Hamburg To Hirtshals

I woke up an hour early.  Decent sleep, mostly due to the quiet of the room

I kitted up the bike and wrestled it down the four sets of stairs to the ground floor.  As I was donning gear outside a grizzled cop across the street stared at me, then began ambling across to talk to me, then apparently changed his mind and turned around and went back to his police van.  I couldn’t read his intent, but perhaps he saw my own body language and realized he was making me nervous, and would just make me more nervous if he started asking me questions.

It was so early that the city felt empty. Most of the stores were still closed. I meandered my way towards the train station and stopped at a random bakery for coffee and a bunch of breakfast snacks.

I had this feeling like I couldn’t quite relax until I knew exactly where the train was, so I packed the snacks onto the bike. The big screen at the station showed the same platform as yesterday. I took the elevator down and located one of the little screens, and saw this:

Two interesting things here. First, the train in front of me would split in half when it left, with one half going to Flensburg and the other going to Kiel. Good to know; it would suck to get on the wrong half!

And second, the train in front of me was going to the place I wanted, but leaving in a few minutes instead of an hour. I decided to just board the earlier train instead of standing around.  If the conductor called me on it, I’d just pretend to be an ignorant tourist!

The conductor who checked my ticket seemed fine with it. When he recognized my accent, he asked which state I was from. When I told him California, he mentioned Gavin Newsom, and said he had been touring through Europe giving talks. I was not aware of that, and told him.

He changed the subject, and in halting English, tried to express his thoughts about the recently started Iran war. I responded slowly, trying to keep my own words simple.

He smiled wished me a great trip, and moved to the next passenger. A nice bit of bonding over our shared frustration. Yesterday I was a Good Samaritan, today I am apparently an ambassador. What a world!

The train ride was uneventful. I arrived at the transfer station with over two hours to spare and there was no earlier connection I could catch, so I got a snack and wandered around.

Somewhere into the second hour I got a phone message the train from Hamburg had been delayed for nearly an hour. The other train bound for Denmark would not be waiting for it.

If I hadn’t skipped onto the earlier train this morning, I would have lost an entire day!

The transfer at Fredericia was nerve-wracking. The computer-generated schedule gave me five minutes to find another train on a different platform, and my train was two minutes late. Luckily I was bracing for this. I looked up the destination platform in advance and got the bike planted right in front of the doors. When they opened I heaved the bike down and ran for the elevator. Up, then quickly across to the other platform, then down… I managed to haul the bike onto the next train 15 seconds before the doors closed. Come on, Danes, you can do better than this.

The transfer at Aarhus was worse: The train was eight minutes late. People all around me were grumbling in Danish and German about missing their connection. The conductor made an announcement of some kind but it was only in Danish, and the grumbling got louder.

When I got the bike out, I saw a stream of people jogging up the platform towards some other train. Had the conductor found them an alternate? I fell in line and jogged with them, trying not to jab anyone in the ass with the cranks on the recumbent. A minute later they all compressed into a confused horde at the foot of the stairs. Most of them were gazing up at a display with a schedule on it. A lot of arrival times were flashing. The rest of them were looking at their phones and frowning. No easy answers for us.

I used the phone to conjure a new schedule, bound for Hirtshals, and located what was probably the first train in the series on a different platform. Lots of people were swapping platforms around me, looking confused. I didn’t want to trust what the displays were saying but I had no choice.

An hour later I boarded a train, and it was headed in the right direction – north instead of south – so I counted it as a win. If the train matched my phone, I had several more transfers to make…

I was the only person with a bike in the bike car, so there was a lot of space nearby. A woman with a large open-top stroller parked against the opposite wall. She took the infant out and held it over one shoulder, then leaned against the back of the nearest seat, wiggling every now and then to keep the kid happy. All the seats around us were occupied and a man immediately offered her one, but she shook her head and said she preferred to stand.

Another woman walked into the car with an infant riding in a sling on her chest, and leaned against the side of the doorway. The women didn’t seem to know each other. For the next hour or so, both kids made goggle-eyes at everyone, babbled and smiled, and reached out their tiny arms, and every passenger in their line of sight – young or old – made eye contact and responded and gently played with them to pass the time. It was delightfully civilized.

One of the women stopped wiggling and held her infant up and did a smell test. Time to change the diaper. She turned to the big open stroller and lowered the kid inside, and did a quick sequence of practiced arm movements. Something went into a bag and another thing came out. In two minutes the infant was back on her shoulder, looking mildly pleased and wearing a different pair of pajama pants. No embarrassment, no bustling out to a changing station in a tiny bathroom behind a door. Nobody seemed to notice.

It all made me thoughtful. The dynamic of caring for children, for all people of all ages, felt more integrated with the rest of daily life here. How could I encourage that back home?

As I continued north the trains got smaller and smaller. The connection to Hirtshals was just two cars. I felt the trappings of the modern transport system falling away … or perhaps a sense of distance creeping in; a sense of deeper language barriers and differences in custom. I was headed for colder and higher land with a lower sun. The environment was rapidly changing away from what felt like home in California.

When I finally stepped off the last train I paused and made a list of all the stations where I’d transferred:

• Hamburg
• Flensburg
• Kolding
• Fredericia
• Aarhus
• Aalborg
• Hjorring
• Hirtshals

That’s kind of crazy.