Copenhagen

Tom got me to O'Hare Airport in good time. For the first time ever in my life, I walked right up to the SAS counter, showed my passport, hefted my luggage onto the scale and walked away 30 seconds later with my boarding pass. With three hours and five minutes before our flight, I headed over to Terminal 1 to intercept my sister, flying in from Phoenix. It's really fun being able to go on this trip with her, and share these memories with each other and with her daughter and my niece, Charlotte.

The flight is uneventful, if quite bumpy. I'm usually good about sleeping on the plane, but I seem to be keyed up this time; I do get a few hours of sleep, and Beth does, too. We won't be total zombies when we get to Denmark!

Going through customs is easy; as in every other country in the world, just go through the door marked "nothing to declare". The other door is marked "idiot". Of course, we really don't have anything to declare...other than we're happy to be on this trip together, and eagerly awaiting exploring a whole new country.

It's a cold, rainy day in Copenhagen (pronounced with a long "a", according to Charlotte). Getting the train from the airport to the Central Station in Copenhagen turns out to be very easy. We have purchased the 72-hour Copenhagen Card, which will give us free access to buses, trains and the metro as well as most museums and other tourist sites. Once downtown, we easily find our hotel, the Savoy, about five blocks from the station. It's in an area that is vibrant with restaurants, bars and shops. Tomorrow we will do a lot of exploring; for now we just take a short walk after checking in to the hotel.

After that we meet Charlotte so the poor girl can get something to eat. She has had finals all day long and is starved! She looks tired and I imagine she is! After her finals and final papers due, we will have to help her pack up and clean up before we leave for Paris. For now, conversation with her mom and aunt, and a little pizza, pick her up. As she leaves to return to school to work on papers, Beth and I head to the hotel for a little R and R before our dinner.

Dinner at Restaurant Spicylicious turns out to be excellent! I would never have chosen it because of the funky name--sounds like a tourist trap, doesn't it? But my chicken curry is spicylicious, and Beth's tofu thingy is spicylicious, so trust your guide books rather than my intuition. With our stomachs full, we return to the hotel for a good night's sleep before our first full day in Copenhagen. Sweet dreams.