Here's where we see just how easy to please I really am: My first train (of the day's scheduled five) was delayed, meaning I missed all my subsequent connections. (And believe me, I'd expect nothing less from the Deutsche Bahn!)
But a helpful woman at the information desk found me a connection a couple hours later, on an ICE (the nicest, fastest train type). While she was apologizing that they didn't have anything sooner, I was thinking, they refund half my ticket price because of the delay AND I get to go on an ICE? And with fewer times I have to change trains? Ooh, and four euros worth of food vouchers??
It was pretty silly how excited I was, as I ate my free sandwich in a train station bakery and read the Greenland part of my Iceland/Faroes/Greenland travel guide and fantasized about going there too.
Arrival in Hirtshals, a small town on the northern coast of Denmark, fresh sea air and the smell of flowers. Blocky brick apartment buildings; a blonde teenaged boy on a scooter and his equally blonde kid sister behind him, peddling like mad on her bicycle to keep up.
The picture above is in Hirtshals at 9:45 p.m.! I love Nordic summer nights. And here's the view from the youth hostel, overlooking the sea, around 10:45 p.m. Still not dark, just deep blue:
I walked down to the sea despite the driving rain. Grassy bluffs (lighthouse included), a sandy beach, and iron gray, storm-tossed waves. Just what you want from the North Atlantic! (Or the North Sea, specifically, in this case.)
P.S. Favorite snippet about Greenland, from my Lonely Planet: "When most people think of a typically Danish scene, they don't normally imagine towering peaks, glaciers and icebergs - but then, few realize that Greenland comprises 98% of the land area in the Kingdom of Denmark."
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