We didn’t have to do any compromising about when breakfast would be because we were told that the earliest it could be was 7:30 a.m. It was a bit of a bust though – it didn’t feel like there was enough food for the guests who would come after us. The breakfast also lacked variety – no hardboiled eggs, nothing resembling cereal or muesli, no yogurt, no fruit – just rolls, bread, butter, jam, cheese and lunchmeat. At least we could make our sandwiches, and since it was going to be such a long day, we each made two. Somehow, I was even able to stuff them into my very small bag without totally crushing them.

This was the day that I was most worried about on our trip; not only because it was our longest day, but also because I was worried we might have a strong headwind so close to the west coast. However, the forecast for Saturday called for rain and a tailwind, and it was correct.While we did get wet and a little cold (and I even used my rain jacket for the first time since Ystad to Malmoe), the 12 mph tailwind and flattest terrain of our trip made this one of the easiest days for us. My legs didn’t hurt, my knee didn’t hurt and my butt didn’t hurt either. I spent the majority of the day in the big chainring and often looked for gears that were bigger than I actually had.

We had some minor trouble finding our way out of Ribe and worried that the overnight rain on the cobblestones might cause us to slip and fall, so we walked our bikes out of the center. I was a little overdressed and had to stop to remove a hat and the rain jacket I had put on way too early.

Once we got on route 11, traffic heading in the other direction really picked up – most cars had German license plates and most were from cities in Schleswig-Holstein. It reminded me a lot of the Saturday morning Ocean City handing over of keys that we luckily no longer need to partake in. Eventually, the traffic would pick up going our direction, but by then we were on roads that were a bit wider.

We accidentally ended up on a highway again and took a break under a bridge while we debated the best way to get off it. I was for walking our bikes up the on ramp with the cars heading in our direction, but we ended up crossing 4 lanes and kind of doing the same thing since we couldn’t quite get to the off ramp. We navigated through Varde a little and I ended up accidentally losing the guys while getting on 181 (sorry!). They still would have found it without me having gone back for them.

We took another short break in Noerdre Nebel when the rain started to pick up. My dad and I started to get a little cold here, so I opted for the rain jacket and my dad opted to cut the break short to get moving (and warm) again. I’d say that both were good ideas.

As you can probably tell from this blog entry, the day was basically uneventful. The rain died down, the sun came out, the landscape outside of Hvide Sande was beautiful and the ride was easy. Tim got another flat that he first tried to pump out without changing the tube, but he eventually changed the tube. As far as I can recall, I led from at least Hvide Sande and didn’t feel like I was doing much of any work. We stopped at a small shop at one point along the way and bought some candy bars and soda (lunch of champions?). My dad wanted to buy Neil a truck but had no way of carrying it – but you could tell he was excited to see his grandkids again (as I was excited to see my own kids after a week)!

We arrived at the vacation house about an hour before my wife and family. Some of my clothes had even become dry by this point despite the heavier rain (my shoes and socks, however, were still pretty soaked and I really couldn’t wait to take a shower).

Bike lane along route 181.

Typical scenery for the day.

We have arrived. The guys prepare to break apart their bikes.

At any rate, it feels great to have ridden across Denmark – it was one of my goals for a long time. Back when I was studying in Kiel, I had this completely ridiculous phantasy of biking around Jutland and studying Danish dialects, particularly along the border between Germany and Denmark. I remember even thinking that I should get a big Amazing Race style rucksack for this, not realizing at the time that it’s impossible to bike any significant distance (or at all?) with such a backpack on. However, I did make it across the country with just a backpack. Although I should have gone with the medium size (and may switch at some point), I would like to thank Osprey bag, my Cube cyclocross bike, Google Maps and navigation, the iClever Bluetooth keyboard (best $16 ever spent? – this thing is maybe 5 mm thick and weighs 200 grams at most) and my Tigr bike lock for making this trip possible. But more than the inanimate objects, I would like to thank Tim and my dad for making this trip a reality, as well as my wife for allowing me to go on the trip and taking responsibility for the kids for a week.

The keyboard I used to write all my blog entries – even after being reunited with my computer.

Lastly, I would like to thank Denmark for its commitment to cycling – the bike lanes, cycling-specific traffic lights, bike clover leafs, etc. I’d love to come back and do some of North Jutland or other places we missed. It was an amazing adventure that I’m anxious to repeat. Vi ses igen!

If I remember correctly, the compromise Friday morning was to meet for breakfast at 7:15 a.m. We each had our own rooms in Soenderborg, so I slept quite well. I succumbed to peer pressure and made a sandwich at breakfast to take with us on the way to Ribe. By the way, this was the painting I was facing while eating breakfast. Beth, can you evaluate this hotel art for me?

Hotel art of the day.

The day was just gorgeous. For the first time, I felt compelled to take my phone off my bike’s stem just to take pictures of what I was seeing while cycling (it’s not easy getting it off the stem while riding, nor is it easy to take pictures while cycling.) I didn’t do this enough, unfortunately.

Dad speeding out of Soenderborg.

A picture that didn’t come out as well as it should have. It’s hard to frame while riding.

We took the bike path coming out of Soenderborg and ended up going through a clover leaf made just for bicycles. The guys were really impressed – as we’ve all been with the bicycle infrastructure in Denmark. The constant question: why can’t we have this in the States? It’s truly been a breeze cycling through Denmark.

Speaking of a breeze, we had a tailwind mostly all the way to Ribe, which made it all the more enjoyable. I think Tim suggested that we head north towards Vaernes along the coast between Soenderborg and Aabenraa instead of heading straight to Aabenraa, so thank you, Tim. This was probably the prettiest stretch we did, rolling hills, sheep, a fjord to our right – I have to come back here at some point and bike this stretch again.

Aabenraa Fjord

We bypassed Aabenraa and skipped Haderslev entirely. I’ll show you these cities one day, dad. On the way out of Aabenraa, I saw my first lawn-mowing robot doing a very haphazard job – definitely not making baseball field lines.

We continued to make great time but this is where I started to get really hungry – my constant problem throughout this trip: I can’t stuff enough food down when it’s time to eat and just need to eat more frequently than the guys. One rule of cycling is if you’re thirsty, it’s too late. You have to drink in anticipation of thirst. The same applies to hunger. In other words: I was about to bonk. I told the guys “I’m a little hungry!” meaning “I’m starving!” (because I didn’t want to interrupt our pace until I couldn’t take it anymore), but it was two against one and they were loving the pace, so we continued for another ten minutes until we came to hill and took a break. I then proceeded to eat more than my stomach could handle and felt totally sick. I think if I join the brothers in another BBR, we’re going to have to do a little more compromising with regard to eating.

But after eating, I did get the energy I needed and pulled way out in front of the guys without trying… until my butt couldn’t take its sixth day in the saddle. First it was my legs holding me back, then my knee, now it was my rear end.

We pulled in to Ribe quite early – a little before 2:00 p.m. Our hotel was “Den Gamle Arrest” – the old prison. We hadn’t told my dad where we were staying that night, so when we pulled up to the hotel, Tim said “You’re under arrest!” My dad didn’t know what Tim was talking about at first but once we told him we were staying in an old jail, his reaction: “Cool!” Tim ended up not being a big fan of the place, but my dad loved it. It was right in the middle of the main square, so the location couldn’t have been better.

The proprietor gave us a history lesson of the place as well as the city and suggested a walking tour that we weren’t really up for. After showering and changing, the guys headed to the main square and started ordering beers, but it took a while for them to get served (they even switched restaurants since no one came by at all at the first one). The beers served at the Dagmar, by the way, are excellent. I particularly liked my Belgian IPA from Schioetz. We had a nice discussion with our waitress about living in Denmark – born in Germany and a citizen of Bosnia-Herzegovina, she’s been in Denmark since she was four years old.

Probably the best beer in Denmark.

We headed for the church tower and climbed up to get a bird’s eye view of the city. This was my third time climbing the tower and I remembered that I learned the German word for “steep” climbing it with Antje back in 2004.

A view from this tower.

The brothers.

The church in the main square.

We walked around the city a bit before returning to the Dagmar for dinner and more beers. It again took a while to get served, but the dinner was great. I had the spicy spaghetti primadora which wasn’t spaghetti at all but rotini, which was more preferable anyway. Based on Saturday’s ride, I think my carbo-loading attempt worked. It was either that or the banana split on the Belgian waffle (my first banana split!).

I finished the evening by watching the Olympics on Danish TV for a while until I finally was tired enough to sleep. Dad’s snoring wasn’t that bad.  

Since I had announced that I was going to go to bed no later than 9:00 p.m., I let Tim talk us into meeting for breakfast at 7:00 a.m. I guess I was too tired to fight?

It was a mistake.

First, at breakfast, I just couldn’t eat the amount of food I wanted to eat. I just couldn’t force it down. I felt like I had had enough coffee – it was delicious – but I guess no amount of coffee is enough for a 6:45 a.m. wake-up call. Coming out of Odense (by the way, I didn’t get to show the guys ANY of the city and I feel bad about that), I was yawning non-stop. My legs felt fine, my knees felt fine, but – especially after our first rest break – I kept scouting the shoulder of the road for a nice place to take a nap.

I was able to talk the guys into spending some time in Faaborg – I’m not sure if I spelled it out, but I figured we might as well since otherwise we’d probably just be waiting for the ferry. Coming into Faaborg, there was a long downhill that felt great. We got a lot of speed and it must have lasted over a kilometer. I’d hate to have had to climb that!

As we were walking into the center of town, a fellow cyclist named Jess commented on the Bike Friday and we got to talking about his annual ride to Paris. It turns out that his wife’s cousin lives in Quakertown and he’s spent some time in Pennsylvania. Small world!

I absolutely needed a cup of coffee and got one at Cafe No. 2 in the middle of town. I also treated myself to some delicious pancakes since my breakfast had been a bit on the light side. If we were doing the Souther Tier, I’d be totally on board with the ‘nothing but cereal bars / make yourself a sandwich for lunch from the breakfast tray’ habit, but in Denmark, there are towns in between our stops that offer actual food options. I don’t know – a cereal bar is nice when you’re in the middle of nowhere (and we have been in the middle of nowhere from time to time), but I can’t do it day in and day out when it’s not necessary. For a ride like this, I need real food.

Back when I lived in Greenpoint, I would occasionally ride to Nyack on Sunday mornings with a coworker named Mensur. There was one morning when I was running late and just stuffed a bunch of powdered mini donuts in my mouth before heading out. I’m sure you can guess the end of the story, but I totally crashed a few miles before we got into town. We stopped at a cafe frequented by bikers and I got myself the largest meal they had. Mensur warned me not to and said I was going to throw up. I scarfed it down and led the whole way back. Food is fuel, folks.

Anyways, we left town with plenty of time to get to Boejden for our ferry. We took the noon ferry and I had my daily hotdog while making our way from the island of Fyn to the island of Als.

Compared to yesterday, today felt like a rest day. Once we arrived in Als, we only had 18 km to go. I saw no need to rush since it wasn’t even 1:00 p.m. and there was no way our room would be ready, so I just sat back, let myself get dropped and reminisced about the time Antje and I spent biking around Als in 2004 just a couple of months after we started dating.

We made it to our bed and breakfast before 2:00 p.m. The proprietor seems to be one of the handful of Danes whose English is not better than my Danish, so I ended up using more Danish today than I probably ever have in my life. Anyway, she commented on how fast we arrived – that’ll happen if you’re leaving around 7:45 a.m.!

Once we got to our rooms, I really just relaxed – washed my biking clothes in the sink, let them dry out on the porch, took a nice long shower and followed with a nap while the guys had a beer in town.

My dad and Tim had agreed to meet for dinner at 5:30 p.m. I hadn’t known this, but I ended up knocking on my dad’s door at that time to see if he had come back yet. He was totally out of it when I woke him up and asked me to repeat what I had said when I apologized for waking him up. He told me the dinner plan and asked me what time it was. I erroneously told him it was 5:00 and went back to my room when Tim came down and immediately knocked on his door. I felt bad about giving him a non-existent half hour, but at least I let him sleep for the maximum amount of time.

For dinner, we all had burgers – my body’s just been craving steak and burgers since we started this trip. I’m going to have to try to eat something like pasta tomorrow to carb up for our last leg.

Google Maps took us through Fangel – where Beth and I stayed (“in Odense” hah!) back in 2001. Fun times were had in this hotel.

Tim approaching the ferry to Als.

Where we got out dinner. Store bøffer Små priser

The bridge to Dybboel on the mainland peninsula of Jutland.

Tim in front of Soenderborg Castle

A street in Soenderborg

Dad had been relegated to the alcove of our room in Roskilde so Tim and I could get some sleep. I didn’t hear a peep from my dad’s section of the room, but I again had trouble falling asleep. Tim’s snoring was minimal – more like occasional pseudo-snoring sounds. Quite a change of pace from the previous night. But it was hot in the room and I just didn’t feel ready for bed at 10:00 p.m.

Breakfast was crazy – I think our hotel was filled with a tour bus from China. Tim went down first (he was dressed before either my dad and I were up) and had to fight to get a spot and people kept cutting in front of him in the coffee line. When dad and I finally came down, it had died down a lot, but it was still pretty hectic. They were lacking a few things you’d expect, like cheese, but they had these great mini croissants, so I ended up having three of them.

The weather couldn’t have been better and my legs felt great. I spent a lot of time out front throughout the day (except for the end… we’ll get to that). We also finally saw our first horse on the bike paths – this was something I had been waiting for throughout the trip because the bike paths between cities here are just filled with horse poop. I kept thinking to myself: all this horse poop and no horses? Anyways, after passing a group of high school students on a bike excursion, my dad swerved – it looked like to avoid something – like horse poop, for example. Instead, it turned out he had a flat. Changing his tube was a group effort, with me doing the least amount of work. It took a while, but I once we were up and running again, we just took off. I felt so good, I was singing to myself. My dad and I were up in the front when he asked if I had seen Tim. I thought I had seen him in my rearview mirror, but just as he asked, I couldn’t see him at all. So we stopped and he walked back about a 150 yards and met up with him. I eventually rode back to discover that Tim also had a flat and had yelled to me to hold up. I guess I had been singing to myself too loudly to have heard it.

Changing dad’s tire. A group effort – sort of…

Where we stopped to change dad’s tire. He couldn’t have picked a better place to get a flat.

Changing Tim’s tube.

Afterwards, we tried to stop a little less to make up for lost time – it was our third longest leg of about 70 miles. We rode into Slagelse – one of the few cities in Denmark that was on my list of towns to see (and just about the only one I haven’t seen before), but Tim let it be known that he preferred to avoid cities altogether. Still, we saw the main square and a group of some 20 people on horseback (they looked like part of a riding group or perhaps even police). The town looked far smaller than I had imagined, so it didn’t matter that we really didn’t stop at all.

We continued on to Koersor – where the bridge (and train tunnel) over (and under) the Store Baelt / Great Belt is located. I made the guys stop at a grocery store because I was out of water. We continued on another 3 km to the train station, got tickets and made our way to the tracks. I wasn’t sure that the train to Esbjerg was going to stop in Nyborg across the belt, so I went back to the shop in the train station to make sure. I also got my daily hotdog there (wrapped in bacon!). I was told that all trains that stopped in Koersor were local and so we only had to wait a few minutes to catch a train.

The ride in Fyn continued to be easy, but it was a hot day and I had run out of water again. My dad apparently had a hole in his backpack’s water reservoir, so he was out as well. We stopped at a bakery roughly 15 km outside of Odense around 4:00 p.m. There, we bought a bunch of water, cola and snacked a little. I was still feeling great.

But once we remounted our bikes, my right knee started aching. Around 4 km outside of Odense, I couldn’t even bend it – it could be bent, I just couldn’t make the motion of bending. I spent a good 2 km trying to pedal solely with my left leg and another 2 km in a super low gear, which just wasn’t helping. We stopped and even adjusted my seat a little – still no relief.

We eventually made it to our hotel – a Best Western (and probably the nicest Best Western in existence) – around 5:00 p.m. The guys took the stairs up to the rooms while I took the elevator.

Ever since it rained on the first day, I had been having trouble charging my phone. Our room suffered from a lack of outlets and I had to get on my hands and knees to try to get my phone to charge. While doing this, my knee POPPED. It was very audible and I felt like my whole upper body had dropped by a centimeter. When I stood back up, the pain was gone. My knee was fine. I can’t tell you how relieved I was.

The guys had already started drinking when I got the restaurant – again, attached to our hotel (I took the stairs down!). This was a NICE restaurant, e.g., our starter course was spinach-stuffed tortellini with caviar. We kept noticing that luxury cars kept pulling into the parking lot. I had three large beers with my meal and after such a long day, was starting to doze off while finishing up. When we went back up, I borrowed Tim’s charger to see if I could get that to work with my phone (it did), then tried my charger on his Bluetooth keyboard (it didn’t work) and then went to the hotel’s reception to ask if they had a charger from their lost and found I could have (they had a box of about 30). Charging problem solved.

I fell asleep around 8:45 and slept until dad woke me up around 2:00 a.m. I was wide awake for about an hour and dad started to do a much toned-down version of the propeller snoring from the other night. I listened and laughed a little and just let him do it for an hour until I felt like I was tired enough to fall back asleep. Then I took my mom’s advice and said “You’re snoring” (I didn’t preface it with “babe,” by the way) and he stopped. Silence for the rest of the night. Well done, mom, well done. I asked him about it today and he has no recollection of waking up or anything.

Here is a collection of the pictures I’ve taken so far. I also took a picture of the burger I just ate, but I guess my camera crashed. Oh well.

Coming off the ferry from Rostock to Trelleborg.

Me, Maja and Dad. I was very, very tired.

Kronborg Castle from the ferry heading into Helsingoer.

Nyhavn, Copenhagen.

Dad not looking at the camera in front of Nyhavn.

After the ‘night of noise,’ we woke up, showered (except for Tim – I guess dad takes his second shower for him?) and had breakfast. I grabbed an apple for the road while the guys each made themselves sandwiches. They can actually make do with a sandwich for lunch despite all the miles we’re putting in – I guess that’s why neither of them have the pot belly I do. It was a cinch getting on to Cycling Route 9 from Helsingoer to Copenhagen and the route itself was a breeze as well. When I did my trip around here two years ago, the Helsingborg – Copenhagen part was the second leg. Back then, I had a serious headwind and it was as hard as the Trelleborg – Helsingborg leg the day before, even though it was probably less than half the distance. I had left in the morning and didn’t make it to Copenhagen until 3:00 p.m. at the earliest. Today, we had a tailwind and were in Copenhagen by 11:00 a.m. (after having taken a break!). I’m not sure if it was solely the tailwind, but I felt a lot better today. If I got dropped on climbs, it was minor. My dad did most of the leading, but I was in front at times as well and rarely fell to the rear. Hopefully, my legs will stay this fresh.

I had originally planned on maybe taking the guys on the tour of the Carlsberg brewery, but since these guys don’t really want to do any touristy things, I just took them to Nyhavn. I thought they might want get something to eat or at least have a beer at one of the outdoor cafes along the harbor, but they just wanted to head to Roskilde. Still, they loved it and said that it was definitely worth the detour.

It had been mostly blue skies up to this point, but we started to feel little droplets of rain. It never got terrible – never wet enough to break a phone – but we did get wet again and Tim had to dry my shoes in the sun upon arrival (yes, the sun came out just as we pulled into our hotel’s courtyard).

Heading out of Copenhagen, I ended up dropping the guys. I guess I’m more used to the aggressive riding style of the city, but I stopped and waited for them twice to catch up. I know my dad did a ton of city riding back in the eighties, but he must be more out of practice than I am. Again, even though our route took us in an L-shape (first south, now west), we still had a tailwind.

Somewhere along the way, we decided to get out of the rain and right at that point, we spotted a McDonald’s off to the side. I got myself a McChicken meal but my dad and Tim just had colas while they ate their stolen sandwiches. (You guys do realize we can buy warm meals between cities in Denmark, right?) My (replacement) Fitbit is working fine, but it stopped syncing with my phone after our McDonald’s stop. I guess I’ll have to wait until Antje brings a charger to the vacation home so I can reset it.

We were able to take one road from Helsingoer to Copenhagen and likewise one road basically the whole way from Copenhagen to Roskilde (aptly titled “Roskildevej” – pronounced ‘Ros-kill-uh-vai’ or as my phone says ‘Ros-kild-vedge’). Our hotel, the Zleep, is located inside a courtyard and lacks any signage, so we ended up guessing that it was here based on what my phone said and the address we had.

Post-arrival, I got to talk to Antje and the kids while Tim was out drying my shoes in the sun. After writing my first blog entry, I went to the ironing room to try to dry out my cycling clothes and struggled to find the setting that was warm enough to evaporate some moisture while not hot enough to burn lycra. I then met the guys outside in the courtyard. My dad had already had two beers by this point and was looking forward to another. Tim finally managed to pick up not one, but two maps of Denmark, so he was finally at peace. I tried calling Ted, my mom and Beth with the latter eventually being successful after the second or third attempt. Beth and I reminisced briefly about our trip to Roskilde in 2001 – fifteen years ago! I actually realized after talking to her that I had visited Roskilde a total of three times before today: I forgot about the 2002 trip right before I went to study Swedish in Uppsala. I originally forgot because all I did was spend the night here after seeing Mum play in Copenhagen. I did, however, remember the time I spent here with Antje while she was going to study in Odense. Antje: wasn’t it our last night together that summer? I have this vague memory of getting back to Roskilde from Copenhagen late, waking up in the middle of the night and getting sick and then taking a train a few hours later to get to the airport. I have no recollection of ever flying out of Copenhagen airport though, so that last part could be a mistake. At any rate, it was 11 years ago and my memory is foggy. I’m definitely getting old. Just ask my legs.

Dinner was just around the corner at the building attached to our hotel. I finally got my burger. It was a big “spicy” burger with bacon and jalapenos and came with huge steak fries. It was great – I really need something like this during the day though so my legs can take advantage of the energy spike. I also had two beers from my favorite brewery: Mikkeller. Mom called back when we were being served bread (I could still get the hotel’s wi-fi from the restaurant) and talked to dad, Tim and me for a bit. After dinner, we walked to the cathedral, went back to our room and quickly decided we should get ice cream, so we went to this place that had self-serve soft-serve ice cream. I frantically tried to get it to swirl around in my cup, but the ice cream just came too fast and all I could do was layer it haphazardly. But in trying my best to get it to swirl, I totally overfilled the cup – I guess I just wasn’t paying attention. Still, my kiwi-vanilla ice cream was great. We walked around some more and ate our ice creams and eventually made it back to the hotel. Dad spent a lot of time trying to explain to Tim how to upload photos to the blog (then promptly fell asleep at 8:15), so you should be seeing some sights. I’m afraid my phone is mostly attached to my bike’s stem, so I haven’t taken too many pictures, but I’ll see what I have to share before publishing this post.

We had a comparatively easy day ahead of us after the whole Trelleborg – Ystad – Malmoe leg of the day before (I think when we told Maja what we did, her comment was “I didn’t think that was possible”). I had done this leg in its entirety before, but a lot of the roads my phone tooks us on were different from last time. One thing I find so striking is how many golf courses there are in southern Sweden. I haven’t kept count, but we must have seen around ten. At one point, we were even riding through one and I had to pass the lawnmower on the path. But there’s one particular course before coming into Landskrona that’s especially beautiful. It’s on a cliff overlooking the Baltic and you can see Denmark across the sound. It’s just gorgeous, but it’s also on a section of road that’s just a looong uphill. On the plus side: you have time to take it in. On the downside: you’re getting majorly dropped by two dudes in their sixties. I think it was at this point that I felt my worst I have on the trip so far – my legs were just aching and the guys ultimately had to wait for me at the top of the hill. We made our way past Landskrona and decided we needed to stock up. So we found a grocery store called Stora Coop and – due to the name – I proceeded to worry that it was like a Costco membership store until we checked out. We bought a bunch of cereal bars and some bananas (I was hoping for a sandwich, but alas they didn’t have any prepared food). I kind of had to use my Swedish with the cashier – he needed to check dad’s ID and couldn’t make heads or tails out of his PA driver’s license. I think he just gave up. We ate outside the store and soldiered on. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and it finally felt like summer for the first time since I’ve landed in Europe. There were some good downhill stretches heading into Helsingborg that were fun – I could just get in my drops and ride them down without pedaling. (Some respite for a change!)

I had wanted to show my dad and Tim the Keep in Helsingborg – I was able to walk them there, but they had no desire to go up it. I mean, yeah – my legs were tired and the amount of steps there was definitely daunting, but it’s so worth it. Oh well. Now there’s a reason in addition to the Wallender tour in Ystad that I’ll have to drag him back for. We found an Italian restaurant where I started to pick out what giant meal I would order (there was a pasta and sausage plate for a minimum of two people I could have easily handled on my own) but my dad and Tim only wanted a beer. I couldn’t believe it – I was starving and they didn’t seem to be hungry at all. I settled for a large plate of french fries and Tim ultimately decided to order one as well with the intention of splitting it with my dad. I scarfed down mine and looked longingly at the fries they hadn’t had a chance to eat yet, but I kept my cool and just enjoyed my Mariestads beer. I tried to charge my phone inside the restaurant (we were sitting outside), but ever since that rain on the first day, my phone has had a loose connection for charging and only works some of the time (even last night, I was only able to get it up to 81% before the connection was lost). We bought our tickets for the ferry terminal – there were signs saying we would have to show our IDs, but again, our passports weren’t checked (tip for potential refugees trying to make their way to Scandinavia: just bring a bike).

On the ferry, dad and Tim just got coffee, but I grabbed a hot dog. It still didn’t feel like enough food. I wanted a big cheeseburger or something. The ferry ride itself is a half hour tops, so neither Tim nor my dad were able to finish their coffee. We were able to see the Kronborg castle as we approached the harbor into Helsingoer – it looked beautiful on such a sunny day. When we rode off the ferry, I turned my navigation back on and it just said “You have arrived”. Tim checked the address and indeed, we were about 10 feet away from our hotel. After checking in and taking showers, we decided to see if the castle was open. It wasn’t, but the grounds were gorgeous. Helsingoer, also known as Elsinore, is where Hamlet takes place. They apparently perform Hamlet in (or on the grounds of) the castle on a daily basis. After we walked around the castle grounds, we headed into the city to find a place to eat. We again settled on an Italian place – this one was called Pakhuset and the food was really good. My dad got the fish and chips, Tim got tortellini that looked delicious and I got the wienerschnitzel. Both my dad and I got ¾ liter glasses of Carlsberg. I could have had another. As we were about to leave, I considered using the bathroom, but decided against it since we were so close to our hotel. It was at this point that the guys decided to explore the town a bit, so my extremely full bladder would have to wait.

I somehow managed to make it back to the hotel without peeing my pants. I started blogging while Dad took another shower. He has this weird habit of showering after we arrive, before getting into bed and before we leave for the day. I asked him why and he said “because I already paid for it and showers are enjoyable”. It’s true – showers are enjoyable, but his statement still kind of reminded me of the episode of Seinfeld where Kramer installs a garbage disposal in his shower as a way of spending more time in the shower.

We went to bed and my dad proceeded to snore in ways I didn’t think people could snore. If I were to do it for you, you would probably think I was way overexaggerating. In addition to the general loud inhalation aspect of snoring, his exhalation involved making extended cartoon-y propeller sounds with his lips. Thinking back to it, I find it funny, but at the time I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was too tired to wake him up – I just hoped he would stop. I’m not sure how long it took, but I was ultimately able to get some sleep, but when I woke up this morning, I definitely didn’t feel as rested as the day before. The first words out of Tim’s mouth this morning were “Nancy’s a saint”. I’m beginning to understand why my mom spends summers down in Ocean City. Our hotel tonight has a bed in a separate alcove. Tim and I will be sharing a bed and dad’s been relegated to behind a closed door. Here’s hoping Tim sleeps on his side tonight.

Trelleborg to Ystad was mostly smooth sailing. We had a tailwind most of the way. We followed the Sverige Cyckelstigen (I think that’s what it’s called) bike route, which made some odd turns from time to time. Tim was getting frustrated at the whole ‘bike path is on the left side of the road… no, we’re going to cross the road and put the bike path on the right side of the road’ spiel and just decided to take the E9 after a certain point. My dad and I stuck to the paths, partly because both of us saw signs saying no bikes on the E9 (but oddly didn’t see anything like that for the E65, which was more highway-like). I think Tim got beeped at only once.

Very early in the ride, Tim and my dad saw a sign that said that Ystad was only 11 km away, so my dad was a bit disappointed that things were taking a little longer. Tim was convinced we had missed it at a certain point (despite the fact that we were hugging the coast). This section was beautiful, but I was starting to tire when coming into Ystad. I’m unfortunately not in shape for a 500+ mile bike ride across Denmark.

We found a cafe at Stortorget (the main square), unnecessarily locked up our bikes and went to eat at the cafe directly next to where we locked up the bikes. Dad and Tim had hickory bagels and I had a chicken and mozzarella sandwich that wasn’t that great (their bagels looked much better) as well as coffee and a “mudcake” with whipped cream. I realized my thighs were pretty sore once we were getting up to leave. I felt bad that I didn’t get to show my dad more of Ystad – there’s at least one residential area, one other town square and the police station (you know, the one from Wallender) that I really wanted to show my dad. If I had been in better shape, I probably would have insisted, but I was somewhat relieved we were cutting things a bit short. I knew we were going to have a headwind heading to Malmoe, and it was going to be quite a hike as well. Did you guys know they have Wallender-themed walking tours? In English, they’re held at 6:00 p.m. in the summer.

We initially picked the quickest path to Malmoe via E65; it’s basically a highway. Google Maps gave it to me as an option for bike directions, so I figured it couldn’t be that bad. It started out okay (we were still pretty far from the city and it was Sunday morning traffic), but after about 5 miles (10? between 5 and 10), we started getting honked at and things just felt dicey. I thought I saw a bike path and pulled on it, but it turned into a gravel road that went in another direction. We initially decided to jump a ditch and get back on E65, but then just decided to see where that road took us, so we crossed over the ditch again. This is when I started navigating by phone. It took us up and down lots of windy, rolling gravel paths – both a map and printed directions would have done us no good and even navigating has proven difficult (“Turn Left” doesn’t mean much when there are multiple lefts, but when the road has no name, how can it be more specific?). I started getting dropped on these rolling hills (when they were paved at least – the gravel was slowing the guys down) and there were a few times when the guys were out of sight. Oh well. I’m at least 10 pounds overweight – maybe this trip will get me back on track?

I did recognize a few roads heading into Malmoe from my last biking tour of Sweden/Denmark. Two years ago, I did a three-day solo trip of Trelleborg – Malmoe – Landskrona – Helsingborg – Helsingoer – Copenhagen – Koege – Gedser. Overall, I feel like there’s no good way to bike into Malmoe from either Trelleborg or Ystad. The only direct road is a highway and everything else is an unnamed backroad.

There had been some sun, some clouds, and a few minor showers for our ride, but as we were approaching the city limit, it started really pouring down. We were getting soaked, my phone was on my bike’s stem and getting soaked, my shoes were getting drenched and I was feeling pretty cold. We took a few breaks under trees and a bridge, but mostly just continued on our winding path until my phone’s battery died basically as we were entering the center of town. At this point though, we had a good idea of where our hotel was. I flagged down some security guy to ask for directions for the last step and he radioed someone for the answer. He was able to just about get us there (he only had us turning left onto our street instead of right).

The hotel room was gigantic. We were able to set up a drying station behind the desk in the corner. I went to work on my shoes with the hair dryer since my biking shoes are the only shoes I have and I didn’t want to have to go out to dinner with wet shoes. Unfortunately, although my phone was the one exposed to the rain, it was my dad’s phone that bit the dust. He had served as official photographer up to this point, so those pictures of Ystad and before and one random stop in the middle of nowhere between Ystad and Malmoe are probably lost to eternity.

I was able to talk to Antje and set up a time to meet up with my friend Maja before taking a much-needed nap.

Back when I lived in Brooklyn, I met Maja while looking for a way to keep up my conversational Swedish. Maja and I rarely spoke Swedish to each other (and my Swedish is totally awful these days – THANKS, MAJA), but she has been one of my best friends ever since. Although she’s a native of Gothenburg, she’s been living in Malmoe for the past three years, which has been awesome: we realized last night that I’ve been able to visit her every year since she’s been living in Malmoe thanks to the Rostock-Trelleborg ferry connection. I’m in that area of Germany 1-2 times a year, so I’ll likely continue to take that ferry once a year for the foreseeable future.

Maja took us to a boules-themed French restaurant (it may have even been called “Boules”). I actually used to play boules regularly with a couple of coworkers when I was working in Manhattan, but I was way too exhausted yesterday to stand long enough to play a round. I think we were all exhausted (Maja included). Dinner was excellent and we took Maja back to our hotel for another round of drinks afterwards. It was a blast spending time with her. I don’t remember when we called it a night (I think I called it a night) – it was probably around 9:30 p.m., but for me, it felt like 3:00 a.m. I just wanted to go to bed, but then I realized I had a ton of clothes that were still wet that I needed to wear the next day. So I spent another hour with the iron, the hair dryer and figuring out the best way to lay out clothes along the towel warmer so that they would dry. I’m not sure all my efforts were needed, but everything was dry the following morning, so either way: mission accomplished. My dad’s snoring did not keep me up.