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Little Mermaid Our first order of business in Denmark was to get lost. We wasted no time doing so. Within half an hour we needed directions. Our first good Samaritan was an inebriated Dane who babbled away at us in heavily slurred Danish. Suddenly, he spotted my flag. "You're Canadian? Canadians, just follow this road. It'll take you right there," he loudly proclaimed. This advice was less than reassuring, coming from someone only managing to stay upright with assistance from friends. It was particularly suspect since we hadn't told him where we wanted to go. The sudden acquisition of English, however, was amazing. In the morning we headed for the beach to take a quick dip in the sea. We ate breakfast there, but the yellow jackets fought us for our morsels. I stood on the end of the windy jetty and they still made guest appearances. Earlier on their trip, Arran and Rebecca had met two cyclists who gave them their address. They lived near Copenhagen. Arran and Rebecca went off to phone their acquaintances. Rebecca pointed ahead, "We'll meet you by the phone booth," and then they pedaled off to find one. We finished eating and headed along the sole cycle path following the coast. In a kilometer we stopped at an old windmill with a famous red Nutcracker soldier. We hadn't seen a phone booth yet. A couple more kilometers we passed a bakery, but our pockets were empty--new country, new money. A tourist information provided maps and history of the region. The public toilets were at the train station. Scored some krones at an auto-teller. Back to the bakery. Not seeing a phone, we continued toward Copenhagen. We walked our bikes on the sidewalk past a section of sticky road repairs. Two racing cyclists, side by side, caused an enormous slip stream just begging us to draft in. We did. Up ahead we saw Rebecca's red panniers and Arran's shirt tail waving in the breeze. "Let's blow by them behind those two racers," I told Sharon. "That'll really surprise them." It did. Surprised us too: It wasn't Arran and Rebecca. On a hill our draft broke away. We passed a long beach packed with local sun worshippers. Still no Arran and Rebecca. Rebecca had been intent on having lunch in Copenhagen. We imagined they would not stop until they got there. At the outskirts of town, where cycle route nine branched, I wondered if we should wait, in case they were somehow behind us. Sharon reasoned with all our stops there was no way they could be behind us; they must have gone to centrum. We went to centrum and looked for a pedestrian square. No sign of them. By two-thirty, starving, we ate by the canal, next to the pedestrian area being renovated. Copenhagen, chosen as "Cultural Capital of Europe for 1996," workers busily spruced up buildings in preparation for next year's celebration. We gave up finding them in the immense city. We could leave a message at the tourist office, in case they went there, but what would we say? "Have a nice trip."? Damn. And Arran owed me fifty kroners. We decided we would ride out to the Little Mermaid, then retrace our route back out of town, in case, somehow, they were still on the way. Near the Little Mermaid a van drove by and asked, "What part of Canada are you from?" Instead of responding, "It's all one country, you know." (Was I still bitter?) I replied, "Edmonton." In astonishment he gasped, "So are we." We followed the van into the parking lot and as the passenger scampered out, Sharon nudged me. "That guy looks familiar. I know," she nodded, figuring it out. "He had a class at university with me." He did. And the driver, Terry, turned out to be a guy she worked with at the Cardiff golf course years ago. Neither of them recognized Sharon until she said who she was. But then, we barely recognized ourselves when we glimpsed our reflection in the rare occasional mirror. Sharon and I looked at the bronze statue. Crowds of tourists clambered onto her lap, snapping shots of themselves in weird poses. Supposedly, wild and crazy people, had twice hacksawed her head off. We left, and in a block I discovered my new rear tire had flatted. What should have been a minor inconvenience turned into a major frustrating hassle. When I tried to inflate the new tube I found the pump had decided to give up the ghost at that exact moment and wouldn't put any air into the tube. The seal in the pump's cylinder wasn't sealing. I made a new seal from an old inner tube. First I made it too big and it wouldn't slide, then I cut it too small and it wouldn't seal. We tried to borrow a pump from the many passing cyclists. Unfortunately, they either didn't have a pump or the pump they carried fit Presta tubes only and wouldn't fit our Schrader valve. We thought of going to a gas station, but we hadn't seen one in a while. Sharon asked a young guy for his pump. He whipped it off, brandishing it like Sir Galahad and his sword to the rescue. Alas, it was Presta. Helpfully, he gave Sharon precise directions to a bike shop. She rode there and returned a half-hour later. The pump the bike shop sold was fifty-five kroners. Sharon hadn't bought it. She wanted me to see it, because it was a mini-pump and I hadn't liked the one I had used before. I didn't know why she hadn't bought it. What choice did I have, considering I couldn't blow the tube up with my lips? Any pump right now would have been better than none! The bike shop told Sharon I could use their pump. I unhappily bungeed my rim and tire onto the rack of Sharon's bike and trundled off to the bike shop. I entered just before it closed. The owner told me, "The fifty-five kroner pumps have all sold out. More will be in on Monday. They're very popular." He added, "I have a whole drawer full of two-hundred fifty-five kroner ones though." I bought a Schrader to Presta valve converter instead and went to use the shop pump. I changed the tube and pumped it to the right pressure. Suddenly, air began hissing wildly out at the valve stem. Examining the valve stem, I found the sharp edge of the rim hole had sliced it. I banged on the now locked bike shop door. They sold me a new tube for forty-seven kroners. It was a Presta tube. In the future, I shouldn't have any problems borrowing a pump to fill it up. I went back to the park. After installing the wheel on the bike, we washed the grease and dirt off our hands. Then we apologized to one another for being such cranks when things went wrong and promised to try harder in the future to look at the bright side. Weren't flat tires, busted pumps and losing Arran and Rebecca fun? Repacked and set to leave, I looked up and said to Sharon, "Guess who's coming to dinner?" Arran and Rebecca! As they topped the rise I sang out, "What took you so bloody long?" Just like we had planned it. Yep, they spent the day looking all over Copenhagen for us; left a message at the tourist information; ate at a park with a lake, because they knew we liked lakes; gave up; decided to look at the Little Mermaid before heading out of town.... It was now after seven pm (it had taken three hours to fix the flat--lucky thing too, or we would have been long gone), so we headed out of town towards a green forest area marked on our map. Partway there a student started cycling alongside me asking questions about our trip. After he turned off for home Arran kidded, "You should have asked him, 'Do you know where you're sleeping tonight? We don't.'" A few kilometers farther we came to trees and found a spot past an overgrown algae pond. As I set up to cook, Sharon set up the tent, first doing a hard face-plant when she tangled her foot in a hidden root. Her fall was somewhat broken however, by crash-landing on top of my camera bag. With Arran and Rebecca we combined efforts and produced a mound of spaghetti. Arran made his spicy curry sauce. |
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