Saturday, May 19, 2007

Døgnet part 1: Århus


On May 18th, the whole of Denmark travelled by train. That's because DSB offered cheap tickets for 24 hours of unlimited travel. I bought the 99kr(~P835) ticket for Jylland, Fyn and Sjælland, which practically covers most of Denmark (except for Bornholm, Faroe Islands and Greenland, of course). Normally, going to Århus alone costs 291kr.

I took the train to Høje Taastrup at 5:46am, talking to Sarah who was working overnight on her project at Trekroner and was about to go home to France for a few days. From Høje Taastrup, I took the InterCity to Århus, Denmark's second largest city. I ran into Hao and Li Na on the train. They left for København at 4am, hoping to get seats, but the seats were all reserved and we spent nearly three hours sitting on the floor by the doors of the train. I expected that, so I just took out a book and read part of the way.

On the first stop on the Jylland peninsula, a man who alighted the train raised his arms and shouted triumphantly "Hej Jylland!"

Indi was waiting at Århus station when I arrived. It's been five months since we last saw each other, but since we always chat on messenger, there was no need to catch up. We took advantage of DSB's free breakfast: bread and butter with coffee or juice. Indi lent me her sturdy camera so I could snap away.

The sky was clear and it was pretty chilly out as we waited for ARoS (Århus Kunstmuseum) to open. We just passed through without seeing the exhibit, then walked through part of the botanical garden before heading to the university, where we had lunch (a choice of vegetarian tart, pizza or lasagna with as much salad as you can pile on your plate) for a reasonable 29kr.

Walking through the university, we quickly stepped into the cathedral then dashed through Strøget which was chock-full of shoppers), running whenever we can (I can hear Ate Indi's boots go stomp! stomp!) and made it to the station in 15 minutes.

I found out later that lots of the international students from RUC went to Århus. Cheap, you say? We'll go.

Notes on Århus:
-Ortigas has more skyscrapers than probably the whole of Denmark. The only tall structures here are smokestacks.
-This city feels like a city in the way Antipolo is a city--it's a big town.

More kwento tomorrow and on Monday!

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