Copenhagen Chill

Waking early despite the late night out, I knew immediately that yesterday’s slightly scratchy throat was more than allergies or lack of sleep. I thought maybe a couple cups of the hibiscus tea in our apartment’s cupboard would sooth it, or maybe the eucalyptus läckerol I picked up at a sweet shop (side note, I’m addicted to läckerol from driving around Scandinavia now)… but no. A few hours of walking around sightseeing this morning and I was done. The girls stayed out and saw more of the town, but I’ve been back at the apartment chilling out all day. Hope to sleep this off tonight before we drive back to Hamburg tomorrow.

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Stage 15: Stockholm -> Copenhagen

The final stage of the rally today and we made great time from Stockholm to Copenhagen. After great weather in Stockholm we woke to a gray and rainy morning, but we soon left it behind as we chased better weather to the southwest. For the first time really on the rally we could properly say “hot” was the best description. An abusive toll allowed us to cross a pretty spectacular bridge and tunnel from Sweden into Denmark and we were quickly into the center of the city and cleaning up in another awesome Airbnb apartment.

We were among the last, if not *the* last, teams to arrive at the finish line party just a few minutes before 18h (what we’ll have to become re-accustomed to calling 6pm when we return home). Indeed, a few teams had already left to begin the long drive home to southern Germany as they had to be back at work on Monday. A fantastic spread of food was laid out for us to feast upon, and everybody set about congratulating each other on finishing. I tried purchasing a few drinks at the bar, but refused to sign a credit card receipt for Kr1510 (over $250)… oops, bar mistake, but they couldn’t seem to reverse the charge! Yikes. They assured me they would correct it before the billing reconciliation over night… we’ll see. The finish line ceremony awarded us a glossy certificate and basking in the glory of being last place among cars in the RoadBook competition, earning 8 out of a possible 25 points! Well earned if we do say so ourselves, given we skipped Russia, and put in a pretty creative interpretation of some of the tasks. The only team to earn less than us was a motorcycle team, but several teams didn’t do the RoadBook at all, so I think we accurately placed about middle of the pack.

About midnight, and in actual post-sunset darkness for the first time in a couple weeks, most of the remaining teams filtered off to bed, and we drove back to our apartment to park the car, but went out to meet up with another team and the promotions girls at a Scottish pub. Copenhagen never seems to sleep, people of all ages were still riding bicycles around town until all hours, and even parents out walking babies in strollers at 2 in the morning. Leaving quite early we were back at the apartment to sleep by 3 (most bars close at 5).

The rally is officially over and we have just a few days left before the trip is as well. Vi ses snart i Seattle!

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Stage 14: Stockholm

Today was more meandering around Stockholm. Originally we were going to drive to Oslo today, but having to go to Copenhagen tomorrow would only leave us the 1 night in Oslo and with an over 7 hour drive to get there, it really didn’t make sense. We had a free place to stay in Oslo, but bensin (aka gas, petrol, liquid gold) is so dyrt (aka expensive) in Norway that paying for an extra night to stay in Stockholm is the same, if not less. It was nice to have a lazy day to wander around Södermalm neighborhood and see the city from the other side of the water today. We also took care of some rally mission tasks, develop film from our rally cam, and pick up Swedish vodka for our Baltic Rally local vodka collection. Today was also Romanda’s birthday, Happy Birthday Ro! The three of us went out for a fancy dinner in Gamla Stan and came back to the apartment to polish off a bottle of wine.

Been touristing so hard I’m still slow on photos, but I posted some Helsinki pics finally!

Tomorrow is the last rally stage, drive to Copenhagen and party at the finish line!

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