roadtrip

Thursday: Left early in the morning, took the E4 to Vittsjö.

Friday: Dad took us on a sightseeing tour around south-east Skåne. Alexander got to enter a bat cave and was ecstatic.

Saturday: Time to leave, we bought a new GPS navigator and headed west. Took the ferry from Helsingborg to Helsingør in Denmark, then followed “beautiful roads” to Roskilde where we eventually found a hostel where we could sleep. Surprised of how beautiful Denmark is.

Sunday: Crossed the Bält-bridges to Jylland (Denmark’s biggest island) and visited Legoland. Alexander was beyond ecstatic, Lego is his favorite thing in the whole wide world and Legoland was both fun and impressive – not cheap, but worth every krone. After leaving Legoland we drove about 90 km south to a camping site in Sønderballe, not far from the German border. We set up our tent and went to sleep. I dreamed that it snowed. Woke up several times during the night, shivering. We were all freezing that night.

Monday: Went to Germany and spent a couple of hours exploring Flensburg, a surprisingly beautiful and charming town. Continued on to Kiel and then to Camping Oase Bonanza where we spent two nights. Wise after the freezing night before we now went to sleep fully dressed, I wore fleece from head to toe and felt reassuringly warm. The first night, though, it started raining and only rained more and more as the night progressed. At two in the morning, when one cold drop after another began to hit our heads and we discovered that our tent was slowly turning into a swimming pool, we abandoned the tent and spent the rest of the night in the car. Alexander slept comfortably in the back seat, while André and I did the best we could in our reclined front seats. At least we were dry and warm.

The next day we went to nearby Laboe - the plan was to take a ferry from there to Kiel, but instead we found U-boot U 995 - a WW2 submarine that is now  a museum, so we went in – and by the time we came out and had had lunch the boat had already left. We went back to the camping and spent the rest of the day reading (me) and exploring the beach (the others). When darkness fell we gave the tent another try only to once again abandon it a few hours later in favor of the car. Again everything was damp and we were freezing, and since we knew that we had slept fairly well in the car the night before we chose to do it again.

Wednesday had arrived and we decided to leave Germany. We stopped at Meereszentrum Fehmarn to look at sharks, spent perhaps too much time and money in the border shops across the road from the aquarium, went to a reptile show (not me, who chose to wait outside in the seldom seen sun) and then we went by ferry from Puttgarden to Rødby and crossed the Öresund bridge to Malmö. Once there we were starving and tired. A stop at Burger King helped with the first, and a phone call to Hilton took care of the second – my call, since I couldn’t stand the thought of spending another night being cold and/or uncomfortable. Hilton didn’t disappoint, the room was spacious and impeccable, I took a long hot bath in the sparkling bathroom and none of us stayed awake for long. I dreamed that I made Spaghetti Bolognese with earthworms instead of minced meat. Even in my dream I was disgusted.

Thursday morning we had an amazing breakfast at the hotel and then we drove through pouring rain towards Vittsjö. We stopped in Lund with various ideas – visiting a long lost friend, meeting up with relatives, having lunch – but due to the weather we went back to the car and continued to Vittsjö. we went back to the car and continued to Vittsjö after a quick stop at the cathedral.

And here we are now. I have made Spaghetti Bolognese, this time 100% earthworm-free. We’ll probably stay here for a couple of days before we head home. We might stop at Kolmården on the way home. We have, so far, driven 1900 km.

We didn’t make it to Italy, but Italy has followed us along the way, from the hostess at the Danish hostel who spoke English like an Italian to Più bella cosa playing at Hilton. In every country we’ve been, every city we’ve visited, there has been Italian music. On the radio, in restaurants, everywhere. After a while we started laughing about it. It’s God’s way to compensate, my husband said. It’s Italy calling, I said.

We’ll go on other, longer roadtrips in the future. I guess this was a good first time. Next time we’ll both have more experience – André has had his driving license for nine years but for various reasons he hadn’t ever driven more than 170 km at once before last week. I didn’t even have a license until three weeks before this trip. I wasn’t worried about any of this, in the way I’m rarely worried about doing things in other countries anymore as I have learned that it’s really not that different, but I know that he was. Also, we know what we did right (comfortable air mattresses in the tent, good GPS) and what we did wrong (useless tent, blankets instead of sleeping bags, no actual camping equipment). I have learned that Danish is a language that bothers me immensely because I feel like I’m supposed to know what they’re saying but I don’t, and it’s not “right” to speak English in Denmark because Swedish and Danish are so alike. I have also learned that German is a language that I think I could learn quite easily. Without ever learning any German I almost understood more German than Danish. Zwiebel means onion.

We have done more and yet probably spent less than we would have if we had stuck to our original plan. There has been almost no sun and no Italy, but it has been good in its own way. I can go to Italy some other time.

Dum spiro spero. While I dream, I hope. ***

*** thanks to Panda who wrote this quote on her blog. I love it.