The long-awaited trip is finally about to begin. This is the second journey I am making this year, in accordance with my decision to make 2018 the most well-traveled year so far. Having graduated my Master’s in February at the age of 23, I have to admit I’ve been struggling with soome bottled up feelings of missing out on having a gap year, a concept still quite condemned and frowned upon in Slovakia, to the extent I have never even seriously considered taking one, let alone before starting university. (I can hear my mom’s voice at the back of my head: You never know what is going to happen in the world, better get done with school as soon as you can! Sounds like an exaggeration? Nowadays, perhaps. But can’t really blame someone raised in a country struggling for freedom of speech and travel, where you couldn’t be sure about what political discord the next year will bring, potentially affecting your life beyond repair.)
It’s been 50 years since the Soviets occupied former Czechoslovakia though, and I have the privilege to be a EU resident, making travel anywhere virtually a peace of cake. What’s there to wait for?
Step 1: Setting sail from Scandinavia
APRIL 8, 2018 • Aalborg – Copenhagen – Malmö
I leave my apartment in the usual pre-travel haste, occupying my mind with making a mental list of items potentially detrimental to travel if forgotten. Passport, phone, wallet. Check. Toothbrush, contacts, glasses, check. My heart takes a leap. Headphones? Where the hell is my precious tool of isolation from the outside world? I am not even five meters from my front door and I’m already performing my signature tribal dance of rummaging through all my possessions, which doesn’t come as easy, because I miraculously managed to stuff all I need for two weeks into the backpack I normally took to uni. Got them!
Having rescued the most vital item for a journey full of flights and potential party hostel sleepovers, I venture on to meet Carter, who is adventurous and lacking the self-preservation instinct enough to volunteer to venture to the Balkans with me. We hug everyone in his dorm goodbye, get a bunch of dried mint leaves as a token for good luck (and lovely scents, you never know when you could need those) and set off. We are both excited, as this is our first trip together and we both get to break free from the spears of bureaucracy of jobsearching or the relentless pressure of academia for 16 days!
The first stop is Copenhagen, where we manage to meet with my old friends/colleagues/flatmates Denisa and Ana during what feels like the first proper summer day in history of Denmark. There’s not much time as our final stop for the day is Malmö, from where we fly off the next morning, but we use it fruitfully to catch up on life updates over delicious craft beers and what remained of my homemade hummus at Fermentoren. A bar I highly recommend – although the prices are the standard Copenhagen stab-in-your-budget, the beer is proper quality, the ambience inside is darkworthy and cozy in the winter and there’s plenty of outdoor seating in the summer months*
(*or whenever the temperature exceeds 10°C, we’re in Denmark after all.)
After some quality time with these lovely ladies, it’s time to head north, taking the train to Malmö. I’m almost ashamed to admit it is my first time visiting Sweden, despite having lived shamefully close for nearly six years, and I can’t wait to change that status. The ride is fast, and makes up for another highlight – the two cities are connected by the Øresund bridge, which is a fascinating masterpiece of engineering, which even starred the main role in the popular series Broen (The Bridge). It starts out as a 4 km long tunnel underneath the sea, continues through the artificially formed Peberholm island (its name means Pepper islet, and is a bit of a funky wordplay as it’s located right underneath Saltholm – Salt islet. Nordic sense of humour, anyone?) and finishes off with a sleek 8 km bridge. Not to mention how cool it is to take a bridge over the sea to anothr country. Before I have the chance to get too excited, the train ride is over and it’s time to find our way to the lady who kindly offered her couch to shelter us overnight.
We establish a tradition by deciding to ditch public transport and walk the way to her place, exploring the suburban neighborhood a little. There is certainly a tangible difference between this and Danish hoods, which I can’t quite put a finger on, but above all the architecture has a little hint of a communist-functionalist block-of-flats twist to it. After a pleasant walk through the setting sun’s flattering rays and finding a marker on the street which we obviously save for any potential hitchhiking signs creation, I am ready for my first Couchsurfing experience ever..
This couldn’t get any better – Susanna is an extremely welcoming and sweet young lady, who’s just moved into her new apartment and despite being busy with her plant project on the balcony she prepared veggie burgers for dinner for us. We brought some beers from Denmark and spend the night trying them out and sharing stories, which I find the best way to “pay back” with for the hospitality. Obviously, as the cultural code dictates, we start off with learning some Swedish swearwords 101, just in case, and Susanna goes on talking about all the diverse people she’s hosted. She is apparently really into this, as she’s hosted dozens of people while living in the middle of the Swedish nowhere, opening up her house for strangers. As someone who used to struggle a lot with getting any privacy and only managed to find a decent place (read: a single room with a door) last year, I’m still decently prone to lock myself up in my hobbit hole and the idea of sharing it with someone I’ve never met would have sounded absurd to me a while ago. It feels humbling to experience someone offering this with such kindness and sincerity, and certainly makes me feel like passing on the good karma as soon as my accommodation setup allows for it. With these thoughts we retreat to our floor mattress, as there are dreams to be dreamt and planes to catch early morning.
Black Hummus Diaries 