“But surely it would have been a pity not to have seen the trees along this road, really exaggerated in their beauty, not to have seen them gesturing like noble pantomimists, robed in pink.”
-Elizabeth Bishop, https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/questions-of-travel/
Today, I woke up dreadfully early to make it to the train to Copenhagen, so naturally I passed out in my seat. Hours later, I was woken up suddenly by a man on the train staff yelling at me to “go upstairs because it’s a ship.” I was very confused, I knew I was on a train, not a ship, and that there was no upstairs. The man kept yelling, so I walked out of the train and up a flight of stairs. I looked around me and I seemed to be at a train station, but it was hours before I was supposed to arrive, so I began to think that I was still asleep and that this was a dream. There were shops and cafes, and big windows around me. I walked over to a window and looked out, and all I saw was water. Eventually, I figured out that I wasn’t dreaming, and the train had in fact gone into a ship.
Once I figured that out, I got some lunch at an all-you-can-eat buffet, and walked up to the deck where I could watch the water as we crossed from Germany to Denmark.
When I arrived in Copenhagen, I was thrilled to meet my Greek/Danish friend, N, whom I had met two summers ago at a summer masterclass opera program in Florence. She and her boyfriend, Ni, picked me up from the train station and drove me to her apartment where I passed out. Later that evening, I walked around the town, got a bubble waffle (the type they have in Hong Kong), and spilled chocolate from the waffle all over my jeans. Then, Nikole led me back to her apartment and we watched “The Shawshank Redemption,” which is my favorite movie of all time.
We also chatted and caught up with each other—N told me about her plans to visit Greece with her boyfriend to see her dad, whose name is N. I mentioned to her how funny I thought it was that her name is N, her boyfriend is N, her dad is N, and the three of them are going to be meeting up in Thessalo-NIK-i. It’s truly meant to be.