Random Musings

Yesterday was spent traveling -- I met my grandfather at the airport, had lunch with him, then handed him my car keys and headed off. I was very fortunate to escape many of the travel debacles that affected a lot of flights: The weather in Tampa was awful, with heavy rain, wind, and thunderstorms, and the weather in Chicago was supposedly pretty bad too. My flight left on time, and upon arriving in Chicago, I immediately set out on a quest to top up the charges on all of my devices... Which would have been wonderful, except there were no plugs available anywhere. Eventually I went over to the international terminal and found a bench next to two empty plugs. It felt like a godsend until I actually sat on the bench and realized why nobody was using these plugs: The bench could have won an award for world's most uncomfortable place to sit. Even if it wouldn't win, it would probably only be slightly behind a cactus. Or a cactus in the behind, whatever.

I spent a while on this wonderful bench, then about 2 hours before my flight, I figured I'd go through security, grab some dinner, and board my plane. I eventually did all of these things, but not before a 45-minute wait through security. There were plenty of TSA agents and staff available, but they only had one lane open... The rest of the staff seemed to be having a conference of some kind where they stand around in a circle and laugh at all the poor travelers waiting for them to do their jobs. Eventually the conference finished and instead of attending to the massive line of travelers anxious to get through security (many of whom were about to miss their flights), the wonderful agents decided to have dinner. The poor guy in front of me made it through security only 15 minutes before his flight took off, but hey, at least I felt safe.

After my security debacle, I had just enough time to get food and board my flight. Onboard, I got to my seat which was broken: The reclining button was stuck, so any time I leaned back at all, my seat would violently jerk backwards. A technician came and fixed the seat, and then things ran a bit more smoothly from there... I even got a little sleep before landing in Copenhagen at 1pm today.

Upon landing, I took the metro to the central station and walked to my hotel which was a short distance away. I'll be moving to a hostel for tomorrow night, but when I found this mistake rate, a night in a 4-star hotel for $32 was too good to pass up. This site is a great resource for finding mistake rates around the world, and sometimes the stars (and dates) will line up for one of the deals to work!

Tonight's Hotel Room

After checking in, I wandered aimlessly around the city for 5 hours. When I arrive somewhere and only have a half-day for my first day, I like to use it to wander around and explore -- Often I stumble on the coolest things just by walking. I walked down to the waterside and explored the area for a while, eventually stumbling upon a greenhouse dome which housed a bunch of plants along with a two-story sustainable house. I then wandered into the Christanshavn neighborhood, best known for its anti-establishment and pro-weed-smoking rules. While I didn't partake, it was an interesting area to explore. A bunch more wandering later, and I started to get kind-of tired. Since I have this nice hotel room for the night, I figured I'd come back, relax, and write up a blog post while I work to shake off any lingering traces of jetlag.

Selfie Numero Uno

Sustainable Dome-Thing

P.S. Speaking of jetlag, I seem to be able to adjust to a new time-zone quite easily when traveling, but I have a really difficult time adjusting back when I get home... Oh well, at least I've got 7 weeks of this time-zone (+/- 2 hours) to go!

P.P.S. Writing blog posts is a bit more time-consuming than I thought, but I'll try to post something in the next couple days.