Copenhagen, the Dream Comes True

Once we'd just finished school, a proper rite-of-passage trip simply had to take us very far from home. By train you can't go any further than the Arctic Circle, and so that's where we decided to go. Marco and I, after five years spent at desks right next to each other, decided to set off on our real first trip. From Bologna, by train, waving goodbye to our mums, at 18 and then some, heading for Northern Europe.

Bologna, Milan, then Switzerland, then Germany as far as Hamburg, where in a bleak station dozens of bleak skinheads were staying. From Hamburg, after a few hours of waiting, in Germany's already cold night, we set off for Copenhagen. We arrive there the next day, at dawn, and a city awaits us that is already very cold, but sunny, and alive. Denmark was evidently in fashion, because there are loads of people, there are lots of tourists, especially young people, especially with backpacks. Like us, in the end. We have a hard time finding lodging, but in the end a hostel, in a room with 50 other kids, finds us a spot. And it's not bad, because we meet some other guys from Bergamo, who will accompany us throughout our stay in Copenhagen.

We have a good time there, between a visit to the Little Mermaid, a few museums, and the transgressive Christiania, the city's enclave neighbourhood, where "a bit of everything" goes around.

After two days in the capital we decide to set off to do a tour of the country. We get as far as Arhus, passing through Odense. A terribly flat land, Denmark, which in the naivety of our 18 years would even seem a bit boring to us, if there weren't so many, but really so many, beautiful girls. Who have already started going to school, because it's late September. And we, in those days, saw quite a few schools. But our time in Denmark is about to end. We go back to Copenhagen, and from there, by ferry, off to Sweden.