So last night, I made an early night of it with my mates down at the pub and hit the sack early. This morning, was supposed to be an early morning for me. And early it was! I had my alarm set for 04:00 and was out the door shortly before 05:00. I cycled through the bitterly cold November fog to reach the bus stop at the Bentall’s Center in Kingston. Here I caught the bus to Heathrow.
Those of you who have ready the Harry Potter novels can probably remember the chapter in the third book where Harry takes “The Night Bus.” They can be every bit as bizarre as Rowling paints them. For instance, in the back of the bus this morning was an inebriated gentleman who alternatively was singing “Jerusalem” and yelling at me “Hey! You’re an American! We don’t allow no Americans on this bus! No Americans on the bus! Get off!” after which he’d return to “And did those feet, in ancient times, walk upon England’s green and pleasant land?” This continued until he departed the bus at Hampton Hill.
The flight was good into Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. I had a couple hours to change planes and as the weather was clear and bright (as opposed to the last time I went through Schiphol) I was able to see an interesting feature of the airport.
This is a feature that used to be a common element of the airports in the US but that I haven’t seen since the seventies... Perhaps you can spot it in this picture.That’s right! Right there at the top of the main concourse there is an outside observation deck for overlooking the planes as they take-off, land, taxi, and dock at the gates. I vaguely remember the one at Miami International that ran the entire length of the main concourse... but I also remember when it went away. This was in the seventies, about the same time that the first magnetometers started being used to discourage skyjacking. How nice to see that they still exist somewhere!
The flight to Copenhagen was also uneventful. I had a nice chat with the flight staff as they were boarding the plain. The boarding process got interrupted for some reason we were never told about and I sat on the plane chatting with the flight attendants. It was a nice chat, they were all based there in Amsterdam and were making an overnight to Copenhagen.
We arrived at the scheduled time but it was pouring when we landed. I took the train into central Copenhagen and walked three blocks to the hotel. By the time it stopped raining, it was cold, wet, and the light was just flat wrong for taking any pictures. Still, it was early enough for me to take-in a museum and a walk around the city.
I may be wrong, but I’ve always heard what a lovely city Copenhagen is... It’s really a bit depressing how untrue that seems to be. Granted, it is the beginning of winter, and the small area of the city that I have seen are possibly not representative.
The Little Mermaid was not as impressive as it appears in the postcards. (I didn’t really expect the statue of liberty, but I also didn’t expect that I would be looking down at it. It is much smaller than its pictures make it look.
Don’t get me wrong, overall, I am enjoying the visit! It is an interesting town and the people I have met are all friendly. Oh, but here is a tip: Denmark is in the EU but, like the UK is not on the Euro! They still use the Kroner! Who knew?!
But that is okay... Finally, I get to benefit from a favorable exchange rate. I took 500 Kroner out at an ATM and spent almost a quarter of it on site-seeing today. Looking at the menu of the Vinkælar (Dansk for “Wine Cellar”) I will probably spend about a third of it on dinner tonight... but since the exchange rate means that one Kroner is about seventeen cents, the entire weekend will probably cost about two-thirds of the $87 dollars that I drew-out of the bank!
Right now, I’m back at the hotel... the rain has returned and I was trying to keep out of the worst of it. The sun set around 16:45 and it is getting dark. Now that the rain has stopped, I think I’m going to walk around the city now that it is dark and see how it has changed. It will be an adventure.
I hope wherever you are today you have adventures you can tell your friends about!
Don Bergquist - 04 November 2006 - Copenhagen, Denmark
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