On the way to the Metro, I decided to stop at the grocery store and return some bottles. We talked about it before, but it's actually worth returning bottles here. Anyway, the machine was broken so I had to wait. While I was waiting, an old lady asked me - in Danish - if anyone had been called to fix the machine. I explained to her that someone was fixing the machine and that it should be working shortly.
Thirty seconds later, the machine was up and running again. The old lady - who had to know that I was waiting to use it - decided to move to the front of the line and return her bottles. It took forever. She only had something like five plastic bottles but it took something like ten minutes.
I love old people, but I think that there should be an age limit on the redemption center. And the self checkout. We need some sort of call system whereby the elderly are assisted in these DIY situations by grocery store staff.
I finally returned my bottles, got some cash for my trouble, and I was off. There was someone waiting in the Metro station snacking on some corn-on-the-cob. It was really weird.
I made it to the beach and got an hour of "sun" in. It was the kind of weather that I wouldn't normally sit on a beach, but I was there and committed, so why not. Awesomely I somehow managed to lose the forty crowns I gained on bottle deposits. Excellent.
Afterwards I met Jesper, one of his good friends, Marianne, and her husband for lunch at Bakken.
Both Jesper and his friend worked at Bakken for many years and had loads of interesting anecdotes not to mention insider access to the Rutschebanen!
Wooden roller coasters are awesome and this one is no exception. I didn't ride it today, but I got to check it out from the infield.
That's one of the "old" cars with metal wheels that have since been replaced with modern rubber / plastic wheels. The old wheels were supposedly much more fun and danger-y. Add to that that each car had it's own brakeman! In the last seat, a man would sit and work the brakes manually. Amazingly only one person died with this system. I was told it was a Swede who was wandering the tracks.
The emphasis on Swede here is important. Due to the expense of alcohol in Sweden, Swedes have a reputation for coming to Denmark, not handling their access to cheap alcohol, and doing stupid things. I'm just repeating reported speech here. We at watersindenmark love you Sweden.
Another decidedly non-Swede problem with the manual brake system was a conservative brakeman. If the breaks were applied at the wrong time or applied too aggressively, the cars lacked enough momentum to climb the next incline and proceeded to roll back and forth and forth and back until finally resting in a place where fun doesn't exist. Stupid physics. Someone would then have to push the cars back up the incline.
There is a small house situated in the roller coaster infield. A family lives there! Year round! Bakken is interesting in that each of the rides and attractions are owned independently - I think that there's something like sixty different owners in the park.
It was a fun day.
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