CHAPTER EIGHT

At seven o'clock in the morning, we were on a train, going to Kiel, a northern city in Germany, after which we would take a ship to Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. My uncle was busy with planning our adventure, while I sat in silence, worried over our coming journey. We soon arrived in Kiel, and discovered that my uncle had miscalculated the time of the ship's leaving. We were in Kiel in the morning, and realized the ship would not leave till the evening. We were forced to spend an entire day in Kiel before leaving for Copenhagen. Finally, the day passed, and at a quarter past ten at night, we were safely on the moving ship.

The next morning at ten o'clock, we arrived in Copenhagen. We quickly went to our hotel to shower and get ready for the next day. The hotel clerk spoke Danish and English, but my uncle, who spoke several languages quite well, questioned the clerk in good Danish.

My uncle soon arranged for us to take a small ship to Iceland. When the arrangements were made, my uncle was overjoyed at his success in finding a ship to take us. He eagerly thanked the captain of the ship, who was quite surprised at my uncle's excitement, as he rode to Iceland quite regularly. The captain, of course, did not know of our plans to journey to the center of the Earth, as this secret would be kept from everyone. Seeing my uncle's great happiness at going to Iceland, the captain decided to charge us double the fee to go there, but my uncle was not bothered by such details. We would leave on June 2, going to the capital of Iceland, Reykjavik.

Until we departed for Iceland, I spent a great deal of time walking around Copenhagen, thinking of my darling Grauben. What delightful walks Grauben and I could have taken along the sea, but my darling Grauben was far away, and I wasn't sure if I would ever see her again.

My uncle was not concerned with the beautiful views of Copenhagen, but he did take interest in the sight of a tower on a nearby island. After spotting the tower, he declared that we would go there, and immediately arranged for a small ship to take us there.

"We're going up there," my uncle said.

"But it will make me dizzy!" I exclaimed.

"That is the reason we are going. You must get used to climbing, as we'll have to climb a mountain in Iceland, then climb down to the center of the Earth."

"But ... "

"Come. Let's not waste time."

I did become quite dizzy as we walked up, then down the many stairs of the tower. After coming down the stairs, I felt tired and sick, but my uncle was not concerned with this.

"We'll do it again tomorrow," he said.

For the next five days, I repeated that exercise, which made me rather dizzy each time.

(end of section)