My son Kevin has described an in-country experience, particularly when you don’t know the language or the layout, as a time when you feel lost and stupid. This certainly describes Earl and me at the end of Day One in Copenhagen.
Since we had to get off the ship early, we made our way to the Andersen Hotel in hopes of storing our bags and heading out to sightsee. But our room was ready at 10 AM – Imagine that! – so we settled in and then headed out.
A few blocks from our hotel, we discovered the Hop On-Hop Off bus, a marvelous way to see any foreign city. You pay one fee to see many sights and can hop off at any of them for a closer view before hopping on to the next one. Actually we’ve done this in Key West too.
We saw Tivoli Gardens from the outside (just four blocks from our hotel), the Little Mermaid up close and personal, Hans Christian Andersen’s home, and many royal residences as well as public buildings. We even visited a local grocery story and were surprised that there were no big shopping carts, only little baskets. But when there are more bicycles in Copenhagen than there are cars, you probably just purchase what fits in your basket. Lemons and limes, by the way, are about the same price as they are where I live in Michigan.
We learned that Denmark is a monarchy in the same fashion that Great Britain is; the Queen and her family are well loved, but she has little power these days. It wasn’t always so. Recorded Danish history goes back at least twelve hundred years and includes the Vikings, conversion to Christianity, the famous King Christian IV, more than one great fire, and occupation by the Germans in World War II.
We also learned that many Danes helped their Jewish citizens to immigrate to Sweden, which was not occupied during the war. In addition they tended their gardens and livestock; so when the war was over returning Jews fared much better than they had in Amsterdam, for example.
We ended the evening with dinner at a local restaurant where the bill was 600 Danish Kroner; in American money, that’s about one hundred dollars. And, as we drifted to sleep, we heard someone yelling in Danish outside our window; perhaps it was Hamlet’s ghost.
Copenhagen has never been on my Travel To-Do list, but after a day in the city I’m glad we’re staying over. Feeling lost and stupid has been worth it.
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