Life 2: Are we there yet?

Finally on the bus, people looked a bit weird at me. Perhaps it’s not every day they see an idiot transplanting their life. That, or I smelled to high heavens. Who knows. I did not know of the existence of Aarhus before I came here, maybe they assumed the same as well. In any case, being gawked at is what happened, but since that is one my favourite activities when abroad, I guessed I needed to take it all in good humour. 



After about thirty minutes I ended up at big crossroad, got off, but I wasn't really sure where to go. The place to pick up my keys was supposed to be close, but besides a faint sense of direction, I was clueless. On numerous occasions, my sense of direction has failed me outright, more often than not being drunk (but that’s beside the point), so since I was sober, I decided going in a direction that felt like a good idea would probably be a bad idea.
Luckily, I was not alone on the streets of the outskirts of Aarhus.

A cyclist was coming up the hill. I decided against asking her in my pre-prepared Danish sentences, since the ability of pronouncing words in a proper manner takes a few months of painful mouth-contortion training. English would have to suffice, which it did. Danes are truly wonderful in English and their accent is only about as bad as the Dutch accent in English which just about makes it bearable. She pointed me in the general direction down the hill which made me feel a mild feeling of joy since going the other way would mean going up the hill, which, with the bags I was dragging along, would seem about as fun as sucking a golf ball through a straw. 

So down I went, with only a basic address at hand and no actual idea whether the place would be open. About twenty minutes later I found out that they were, but that I would not receive the key just yet. I did have to sign a bunch of papers in Danish. At this point though, I would have signed for anything short of the NSA to track my life by shooting a RFID-chip up my arm if that would mean a shower and a rest. 

The best news was still to come though. The friendly lady told me where I should go, which bus I should take and where I should get off and then exactly which building I needed to go to, as to where I could find the 'varmemester kontor' and to finally get my keys. I asked how long it would take. She said thirty minutes. I asked when they would close. She said that since today it's Friday, they'll close at midday. I checked my watch. It was around 11.30.

Luck was on my side that day.