I landed in Copenhagen at noon without having slept in over 24 hours (why not on the longer-than-most-European-flights flight, you ask? Two words: crying baby. If this thing was a big bad wolf, it could have easily blown all those piggy houses down, even the stone one, no huffing or puffing required. And it was thrashing about in the seat behind me...joy)
After ditching the enfant terrible, I hopped on the metro toward my hostel, confident that I had the directions and address in at least three locations, just in case. The directions were simple: leave the metro stop, walk straight, hostel is on the square with the fountain. First mistakenly judged cover. Directions: not simple. Directions: lies.
Straight out of the metro is the wrong street...and it ends in a square with a fountain...without the hostel. The correct street? Actually 4 down from the exit from the metro stop... So I made my way down the CORRECT street and, after a decent walk, ended at a square with a big fountain. I walked all around it looking for the hostel and it was nowhere to be found, so I kept looking down the street...nothing. I eventually find a map and locate the address on it and walk to the street. I look and see the hostel, only the "square" is a widened sidewalk with cafe seating and the "fountain" is a small dribbling statue. Hostel direction fail.
I walk into reception, a brightly colored and eclectically decorated bar with hats for lampshades, jackelope skulls mounted on the wall, and a giant padded platform for reading/napping. Awesome, hip, homey, I thought, a great place to meet people... Cover-judgement fail 2. Most of the people in the bar/lounge area are locals, stopping by for cheap beer rather than friend making. Also weird? The hostel has a completely separate entrance, meaning post-check in you have to leave the building to go to your room. An odd hostel indeed. Also apparently the beds flip on a central axis, so if you're too far on one side, it tilts and tosses you off. This greatly upset the Finnish footballers in my room...
Anyway, after waiting 2 hours for my bed to be ready for me, I battled with the idea of a shower/nap combo, but in the end, decided that exploring was more important...and by exploring, I mean food. So I looked at a map, got confused, ditched the map, saw a lot of pretty buildings that I was pretty sure were important in some way, followed my nose to Thai food, and somehow found my way back to the hostel. After convincing myself that I still shouldn't sleep, I went down to the bar to watch Portugal kick asses and take names, because my brain still thought it was in Lisbon.
Apparently my glazed over sleep depravation read as serious boredom, so I got whisked away to chat with a Norwegian/Texan/Brooklynite stage manager named Sunny.
At 1 AM, we agreed it was bed time and parted ways.
More Copenhagen adventures and misadventures are forthcoming. iPod typing is just more than my eyes can handle at this point.
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