Day 2 - January 2

Well, I’ve arrived in Denmark, not too much worse for the wear but one bag short. One bag made it, but the other got lost somewhere on the journey from Anchorage to Seattle to Houston to Amsterdam to Copenhagen. Not too much of a problem – that bag had mostly my lighter clothes, springtime things – but I realized it also has my toiletries and my underwear. Good thing underwear is a universal necessity. But what a fine impression I’m going to make Monday, my acne acting like I just hit puberty and no deodorant on.

Things I need to do tomorrow, or at least soon: Get cash. Find bag! Buy necessities. Get a three-pronged plug for my computer…the ones I brought over are two-pronged, but thankfully I was expecting this hitch from the wise advice of my best friend Sharon. A plus side to this new computer is it claims it has 5 hours and 34 minutes of battery life left (Scratch that, turned it to power saver and I have 7 hours and 44 minutes left!). Impressive. However, my space bar is squeaking, which is quite odd.

The flights were not too bad. My plan worked in an unexpected way. Instead of having enough sleep to be able to entertain myself on the plane, I was too exhausted to do anything but sleep. In fact, I was so exhausted that I was actually able to sleep nearly the entire way to Houston. That is another impressive thing. No one was in my row on the way to Seattle, so I laid myself out and curled up and was out, woken up rudely by the fact we were landing and I was so disoriented I thought we were landing in Houston already. Sadly not the case, though I managed to sleep most of the way to Houston as well, not without a few kinks in my neck. Negative side to the exit seats it that they’re very cold, so sleeping on the way to Amsterdam was not as easy. I was surprised I was so tired, but I did wake up enough to watch 500 Days of Summer (very good) and Time Traveler’s Wife (okay, but nothing compared to the book), read a bit, etc. Customs at Amsterdam was surprisingly easy (and customs at Denmark? I feel like I did something wrong because no one was there to ask me how long I was staying, to verify my visa, anything. Got my bags, walked through the “nothing to declare” lane, and there I was, standing outside the airport.), but by the time I got to the last plane, I was exhausted again.

Family friends Benny and Helle picked me up at the airport. They are perhaps two of the sweetest people in the world. Let me sleep (longer than I had planned – they said I looked like I needed it), cooked me a dinner of Mexican food because they wanted me to have something familiar, packed me a bag of necessities for the apartment, provided me with toothpaste and a toothbrush…really, couldn’t ask for more of a welcome.

Observations: Danish toothpaste? At least the kind provided – very…dentisty. Not so minty fresh. Danish coke (well, really, German – Helle said they had friends bring some over due to tax reasons) uses different sugar and has a hint of the diet taste (which, for me, means different sugar…I have strangely sensitive tastebuds when it comes to diet drinks or the “light” frappuccinos and Starbucks – I can taste the aspertae, or whatever it is they use, which is a problem, because I probably should be drinking diets).

And with that, it’s off to bed!