Tall Ships and No Where to go

I left Odense pretty much as soon as I could. Now that I had my Hans Christian Anderson book, I had no real reason to stay there. Although the off chance of running into crazy artist was a compelling reason to stick around, it wasn't enough to keep me there. I pointed myself in the direction of Åarhus, where there was a big tall-ships race. I thought it would be pretty amazing to see the big sailing ships. As many of you may know, I have a bit of a dream to sail. If you don't know about that dream, ask around and you might find some decent stories of my ill-advised learning methods.

Once I got into Århus, I went directly to the tourist information centre, got a map, got my bearings, and proceeded to go in the completely wrong direction. Fortunately, a local who spoke English saw me looking at my map and assumed, correctly, I was lost. She pointed me in the right direction. This would not be the first day I went in the completely wrong direction, but more on that later. I managed to find the harbour fairly easily after that helpful nudge. It wasn't too difficult though, the tall ships have tall masts that offer a helpful navigation point.

I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering through the harbour and enjoying the ships. There were a lot of them. A lot. Some as small as 30 feet to as big as way huge. 4 masts and lots of sails. I should know how long they are, but I forget and I didn't bother to write it down. Suffice it to say, they were as big as big got. In a moment of sheer brilliance, I decided it would be better to keep my 40 pound pack on my back in case I found a ship that was looking for a crew. (This will not be the first time I regret carrying my pack all day, but you will have to wait until I tell you about Lillehammer for that)

As it happens, I did manage to find a ship looking for crew to sail to Finland. It took me a while, but I finally screwed up the courage to ask. It was a crazy idea, but I couldn't live with myself if I didn't even try. This is why I am here, right? So I asked. Turns out, I have to pay him for the privilege of working for him. It was like that on every other boat looking for crew as well. The luxury of working my tail off ran from 500 to 1000£. Do the math and that is something like 1000-2000$C. Um... What? I left the harbour in a rather foul mood. Oh yeah, it also rained. Hard. Fortunately this time I had my rain gear. Thanks mom.

My next step was to get to an Internet cafe to check my email, I had requested a room in town, but needed to see if there was a confirmation. I left the harbour in the direction I though was the least circuitous route. By the time I found the cafe I was looking for, and it took me a while, I realized I was about 4.7 minutes from the harbour I had just left. Only, I walked for about 45 minutes, sight-seeing. Arg.

Turns out the hostel I had emailed was full for the night. So was the other one in town. Now I was starting to sweat a little, where was I going to sleep? Denmark is a small country. I called the hostel in the next town over and got a bed there. Right, now I had to walk back to the station and, you guessed, took a wrong turn. I think I may have been a little sleep deprived.

When I finally got to the town Randers, it occurred to me I had no idea where the hostel was or how to get there. I thought the best thing to do would be to knock down a stack of flyers to get the attention of the cashiers so I would have an excuse to ask them if they knew where it was. Turns out they did and they even provided me with a map with the route traced out for me. Denmark is a fairly flat country. Except for this town and the hostel was at the top. After a full day of hiking with my pack on my back, I did not appreciate having to walk to the top of a hill. I did it though and I survived.

I can't say I highly recommend the hostel in Randers. Unless you are traveling with your family and don't mind going to bed and waking up to the sound of screaming kids...