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Onward!

Our Stockholm errands completed, we loaded ourselves up Thursday morning and got on a train to Copenhagen. It was a five-hour ride, and let me tell you, those were the worst five hours of the entire trip, as far as I was concerned. Though I’m generally prone to motion sickness, I’m usually fine on trains, but that journey did not sit well with me at all. I think it was a combination of the heat and stuffiness of the train car, the speed — we were on the X2000, a “fast” train — and the fact that I couldn’t not see the scenery rushing by in my peripheral vision unless I closed my eyes. Olof did as much as he could to deal with all the kids so I could rest with my eyes closed, and he very solicitously brought me cold drinks and sandwiches and anything else I asked for, but I didn’t feel right until I finally got off the train and could breathe fresh air again,

Our hotel in Copenhagen was across the street from the train station, so it didn’t take us long to get over there, but when we arrived we found that instead of the mini-suite we’d reserved, we’d been given two separate rooms. This wasn’t a huge deal, as we’d already been sleeping separate in Stockholm (Olof, Brynja, and Tage in one room; me, Lydia, Petra, and Yrsa in another), but I had been looking forward to us all being together. It was for only one night, though, so we just sucked it up and it was fine (except for when I dropped a heavy part of the couch on my big toe while trying to set up the sofa-bed — that still hurts, almost two weeks later).

Ouch!

The best part of that first evening in Copenhagen was getting the chance to spend a few hours with my friend, Ellen, and her kids. Her husband is Swedish, from Malmö, and they were there visiting, and since it’s just a quick trip across the bridge to Copenhagen, she and the kids were able to come over and have dinner and hang out a little with us. I would have loved to be able to spend more time with her — kid-free, if possible! — but you take what you can get, and those couple of hours were great.

We had an 8:50 train to catch the next morning, so we left the hotel bright and early in order to have time to get some breakfast and find our departure point. We got some bagel sandwiches from one of the ubiquitous 7-11 stores (Olof’s and mine were cheddar/jalapeño — yum!), and I sent Olof to look for some motion sickness medicine, but his quest was to no avail. He did bring me some coffee, though, and that was much appreciated.

After a two-hour train ride to Vejle — during which the seven of us were jammed into four seats in order to save on the kids’ fares — we switched to a bus and rode 40 minutes more to Billund, the home of Legoland. Our cottage wasn’t set to be ready for a couple of hours, so we ate lunch then sent the kids off to the indoor playground while I read my book and Olof checked out the area. When 3:00 rolled around, we went to our cottage and dropped off our stuff, then grabbed our swimsuits and towels and headed off for the waterpark that was part of the vacation-rental place. We spent a couple of fun hours there, then stopped by the grocery store for frozen pizzas, which we heated and supped on at our home away from home before collapsing in exhaustion, all together for the first time in what felt like much longer than four days.

2 thoughts on “Onward!

  1. oh! I can’t ride the x2000 at all! They rock back and forth so people do get sea-sick on them. I spent the entire ride between stockholm and gothenberg on my one and only time on an x2000 throwing up the whole trip. And I /never/ get sick on trains. I found out afterwards I was sea-sick 😛

  2. I’m fine on trains but my husband gets motion sickness so you’re not the only one!

    Sounds like you’ve had a great time!

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