- Travel on the Rail -

The Last Part

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Finally, I woke up. It is the day I will leave the Northern Europe after all. I will take a two o'clock flight in the afternoon, so will walk around Copenhagen in the morning with attachments.

When I was eating breakfast in the hotel, the water pipe seemed to break and the water came into the dining room. The woman at the front desk is drying it, wryly smiling. She, who looks like I cannot catch if she is really a woman (sorry!), is very friendly. When I am checking out the hotel, I said,
"I am leaving for Japan today.",
then,
"Oh, is that so? See you again."
she replied so, maybe.

With carrying a heavy backpack, I walked to Thorvaldsens Museum in the downtown. It is a gallery which the works made and collected by Bertel Thorvaldsens (1770-1844) who was a Danish sculptor are exhibited. I have no idea about those and him, but since he was rated highly and internationally so they must be great. Watching intensively around the big museum, then time was up. I will give up and go to the airport.

I got to the airport by city bus at around twelve o'clock. The airplane I am going on board will be Aeroflot #579 for Tokyo, leaving at 14:05. I will make the boarding procedure for the moment. I showed my airline ticket at the check-in desk. Then, I knew that the incident had already begun.

The woman at the desk received my ticket with a smile and began typing the keyboard with skilled hands, however, her face was turning serious. As I began thinking she was letting me wait too long, she started explaining me something in English. Asking her to repeat a few times, I understood she seemed saying that my reservation had been canceled. I could hear "Helsinki" and "cancel". Unbelievable!

I claimed a few times that I had made a reconfirmation in Helsinki, not a cancellation, but she did not accept it. I had no choice but to go to Aeroflot office as she told me coldly. At the office, the man here also told me after typing the keyboard,
"Your reservation is supposed to have been 'canceled' in 'Helsinki'. Take the next flight for 'Moscow' for the moment, and ask there how to do (I could hear only the parts of ' ')."
Hey, that woman of Aeroflot in Helsinki ! I should have suspected her such too friendly behavior. Now I got that she had hidden this thing.

Also at the restaurant in the airport after that, I was in another trouble that my baggage was handled as a lost article. This was what you called one misfortune coming on the neck of another.

Anyway, I got on board the plane for Moscow. The timetable says it is directly for Tokyo, but I will have to change at Moscow. Talking with a Japanese sitting at the next to me, we arrived at Moscow after about three-hour flight. It is already dark here. Actually, it is past seven o'clock of Moscow time.

Well, I had been asked to go to the desk at Moscow to get an instruction before changing for Tokyo, however, thinking about why I have to do so, I am getting angry. All right, I will get on board the plane for Tokyo with ignoring their instruction.

I went on board the plane with watching around here and there because I was worrying KGB was following me, and took a seat very quickly. I wonder if somebody could not take his/her seat? Maybe, or not? I do not know. I am feeling stowing away. But fortunately, the plane left Moscow with nothing I was told by someone.

Just after taking off, I found an aurora out of the window. Due to "the accidents", I could not feel sentimentality of the end of this journey, but as seeing the aurora which is said that we rarely find anywhere except the Arctic and the Antarctic, I fully realized it was ending now. I will sleep a little.

When I saw the buildings in Tokyo out of the bus from Narita Airport to Shinjuku in the traffic jam on Metropolitan Highway, I thought; We know that modern architecture is surely functional, but I strongly remember that the old architecture in every city in the Northern Europe I just saw was so composed. We may have to think a little more about city's calmness and people's calmness.

"Thank you for your taking this bus. We will soon arrive at the terminal, the west entrance of Shinjuku Station."
After all, Japanese is one of the best languages!

Oslo / Norway	Helsinki / Finland
Copenhagen / Denmark	Stockholm / Sweden

(The End)

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