Vagarious: (adj.) erratic and unpredictable in behavior or direction
When I first booked my flights to Copenhagen through Icelandair, I hesitated…a lot. I had heard extremely mixed reviews about them and I knew I wanted to check a bag because I had anticipated bringing beer back home. A common thing I had heard about this particular airline was their habit of losing bags…but, I did it anyway.
Ugh.
I had a great flight, slept the whole time, and was ready to take on the world! Off I went to baggage claim to get my obnoxious and beautiful Tiffany Blue suitcase, and I waited along with everyone else on my flight…and I waited some more…
An hour went by when I finally accepted the fact that my bag was gone. Awesome. So that was bad thing 1 of 3.
At Copenhagen airport, you don’t go to “Lost Baggage”, you go to “Baggage Services”. The only problem is that there are about four different baggage service areas and each only services specific airlines. Finding the one that serviced Icelandair was an absolute nightmare! It was literally a 20 minute walk away from where I was supposed to have been able to pick up my bag. Bad thing 2 of 3.
When I finally got to the front of the queue I was told that my bag was still in Keflavik, Iceland…
Oh?
Okay.
Cool.
Because that makes sense.
Things could have been worse, it could have been totally MIA so at least they knew where it was. But still, literally all of my sweaters were in there and it was supposed to be a cold week in Copenhagen. Thankfully I had a jacket with me, but that wasn’t going to be enough for hours of walking outside…
“But Jenn, couldn’t you just buy a new sweater? I’m sure the airline would reimburse you.”
You’re right, Icelandair does have a policy that they’ll reimburse you for all reasonable necessities, and on top of that I also had travel insurance that would do the same. While that is all fine and dandy, I had budgeted very specifically for this trip and spending $60 on an unneeded sweater just to wait at least a month to be reimbursed was definitely not in my budget.
“So you would rather freeze?”
Honestly…kinda. The kind woman at the counter assured me that my bag would arrive in Copenhagen the following afternoon, so I could sacrifice being cold for one day if it meant staying within my budget.
I was told that my bag should arrive at the airport by noon, I would receive a call shortly after, & it should be delivered by early evening. Perfect…aside from the fact that I didn’t have a phone in Denmark… (Thankfully I learned that there is a setting on iPhones that allow you to make calls over WiFi, even when your phone is on airplane mode).
Now that I was about an hour and a half behind schedule, I had to figure out how to buy the Copenhagen Card so I could get to my AirBnB. All the signs in the airport lied about how to get to the proper stand because the airport is under a bit of construction so I had to ask someone. Once I finally got it, I was ready to get to a hot shower and a warm bed.
Navigating the train was easy enough…but the busses were another story. Once I got to Norreport Station there was no one around to help me figure out which bus was the correct one. By some miracle I guessed and took the right one.
But, once off the bus, I couldn’t find the apartment building anywhere. Google Maps kept telling me I was “there” but it was dark, I was exhausted, I didn’t know the neighborhood…I walked around for a good 20 minutes before I finally found a 7/11 with free WiFi. Bad thing 3 of 3.
Once I got WiFi I was able to contact my host who came to find me. It turns out I had actually walked by it about 4 times.
Once I finally got up to my room, I couldn’t stop crying. What was I thinking? Why did I think I could do this? I wanted to go home. I was all done with Copenhagen and had already decided it was not for me. How on earth was I going to last another week in this horrible place?
Dramatic? Maybe. And I cried even more because I knew I was being absolutely ridiculous. Crying uncontrollably over a few bumps in the road is very much not like me, so I reached out to a wonderful group of women travelers that I am part of on Facebook for support. They were absolutely amazing, and many reminded me that I needed to go find food. My fiancé also kindly reminded me that it had been almost exactly 36 hours since I had been in a proper bed.
36 hours?
Oh.
Well that explained the hysterics.
So I grabbed an amazing kebab at a place called Kebabistan down the street from the apartment. (Seriously, absolutely incredible. I even went back the next night…) After dinner, I took a long hot shower & settled into bed for the night.
Let’s fast forward a bit to the following afternoon… As mentioned above, I was told I would hear about my bag by about 1PM…next thing I knew it was 6:30 PM and I had still heard absolutely nothing!
After quite a bit of nagging on both mine and Mark’s parts, I finally got word of my bag and it was delivered around 11:15PM.
Note to self: Never check a bag with Icelandair again unless your first and final destination is Keflavik.
Copenhagen and I were off to a rocky start…but I didn’t choose the name Vagarious Wanderer for nothing (this just wasn’t what I originally had in mind…)
Click here to read about the fresh start Copenhagen and I had!
If you want to skip ahead to see how I ended up feeling about Copenhagen at the end of the trip, go here.