Tuborg at the Sidewalk Express

I was just writing an e-mail to Cassie when, all of a sudden, a frazzled, blonde kid approached me with a slab of Tuborg and started rambling to me in Danish. Confused, I told him quite categorically that I spoke only English. (This is a lie, but I doubt I wanted to have this conversation with him in French.) He then told me that for DKKR10 - around AUD2.40 - I could have a can of Tuborg, my favourite of all New Year's Eve beers, in an Internet café in the middle of the central København H train station. Surprisingly, I declined.

I got in at 7am, and it is now 2.52pm. At first I was simply amazed, stunned that I was finally walking the streets of Europe. Now - well, now I'm not entirely sure why I'm here. Hell, I've got plenty of photos. I've also been scammed twice - once when I found out that this Internet place is nowhere near as good as the one five minutes away, which will let me upload all of my photos tomorrow, and once when I realised that the phone card I bought to call home was, despite the protestations of the 7/11 employee who served me, nowhere near as good as the card I found in the Afghan Market and would have bought had they accepted my Visa card.

Tomorrow, I will be far less naive.

Tomorrow, I might have enough money to drink Tuborg at the train station.

Tomorrow, you will see my photos. Because I will go to the better Internet café.

Tomorrow, I will be able to talk to Australia for more than 31 minutes having spent DKKR100, because I will return to the Afghan Market with paper money.

Tomorrow, I will not get locked in to the public library. Because I won't blindly walk in while someone official-looking walks out, then realise that he was only allowed in because he was official, and now the doors won't open behind me. The public library is in fact a Parliamentary Library on Kierkegaardsstraede, in a Ministerial building. It - the building, including the library - is closed on weekends. Today is Saturday. When I found myself locked in, I pressed the intercom button, and heard the phone ringing in what I assume to be the secretary's office beside me, which was hauntingly unoccupied.

Figure 1: The Danish Public Library

If I had known enough Danish, I would have been able to read the sign which told me to unscrew the plastic cap and push the red button to exit.

Instead, my arm was shaking as I blindly unscrewed the plastic cap and, not knowing whether it would sound a fire alarm or cause a group of killer ninjas to spring forth from the empty binder collections, pushed the red button.

The doors opened, and I was free.