Death by Bike

This past weekend,  I participated in my second adventure trip run by DIS, on the island of Bornholm which is owned by Denmark, but is in closer proximity to Sweden and Germany.  We boarded the bus at 9:45 on Friday night and headed to the ferry.  I reserved a cabin, and was able to sleep during the 7 hour ferry ride, and thank god I did because I would soon be using every ounce of energy I had! Once we arrived in Bornholm, we got on another bus and headed to our hostel in Gudhjem.  When we arrived the sun was just rising, and we had a very pretty view.  They split breakfast into two shifts, and my group didn't have breakfast until 8.  It was only 6:45 when we arrived, so my three roomates and I went to our very tiny hostel room and took a nap!  We went to breakfast at 8, after unwillingly getting out of bed, and had the typical Danish breakfast of yogurt, oats, cereal, bread, etc.  We then picked up our bikes and were on our way by 9....choosing to do "The Killer" bike tour, which was the longest one, and would stop at various areas throughout the island.  

“Note to self: Do not attempt anything athletic with the adjective 'killer' in the title.  Especially when said adjective is used to describe a self-guided bike tour in a country where people bike everywhere, all the time, and in horrific weather conditions.” - Megan Green

The town of Gudhjem, where
our hostel was located.

A bunch of other students had also chosen to do this one, so we started off as a large group.  Our first stop was Svaneke, which is Denmark's most Eastern town.  All the buildings were a sunflower-yellow color and against the blue water, it was very pretty.  The group split up into smaller groups here, as some continued biking and others stopped to take pictures.  After quickly stopping to replenish our water and take a few pictures, we were back on our way.  The next destination was Nexø which was a town with a large harbor that had been reconstructed after Soviet bombing during WWII.  We just rode through the town and continued on to Dueodde.  Dueodde is the most southern tip of Bornholm, and known for its beaches.  Supposedly the sand is the finest in the world and was exported in the 19th century for hourglasses.  At this point we had been biking for about three and a half hours and were starting to get hungry, but the only place open was an ice cream shop! Many people got "soft ice", which I can only describe as being a fluffier version of soft serve ice cream, but I did not want that as lunch, so I had a few almonds and raisins and decided I would just wait until the next town to get something to eat.  We walked down to the beach, took pictures, collected some sand, and got back on our bikes ready for the next part of the journey.  At this point the groups had split off, and I was with about 10 other girls.  We figured out the best route to get to Aakirkeby, the next town on our list, and headed off in search of some real food.

This ended up being a not-so-great idea on my part because the "towns" we passed through to get there were basically all farm land! So unless I wanted to go shuck my own corn for lunch, there was no food in sight. Additionally the wind was INSANE and blowing directly into us.  There was one point where we were going downhill and I still had to pedal in order to move....and going uphill was a complete joke!!!  Because of the major workout/wind combination, I was constantly taking layers off as I started sweating and putting them back on as the wind got too cold! After about 2 and a half hours of biking as hard as we could in order to move anywhere, we finally found a small place to eat.  I ordered a chicken sandwich that at any other time would have been gross, but in the moment of extreme hunger, was absolutely delicious and totally hit the spot.  Five other girls and I then went to the supermarket where we got something sweet to eat before heading back out for the last quarter of the bike ride (or at least what we thought would be the last quarter), and it was definitely a low point of the day.  We were standing right past the checkout counter, in a circle, in complete silence, eating apples, passing around chocolate, and wishing we could just be in bed.  When we exited, one of the girls in the group of 10 was attempting to squeeze her bike into some elderly couple's car! She later told us that she had been on the phone with a cab company, and they were going to charge her around 700 DKK (which equals about 120 USD) to pick her up.  The couple must have overheard and offered her a ride.  So she chose hitch hiking in the middle of Bornholm, over doing the rest of the bike ride! 

After receiving directions on how to find the bike paths leading us to the town where our hostel was, we reluctantly set off for the last leg of our journey around 4:15.  We soon found the sign that said we were 18 km from Gudhjem (which was already more than the anticipated 16 km), and followed the path.  As we continued the paths seemed to be winding in opposing directions, almost as if we were backtracking, and we passed three different signs that said 12 km to Gudhjem! We  were all pretty exhausted but somehow I was still in good spirits... which I was shocked by (endorphins maybe??) While biking I tried to let myself zone out and think about other things instead of focusing on what I was doing and how tired I was, which may have been the downfall for some of the other girls I was with who seemed miserable.  I offered up a piece of advice which someone had told me a few weeks ago and really stuck with me: "If its not a fun time, it's a good story."  When you think about it, that can be applied to many situations, and our bike ride had definitely turned from a fun time into a good story.  Another girl also added in "The only difference between an adventure and an inconvenience is your state of mind."

Then, as if someone were playing a practical joke, the path split in two directions without any sign saying which way to go! We then stood there for 5 minutes contemplating which way was best, but of course chose the wrong way.  After about 20 minutes of biking we hit a main road that had no signs or street names and had to flag down a car in order to get directions.  They showed us which way to go and we then had to back track.  We finally got back onto the correct path and were finally on our way home. As we passed close by to the final stop, which was the largest round church in Bornholm, I got off my bike and ran up a hill just to get a picture! I figured if I was that close to it, I couldn't just let myself bike away without looking.  We then continued on the path and when we saw the ocean in the distance we knew we were almost back!  We arrived back at the hostel a little after 6:30 and went to dinner.  I scarfed it down and then took a hot shower and got straight into PJs.  We hung out in our room, which we nick named "nugget" because it was so small, the rest of the night.  

"Largest" waterfall in Denmark!

The next morning we had breakfast at 8 and I was very happy that I was much less sore than I had expected!  After breakfast, my three room mates decided they wanted to go back to sleep, but I knew going back to sleep would be a bad idea.  I texted another girl, Megan, who we had biked with the day before (who happens to go to Northwestern also, although we had never talked before coming to Denmark) and she also wanted to take advantage of the day.  We walked around the town and by the water just scoping out the stores and restaurants and then decided that we should take a "short" bike ride of 10km to see Denmark's highest waterfall.  We hopped on our bikes (and I realized that there was one part of my body that was VERY sore) and headed off to the waterfall.  Upon arriving, we then had a 1km walk into the woods in order to see it.  This was interesting considering Megan and I had both decided to wear ballet flats, which would probably not be my first choice when choosing a substitute for hiking boots.  We tiptoed around the mud and finally made it! .....Now I know that Denmark tends to not have extremes of anything, and after seeing Denmark's "largest lake" on my short study tour, I knew not to expect anything too big, but Denmark's largest waterfall barely deserves to even be called a waterfall. Maybe they could call it "Denmark's largest stream that trickles down some rocks"??....But either way, I can now say that I have seen the largest waterfall and lake in Denmark.  

After returning to Gudhjem, Megan and I had lunch at a cafe by the water and I tried fisk frikadeller for the first time! Which is fish meatballs with a remoulade sauce.  Bornholm is known for its herring, but I wasn't quite ready to be that adventurous, so at least I tried something Danish.  After lunch we met up with the other girls (who had just woken up) and walked around town for a long time, went to a chocolate shop, and then just hung out in the room and packed up before dinner.  After dinner we went to get ice cream and all chipped in money to get The Apollo ice cream cone.  We had seen a boy earlier in the day with a large cone and we wanted it too! (But The Apollo totally beat his cone) Finally Denmark actually made something that can uphold the "large" name...because this was gigantic. It was a huge cone with tons of soft ice dipped in coco powder, then 5 scoops of ice cream on that, and then another cone stuck into it with soft ice and sprinkles on top, and then finished off with a Danish flag!

Soon afterwards we loaded onto the bus and headed for the ferry.  I had a cabin again and was glad I was able to sleep a little bit.  We got back into Copenhagen around 7:30AM, and I had class at 8:30 so I had no time to go back to my room! Lets just say I was a little out of it during classes, and was very excited to get back to my room, but despite exhaustion and sore muscles, the trip was great!