Wednesday 24th October 2018

Another night of not enough sleep, and the sound of traffic outside brings me back into the world of the woken, and despite it being my first night in the hotel, I have to pack and leave, as I will be in a different city by dark. By lunchtime, in fact.

I throw everything in my case, dress and check out, stopping for quick breakfast of fruit followed by Nutella rolls and coffee. Sweet coffee.

I drive to the office, park outside and wait for my three colleagues to arrive so we could set off north to Aalborg.

They arrive, with the Project manager laid low with flu, so she agrees to sit at the back of the bus so not to infect us, but then again I still haven’t shifted the cough I picked up in New York.

It is a 90 minute drive north to Aalborg, through identical Danish countryside, it all looks the same. I am warmed by the fact I see signs to t village called Aars.

Aalborg is a large town, and seems attractive enough, even if the roads into town were being rebuilt and sudden lane closures taking the new visitor by surprise.

We arrived at the hotel, but I find that parking is in an underground garage, and careful measurement and inching down the ramp reveals there to be less than an inch clearance for the bus. In fact the radio antenna had to be removed to make it possible, then there was the parking of a bus that steered like a bus in a restrictive space.

But it is done, we had arrived, and let the fun and games begin. Literally.

Once we had all arrived, we played a game called Outbreak or something, designed to show how cooperation can win the day. But we fail and the world is lost in two hours.

And after lunch, the real fun begins, as we are introduced to two actors who had arranged a role playing afternoon for us. We were to be drug dealers, and take part in three scenarios and learn whether to negotiate or not on a matter of dealing in harder drugs. To make it real, the role playing too place in the city with more actors, and having to arrive within two minutes of an agreed time.

We soon got into it, and in our small group I was to play a hopeless gambler who needed money, and I developed the character into quickly threatening casual violence to a former friend who was trying to set up a new deal. That happened beside an old railway roundhouse, and I was more interested in that than the game, but the whole afternoon was great fun, our turn being rounded off by visiting a Russian mobster who tried to pressure us into dealing in cocaine.

Once we were all back in the hotel, we had a debrief, then a route march across town to a micropub for a couple of hours of beer tasting!

And no, this was not arranged by me.

We had a half dozen small glasses of different beers, some better than others. We all talk, getting louder and louder, before we are lead down cobbled streets and past timber framed houses to a posh restaurant where we could order what steak we wanted. And a bottle of wine for yours truly.

By the time we had eaten, and a crème brulee for me to round off for me, it was gone half ten again and I was seriously tired. So I walked back to the hotel, up to my room to crash out, too late to call home again.