apple chicken snail adventures

i needed to buy a cd player today so that i didn't go to class tomorrow saying that, once again (okay twice now), i hadn't really done the homework because i had no way to listen to the cds.

it was too early for the stores to be open, but i rode down the pedestrian street looking for the apple store i knew was there.  i couldn't find it.  had i imagined it?  some other pedestrian street in some other town maybe?  i took a long and confusing way to one of the big grocery chains, near the bus station, sure that if nothing else, i could get a cd player there.  but when i got there and looked at what they had and the prices they offered for them, i couldn't justify the expense.  the plugs and outlets are different here.  the only things we brought over that needed to be plugged in were our computers, and i can't imagine bringing anything more back, though by now we've accumulated lamps, a hair dryer, an iron, and an electric kettle.  still, i don't need to add 'cd player' to that list.

so i left the store and searched on my smurf phone (oh yeah, and smurf phone chargers) for an apple store in roskilde.  sure enough, it was listed on the pedestrian street.  so i went back, and this time i found the little, silver, unobtrusive apple symbol, on a building near the beginning of the street, hardly before you'd have a chance to keep your eyes out for it.  but at that point it's still not ten, so i park my bike and look to see if the coffee shop with the best desserts is open.  it's not-- until ten.  so i walk to a bakery and ask for a kanel snegl.  a cinnamon snail.  basically, a danish.  over-the-top sweet without a cup of coffee to give the taste buds something else to focus on, but i finish the entire thing against my better judgment.  i wait for the store to open.  at ten i decide to first go into my phone company's store to have them tell me to go back to katie's cell phone company's store in order to try to solve the mystery of why my phone cannot communicate with hers.  i go back to hers (we'd been there together yesterday).

"they sent me back to you.  should i just give up?"

"no, no, you shouldn't give up," said the store clerk, whose looks makes me think he'd be happier touring around with a punk band than working in a cell phone store with the same coldplay songs repeating each day.  "but i don't know what the solution is.  and so we have to make a case to our technicians.  either i can do that or you can do that." and in the way he goes on i realize he would rather have me make the case than him.  so i agree.  i'll go online, relieve him of this mystery.  see if the technicians have anything to say about it.

i go over to the apple store, i buy an external cd player for as much as the most expensive cd player offered at the grocery store, but here at least it will feel more useful being attached to a piece of technology we already use on a regular basis.

on my way home i witness the undramatic aftermath of a fender bender between a motorized chair and a van.  i contemplate picking the guys up early to meet greg at the airport.  when i get home i look at the train and bus schedules.  i'd risk waking henry up from his nap.  i'd cut short my danish studies (i'm to give a short presentation tomorrow, which i haven't prepared).  but... how much more fun would it be for all of us if we were there when he's getting off the plane?

in the end, i decide to do it.  i like the idea of an adventure more than the idea of sitting in one place.  like when i rode around this morning getting lost and discovering new parts of town, and thinking, 'if only this were some other town, not the one i already live in... it would be that much more exciting.'

i got the guys, much earlier than i needed to, but thankfully henry was already up from his nap. we were 30 minutes early for the bus, but the bus was two minutes late to the train station. i watched the clock as we sat in traffic a block away from the station thinking, 'now we have three minutes to catch our train.... now we have two.'  we ran into the station, henry on my back, to see which track it left from, then ran down the stairs, then up, to track six.  the train was still there, but the doors were closed.  i pushed the button to open one, but no luck. it slowly began moving on down the tracks, without us in it.  then i felt a warmth on my lower back and realized henry was peeing, somehow through his diaper, onto me.  william was waving his hand over the sensor of the glowing blue 'check in' bollard over and over.  "chicken! chicken!" he yelled.

adventure.  yes.

but we made it to the airport in time to see greg walk out of the terminal and to wave our danish flags at him.  adventure.  yes.

we ate hamburgers in copenhagen and took a train and bus home.  the pictures i managed to take of our adventure are not uploading for some reason, but you can imagine a little paper danish flag in the hands of a little boy going down an escalator with his dad... that same boy drinking a glass of milk poured by someone who probably doesn't have children to know how much milk is safe to put in a glass given to a child (though actually he did drink all however many large number of ounces he received, and no spills)... another of two little ones and their dad looking out the train window... and me, wearing a long, maroon skirt-- my gift from mexico.

and now?  now i have to work on my presentation for tomorrow, while all adventurers sleep.