Homeward via Copenhagen and Seattle 3/9-12

Homeward via Copenhagen and Seattle
Thursday, March 09, 2006

We got on the ferry at 11am, just barely. It’s bigger than the one we took from Denmark and the crossing is more than twice as far and as long in time…..1h45m vs 40m. This ferry is also pretty cool – a perfumerie and a travl shop, both duty free. There are two café’s, one midship and one panaromic; a seafood café and a steak café. All of them, the eating places, are a bit higher than normal but not gouging. You can use both euro and dkk.

Driving again about 1pm and in Copenhagen about 4. The drive was thru farm country, forest and dale, mostly covered with snow….. and flat. There were scattered churches, villages, a few larger towns, and even some deer. The rest/auto stops continue to be fun stops.







After several tries at several full or too pricey hotels, we finally registered and got our luggage into an Ibis about one block from the central station, took the car to the closest parking structure and walked back to the hotel to settle in. It is so cold they should not allow people outdoors.




At about 8 I scurried over to the main station and chilled to the rattling bones stumbled into O’Leary’s at the station – a lively Irish bar with decent food. I had an excellent philly steak sandwich rivaled by nothing in Hawaii…..much tender beef tidbits, the green peppers, much onions, cheese (similar to cheddar but gooier) and a unique twist, jalepeno – most of which I avoided and then, erroneously, I tried them thinking they would keep me warm against the cold – wrong! But, the biggest thing was the size, this baby was huge, you could never ever eat it like a sandwich – you had to cut it up in sections and then take a shot at eating it. It was grilled to perfection – the cook must have been raised in the shadow of the Liberty Bell.

There are hundreds of bikes all over the place, sometimes 30-40 in a place and they are rarely locked. Turns out you just take a bike and ride it and leave it; when you need to ride again, you go to the alley where there are maybe 10-20 and you take another...they just keep cycling. Some are special, personal, so you lock those.

My sister decided that the Ibis was not for her. I concurred. The shower was such that you wanted to wear slippers and not touch anything. Walking on the carpet seemed akin to walking in the farmyard barefoot when I was a kid and I would get switched for doing it. The room, tho, was unusually big and room to lay everything out and they had a good internet set up. So, I got on and after some browsing found a place called the Mercure, a sister ship of the Ibis corporation, aka, ACCOR – which owns many hotel chains, including Motel 6 . Ibis is known for bare boned, inexpensive rooms but they have always been clean…so this place was a surprise.

Got on the internet, made the new reservations and looked at some mail, chatted with Stella but soon tired and was sound asleep by 12. Won’t admit it ever, but as I fell asleep I think I wished I was home already!

Friday March 10

We were up and packed into the car again by about 930 and we took a test run to the place we drop the car. While on the test run we got the car washed and it looks great again but more importantly it has all the salt and chemicals washed off, including under. Came back to the hotel and the room was ready so we settled in. The room is very nice, typical 3*, not as large as the Ibis, but clean, clean, clean.

We half ran half walked to the central station – it is sooooooooooooooo colllllllllllld as Liane would say!!!!! Ran right by a Hard Rock, and found a pizza/salad buffet ($9) that looked good and after verifying there were no feathers involved, we had lunch. Guess I had missed pizza as I did pretty good, even ate some greens, peas and corn to keep the rule maker happy. The best version they had was a sort of Hawaiian style, second best was the pepperoni and the vegetarian was fairly good. The crusts are a bit different, not thin, not fat, not crispy, not doughly, sort of in between all of them….with a coka lite, tho, was ono.

It’s 3pm and I’m in the room catching my blog up, arranging my clothes so I can get them all set for the flights home. Maybe a nap.

It was just too cold to go out again – about 15 degrees maybe less with the wind – so I worked on the blog – adding pictures. Don’t know if I’ll do that again, turns out it’s a lot of work and sometimes can take forever moving pictures into the blog with the internet connections. Anyway, it’s been fun.

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Was up and walking out to the site across the blocktowards the Stroget (the very long pedestrian mall_by about 945…this was after a breakfast of scrambled eggs (no feathers), bacon, 4 juice, 3 coffee, 2 danish, and some cheese. The blast of cold air as we left the hotel was numbing, but ever the hardcore shopper, I trudged on. Kathi quit after about 30 minutes claiming the wind was too much for her – at that time, turns out it was about 15f with the wind. It was full blue skies tho so I knew it had to warm up to at least 20f…….i think it made 22f independent of the wind factor.

I walked the entire Stroget and up to the Israel square (turned out to be nothing)….walked several of the side streets also and some of the Gamla Strand, a street running along one of the inland lakes in the city. Mother Hubbard on the Gamla Strand?










Another interesting site were some erotic sculptures with this sign

At about 130 I was so happy when I found a Chinese Buffet – think Buffet 25. It was not bad at all and it certainly hit the spot!




There are hundreds of all unique shops and some of them really have fun names It's fun to see all the kids out and around and they think it's normal, of course to them it is normal and perhaps even a warm day, there sure is a lot of blue skies.

Don't know if I've mentioned it, but I've not seen a single Starbucks since leaving Berlin....and in Berlin there was maybe one or two, I think. And "Desperate Housewives" is popular in all the cities we've visited......and it's not uncommon to see expensive furs on girls wearing huggers, heels and levi's.


It’s about 4 now and I’m back in the room thawing out – warm is good!!!!!


Sunday, March 12, 2006

The weather was beautiful when we got up and out from breakfast. It’s sameo cold but totally blue skies.

Today was Carlsberg Brewery tour.












The most impressive thing was the collection of 16,000 different beer bottles collected over nearly 300 years. The tour was self-guided so it was great –











we even got to see the horses,
more or less the same as the Bud horses except more of them. Horses in the German and other European breweries have been used forever and still are.









The funniest thing about the tour were the PUBLIC restrooms for men and women.

We then went to see the Little Mermaid. Wow was it cold over there by the water.














Now back in the hotel thawing out and enjoying sun glowing thru the window as I type.

About 730 we waddled over to the Hard Rock Cafe and the skies were clear, a full moon, the air crisp (pfftttt it was frigid) so i tried to grab the moment for eternity - the moon is so small compared to realitya href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5398/962/1600/a%20hard%20rock%20niter.jpg">


Also got one more shot of the mass of bikes at the Central Station, half of them mysteriously removed on Sunday afternoon and a posting that the rest would be removed nest week.

Back to the hotel and to bed by 10.

At about 730 we decided we were hungry enough to freeze so we bundled up and waddled over to O'Leary's - turned out to be standing room only because of a big soccer match so we went to the Hard Rock Cafe. The night was perfect, full moon, clear skies, crisp air (pppfffffffffffttttt, it was frigidly life threatening). I tried to capture the moon and the HRC sign for eternity but alas, you can hardly see the moon. On the way back to the hotel I took one last picture of a portion of the massive number of bikesat Central station.



Back in the room and WARM by 10.