Whirlwind First Week in Copenhagen

I flew with Emirates so the flights were more evenly split than when I went via France and the planes were FAR more comfortable. In fact the flight from Johannesburg to Dubai was in an A380, the biggest plane in the world, it's two stories, and the inside is pressurized to a higher level than a Boeing 777 or most other planes so it's more comfortable with less dry feeling air. The seats are also much m0re comfortable. Nevertheless, between the two I still preferred flying with France because with that trip, its 11 hours of flying, which is just SO LONG but then you get to Paris and it's only 2 hours left of your journey (after the layover, however long that might be). But with going via Dubai, it's an 8 hour flight, technically quite a bit less than 11 hours but still feels really l0ng, and there is still a 7 hour flight to go! That emotional leap to make is quite tough.

Anyways so during the flight I watched the first season of this show called The Flight Attendant, it has the actress who played Penny in The Big Bang Theory, and bonus points if you recognised Kaley Cuoco as Billie from the 8th and final season of Charmed! It's really great and funny and has such a catchy intro.

I got up to episode 7 of 8 episodes in season 1 on the first flight and thought I would continue on the next flight.

Anyways so we landed in Dubai and it was my first time ever being in Dubai and since the UAE has a strict reputation for law enforcement and all that, and therefore I was so super prepared in terms of bringing my 3 months supply of prescription medication (eg blood pressure etc). I had the doctor's note and script and everything was all in its original packaging, everything was textbook. I need not have worried so much because when I got to transit security, although there were signs all over saying that you need to take off your belt, shoes and take laptops out of the bags, the security told us that none of that was necessary and that we could just place the whole bag through the X-Ray machine.

So Tawana and I breezed through security and began the long walk through the second biggest building in the world by floor area, and let me tell you, it truly is massive. It's so big that there are these golf cart taxis and even golf cart ambulances zipping around everywhere. We walked at a fairly brisk pace for about 25 minutes all indoors and we probably only covered one third of the airport (and even then, not the whole airport, just the terminal 3 which I believe entirely is filled with only Emirates planes).

I was really thirsty so I bought the most expensive bottle of water I've ever paid for, which was a 750 ml bottle of Evian for about R135! I drank almost the entire bottle in one go. We waited for our connecting flight and met up with our colleague Timo who had flown in from Cape Town (but on a Boeing 777 not an A380, I guess the route isn't busy enough to justify the expense of using the A380). He was very lively and awake and was telling us about the GPT AI thingy and how he has found that it can write some pretty decent programming code, not just generate news articles and do conversational stuff.

We boarded the plane and this time it was a Boeing 777 and also had the really comfortable seats. When I turned on the entertainment screen I discovered that although they did have The Flight Attendant season 2, they didn't have any of it from season 1 and I still had the 8th episode to finish! So I decided to try and sleep on the plane for a bit, but probably only got 20 minutes sleep over 4 hours of trying.

Eventually we landed in Copenhagen and that was when I first noticed just how dark it was even though it was about 1pm. We went through the passport control as this was our first entry point for the Schengen area and the lady asked me what was the purpose of my visit, and I told her that I was starting a new job here and she gave me a kind of quizzical look as if to say, really? Here? Why? She asked me if I had been to Denmark before and I said yes, in March and also June of this year and then she sent me through. 

I had 5 bags to collect from the baggage collection and waited by there. After a few minutes my first one came, one of the giant duffel bags that I ordered on takealot. After a few more minutes the next one came through. Then somebody pressed the emergency stop button on the carousel and the whole thing stopped of course, but didn't restart again. So we waited and waited for about 20 minutes, me still not knowing if the rest of my luggage would be coming out or not and I began to panic a little bit. Eventually though it restarted and the rest of my luggage came out. Timo and Tawana helped me push the trolleys and we went through the nothing to declare customs area. I had again over prepared for this step by reading exactly what one is allowed to bring into Denmark and I had all the print outs ready to prove that everything I was bringing (ie my clothes, my 2 screens, all the associated cables etc) were allowed just in case they wanted to do a random inspection but almost to my disappointment, nothing happened and we just went thr0ugh. We hailed a cab nearby to take us to our hotel and a rather grumpy driver loaded up all our bags (mostly my bags as Timo and Tawana were just coming for the week business trip). He wouldn't let us help and even put us in the back row of the van and closed the seat in front of us so we were practically imprisoned there. Then when we arrived at the hotel he got out and just kind of threw/let all the bags in the boot slide out and crash to the floor.  All in all not the friendliest driver, and I can understand being grumpy at all this luggage but he wouldn't really even allow us to help. 

I checked into the hotel at around 2pm. The hotel was quite familiar to me (and us in general) by now as it was the same one that I stayed at on the previous two trips. I was so exhausted that I simply cannot convey with mere words how much I just wanted to sleep. Tawana mentioned the idea of having a nap and then getting some dinner but I was pretty sure even then that I was going to pretty much sleep right through to the next morning. I asked if the hotel had some kind of wheeled thingy to help bring all my 5 bags to the room but they said they didn't have any, which is kind of crazy to me, that a fancy hotel like this one wouldn't have such a hotel essential item. However Tawana and Timo helped bring all the bags up to my room and so we basically did it in one trip, but without their help I honestly might have just broke down into a puddle of tears right there at the idea of such an obstacle in my way of sleep.

I went to my room and unpacked my CPAP machine and clean passed out until about 8pm. I saw some Whatsapps on the group of Timo Tawana and I suggesting dinner from about 2 hours prior and I was totally fine that I missed it as that sleep was worth it. I can't even remember what I did next but I did also note a text from Steven (my team lead) with this really helpful set of instructions:

A very helpful and necessary tip from Steven!

I set all the alarms as Steven suggested and then went to sleep. I woke up the next morning and went down for the incredible Hotel Sankt Annæ breakfast which includes fresh smoked salmon, sausages, smoked turkey slices, amazing scrambled eggs, tons of different health shots that you are supposed to drink in one go (eg ginger, green juice etc). They also have these amazing pastries.

We took the metro into work, first buying a one destination ticket of Ørestad as the end stop because Claus would be giving us our week passes later when he saw us in the office. We already knew where the new office building was as we went whilst they were still busy finalizing the interior of it in the June trip. I remember they were still deciding the carpets and decor at the time so it was bare concrete floors last time we saw it. Steven met us near the entrance of the building, he actually came running up to us to give us all big hugs! We went inside and said hello to everyone and got settled on which desks we would sit in for the week and I had a bit of work to finish up from the previous week do to. We had our daily status meeting and Steven mentioned how unusual it was that Tawana and I were in the room with him and Shawky (the four of us are on one team/unit). He said that Bogdan had a surprise for us later that day about what we would be working on for the rest of the week but that essentially we should finish up whatever task we were working on by today because we wouldn't be doing our normal scheduled tickets for the rest of the week. 

We then had a meeting with Bogdan where he revealed that the big surprise was a hackathon! Exciting stuff. Basically in this context, we were to split up into teams of 2, for a total of 4 teams. One should preferably team up with someone that one doesn't usually work with day to day, so in my case that ruled out Tawana, Steven and Shawky for me, and we would be spending Wednesday, Thursday and Friday morning working on something out of the box but still work related. This could be for example a feature that we always wanted to have become a part of the systems, or something even more esoteric and distantly related to the product offering of the company. I know this is all nerdy talk but it's all really exciting stuff to a programmer to tell them that they can work on anything that they would like and that there will be presentations and a committee to evaluate the best hackathon project!

After the meeting we went down to the canteen for lunch where I discovered the iPad Juice tap which is just the coolest thing ever. 

I then had what I was the most excited for which was my Covid bivalent vaccine booster vaccine plus flu vaccine at Copenhagen Medical in Fields (just next door to the office). Steven came with me to help me find the place and the receptionist confirmed my appointment and noticed my accent and it turns out that she is also South African (and P0rtuguese). 

The covid boosters are currently only being offered for free to over 50's in Denmark (or in people younger than 50 if they had a matching condition) but I found out that there was an option to be able to get it if you wanted to pay. Since I want to be as protected as possible I was more than happy to pay whatever it cost, which was only 229 kr. I got the vaccines all in the same left arm so that if it got sore for a few days at least my right arm that I use for the mouse would be okay.

I am feeling pretty tired from all this memory recollection and typing so I'm going to take a break now and I'll put up the second half of this article a bit later!