I boarded the train to Frederikshavn this morning at 11.14. It rolled gradually across the railway towards the very top of Denmark, and I disembarked in the port from which fery lines operate across the Kategat sea. The ferry was visible from a far, a white ship with blue and red letters of Stena Line company. A long pedestrian tunnel went over a wide road and a part of the port. As I was passing through it, commercial ships were on the left, and the Danish navy on the right. These grey, metal beasts were harboured as floating castles, and their equally grey batteries were sticking out.
“Our government is telling us to store drinking water” my Danish flatmate told me the other day, the day after Trump won the election.
“That sounds doomy”
“It is, and it’s scary because we are not doomy usually”
It was an interesting place to be in after a historical night. Right there in the corridor of our dormitory, we discussed what Trump’s win meant for our world. For a long time, I went with the “if I don’t hear about it, it doesn’t influence me”. The sight of those ships reminded me of that conversation, and my mind entertained itself in connecting the dots, seeing those emotionless ships in the harbour as waiting for the bombs to start falling.
The pedestrian tunnel ended in the port’s reception building where loud Swedes and Danes disembarked either hangover or still drunk. An elevator door opened, and a guy almost fell out of it, stumbling into the side of the elevator door. His face was the face of total obliteration. It depicted the struggles of a man trying to get a hold on the basic functions of being human, but his legs were not cooperative. Luckily, his friend, visibly drunk as well yet managing the basic functions of movement, was there to get him up on feet and help him walk, or rather, drag him out of the elevator. As true viking brothers after a bloody weekend, they walked hanging onto each other, towards the pedestrian tunnel like to the gates of Valhalla.
I heard stories of these ferry lines between Scandinavian countries being popular weekend getaway to a cheaper drinking country, I just never knew in which direction is it cheaper. Due to my personal bankruptcy, I couldn’t afford a beer in any direction, and such information was arbitrary.