Around Scandinavia: Part Two

In which a midday was spent on Turkish land

The Istanbul Airport, we landed on, is located on the European side of Turkey in the Arnavutköy district. We had to meet at a designated point for the lunch coupons at 12pm. So, everyone dispersed off. I met Amita Rane and Celine Rodrigues at the restroom. We freshened up and were back to the meeting point. It took a while for Vihar to come back. There were kiosks for accessing free WiFi. We had to swipe our passport and the screen will show a password to login to airport WiFi. Such a thoughtful idea! We were allotted lunch coupons. Vihar called out everyone’s name. Now I was sure that Swarnalata was on the same tour. We walked towards the food court passing through shops such as Turkish Delight, Baklava, etc. It gave a feeling of walking the lanes of Turkey.

After a 15min walkthrough all the counters at food court, I ordered pizza slice and wedges with water (instead of soft drink) from Sbarro at 2pm. 

We walked towards Gate B5 for the next flight. Now my body was completely out of sync from my mind and I had to drag myself to the gate. Other travelers were chatting with each other in the sitting area on the food shopping. We boarded the flight at 03:30pm. The Turkish Airline TK1785 had seat arrangement as ABC | DEF and my seat was 11A. Seema Bhattacharya was on 11C, again the middle seat was vacant. The flight took off after 4pm and I slept till the meal was served at 05:20pm, followed by coffee.

We landed in Copenhagen at 07:20pm TRT, which means 06:20pm local time, 3 hours 30 minutes behind India time. We had to queue up at the Immigration counter, few documents and questions were asked and then the passport was stamped. Later we gathered at the baggage belt, took our luggage, had a restroom break, glanced through the city guides on display. At 07:15pm we were out of the Kastrup Airport, Copenhagen, Denmark. The journey has begun. 

Nordic countries include Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland, while Scandinavian countries refer specifically to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, located on the Scandinavian Peninsula. Let’s call them as Northern Europe. The cloud seems to welcome us. 

Luggage was loaded in the bus; seats were allotted to us. I had a seat swap with Anuradha Iyer. Swati Kandalgaonkar was my seat partner. We drove to our dinner restaurant Deep Indisk, Vesterbro at 8pm. I had dinner on the table with Swati and Surekha Walke, Jennifer Joshi and Anuradha. We had to queue up for the buffet as per our table in order to avoid rush.

Post dinner, we drove towards our hotel Scandic Sydhavnen, reached there at 09:30pm. Rooms and roommates were allotted. My roommate was Manasi Paradkar and room no 1231. She had an ankle sprain. There was a long queue for the lift and we had to wait for our turn. Thankfully our room was just opposite to the lift. The happiest thing, for both of us that evening. 

We talked a little, unpacked our luggage, freshened up, etc. We had to pack a small bag for the cruise journey tomorrow as mentioned by Vihar. Done with all this, we dozed off for the day.