Any nervousness or excitement I may have felt for my journey to tvind was quelled by tiredness. Yet again, my flight was 7:30 in the morning and that meant getting up at 1:30 to catch a coach to Heathrow aiport at 3:00am. I'm a person who finds it nigh on impossible to sleep while in transit, so I alleviated my boredom by listening to music and thinking about what lies ahead for me.
Fortunately, I had no problems at the airport as I've flown enough times now to know what's acceptable and not acceptable to bring on a flight; `twas a breeze! I had a little time before boarding the plane so wanted to grab a cup of coffee or tea or something. Unfortunately, I only had some Euro coins on me and no sodding place accepts coins - only notes. So I sat down, cursing the stupid fucking system that allows shopkeepers to hand out change but then not accept them. Couldn't even exchange the bloody things!
Flying was enjoyable as always. I always seem to get the window seat and like to look down at the land below. Viewing the agricultural fields and cities from around 30,000ft is, I find, breathtaking. I felt like a giant observing an ant colony.
Billund airport is relatively small, and it took very little time to grab my backpack and wait outside for the bus to take me to Give train station. Not having any knowledge of Danish trains or the Danish language left me confused so I asked some lady for help, and she obliged. I only had Danish kroner notes and the ticket machines do not accept notes. If only they accepted Euro coins, eh! The kind lady offered to pay by card, but after rummaging through her bag, she found that she did not have it on her. She spoke to the driver and he told me to hop on board anyway. So luckily, I managed to hitch a ride on the train for free! The train journey was rather pleasant and the interior of the carriage was better than a 1st class carriage in England! After about an hour on the luxurious (and free) train to Holstebro, I hopped on another (not free) train to Ulfborg where Romas came and picked me up and drove us to the school.
It felt good to be back, although it was really quiet compared to my last visit; many students were out of the school working or travelling I guess. Michael came and met us in the common hall and we had a brief conversation before I was shown to my room. After having travelled quite a bit of distance, I fancied a cool shower and then relaxed for a bit before unpacking some of my stuff. It wasn't long before I started helping out with chores though!
During dinner, I reacquainted with Gaile who is also part of the 2015 team. It was good seeing and speaking with her again. Later that day, I also got introduced to another team member - Dariush - with whom I would share a room with during my stay at the school.
Life at tvind consists of doing a lot of work and thus during my stay, I was given the tasks of cutting grass, trimming the hedges, cleaning carpets and also doing general cleaning. I think I mentioned in a previous blog post that everybody at the school helps to maintain the place. Much like any job in general, we work after breakfast and finish at 5pm, where I used the free time to socialise and/or practice playing my ukulele. One evening, some of us went to paradise (the name of our little camp/bonfire site) to play our instruments and sing songs.
There's an activity that some students like to do in the evening and that's dumpster diving. I was interested in trying it myself so one evening I opted to join, as did Gaile. We drove to Ulfborg and stopped off at a couple of locations that usually wield good results for the divers. This time we were also quite fortunate. The shop's workers had chucked out perfectly good fruits, chocolate milk (we obtained maybe around 20 cartons of the stuff!), pastries and various other foodstuff. I ate a freshly dumped chocolate croissant and it tasted delicious - tasted no different than buying one from the shop. It's astonishing to see just how much perfectly good food gets wasted just because of the seemingly arbitrary date of expiry. Ah well, free food for us I guess.
Of course, since I was new there and partaking in the saving up period, Michael and Romas discussed what we would be doing and how the common economy works. They also informed me that I would be hitchhiking to Munster, Germany where I would work. Having no experience hitchhiking before, I admit I was quite nervous. I had assumed before that I would be hitchhiking with Honza, but since he wouldn't be arriving for another few days and they wanted me to go pronto, I would be going by myself.
Lady luck was on my side once again as a chap called Erwin - a friend of Annelies ( another 2015 DNSer), offered to drive me to Munster as its kinda on the way back to his home in Netherlands. Gladly, I accepted and breathed a sigh of relief. Although I know I am delaying the inevitable...
So I had one more days stay at the school and Dariush suggested that our team do something in the evening. We decided that the four of us (myself, Dariush, Gaile and Michael. Annelies went to Legoland) go down the beach for the sunset. It was a pleasant evening and we discussed various topics and hypothetical questions like how would we achieve world peace ( I would turn the world against me much like Lelouch from Code Geass ending), and also talked a bit about ourselves and our motivations, whilst drinking tea and eating cake.
The following morning was spent packing my stuff and relaxing. Us 2015 DNSers sat in the common hall and talked for a bit before saying our farewells and good lucks to one another. We departed at around 11am I think and what should have been about a 6 hour journey ended up being about a 9 hour journey due to a lot of traffic at the Danish/German border. We did stop a couple of times too!
