With the closest look you'll get into anything happening in my personal life, I'm going to let the e-mail I sent my boyfriend Chris tell the story.
I just bought an ipod wall charger. It cost $50. Remember when you insisted on me buying one because you were sure it would cost $10 and I laughed and told you you don't know what it's like here, but I would buy one anyway so we could talk when I'm traveling? True story.
Oh. And good story, because I don't know whether to laugh or cry about what just happened. I went to go get my Europe sim card for when I'm traveling. It took me two tries to get there, which I found out the second time was because the place I had to go is in the basement (a lot of shops are in basements here. You have to go down some stairs to get there), but this one was different because there was no sign, and the door was like the size of me.
I look around. Absolutely no sign of human life. This is the sketchiest door. I look for blood stains on the stairs. Non-existent, thankfully.
I went next door to the juice bar to ask where I even am, and the second the guy at the counter saw me he said, "You need to find the City Box. Next door, down the stairs. I can't even tell you how many times I day I have to tell someone. Like 10. Now 11. Congratulations."
So I return to the door and go down the stairs. I walk into basically a closet. The walls are stained with yellow splotches, there's piles of garbage EVERYWHERE. I had to stand in the stairwell because there was nowhere to stand. The guy who is manning the shop is high as hell, chain-smoking cigarettes, eating tomatoes and watching MacGyver. There are three cartons of eggs, a dead plant, 12 packs of cigarettes and piiiiiles of garbage on his desk.
The first thing I thought was, "Oh god, I'm never getting out of here. Any minute someone is going to run through the door, shove me on the floor and lock me in the bathroom in the back. And then I'm going to die from lung cancer."
The guy apologized, "Sorry about the mess. I just got mugged."
Perfect. I love going into stores that are a compromise to my safety.
Luckily, though, I saw through his lie because no windows were broken and neither was the door. And then a white dog came into the room and lied down on the mattress on the floor. Yep, there was a mattress on the floor. Next to the push cart with a coat hanging on it, three (dead) potted plants and a book called "DIY Meth Lab." There's a good possibility I was kidding about the last part, but I can't be entirely sure.
So I'm standing there with the door open because I can't breathe. I even said, "I need to keep the door open because I can't breathe."
And he said, "I'm sorry about that."
I politely said, "It's fine."
He said, "No, it's not fine. I'm not supposed to be smoking in here."
And I thought, "You IDIOT, what are you doing smoking 12 packs of cigarettes a day in a room with ZERO ventilation!?"
Then of course my order hadn't come through (though I received an e-mail saying it had... that's why I went there...) so I had to wait for a half hour in the stairwell while he facebook chatted Piccell. Can't make this stuff up. Then he tested my sim card and tried to get it out of his phone (Of course, I'd chosen the day I wandered into an ax-murderer's workshop to forget my phone at home. Before I left, I'd said to Kylie, "Now, I'm going to go get this thing. If I'm not back by 2:30, call the cops. If you think I'm kidding right now, I'm not.") by banging it on the desk. I said, "For god's sake, let me do it."
On my way out he told me to leave the door open. I did, but I think you should forward this to the København politi so they can issue a public service announcement to keep any other unsuspecting children from wandering down there.
If I don't make it to Rome, it's because I'm in the hospital getting a tumor surgically removed from my throat.
Love you!
Ashley
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