[Written on August 25th]
The conference ended and I barely slept before I got on a train the next morning, over-packed and feeling almost like one of those eggs that kids make at Easter, emptied, fragile.
But afternoon in Copenhagen was beautiful. I was staying with an old classmate from before the turn of the millennium, but since he had to work, I wandered around on my own in his neighborhood. Enjoying the feeling of flexing my sense of direction. I stayed with him for two days four years ago, the last breath of my big pre-master’s Eurotrip, and I could still find my way. Dinner at a hip burger place, the red brick buildings (I’m biased, I grew up in Skarpnäck, the red brick fortress of suburban Stockholm). Experimental Danish architecture (so much more alluring than anything that gets built in Stockholm now), lush gardens around romantic turn-of-the-century villas. A maze of streets, so easy to get lost in the love of arched window frames and doorways – but I made it. The sea. I was born with a sense of direction that doesn’t put my geography degree to shame, and the sea lifts the pressure from my chest like few other things can.
The sky blended into the water and people were out sailing, kayaking, skinny dipping. I sang. I like Copenhagen.
The day that took me from Denmark to Switzerland was long, delayed by a landslide and I barely made it to Zürich by the end of it. Part of the day I spent editing photos of orchids from the botanic garden in Glasgow, and I remembered another German train ride, another set of flower photographs: Traveling from Münich to Vienna, editing photos from Kew (London), and sitting next to a friendly South Korean man who marveled at my photos, and at my bravery of being a twenty-something girl crossing Europe by train on my own. He said he couldn’t imagine his teenage daughters, a couple of seats over in the train, ever having that kind of independence. Maybe it’s a culture thing, or maybe the way I was raised – but I never thought there was anywhere where I couldn’t go by myself that would be safe in a group. At least not in Europe. And of course it’s nice to travel with company, but there is a special feeling of freedom when you’re on your own. Like you can handle anything. I don’t know, it makes me feel good about myself, like an assurance that I will survive. After the overwhelming spring and summer that I’ve had – the last three years really, I think I needed this feeling of being in charge of my own situation. Sitting on the train from Hamburg, watching the rolling crop-covered hills gradually increase in size outside my window, I felt even more pressures lifting.
Until we reached a small town just before Baden Baden. Apparently, there had been a landslide and now this train couldn’t go all the way to Zürich and it got chaotic, people shouting information in German and a bus that took us to another train station, lots of running, two train changes, just making it, and finally: sitting on the train from Basel, assured I will be in Zürich before midnight, Maija informed and me with my man-sized backpack eating Finnish chocolate to make my heart-rate slow down. In those moments it would have been nice to have someone to be confused with. But, then again, I made it. So, it’s all good.
Katja Malmborg 