48 hours without money in a foreign country - Part 4

Thursday morning

I wake up early, 6:10. The whole house is still asleep. I get up quietly and go to the bath. When I am ready, Alexandra appears and we start the day with a meditation. It´s balancing an empowering effect is every day again a miracle.

And then...we have to hurry!! I tidy up my things and get dressed. A quick breakfast, I am glad I also can contribute something: 2 small packages of nutella from the day before.

Alexandra is a bit late. She takes her bike and indicates me the road to take for the city. We hug and our good-bye is affectionate and cordially.

Once again I feel how fast and intense bonds can grow in the shortest time.

The street lying before me seems endless. I feel that today I have no mind to walking and decide to hitchhike. I only did it once in my schooldays and remember still how frightened I felt to go with someone I didn´t know.

Today things are different. I am in the mood for a chat and interesting encounters. Only – nobody stops. I try several tactics, change the place, but still I am ignored.

Finally I start knocking on the cars´ window, asking politely to give me a lift. That works, the 4^th knocking is successful and a young woman gives me a lift just into the center of the city. She lets me out near to the subway station I had arrived first two days ago.

I want to contact Gabriele, one of the women who also had offered me a place for the last night. She is a friend of Kaya, who had offered me the subway-ticket from the airport to Copenhagen City. Kaya has linked us via facebook and added that Gabriele was German and an alternative practitioner, just like me. The evening before we had talked briefly and agreed to meet before I would leave Copenhagen. It had been like talking to an old friend.

In search for free wifi I watch out for a hotel and ask two guys, who are having a cup of coffee in front of a still closed restaurant. They indicate me one just around the corner. It doesn´t look really welcoming. I don´t enter and walk back in direction of the subway-station, crossing a sunny square where merchants are preparing their stands for a flee-market.

But still no wifi. I follow my instinct and walk to a large place with halls. In front of them benches and tables, arranged casually. As it turns out, this is Torvehallerne, the   famous Copenhagen market-halls. Here I have access to free internet, cozily sitting on a bench, enjoying the warm morning sun. It is round 9:00 am now.

I call Gabriele. She still has to do and wants to call me back. For me thats fine, it gives me time to find some food for the day. I have no idea how, but I am confident there will be a solution.

While I still sit in the sun, weighing different possibilities of Nina-food-logistics, a young man with a cart appears, walking to the other end of the forecourt. Onto his cart there are many boxes, most of them filled with vegetables.

In a flash I realize, where I am truly here – at the market halls!!! What a stroke of fate again!

Quickly I follow the young man, asking him whether he is going to discard all these vegetables. “Sadly yes”, is the answer. Christian offers that I may take whatever I want and invites me to come round every morning. He feels ever so sorry littering food. I take some nice carrots and we talk for a while.

Another merchant arrives with a cart; crammed with crates full of fruit, ready for the dumpster. He too offers me to come every morning for the previous days´ leftovers. I chose five excellent and aromatic pears, just in the perfect state. They are not hard, but still far away from being soft. What a bliss!

Now just a bit of pastry and I´m done for today. I walk over to one of the halls, where there are several bakeries. 

I ask for something to eat and tell about my experiment. The shop assistants explain to me, that every evening they donate all leftovers to homeless people. I love to hear this. A precious project where everybody benefits from.

When I turn around to walk away, one of the young women grants me quickly a small pastry-roll.

All the stands in is Torvehallerne are decorated beautifully, it is pure pleasure to have  walk around and just look.

In front of a stand with artisan chocolate I stop and enjoy watching their accurate designed pralines. Surely sometimes one of them is not perfect or breaks, could be, couldn´t it? I kindly ask, introducing myself and my project.

The manger at first is reluctant, then she likes my story and gives me a package with four gingerbreads of finest quality. They were supposed to be round, but in this package there are two round and two oval-shaped and she cannot sell it.

I thank her for this delicacy and return to one of the tables in the sun of the forecourt. A look at my watch tells me that in less than 20 minutes I had gotten together enough food for the whole day.   

To be continued.

Please share, if you like my story!