A travel to the end of the old world (Part III, ferry boats and fairy tales)

My last day at work in Copenhagen was much anticipated, yet, departing was not entirely devoid of melancholy. Leaving a place and people you have grown to like always leaves a sense of loss - as if the entire thing would miraculously disappear when I walked out of the office to never resurface again. It is however true that you cannot recreate the past, and that Friday a chapter of my life had been finished, the ink had dried, now blank pages were ahead of me.

Kristian picked me up in front of the office at 16:30. The ever so familiar sense of restlessness started to pump around in my body. An understood nod was exchanged as the grinning faces became impossible to suppress, ahead was adventure, freedom and thousands and thousands of unknown roads to travel, pure bliss. The sunroof went down and our 70's aviator sunglasses went on as some trashy European dance tunes started to blast out of the loudspeakers.
We avoided the worst traffic jams leaving the city and it wasn't long before Copenhagen bid us farewell. The shadows grew longer as we bathed in the sun's beautiful orange glow while cruising south on the highway towards Gedser. When it doesn't rain, the long Danish summer nights really do wonders to you, like a bonus check for enduring the painfully short and dark Danish winter days. Sadly, like everything else in Denmark, this bonus check is heavily taxed by the frequent rainfalls, which only makes it so much more agreeable. As we reached Falster, we had to get off the highway to catch the ferry boat by Gedser which would take us to the German town Rostock. We aimed at reaching the 19:00 connection, but our progress on the south bound highway could not compensate fully for the slow moving traffic around Copenhagen. We had to step on it to make it down to the ferry boat in time. It shall remain unsaid whether it was this increased pressure or simply the treacherous design of the gear box in a Ford Sierra 2.0 engine that made Kristian put the car in reverse instead of first gear at a traffic light in Nykøbing. It is, however, an undisputed fact that as the light turned green we started to reverse. It is cunning how divine insights can be gained from the most absurd situations and I feel privileged to be able to remove one of the “things that only happen in bad movies” from my list. Had it not been because there was a motorbike behind us, who probably turned from concerned as he saw the reversing light turn on to absolutely horrified as the car started to inch towards him, this incident would have been quite entertaining...Ok, ok to tell the truth it took me around 5 minutes to recover from laugh induced spasms and to this date I still break out in spontaneous laughing fits thinking about it, yes, I am immature. Despite these “set backs” we managed to squeeze into the ferry boat on time. A well deserved rest awaited both car and drivers after a fast and furious getaway from Denmark. With the car safely parked we ventured up on the deck. After having endured and outwaited the uncommonly unresponsive service staff we were entrusted with a meal from the canteen. It quickly became clear why they only dared to reward the most patient and persistent of their clients with the privilege of getting their warm food, but at least it filled us up. With the foundation of the needs pyramid firmly laid we went on to the duty free shop to stock up in junk food, soda and other prerequisites for a successful road trip.


We hit Germany around 21:00; the goal was to be by the German/Polish border by 02:00 and by the Ukrainian border by 12:00. A whole night of driving was ahead of us. The sun slowly set in the most beautiful colour patterns as we drove through the fields and pine forests of North Eastern Germany. As we enjoyed this wonder of nature an equally breathtaking event occurred, the car started to stall! You learn a lot of things from driving an old car, one of the most striking ones being the ability to circumvent conventional wisdom. Case in point - when the fuel gauge is in the deep red you assume that it is an indicator that the fuel gauge is not working, not that you actually don't have any more fuel left. It was very dark as the car finally stopped rolling. We parked in the shoulder of the Autobahn, put the emergency light on and dug out our spare fuel tank with cars zooming by at alarming speeds. It was empty. We had earlier, when the fuel situation was under control, debated at much length which would be the optimal place of filling up the tank. We knew that Poland was cheap, and Ukraine even more so. In this very second the woman in Hans Christian Andersen's “The Woman with the Eggs” was probably a better representation of us than the image of savvy fuel traders looking for arbitrage opportunities.


Sigh, it is getting late of hour, so I will return to our little predicament next time and elaborate on how we made it to Ukraine.