DAYS 9 AND 10: ON TO DENMARK
/COPENHAGEN —I was falling asleep last night and randomly started thinking about my childhood obsession with the “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego” game show. I didn’t care much about the game itself — three school-aged contestants battling it out over geography trivia — but I was totally obsessed with the finale: the last "gumshoe" standing got to play in a bonus round, and if she won, take a trip anywhere (well, within the 48 contiguous states…it was budget programming) she wanted. If victorious, she’d ceremoniously flip over a card and reveal the Dream Trip Destination she’d written down. I’m not sure why, but that moment was nothing short of enchanting to my 10-year-old self — the idea that you could just pick a place, any place, and go there.
Two takeaways: (1) maybe, from an early age, I was fated to take a trip just like this one, and (2) Inverness, Scotland would not have been my Dream Trip Destination.
Inverness was fine but dull; I’m fairly certain the Loch Ness Monster was the brainchild of a brilliant and forward-looking marketing agency from the early 1900s. On Thursday we took a pleasant 3-hour cruise around Loch Ness and were force-fed “fun” facts better suited for mass murders and sadists than small children with follow-up questions (e.g., you could fit 80 billion human bodies into the volume occupied by the lake’s water; a Wellington Bomber sank to the bottom of the lake when it lost power and crashed in 1940; 1952’s land speed record-holder tried to break the water speed record on Loch Ness but died instantly when his boat crashed and disintegrated). The weather was nice, though, and the scenery was impressive; it was a laissez-faire alternative to venturing out and trying to see the sights on our own.
Our rental apartment surprised us with a very large terrace overlooking the water where the kids could romp around and feed the hovering seagulls. It also provided an ideal and picturesque meal location (provided said seagulls were monitored and didn’t snatch our food). Since embarking on this trip, we’ve aimed to eat 1 (but ideally 2) meals at home every day — it’s healthier, cheaper, and much less stressful than eating out with two antsy kiddos — and the terrace inspired us to stay at home for every one. We even got to watch a beautiful sunset…at 10:12PM; last light in Inverness is at 11:20PM and first light is at 3:13AM, so there wasn’t much “night” to speak of.
This morning we took a 10:45AM train back down to Edinburgh, arrived at the station at 2:45PM and took a bus straight to the airport for a 6:45PM flight to Copenhagen. Accounting for the one-hour time change, we arrived at our Copenhagen AirBnB at 11:30PM. This traveling circus covered a lot of territory today.
The apartment is great (from what I can tell in the dark). But unlike the three previous apartments, which were strictly vacation rentals, this one is actually someone’s primary residence. That someone's name is Anne. Anne left for her country house after we arrived (an hour’s drive away) so that we could spend the weekend in her home. She is also, incidentally, 37-weeks pregnant. Now I think that AirBnB is the greatest thing ever — it is enabling this trip in a way that hotels absolutely could not — but displacing a soon-to-be first-time mother on the [near] eve of her delivery seems like something that should be explicitly against rental policy. I felt horrible watching her go and had this nagging urge to spend the next 3 days nesting instead of sightseeing. I’ll let you know if we get displaced before Monday by the arrival of a newborn.
