Journey and Arrival

I'm going to start this entry with the disclaimer that it has now been more than 24 hours since I slept (and 20 min. stretches of dozing on the flight a couple times doesn't count) and I just had a glass of wine, so if it ends up being incoherent and/or full of incomprehensible statements/spellings, blame it on that.  Kind of like the bad dress rehearsal that means the actual performance is going to be great, the last couple days prior to my trip weren't so great.  Actually, the last several days.  I wasn't sleeping well from nerves, I was frantically busy all day (not eating dinner until 9 or 10 at night), and as a result of those two things, super duper stressed.  And then Sunday night, I discovered that the fence between my own house and my diagonal neighbor's house was about to fall over, and all I could do was leave them a note since they weren't home when I stopped by.

Getting to LAX (via my lovely friend Joanne) and sitting in the lounge waiting to board the plane was the most relaxed I've been in months.  Unfortunately, that didn't help me actually go to sleep on the flight, a situation that was further exacerbated by the fact that I sat in a section with a bunch of women traveling together who felt it necessary to talk a LOT and also use the bathroom multiple times.  Since I get claustrophobic, I have to sit in an aisle seat, and that doesn't work well in a row with 60+ year old women.  Got to Frankfurt for my connecting flight and got a little lost figuring out the right gate (their fault because they changed it a couple times) and got ridiculously intimidated by the German guy checking my passport.  Even when they look about 14, when someone gives you a steely look and asks you in that stern German accent what you are planning to do in Copenhagen, it makes you stammer a little and feel guilty, like maybe you really are smuggling drugs into the country and you just didn't realize it until that moment. 

In Copenhagen, I had to do some searching for my bag (their fault since they listed the wrong baggage drop).  Fortunately, a nice woman at the help desk directed me to the right drop.  And it truly was fortunate, because a few other people from the flight were simply told by their info person to fill out paperwork and were ready to leave the airport without any of their suitcases until I set them straight.  Because of my experience traveling in Ireland for a week without my luggage a few years back, I feel a strong urge to reunite everyone with their bags, like some kind of Samsonite Superhero.

Here's what Denmark looks like from the sky (very pretty and lots of green, open spaces):

And here's Copenhagen's Central Station, which I was able to navigate my way through thanks to the instructions my hotel (which is only a few blocks away) sent me. 

So yay, I made it!  And though there were a few minor mishaps along the way, everything worked out okay in the end.

My room is a bright and cheery place, but there are a few things that had me scratching my head upon arrival.  One is this bathroom, which doesn't have an actual shower stall--just some curtains. 

 

 

This is a little concerning to me and I think I'll be moving the rolls of toilet paper (and anything else not waterproof) out of the bathroom when I take my first shower just to be safe.  I understand it's because of a lack of space, but this whole "I could wash my hair while sitting on the toilet" thing is a little strange to me.  The other thing was that for the first 15 minutes in my room, I couldn't get any lights to turn on.  When I went back downstairs (there's no phone to call down), I was informed that I had to slide my room key in this thing to make the power come on:

Pretty nifty actually, because it conserves energy AND you never lose your room key.

Here is where I give myself props for how little luggage I am bringing for 25 days of travel (I got quite gloaty when I saw a bunch of other American Tourists hauling around HUGE suitcases):

 

Perhaps the most awesome moment that I could have never in a million years predicted was Angela Lansbury's friendly face greeting me when I first turned on my TV while unpacking:

Who knew the Danes would be into Murder She Wrote?

As for the glass of wine, this was my first foray into the whole practicing-being-friendly thing.  I made myself go downstairs for their wine hour and, bolstered by the delirium of fatigue, plopped down next to two couples sitting and chatting together and totally crashed their party.  We ended up having a really great conversation that lasted almost an hour. Granted, they're fellow Americans (from Dallas/Ft. Worth) in town for a cruise that departs tomorrow, but still.  Baby steps.  If I can gain a little confidence from talking to American strangers, there's hope I can work up to talking to Danish strangers.

Now off to get some dinner and see if I can keep my eyes open until 8:30 or 9:00.