Vordingborg, Denmark - Polarsteps

Simon made us a really nice breakfast with pancakes, coffee, and his mother's homemade bread. He gave us a bag full of hardboiled eggs from his chickens for the road, and showed us his gas mask. After letting him walk on the treadmill in his garden, fully geared up, we set off for the nearest town on the island, Burg. We stocked up on groceries and high calorie snacks at Lidl, as we had been told multiple times that everything in Denmark is super expensive. We also got some cheap German alcohol for trading as Danes apparently love to drink. Olivier's ankle was acting up so we hitched a ride to the ferry at Puttgarden. The ferry was massive and full of commercial shops and duty free stores, although we could only find a couple of rubbish sheets of paper to use for hitching later. Upon arriving at Rødby, the terminal smelled like burnt plastic and was almost deserted. Despite there being a lot of people on the ferry, very few got off. It was a kind of Hotel California situation and we were confused. The only way out into Denmark was down a big flight of stairs, no elevator, so we had to carry the cart down. It was super heavy and banged on every step, and I laughed hysterically until real delirious sobs started coming through. This resulted in the thin metal rod of the cart snapping. We bodged it back together with elastic cords and walked slowly to the adjacent village. There Olivier bought two hotdog breads from Aldi and we began to hitch. Eventually a lovely old lady picked us up, who spoke zero English. We spent fifteen minutes trying to fit the cart in her tiny vehicle, and she was very patient with us. After a silent and slightly awkward ride, she dropped us off at the next town on the highway, where we began to hitch again. Almost fourty minutes went by with people responding bizarrely to us - waving, giving thumbs up, middle fingers, one lady stopped to explain to us that the train station was only 15 minutes away. Finally, a very kind Romanian couple stopped after having driven past us a couple of times and taking pity on us. They explained that hitching is extremely uncommon in Denmark and might even be illegal. The man was a welder and he said he would try to weld the cart back together that evening, and took a piece away with him. We gave them a bottle of wine and they dropped us off outside our Warmshowers house in Vordingborg. Klaus was our host, and his house was extremely beautiful - it was furnished with sleek designer sofas and full of paintings. He explained that he worked with the local town hall as a kind of culture and education officer, and informed us that there was a wonderful theatre play taking place in town that night. After eating ravioli with him and taking a shower, we went to see the play, titled Brøl. It totally blew us away, with acrobatic stunts and a really intense narrative centered abstractly around relationships. We were then exhausted, mentally and physically, and went back to Klaus and to bed.