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A Local Encounter that Changed my Perspective - Such a sweetheart

DENMARK | Friday, 19 April 2013 | Views [328] | Scholarship Entry

“@#^$*&^#%@&!!!!”
I did not understand a word, but I was shocked and trembling for a while when the Royal guard of the Amalienborg palace yelled at me. His cold blue eyes were haunting me fiercely. His machine gun seemed ready to shoot my head, though it was still there standing up straight in the left shoulder of their folded arms. The excitement of my Copenhagen exploration was suddenly crumbled by one sentence of rough Danish accent.
The royal guards reminded me of the British army guard whom was made fun by Mr.Bean. The image of the silly guard in his busby made me think to sneak out behind him when he was walking to the other side of the gate. There were these cute red sentry boxes standing between each gate where they hanged their red coat up on the hook inside it. My husband wanted me to run to one of them, as he wanted to take a picture of me and the cute box.
My mood was ruined, I hated Denmark already. Shortly we just walked away from the palace. The freezing December snow made my bladder’s mood bad as well. After walking a couple of blocks through Amaliegade street, I needed to go for a pee so badly. Unfortunately, we could not find any public toilet. So, we kept walking down the road and turned left onto Esplanade street. On that street, we only had one option, Kafferiet cafe. The very small cafe looked like a typical old style of Danish building painted in light green. After the traumatic guard yelling incident, I was a bit reluctant to go inside the cafe just to ask if I could use their bathroom without buying anything. But I went in anyway.
The smell of espresso was dancing and clinging in the tip of my nose. I heard several people talking in a strong Danish accent as I walked closer to the coffee bar. There was only this young girl working in the cafe. She was pretty sweaty, yet wearing this sweet brown sweater. Her hands skillfully touched the coffee machine and made the coffee orders.
I told her my intention hesitantly. She looked at me and smiled friendly.
“oh sweety, dont worry about it, please use the bathroom as much as you need it”.
I went back from the bathroom, and thanked her. But, I changed my mind. I told my husband that I decided to have a cup of hot chocolate in Kafferiet. While she was making my order, we asked direction to the Little Mermaid. When we were ready to leave, she said,
“you can come here again, if you need a bathroom after your Mermaid tour”.
Behind their rough accent, Danish people are such a sweetheart.

Tags: Travel Writing Scholarship 2013

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