6-1-99
Got up, powered down breakfast, grab our stuff and hit the T-bana for the ride to the Uber Central Station. Took the same bus back to the airport that we took coming in and relaxed. Once at the airport we had a minor scare. We got in line to get our seat assignments and boarding passes and we got in what we thought was the shortest line. But regardles of how many people are in line if the line doesn't move it really doesn't matter. The person working our line kept having to ask the guy next to her for help. Then I noticed that the guy helping her was processing his line faster then her even when he is helping her. Then she gets frustrated and shuts down her stand. Now we have to scramble over to another one. Getting a little anxious. All worked out though because the person who finally ended up helping us turned out to be an airport stud. He got us veggie meals even though the request had been erased from the computer again (argh). He put us in the exit row for more leg room. He then helped us with figuring out how to come home a day early. On top of that he helped us change our flight to Amsterdam. Initially we were flying in the middle of the day. Now we are leaving in the morning. After all that good fortune Jo decided to push it a little. She found this deal on Duty Free perfume and felt she really needed it since it helped the ol' stinky cast. So she finds me and asks me for some money, planes leaving in 10 minutes. She doesn't even flinch when she asks me. About 7 minutes later she is racing back, perfume in hand to get on the plane which is fully boarded already except for us, but she made it. So scare over. Prior to that we did make some room reservations. We still have no where to stay for one nigh in Paris but everything else is booked.
Flight was quick and on time. Our hotel in Copenhagen is not so good so we go to the TI in the airport to get a better one. We get something which could be better, but we won't know until we get there. We buy a 10 klip card for riding the train and catch the nice train into town. The airport is really close to town so the ride is a snap. We walk to our hotel which is in a pretty marginal part of town. It is dirty and smelly with a lot of construction. We get our room and realize that it sucks really bad. It is clean, but it smells. The bathroom is a good 60 feet down the hall. This does not sit well with Jo who gets up at least two or three times a night to pee. We resolve to try and find something else, just about anything else. Our first impression of Copenhagen is not very good. It is infinitely smokier, dirtier and crowded. The other two countries have spoiled us bad.
We eat some lunch at an AYCE pizza buffet next to the train station. It is run by these nice indian fellows who cook some veggie pizza just for us and have a few indian cold dishes mixed in with the pizza. Pretty good over all. We decide to continue our quest for the final booking in france. We go to the train station because it has everything, phone cards, fax machines and tons of people going in and out. It is a mad house. It shakes when the trains come in and everyone pretends not to notice. I try once again to get Dad a dannish rail t-shirt. Going to have to talk to somebody in these outfits on how to market themselves. I guess when you are the only game in town it really doesn't matter much. France has our faxes now, hopefully something will turn up.
We scout some more hotels looking for a better booking. We are going to have to suck it up for a night. Since we are feeling low about our hotel and a little homesick we decide to eat at the Hard Rock. American restaurants are actually existant in europe, grass is greener principal. The HR is built against Tivoli Gardens. If you have never been to Copenhagen or heard of Tivoli, let me tell you. It is the very first permanent amusement part in scandinavia. It is well over 100 years old. It was established by the Dannish King to avoid a revolution. It worked and the park has existed ever since. So it is now d-land or magic mountain. But truly dannish. It is a quiet night tonight and not very crowded. People in business suits keep coming in in droves. I have a sneaky suspicion that all the traveling business people are brought here by the locals since there are many nice restaurants and it is half price at night. Why they don't change before they show up I have no idea. We enter Tivoli to kill some time since we are not quite hungry. Tivoli would be squashed by the killer rides at MM andthey have a thing or two to learn from disney about parting you and your money. But it has a distinctive European charm. The whole park is filled with little lights making it twinkle at every step. There are several bands playing jazz or waltz music. We take a break and watch this totally wacky tumbling act by an obviously amateur gymnastics club. The group is made up of all ages and various levels of skill. No one is particularly good at the disco steps they have liberally sprinkled all over their act, A for effort, C for coordination. The people in the audience loved it and gave them a standing ovation. Must be family. Our dinner at the Hard Rock was great. Very american. Our waitress had just finished her undergrad in the US and so we chatted a lot. She went to some school in Ohio. She study sociology so Jo and her talked a lot. She had absorbed an awfully skewed sense of america by spending most of her time in Ohio. Very interesting.
We walked slowly back to the hotel. Dreading every step. That evening the hotel was infested with screaming teenagers who were running up and down the halls. I swear Jo had to go to the bathroom twice as often as the night before. She woke me up once because she couldn't sleep and misery loves company. We decide in the morning that sleeping on the streets would be better and resolve ourselves to checking out.
6-2-99
Stupid kids running down the halls are probably still snug in their beds. If I knew which room they were in I would go pounding. We hurried down to our comp breakfast which was pretty darn good. They even had danishes (snicker). We walked into the TI just as they were opening for the day. We get a new booking in a hotel on the other side of the train tracks, with a bathroom. In a place called Hotel Danmark. Crossed our fingers and ran to Absalon to check out.
The new hotel turns out to be great. It is in a much nicer part of town, across from city hall and the national museum. We drop our stuff off since it is way before checkout. Off to the national museum. The weather is fantastic. I could be wearing shorts it is so nice. It is free day at the museum! The museum is exactly what I wanted to see. The viking exhibit is extensive covering almost 700 years of history and talking about all tribes including norwegians and swedes. Cool rune stones and other viking things like boats and swords. If you bother to see the whole museum they will take you from 0 A.D. to about the late 1700's. They have english artifacts which were obviously permanently loaned during a raiding party way back when. We spent the whole morning there.
We went hunting for a christmas shop and ran into an Indian place we decide to eat at for lunch. Worked yesterday, why not today. It was very good, AYCE buffet again, indian food only. The conversation behind us was interesting, it was two journalists, one japanese, the other german discusing africa. Uncommon. The xmas store turned out to be next door practically. Got lots of xmas goodies. We almost passed out purchasing them because the cashier/owner just stank of B.O.
Back to the hotel to check in. The room is fantastic. Best room yet. Even better then Leo's (and a little more expensive. It is on the top floor facing a courtyard looking out to the spires of some of the neatest buildings in Copenhagen. We are enjoying Copenhagen today. Went to the post office to mail some more stuff to ourselves.
We then went on a hunt for the resistance museum. This took a while because RS's directions were vague and no one there seemed to have even heard of it. The bus ride to the museum was great providing a tour through the best parts of Copenhagen for only 2 klip. Got off at the Osterport stop just like RS says. Then get blank stares from all the locals, because they have never been there. We start walking and see the whole royal park including the stupid mermaid sculpture. We seem to walk forever and eventually stumble on the museum.
We find it with only 30 minutes to closing. We turboed through that sucker. Fortunately the Danes didn't really resist the Germans so the museum was small. The king had made some interesting deals with Adolf and the Germans occupied Denmark for the whole war. It provided most of the goods the Germans needed. They pretty much profited from the Germans. The one bright spot of all of this non-resistance is that most of the Danish Jews were spared. They had to go to the ghettos and go to concentration camps but they were specially marked and given special treatment. We got our monies worth in that half hour. Another facet of the war to see. Ran into a badger from Madison on the way back to the hotel. He had to say something about the rose bowl. Whatever. He was on an exchange program. and he was partying all the way. The weird thing was that he was an engineering student, very uncommon for engineers to go to Europe. It usually happens the other way around. Back at the hotel we ask for a good restaurant for fish, Jo is craving. The receptionist tells us of three. All three were quickly shot down by us for either being booked or for not serving anything we would eat. We finally asked what a Turbot fish was because everyone was serving one, the waitress pulls out this old dusty cooking tome with this positively disgusting dead fish picture of a turbot. We were gone. By this time it is well into the blood sugar danger zone so we just go to the first cafe we find. We order some simple stuff and it turned out to be great. Not anything like what we wanted but it worked out well enough.
Strolled home through the great walk street shopping district. The evening was still bright and weather was still holding out. It was fun to people watch and stroll. Got home so Jo could crash. We have an early flight tomorrow so I try to get to bed quickly too. Somehow I couldn't avoid getting yelled at for not going to bed sooner, oh well. She is pregnant. Took me about 5 seconds longer to fall asleep. Probably because I was too comfortable.