A Crohnie in Copenhagen - Story Time

 A siblings weekend jaunt to mainland Europe became a battle between me and Murphy’s Law. A weekend to rival the plot of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. Younger brother and all

My train to the airport was delayed by 1 hour. The straw to my entire travel plans camel back. Airport, Food, Security, Toilet, Water, Plane.

I was already feeling tense from travelling for the first time since COVID and my anxiety was doing a number on my insides. Once on the train I realised that I had forgotten to eat my lunch earlier. With so many food restrictions I knew chances of finding food past security that I could eat would be slim to non-existent.

Upon arrival at the airport, the security line was barely moving and our flight was “on time”. We skipped looking around at resturants before secuirity and joined the queue. Once passed security all the restaurants that catered to my dietary restrictions started closing. Murphy 3: J 0 and starving.

After an hour in the queue for Whetherspoons and after some gluten containing chicken wings it’s apt that this does remain bad. My travel anxiety and the wings started translating to nervous bowel energy. And the 5 minute bathroom break almost led to us missing our flight #crohnielife.

Exploring Copenhagen was less dramatic. A stark contrast to the apparent battle to get in and get out of the city. There’s an array of gluten free and vegan restaurants round the city. And if you can ride a bike it’s fairly affordable to explore.

You’d expect that the journey back could not be as dramatic as the journey there but somehow it took 3 trains to get 1 stop. A 18 minute journey became a 1 and a half hour quest to get to the airport.

At Central Station the train on our ticket kept getting pushed back with seemingly no end in sight, so we opted to just catch the next train that arrived. The next train made it 100m out of the station and broke down. They attempted for 40 minutes to get the train moving till they eventually gave up and we headed back to Central Station. 2 trains, 1 hour, 0 progress, 100 % stressed.

With our flight departing in 2 hrs we started looking at our options. Taxis: Way too expensive, the traffic was unpredictable and the jouney would be way too tight, also how would we get our money back for these train tickets. Bike: riding for 1 hour was out of the question.

Then the third train arrived.

We made it to airport with our flight leaving in 1 hr, and a 30 minute security line ahead of us. Leaving us just enough time to pick up a souvenir fridge magnet and run for our gate.

Lesson learned: never trust transport to the airport to be on time.