Our big trip this year would be absolutely awesome!! We were going to fly from Cincinnati to Newark. Then we would board Icelandair and fly to Reykjavik, Iceland and change planes to fly to Copenhagen, Denmark. We would spend the night in Copenhagen. This Blog entry will take us that far in this trip.
Before we left for the Cincinnati airport I was grateful to see a few of our flowers blooming. Peonies and irises from Utah. Nice.
We got out of Cincinnati just fine. Our plane was delayed a bit in Newark. Since we had to change planes in Iceland, we wanted to be sure there was enough time. The guy at check-in assured us they knew our plane would be late in Reykjavik and they would hold the next plane for the passengers arriving late. So we checked our bags and headed to the gate to await our flight.
The interesting thing that happened here had to do with our luggage. We packed really light. For two people who would be gone 13 days, our luggage was exceptionally light. When we checked it that man at the counter commented as he lifted the bags onto the scale on how light the luggage was. Then he looked at our reservations and asked us if we knew we had luggage fees for each of these bags on Icelandair. We assured him we did not. This air fare was booked by our travel agent. We only booked the Cincinnati to Newark and back portion. As it turns out, the rate for each of our bags would have been $65 to get to Reykjavik and another $30 to get them to Copenhagen making $95 for each of our bags. Goodness. The nice guy at the gate told us that, since our bags were so very light, he would check them but mark them as carry-on's. That way there would be no charge to get them to Copenhagen on Icelandair. However, they would ding us $190 to bring them back to Newark. Okay??? We thanked him for his kindness. When we got to our gate, I sent and eMail to our travel agent making sure he knew about this charge and that we were not informed of it. It wouldn't be until the return trip that I would understand how that was even possible.
We found a spot to sit and be able to charge our devices for the flights ahead. Looking out the window we saw something we have never seen at any airport. A birdhouse intentionally put up by the breezeway to the airplane. Since birds and planes really don't play well together, we found the positioning of this birdhouse very interesting.
After sitting for a bit, Claude got up to walk around. I stayed at our seats with our carry-on's. This little guy came up to sample some nuts someone dropped on the carpet. He obviously lives inside the terminal. I wondered if he looks longingly sometimes at the birdhouse out by the breezeway and wonders what he is missing by being trapped inside the airport. He was a cute little bird, not afraid of people in the least, and quite happy to eat whatever crumbs we mere mortals leave behind.
Eventually we boarded a very full flight to Iceland. While waiting for everyone to board and the plane to leave the gate, many of us noticed this smoke coming up from the floor. That is my purse under the seat and Claude's foot to the right with all the smoke coming up from the floor. Oh My!! The flight attendant became aware of the passengers and their growing concerns. She went directly to her intercom and told us all it was only steam and a very normal thing, there was no problem. Then she added, "I'm actually making a DVD of me singing and this is the effects for that. You'll all be in it with me!!" I suddenly felt like I was on Southwest Airlines instead of Icelandair.
Before you knew it, 5 1/2 hours of flying past and we were in Iceland. How cool it that? We made our change of planes just fine and departed for Denmark.
In another brief 3 hours of flying we were in Copenhagen, Denmark. We quickly made our way through customs and found the lovely lady with the sign letting us know they would take us to our hotel. We had to wait for 6 other passengers in our tour group but we totally enjoyed the fresh air while waiting.
Our hotel was the Copenhagen Island Hotel. Very nice. Newer. This is the view of Copenhagen from our room.
We decided to walk around a bit and find something for dinner. We needed to adjust to the time change so staying on Copenhagen time and getting to bed on that time would help a lot. There was a mall not to far from the hotel so we walked there. This picture is of the water behind our hotel, a canal if you will. If you look on the left side of the picture, there is a framework of wood. That is the boardwalk around the hotel pool area which is really the canal. Interesting, very interesting.
We didn't want a huge meal so we opted for the Danish McDonald's which was inside the mall. All the other restaurants seemed to be big buffet affairs and that was just too much food. Then we strolled through the mall.
Did you know that Lego's were invented in Denmark. We were thinking before we left Kentucky that a Lego set would be a great souvenir for Hayden and Bailey. There was a toy store in the mall with a big section at the back of the store with lots and lots of Lego kits. This picture of Claude is actually two life-sized girls made out of Legos. We decided to divide and conquer. We agreed on the size kits we would pack in our luggage to take back to Kentucky and that Claude would pick out one for Hayden and I would pick out one for Bailey in the size range. When we gave the kits to the Mini's, we explained the significance of having a Lego kit from Denmark. Turns out, in all the Lego's these two kids own, neither had the kits we purchased. Yippee!! Score for us on that souvenir front.
This mall was several stories tall with a parking garage in the basement and a parking garage on the roof. It was pretty much a square shape. In the middle, hanging from the ceiling, was this huge piece of artwork. It is made up of hundreds of little silver metal fish all swimming in the same direction. Below it was a tiered water feature with plants on either side. Very nicely done. Copenhagen is on the Baltic Sea and there are lots of fish there so their theme was perfect.
Back to our hotel room we went, set up a wake-up alarm, and lights out to get some much needed rest.
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