Today is the first day of my travels abroad. I arrived at the airport two hours early with my parents and Ally. Check-in went pretty smoothly, although I’ve never taken so much carry-on luggage through security. Adding difficulty, my shoelaces knotted while untying them for security. Enduring this great hardship, I pressed on.
The first plane from RDU to Toronto was one of the smallest I’ve been on. My backpack barely fit in the overhead compartment. The second plane from Toronto to Copenhagen was essentially an air cruise-ship. I didn’t get much sleep in flight, but I finally watched Big Hero 6.
I received single-serving portions of the following: chicken entree, salad, bread, water, brownie, and red wine. Not too shabby.
My view ~20 minutes from landing in Copenhagen at 10 am local time is shown above. I had one thought: this place is much darker than they showed in the pictures. It’s the middle of August, how is this possible?
Luckily, the picture changed entirely when the plane dropped a few thousand feet. The sky brightened up and it turned out to be a sunny, cheerful arrival day. I was thrilled to find my belongings in the baggage claim, and I headed to the ticketing machine to buy a train ticket to Malmo.
Getting to my first destination was not as easy as I had imagined. All signage is Swedish, and street signs are not nearly as easy to spot in Sweden. Greater emphasis is placed on preserving beauty. This includes hiding street signs in discreet locations, rather than the utilitarian American approach of using bright green, reflective street signs.
One train, one bus, and one hour later I arrived at the Ekman residence. I wasn’t expecting it to be so beautiful.
derek the swede 