“You okay?” I
asked the Goodwife.
“Yes,” she
answered. She kept fumbling around with
her plastic pouches filled with bottles, jars, pencils, tubes, whatever. She was working in the semi-darkness
illuminated by a shaft of light coming through the slightly ajar bathroom door.
She disappeared
into the bathroom. I tried to go back to
sleep. It was our first night in Copenhagen. We left Denver at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, flew
through the dark into tomorrow, landed in day-lit London, changed planes, which
in London means going through security check all over again.
We flew Norwegian,
transferred to another Norwegian flight in London, never left a secured area,
yet when we followed the signs to the correct gate, there they were, the
security folks, wearing plastic gloves, waiting for us. Empty pockets, remove belt, the whole bit.
I had my Samsung
tablet in a pocket of the bag containing my sleep machine. It went right through in Denver. In London, they mildly chastised me: all computer devices out, on top, nothing
covering it.
I started to
remove my shoes. NO, no, no, we don’t do
that here. That’s only in the USA.
We landed in Copenhagen
early in the afternoon Wednesday, but we had been at it for over 24 hours.
Sune, a foreign
exchange student who came to Kansas and spent some time with us 20 years ago,
was kind enough to meet us at the airport.
He took us to our hotel and helped us check in. We were too early for that, so we stowed our
luggage and took a little walking tour of the area, ending in a coffee shop.
Sune left us at
our hotel where we did get checked in and tried to rest for a couple of
hours. Sune returned for us at 5
p.m. He took us to his house, maybe 15
minutes away where we met his family, toured his house, a very nice house, and
had a great classic Danish dinner—a pork roast with the skin still attached, roasted
so the skin was pleasantly crispy.
We spent the
next few hours catching up on the old times and generally having a great
time. Sune arranged with our next
hostess to meet us at 11 a.m. in front of our hotel. Then he returned us to our hotel where we
collapsed at last into bed.
“I’m going down
to get a cup of coffee,” the Goodwife said as she shut off the bathroom light and
turned towards the door.
“There won’t be
anybody there,” I said.
“Why
not?”
“It’s the middle
of the night.”
“No it’s
not. It’s seven o’clock.”
“How do you know
that?”
“That’s what my
cell phone says,” she replied. I dug out
my tablet. Sure enough, it said 7—7 p.m. I Googled correct time of day. 3 a.m.
I showed her the
result. She melted. Back to bed she went, makeup and all. The next time we woke up, the time of day
said 9 a.m. The breakfast place at the
hotel closed at 9 a.m.
We drug ourselves
down the street a couple of blocks where we found a bakery that also served
coffee and tea. We lugged our purchases
back to the hotel lobby where we indulged in our first Danish breakfast. We ate in the lobby because our room lacked
table or chair. It was pretty small,
with a bunk over the double bed we slept in.
A ladder to get into the bunk was thoughtfully provided, hanging on the
wall by the doorway.
We checked out
of the hotel shortly before eleven. We
stood on the sidewalk in front of the motel, waiting for our hostess. It was quite pleasant, really pleasant compared
to some of the weather that was to come.
We were ready for our next adventure.
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