Our experience of Københavns Lufthavne was rather brief as we arrived very early in the morning and were herded though a second set of security checkpoints that required a thorough unpacking of our carry on luggage due to the densely packed electronics contained therein. And then on through to the customs point where we were stamped on by easy as pie.
My ears were on alert trying to absorb and decipher the Danish/German mixtures wafting all around us. There was an awareness from inside my being that was stirring from a long cozy slumber. I am not sure if I can adequately describe the feeling of slowly remembering sights and sounds rediscovered in a new yet familiar setting.
We arrived in Berlin in an almost anti-climatic rush through the gates and into the terminal that resembled a small strip mall. I guess we flew into a smaller airport in Berlin because it seemed to lack the sheer size and scale of the Frankfurt Flughaffen. But this is also from having a rather monocular perspective at that moment. I think Jennida was starting to slip into culture shock, as she seemed to be overwhelmed by the lessening amount of familiar things and words about. I think for this exact reason pictographs were invented. So that when people who are not native speakers can follow the “i” to the information counter where someone can help them. We secured a bus ticket to the Haupt Bahnhoff and after some missteps made it safely to the train station where we bought a train ticket to Prague and had an early lunch comprised of dunkleweisse and wurstchen.
The biggest thing I was awaiting on the trip to the Czech Republic was the train travel. We shared a car with two young men, one from the US and one from Finland. We pulled out of Berlin and out toward the countryside and for the next four hours I spent falling in and out of sleep. The one thing I was awaiting the most I missed almost entirely. The possibility for staying awake being utterly nonnegotiable. One highlight of the trip was the deep blood red sunset we witnessed. It was the most beautifully striking and unique thing that apparently our fellow passenger from Finland was already very accustomed to. Due to our being so far east in thee world the day dims more quickly here and by the time we arrived in Praha it was dark. We spent the next few hours in the train station trying to figure out our next move, it will be another three to four hour train ride to Cesky Krumlov. Even if we had been able to contact anyone at that time we would not have made it in until at least 9pm. At 5pm it was already very dark and felt much later so we found one of the local youth hostels and stayed the night in Praha. It was interesting to run around….rephrase: it was quite inconvenient to run around with our three bags each, while well under the 70lbs. weight limit of SAS, together each bag together was tough to wrangle all at once.
Once again we had arrived in a new place full of new icons, pictographs, sounds and smells. The words spoken by most people at this point sounding much more foreign to my ears. In these situations my tendency is to slow down and try and rationally cut through it all and make some sense. Jennida is the opposite and there in led to some friction as to how to proceed at times but things worked themselves out well in the end.
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