmer seasons. The very Danish architecture is probably just an accent during the summer with all of the outside vendors and the hubbub of the sun. I chose to come in winter, so I can’t hate it too much, but you know what, I’m going to. And you’ll see why in a later post.

After the art gallery, we head back to the hotel to figure out the night. Christian, being a poopy-tired little sap decided to nap while I looked for transportation and housing for Amsterdam. Sounds dull, yeah, I know, but a mere 1.5hours later, we decided to hit- and hit it hard is what we did! Starting in the hotel, we had a small drink, which held us off until the quick-E-mart down the street when we got thirsty again. This was awesome because apparently, people just drink wherever they want. So of course, we felt like absolute mavericks walking down the street and drinking Carlsbourgs on our way to the bar! We made it to the Irish pub of choice (the one where we wanted to get damned delicious grub), ordered our pints and found out- whoops- kitchen was closed. At 7pm! Who does that?! Apparently this place does, so, do not enlist the help of “The Irish House” for late night munchies- they will not help.

We eventually got food after having a few drinks (which is not the greatest idea if you haven’t eaten all day) but at that point, Christian started getting tired. We had just walked onto Jomfru, the party street, and stopped into a bar called “Robin Hood”, which is a fantastic place, to be honest. Cheap beer and neat interior i.e. very attractive women behind the counter- and wouldn’t you know it- Christian starts dozing off at the bar! No, not on my clock! Not in Denmark. SO, what is the onnne thing that can make men wake up more quickly than any other known substance in the wide-world?

If you said naked women, you are correct; Luckily for us, there was a strip club right around the corner! I dragged his tired ass over to that beautifully lit establishment and started on his revival.

FAST-FORWARD 15MINUTES

Long story short, students on a tight budget shouldn’t visit these establishments for a couple reasons: (1) the beer is GHASTLY expensive; (2) so is everything else! We actually, no joke, were getting glared at by all the ladies in the club because they knew we didn’t have any money. We took this as a sing we should leave before things got ugly. And by ugly, I mean this.

We eventually headed back to the hotel, but there was no way in HELL I was going to bed…I mean, it was Friday night in Denmark…I’m sure there was a party somewhere…right?

Right.

to be continued…