As an introvert, I often struggle what to do with my evening while traveling- much more so while traveling alone. The best answer I have come up with is to spend the evening relaxing. Accept that there may not be something that you want to do, but instead do an activity that recharges you for tomorrow. Spend some time catching up with the internet. Read a book. Drink some wine by the river. But don’t force yourself to engage in activities that you don’t want to. Being relaxed and prepared is one of the best ways of getting the most out of your next day.

Writing in a blog is a good way to unwind, and also a good way to unpack what you have learned and gained from the day. This site is maintained mostly for personal use. It’s nice to be able to reflect with relative clarity the things that you did in a place that made your trip worthwhile (or not).

My hostel, CPH Downtown Hostel, is perfectly fine. It’s aimed more towards a younger crowd (which I can say now that I’m 30), and every night seems to have some musical act going on, which always ends up being some kind of thumping drum and bass you can here coming through the walls, which is why bringing a pair of decent earplugs can make all the difference between an intolerable stay and a tolerable one.

My roommates here are of all sorts. There is a guy who I have only ever seen hanging out in his bunk. There are a quartet of Ukrainians, who seem friendly enough, but are pre-gaming at 10pm. I just met a fellow from India who is doing military training in Hamburg, and stopped in Copenhagen for vacation while he had some time off.

Copenhagen is a lovely city that people visit from far and wide, and deservedly so. As a major Scandinavian city, it has a very distinct culture relative to the rest of Europe. The city is mostly clean, well-off, with a strong culture of social respect and responsibility. People really seem to be looking out for each-other’s best interests. The trade-off, then, is that their political system is very good at looking after the interests of its citizens, but not necessarily those of its residents.

Much like my own country, it has its own problems with immigration. A recent example is of a family: a mother living here illegally, a child who came with, and a child who was born here. One family was completely split up after she was found to be living here illegally. The mother was deported, the legal child was given to foster care, and the illegal child was given to an orphanage.

The birth-rate in Denmark and many northern European countries is low. Unsustainably low. Without immigration, the country will gradually shrink until it is no more. During the Syrian Refugee crisis, Germany opened its borders to refugees. Denmark threatened to leave the E.U., as the open border policy threatened to bring social problems like homelessness to its streets.

In my (albeit limited) understanding of Denmark, racism is not nearly as big of a concern as classism. Everything here is so pristine and posh that to share the streets with anything but the upper-middle-class would be to admit its own imperfections.

It looks after those who are citizens. Citizen prostitutes have support from public services, and have the privilege of medical aide, as well as the police, should they need it. Illegal immigrants from northern Africa may have been smuggled here on condition that they become prostitutes, but cannot ask for help from the state.

Copenhagen also takes care of its own in other ways. Mændenes Hjem is a public service institution that has a storied history of helping the down-trodden. At present, they provide a safe place for heroin users, giving them clean sodium bicarbonate, rather than dangerous alternatives like powdered glass for injection. In the U.S., we may consider this to be encouraging the drug abuse lifestyle, whereas in Denmark, pragmatism rules. There have been significant decreases in heroin-related deaths.

Mændenes Hjem has become an international model for how to deal with drug abuse. Instead of ostracizing those with problems, support them as they recover. This has been copied all over Europe, as well as in Canada and the U.S.A., with some success.

Most of this information was gained from Sandeman’s Alternative City Tour, which was very informative. Other than myself, the tourists included a french couple, an Indian woman studying in the Hague, and a Mexican man who has been traveling for three years. As usual, I enjoyed my Sandeman’s tour (despite that my hostel’s employees did not like them), and got additional food and drink recommendations. I also got to watch my tour guide get in a fight with a Christianian after he pet one of their dogs.

In the evening, I walked to Reffen, which is a kind of modern yuppie Utopia. It is a collection of food vendors and artists built into shipping containers. The area offers live music, and a skate park. I enjoyed some phenomenal Peruvian inspired ceviche, which included breaded and fried octopus and some kind of aioli. In the words of that Swedish kid back in 2016, it was “heaven”.

After trying some other snacks and beers in Reffen, I returned to my apartment with a fifty-minute walk. I stopped at a 7-eleven for some wine, and relaxed in the canals sipping (chugging) straight from the bottle.

I have also just learned that one of my new roommates, from the southeast U.S., is in Copenhagen for a Magic the Gathering tournament. I guess it takes all kinds.

After 6 days without my luggage, I was finally reunited.

I took an Uber to the Airport, where I checked in to my flight. I went down to the basement to the Lost and Found, and finally met up with my backpack. I had all but given up on ever seeing it again— my precious Aer Travel Pack filled with the clothes, swim-trunks, sandals, umbrella, and bathroom supplies that would have been so useful in Croatia, but were either replaced, or done without.

A big stupid smile on my face, I returned to the security gate, and eventually, passport control, that would guide me to the gate, and eventually, my flight. This flight brought me to Copenhagen, where I took the train into town, and walked to my hostel.

This hostel seemed very familiar. I have yet to confirm this, but I am pretty sure that this is the same hostel that I stayed in back in 2010. After settling in and swapping back my Danish SIM card, I joined a walking tour that took us around Christianshavn.

Christiansavn is a neighborhood built on top of several artificial islands, which has gone through numerous phases throughout the years. More recently, a disused military barracks gave way to Christiania, a collectivist community that has claimed autonomy from the Danish government. The Danes consider Christiania a tolerated social experiment, and the Christianites consider themselves autonomous, even declaring independence from the E.U.

Denmark is not very tolerant of drug use, but has historically let Christiania get away with it. Christiania’s government has outlawed harder drugs, but taking one look around pusher street and it becomes obvious that they are not opposed to marijuana usage. They have regular raids from the Danish police, but they have become experts at closing up shops in seconds and avoiding detention. But this community is much less about drugs than it is about creativity, with street art on display everywhere, vendors, shops, and restaurants. Families live here, and children grow up here. It’s truly a one-of-a-kind city-in-a-city.

On my tour, I made friends with a Londoner. After the tour, we wandered Christiania for a bit, and decided to go for a drink and the nearby Eiffel pub. There, our conversation was interrupted by a regular, an older woman who had already had a few drinks. The bartender, a twenty-something who had studied in the states, quickly joined us and made sure that all of the translations went smoothly.

The rest of the night I spent wandering my neighborhood, getting my introvert time in before I had to go back to the hostel and face my loud roommates.

This was another half day. I enjoy train rides, and really have no qualms with spending 6 hours on a train rather than an hour getting to an airport, 3 hours waiting at an airport, and an hour flying. It does seem like a time suck, but it’s just so danged convenient.

My train from Split was 8-ish in the morning, getting me back to Zagreb at around 3 in the afternoon. From there, I made it back to Gus’s place.

with these beauties:

The rest of the night was spent socializing, and teaching Gus how to beat me in Mario Kart.

I woke up at a leisurely 8am this morning. I had very little expectations for the day, other than my eventual obligatory Game of Thrones tour. My big fear going into today was, “how was getting the luggage dropped off going to affect my schedule?”

I knew that they did not want to drop off my luggage at Gus’s when I was in Split, and since I had a tour at 4pm, what happens if it comes while I’m at my tour? I had hopes that they could leave it at the Zagreb airport for me to pick up, but they seemed to want to hand it off to me specifically.

With that nagging feeling in my mind, I went off for a walk. I started my day with a small box of raspberries that I bought at the farmer’s market. I then had a quick breakfast in the touristy neighborhood, which provided me with a much missed coffee, some bacon, eggs, and tomatoes. With a satisfied belly (and a second cup of coffee) I took a walk to Marjana Park, where I climbed to the peak of Marjan hill, and was given a gorgeous view of Split and the surrounding water.

Checking my email on the way down the hill, I noticed a message from the baggage recovery people, telling me to call them. They said that they found my luggage, and provided a phone number to talk to for more information. I called that number, and it turned out to be the same guy I had talked to yesterday, the manager. He said that he didn’t have any more information to me, and that it should still be in split sometime later that day. Expect a call between 2 and 3. That’s fine, I guess, but it was getting awfully close to when I would no longer be available.

Finishing my descent from Marjan hill, I stopped at a little restaurant for a quick sip of local beer, then continued my way back towards the city.

 

 

 

 

 

I made it back into the city, and proceeded to hit up the big tourist spots. I hit up the Split city museum, which offered a few historical artifacts and stories to fill my head about the city. From there, I climbed Saint Domnius’s bell tower (which you can make out in my selfy) to get an up-close elevated look at the city.

 

 

Getting close to 2pm, I had heard no phone calls, so I called the manager back. I was going to propose that the delivery agent leave my baggage at my hostel, but he wasn’t having any of it. He just kept repeating that the bag would arrive at the Split airport between 2 and 3. He would not tolerate further discussion, and hung up. I went back to my hostel and waited for a phone call.

It was 3pm, and my tour was to start at 4pm. I began to make preparations for what would happen if he came while I was gone. I had the hostel’s office make a copy of my lost baggage report, as proof that I really wanted them to leave it at the desk. While doing so, I got a phone call.

It was from the K.L.M. lost baggage people at the Zagreb airport saying that they were getting ready to send it to Split. My understanding was that it should already be here, and I told her as such. She said no, and that in fact, it was there with her in her office. Talking schedules, she suggested that maybe I pick it up in Zagreb when I’m at the airport.

Brilliant! That’s exactly what I wanted to do anyways! Since I was to be there on Thursday for my return trip to Copenhagen, it was an obvious solution.

I was in a hurry to make my 4pm tour, so I rushed out of the office toward my destination. It started to rain.

I had always assumed that Croatia’s climate was like Hawaii’s, where it would get cloudy, but never rain. Was I ever wrong. The downpour hit hard.I stopped inside a grocery store in hopes that they had an umbrella I could purchase. They don’t really do supermarkets, so I was aware that selection would be very limited, but I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

I could see the edges of the umbrella, but there was no card showing the full pattern, so I was surprised when my purchase looked like this:

With an initial feeling of regret, I decided that this was maybe my new favorite umbrella.

After finding my tour group, who were hiding from the rainstorm away from otherwise exposed meeting place, our tour commenced! I opted in for what in my mind was a somewhat expensive, yet very highly rated, tour of Split, focusing on both it’s history, and how it was used as a filming location for one of my favorite shows: “Game of Thrones”.

We were walked through the basement of Diacletian’s basement, which was extensively used for the scenes of Season 4’s conflicts between the Unsullied and the Son’s of the Harpy. We saw more scenes from that location as we wandered around Diacletian’s Palace, and eventually drove up to Klis, which was the setting for the outside of Meereen.

After touring Klis, we made our final stop at the home of a small food producer. They make their own olive oil, vinegar, and grappa, and are situated on a stream which provides them with fish and powers their flour mill. Their property was littered with mulberry and fig trees. We ended the night sipping on local wine, and eating delicious Peka.

I woke up at 6:30am to meet my uber driver, who took me to the train station in no time. Unfortunately, he didn’t speak English, so I could not ask him why this train station did not look like a train station.

5 minutes later, my next uber driver took me from Kustošija to Zagreb’s main train station- Glavni Kolodvor, where I had about 5 minutes to catch my train to Split. I was pretty excited- I had bought first class tickets so that I could catch up on my sleep, maybe stretch my legs out a bit.

My ticket had a specific car number and seat number on it, but when I asked the conductor, his only response was, “No— that’s my office”. Apparently, he had annexed all of first-class for himself. I try to avoid fights with people of whom I am at their mercy, so I let it go. The spot that I ended up sitting at was fine anyway, much more leg room than any airplane I’ve been on.

After being assured that we were at the right spot, I got off of the train at around 2pm, and walked to my Hostel. I spent some time reassessing my position in this world- My phone was almost dead, and it wasn’t charging nearly as fast as it should be, I was hungry, having not eaten anything all day, and my luggage was nowhere to be found.

I took a walk into the main tourist area of town to accomplish a few tasks. #1 on my list was to get a new phone charger (as I had accidentally left mine somewhere, hopefully with Gus in Zagreb) and a power bank to help it last through the day. I then sat down for some food at the nearby Corto Maltese Freestyle Food, where I ate this delicious thing:

This is a hybrid pašticada / ravioli, with some prosciutto on top for good measure. It tasted alright.

At about that time, I received a phone call from the luggage company. My luggage was in Zagreb, ready to deliver to Gus’s. I told them that I was not around, but that they could leave it there for Gus, and I would pick it up on my way back. the guy on the phone called his boss, who then told me that they would deliver it to me in Split, and that the delivery guy would be calling me to get the address. I understood that to mean, he would be calling me *soon* for the address, but I was mistaken. Good thing I grabbed that battery, or my phone would never have gotten that call.

The rest of the evening was fairly uneventful- I wandered around the Diocletian’s palace area, stopping for a drink at a few places, and eventually retiring at 10pm.

I got to Zagreb at 1:30 or so, where I took a taxi to my friend Gus’s AirBNB that he was renting for the month. He’s been in Europe for over a year at this point, and Zagreb was his favorite city to live in. It has things to do, but was less touristy, and more of a true living city than other cities that he had been in.

We spent the afternoon walking around a neighborhood that they liked. There were a few clothes shops that were open on Sunday that Gus lead me to, so I spent a bit of time buying up a few days worth of clothes.

We next went to the “Museum of Broken Relationships,” which I had previously heard about. The museum was about 4 rooms full of artifacts and stories from peoples’ broken relationships. There were some funny, some cute, some empowering, and some truly sad. It was a small museum, but definitely worth a visit.

We then visited one of Gus’s favorite places in Zagreb- a little boutique watch and sunglasses store run by an eclectic collector. I unfortunately did not write down the name of the store. It was amazing! It was run by a guy who collected old and unique watches and sunglasses. He had a watch that he had traded David Bowie his jacket for (only $400!), a watch with Saddam Hussein on it (originally given away as some part of a celebration), some sunglasses that Robert DiNiro once wore, and a bunch of old pocket watches that he had converted into wrist-watches. He offered Gus and Kate advice on sunglasses for their face-shapes, and offered to lend them as props for the music videos that they were working on.

We then went to dinner, where I had chicken confit with rosemary potatoes, and a small glass of herbal Rakia, a Croatian brandy.

After dinner, we returned to the apartment, and I prepared an Uber to take me to the train station the next morning.

I’m taking a solo trip! It’s a little strange going on my own- the entire dynamic has shifted– experiences are no longer shared, planning is different, spending is different. I’m writing this a few days in, but I’m going to try to write my first few days, up until getting to my first real stop.

I flew out on Friday afternoon. My first flight was to Chicago. Since the plane’s overhead storage was full, they made me check my baggage. So much for specifically buying carry-on sized luggage. I took all of my electronics out, and put them in my day-pack bag for safe keeping.

I boarded my next plane at the Chicago airport. The flight initially looked promising. I had an aisle spot, so I would have  little wiggle room for my legs- my neighbor to the right of me was an eighty-something dutch physicist, which seemed like good conversation fodder. After a half an hour on the plane, without it taking off, I grew nervous. Then things all started going wrong.

We were informed that the plane did not have the proper documentation filed after its last repair, so we waited another hour for that to come in. The physicist to my right turned out to study polymers, which I could not hold a conversation about. The guy in front of me reclined his chair into my legs, and wouldn’t stop pushing on them until my knees were half broken. The physicist kept leaning on me and touching me, instead of leaning to the right where his wife was. The guy behind me kept kicking or kneeing right into my back, and everybody in the aisle kept hip-checking me as they walked by. It would be 7 hours of not being able to sleep. But the worst thing, was that I was going to miss my connection. Possibly, I was going to miss my flight to Zagreb if the connection wasn’t before the next morning.

On getting to Amsterdam, I was given information about my new transfer, which would be happening at 9pm through KLM. Luckily, I was going to be able to make it to Zagreb. My original plan was to get in Copenhagen, unwind for an afternoon, then fly out the next day. This had changed it so that I basically would land in Copenhagen at 1am and have to be on the plane at 9:30am. I asked people at the counter to confirm that my luggage had made it this far, and that it would be loaded onto the plane to Copenhagen, and I was reassured that it was in fact in Amsterdam, and that it was ready to be loaded once the plane made it.

Arriving at Copenhagen, I had finally completed my first leg of the trip. I disembarked the plane, then headed towards baggage claim, where my bag never showed.

In a panic, I talked to the attendants at baggage claim. They mentioned that this happens pretty frequently. We put in a ticket to keep track of it, with the hopes that it would be found and returned to me. There was nothing else I could do at the moment. I had to make a decision, to wait for my stuff to show up in Copenhagen, essentially cancelling my trip to Zagreb and Split, or to go without any extra clothes.

Tired, exasperated, and defeated, I left baggage claim, giving them my address in Zagreb, picked up a Danish SIM card for my phone (after all, it was important to have a contact phone number), and bought tickets for my train into town.

I met a fellow traveler, Rodrigo, on the train platform. Neither of us were entirely certain that we were on the right platform, but we were able to confirm it. After a stressful day and a half of airport shenanigans, it was great to talk with a real human being for once. Once we made it to the Copenhagen central station, we went our separate ways. My hostel was three blocks north of the station, so I just went on foot.

Those three blocks were a little sketchy at 2am. Prostitutes and pimps were patrolling the streets. My understanding is that prostitution is legal in Copenhagen, but even still, I would prefer not to have to interact with them, especially not when I’m tired and upset.

I got to the Hostel, where check-in was done by self-service, which lost me an opportunity for a simple human to human interaction. It was a big, modern, swanky hostel, with a bar, gym, and computer access. But that late at night, it just felt cold and unwelcoming. I got up to my room, where I tried as hard as I could to not wake up my ro0mmates.

My alarm set for 6:30, I tried to get to sleep, but after three unsuccessful hours worried about finding my luggage or missing my next flight, I just got up and left for the airport.

While at the airport, I learned that I couldn’t check in until 9:30, so I caught a few necessary hours of sleep before my flight to Zagreb!