On September 9th, I walked out of my condo in Seattle's Central District and headed to Denmark. It has been a busy few weeks since I arrived on September 10th, but I'm finally settled in and ready to start sharing my experiences and learning as a Valle Scholar.
MOVING MYSELF TO DENMARK
I started by walking to the nearby stop for Metro's bus no. 27, rode the bus for 6 minutes down Yesler Avenue to the Pioneer Square, caught the Link Light Rail in the Transit Tunnel, and stood on the train with all my bags for the half an hour ride to the SeaTac International Airport. Once arriving, I walked from the station to the far south end of the main terminal to check-in, waited in the security line, then rode the airport's train to the S gates terminal, and eventually settled into a seat until boarding the plane.Unlike the other passengers who diligently arrived hours before the flight, I was extremely happy to hear that the flight was delayed over an hour. I left home about 1.5 hours before my flight and had to wait about 10 minutes both for my bus, then again for the light rail train. The entire trip to the airport I thought: "Maybe I should have splurged for a cab..." BUT, it seemed all to appropriate to begin my trip as a multi-modal traveler. Luckily for me, the delay gave me enough time to enjoy a salmon burger in the terminal before hearing the delightful announcement that it was time to board.
At last, I was on my Condor Air flight to Frankfrut, Germany. I had booked my flight six days earlier through a discount website, but somehow the stars aligned and I ended up with a business class seat! They fed us three times as much as those sitting in coach, gave us free socks and toothpaste, and each seat came equipped with a small, movable ottoman. One of my best transatlantic flight experiences yet!
Then I got to Frankfurt... This was my second time frying through this airport and I'm disappointed to report that it was no more orderly than when it was five years ago. The wayfinding was extremely sparce and only in Germany (I know it's in Germany, but it is an international airport...) and the airport employees were not entirely helpful. Moreover, the system lines through security and boarder control in no way reflected the general stereotype of German organization. It took much longer than necessary to get through and every third person I overheard talking was missing their connection due to the chaos.
I was one of the lucky that managed to get to get through the mess of lines and to my gate just in time to board my SAS flight to Copenhagen, Denmark. Less than an hour later, I was at Kastrup Airport and met by my boyfriend with flowers and pastries. Neither of us have a Danish bank card yet, so we tracked down an ATM, got cash, and bought a clip card to pay for the Metro. We waited at the airport station for a few minutes before taking Metro line named M2, got off 12 minutes later at Kongens Nytorv, and walked for five minutes to Nyhavn where he currently lives. A week later on September 17th, we took a four-hour trip on a DSB train up to Randers, Denmark where I will be living while I am a research intern at Aalborg University. The family I will be living with--a girl I've known since I was 16 years old, her boyfriend, and their one and a half year old son--picked us up at the train station and drove us home to their house.
And why did I just give you the detailed play-by-play of my trip from Seattle to Randers? Because I'm back in Denmark this time to focus mobilities and how people manage to find their way around cities and transportation systems. It took me around 16 hours to travel the ~4850 miles from Seattle to Copenhagen using my feet, a one bus, the light rail train, an airplane, and the metro train. Then there were another 4 hours via train to travel the ~210 miles from Copenhagen to Randers using the train and a car. Despite me being late to the airport in Seattle, having an unnecessarily complicated experience in Frankfurt, and not having the right type of credit card to purchase Metro tickets...I find it pretty darn impressive and interesting to think about the multimodal and intermodal trip I took to get here.
Not exactly a simple simple trip, but also not all that difficult.
