Day 1 :: Copenhagen

Tuesday morning, 11 Sep 2007

I'm sitting in the lobby of the Park Inn here in Copenhagen (that's Copen-hay-gen to the Danish, Copen-hah-gen to the Germans, I was corrected by the agent reviewing my passport) at the beginning of the second day of my trip.

I flew SAS for a second time - it's a very nice airline. Sat in the middle section of four-across seating, though, and didn't sleep much, or well when I did. We had a late dinner and an early breakfast, and both were very good. My daughter flew British Airways to Prague recently, and arrived hungry. Not so with SAS.

In any case, I found a taxi when I landed and made it to my hotel. Small, small car - I'm a few inches over 6 foot, and barely could squeeze myself into the back seat. I'm close to the airport and far from downtown. Took a nice walk over to the ocean, though. Day was cool (60's farenheit, I'd say) with a little sprinkle of rain. The beach looked quite nice, though nobody was there swimming. I'm sure the water was quite cool, as well. Being far from downtown wasn't bad - I had wanted to try to see a few sights, but it turns out to have poured rain later in the afternoon.

The hotel has a nice restaurant and bar. I had trout for dinner, with some small red potatoes. It was really quite good. Their breakfast this morning was good, as well. It kind of puts the "Continental Breakfast" we receive at US hotels to shame. They offered all kinds of things: meats and cheeses, including thuringers and danish summer sausage, real scrambled eggs (not powdered), kashi cereal, large rolls with butter and jam, juices and coffee. They don't seem to be too worried about their butter; they seem to be rather proud of it!

Guess I needed my sleep last night. Ten hours! I haven't slept that long for quite some time. 'Course, I slept little on the plane, so when I dropped into bed last night I had gone from 5:30 AM Sunday to about 3:30 PM Monday (10:30 PM in Denmark) on what . . . two hours sleep . . . maybe?

Other observations: lots of English is spoken here. By the people working at the hotel, those eating near me in the restaurant (some French, some German, some Danish) and on the radio. In fact, except for the announcer, you'd think I was in the States. (All rap, too; what's up with that?) The lady at the front desk (or what passes for a "desk" - two kiosks) spoke not with a Danish accent, but with a decidedly British one.

When I was in Las Vegas earlier this year, and it was time to return to the airport, my wife and I noticed two tour busses parked near the smaller hotel shuttle bus. They were soon filled with people from the far east, touring the area (Hoover Dam, et al). This morning I came downstairs to piles of suitcases stacked at one side of the lobby waiting for - two tour busses filled with people from the far east.

Oh, and the "exchange" here at the hotel is quite slanted in the hotel's favor. where I get an exchange rate of 5.4 DKK per dollar on Yahoo!, the hotel is offering 4.85 DKK per dollar. That looks to be a 10% commission . . . is that usual? Think I'll have to find out. Of course, if I continue to use my corporate card and purchase directly, I get the best exchange rates.

A little about energy use: Lots of bicycles here. What I think of as 1960's vintage - balloon tires, no extra gears (single speed), coaster brakes, baskets. I saw one lady biking down the street with what appeared to be a 4x4x4 basket on the front and her small child standing in it (where was my camera?), complete with zippered canvas top and sides.

The hotel has signs asking you to be careful about how much water you're using to shower, with an explanation that only 10% of the world's water can be used for drinking. And another feature that I've never seen before - in order to turn the lights on in your room, you stick your plastic key into the slot of a switch that runs all of the lights. Take your key with you when you leave and all of the lights go off. I guess that's not a bad idea (think of all the lights kept on in Las Vegas all night!); I've just never seen it before.

It's been a little over 45 mnutes since my co-workers flight landed at CPH. They're picking up a car and meeting me here for the ride to our company's facility in Fredensborg. With the need to get through customs, get their luggage, arrange for the rental car and drive over here I think I've got a few more minutes to wait. But I think I'll complete this post and switch over to Sudoku for the remainder of the wait. 'til later, then . . .