Transport in Copenhagen, Denmark

I really liked the transport in Bangalore. And if you come to know about it, you will also like it. Here we don't find autos... We can travel by Trains, Metros, Buses and Taxis. Taxi is the costliest means of transport.

They have divided Copenhagen city into 99 zones. And here you don't have to take pass between two places. Instead you have to take pass for few zones. Like I normally travel in three zones 1,2 and 31, so I took pass for 3 zones. The passes are divided into 2 zoner, 3 zoner, 4 zoner, 5 zoner, 6 zoner and all zoner. Minimun you have to take 2 zoner pass. Now most important thing is if you have pass for particular zone, you can travel in that zone using either train, metro or bus. So it depends on your wish.

Check out the zones ... http://www.movia.dk/Priser/hovedstadsomraadet/zoneoversigt/Documents/Zoneoversigt.pdf

One more interesting thing is if you have to find way to go between any two places we can see that in one of the websites - http://www.rejseplanen.dk/

One more incident.....

6th Nov 2007...

Today morning I was coming to office. On the way I have to catch the bus. There I saw some dannish lady giving smile to me. She was around 15 feet away from me. I was thinking about why did she give me smile. I didn't give any smile to her because I didn't know her. Then I was just thinking .. and then suddenly I realized that she is also Indian and we met in Bangalore...She is from ITC. Then I went and talked to her... Two days back she came to Denmark, but because of her attire she was looking like some Danish lady.

Incident.....

Two days back, I was coming to office... and I was not sure about where I have to get down from bus. I was with few ITCians....so I was not worried also.

Then at one point, bus stopped and one of the person with me thought that it is the stop, so he asked me to get down. I got down and he was going to get down, immediately somebody said that this is not the correct stop. And the stop where we want to go is one stop ahead. But the doors of bus were closed, so couldn't help. And then I had to walk to the office, which was around 0.5kms.. But anywas morning exercise is good for health. (We should always find out something good in every mistake. There is saying .. 'Bhagwan jo bhi karta hain achhe ke liye karata hain'). And from that time I will never forget the right bus stop as well....

Path Finiding Mission to Office... first day in Denmark!!!

It was my first day in Denmark. I was with my team mate in company guest house. We got up early, got ready...and stared our work... It was really cold outside and it was my first morning in Denmark.... As we were having the office address, we thought it will be easier to go to office.... but it wasn't. We asked one person about address, obviously in English as we don't know Danish. He didn't respond, I guess because he was not knowing English. We asked few more people, but most of the answers were.. "I don't know, sorry..." or " I am new at this place. " or "The place where you want to go is in different town, I don't know how to go there".. and bla bla bla..... we might have asked around 10-15 people till then.. but we also didn't have any other way except taking taxi and for which it would be around 2000 rupees.. so we continued our operation "Path Finding Mission". Then we asked address to one lady. She told us to take one metro train and then another train ..... She wrote down everything on paper.... I thought it will take around 3-4 hours to go there.

So we took first metro... I went inside and my friend was outside, the door was closing....and he thought now he can't come inside...and he couldn't.... Oh my god... now it was a problem...both of us don't know where and how to go...till we didn't have mobile numbers... we couldn't contact each other... We will realize the importance of mobile in such situation. So I instructed him from train that I will be getting down at next station. And to my surprize, the next station was our planned stop where we had planned to get down..... so I just got down on next station and waited there for my friend. He came in next metro....

Then we took another train, we got down at destination. Now our mission was to find out our new office. It was a Bank Development Centre. So we started asking people where is this Bank. There was somebody from Iran or Pakistan who was knowing little bit Hindi, he showed us the bank... Bank was there, we though its open and as it is software company, nobody would be outside.. We entered through some door. We went inside, nobody was there on ground floor and there was a stairs to go up. But by seeing at the whole office, till then we realized that it is just a bank and not the Bank Development Centre.

Then we again started searching for the address that we had. After asking few people one of them told us to take one bus. As per his instructions, we took the bus. We got down at the correct point. Then we were on the road on which our office resides. Now we were going on the road. We wanted to ask somebody about where is the office, but nobody was there on road in the early morning around 10am. After going much inside, we saw our Bank...It was around 10:20. So totally it took around 2 hours. Oh it took less time than we expected, its because all the trains, buses were in time.. And so far they are always in time in Denmark. Thats good about Denmark.

And this way we finished our "Path Finding Mission".

Bangalore to Denmark!!!

Due to company onsite I travelled to Denmark. It was my first international journey. And I must say I really enjoyed it.

My journey plan was -

7:30 - 8:00 Bangalore to Chennai 30 mins

1:30 - 11:30 Chennai to Paris 10 hrs

6:30 - 7:30 Paris to Copenhagen, Denmark 1 hrs

We started around 7:30 pm from Bangalore to Chennai. There I saw recorded Laughter Challenge program in plane. I think it was KingFisher airlines. Its really good. We arrived in Chennai around 8:30 pm, there one of my friends bag got some scratch in handling by airlines people. So we went to the airlines people and asked for some replacement or some kind of arrangement. But they couldn't help as they said that its not possible to replace it in 2 hrs. So we just launched the complain and we proceeded towards International Departures.

Then after going there we checked in our luggage, and then went for Emigration check. There they asked us few questions about when will you return, where are you going and bla bla bla....

After sitting idle for 2-3 hours on international airport, when it was 1 am in midnight, we got into our flight which was at 1:30 am. It was Air France flight whih is really good.. its nice, you have tv screen in front of you where you have some recorded programs, also there are radio channels. So you will be always busy in fliat either eating or seeing some program or doing something else. There must be some fundamental reason behind these Airlines people for keeping us always busy when we are in flight. I have seen this in almost all the airlines. They don't want to miss a single chance to serve us.

During booking the ticket we had given food preference as Special Veg Meal. So while they were serving us dinner, initially one air-host came and he pasted one sticker on our seat saying special veg meal so as to identify us. We were happy that we are being treated specially. Here I am mentioning we all the time because we were actually three friends travelling together. Then we got some dishes with some veg food.... it was ok. We should not say bad to food. The taste was good but quantity was less. Also my other friends were happy as they serve rum, whisky in plane and that is free. After some time my other flight mates got there normal food.... which was same as special veg meal with some additional curd and sweet. Then I realised what does it mean by Special Veg meal. Then in the night I saw few comedy programs and then slept around 4 am or something.

When I got up in the morning, 2-3 hours were remaining to reach to Paris. So there was a bit excitement that I am going to see Paris. Then after finising important morning work, I had my breakfast. Here important morning work has also got a story with it. In Air France they don't provide water in toilet, they just have toilet paper. So we have to do some idea to get water or have to use paper. I saw some bottle inside toilet and then I didn't miss chance to use it :)

We landed in Paris around 8:30 am EST in the morning. When we came out of air-plane, outside temperature was around 4 degree celcius. So when we came out and we breathed and through air out of our mouth, it was hot air. We could see it as if we were smoking.. And it was freezing cold outside. So we can say that it was really a cool experience.....

Then we finished our Emigration Check. If you are coming to Europe, you have to do this check in India International Airport and your first point of entry in Europe. My first point of entry in Europe was Paris, so I did my Emigration check there. There the lady office who was doing emigration check was sitting with another person. Both of them were quite young, chitchatting with each other, doing some jokes and enjoying.... so they didn't bother to ask us any questions.

And one more thing is, Paris is the first place for me to start observing European beauty. So you can imagine, I don't think I need to tell you everything. I can just say that everybody was looking good :)

Our next flight from Paris was at 3:30 pm EST. So we had around 7 hours gap. So we were thinking about going in city and seeing Eiffel tower. So we enquired to some french people about that, and they said, 'Yes, its possible. But are you sure that you will come back before your next flight?'. hmm.....there was big risk of missing the next flight. Also we had luggage with us, and if you want to keep luggage on airport in some place, they would be charging you in Euros.... so we cancelled the plan.

Then we made calls to our relatives to India to tell about our safe journey to Paris and then we just roamed inside air port. We saw some type of train there which was very good. The Paris Airport is the biggest airport I have ever seen. Its very very big. So after some airport seeing we started searching for some hotel for lunch and after much search we got our lunch at some place. It was around 12€ for 3 people. And there was no taste to the food otherwise it was good.

At 3:30 we started our journey to Denmark. Now in this flight it was different experience. Most of the things were in Danish. No..no .. wait wait... i am not sure whether they were in Danish or in Finnish... But it was different than English.... Like for me Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malyalam all are same languages, because I don't know any of them. Same case here. We reached at around 7:30 pm(11 pm Indian time) to Copenhagen, Denmark. So it was a safe, 24 hour exciting journey.

We arrived on Copenhagen Airport, then called on of my friend and asked him the guest house address. As the guest house was not fixed until I came to Denmark. Then we took taxi and went to the guest house, my friend was waiting there.

He just told us that today is Sunday and most of the shops will be closed. It was 7 in the evening. I thought we will get some mobile card, but that day it was impossible. Then I just took my friend's mobile and called company HR to ask about office address and how to come ot office.. But he just told about the office address...He was not knowing the way to go to office. Then my friend left. Then my flat mate and me we went in PIZZA Hut. We took one pizza for some 50 Kroners.. i.e. 350 rupees. that was quite big and sufficient for both of us. Then we just went to our guest house. We watched TV for sometime....and then slept....