Day 23

8:00am - woke up a few min before I had set my alarm. Interestingly, I didn't really sleep well any of the nights in Amsterdam. Not sure why as the bed seemed comfortable enough and all. Anyway, I hadn't packed last night at all so I packed up.

9:30amish - went to breakfast where it was the same nice guy as yesterday. Ate the same food as all previous days. I was the only one there so we chatted a bit. He is a dancer and going to Lebanon soon to practice some project. He mentioned getting callbacks for a part in a Utrecht production of Dirty Dancing!!! So of course, we talked about that for a while. LOL!!! He's not affiliated with the owner of the hotel at all - he is just working there periodically doing breakfast and whatnot. After I ate, I went back to my room and finished packing up.

10:30am - went across the hall again and checked out. Was no problem and was nice that this small hotel happily took the credit card. I pulled my bag up through the breakfast room because it was about 4 stairs instead of a whole flight. Took the Tram 4 to the station, then bought my ticket to the airport for 3.60 using coins in the machine. Made a 10:59am train and was at the airport by 11:15. Pretty nice let me tell you.

11:15am - found where my airline checkin was and went there even though I am like 3 and a half hours early for the flight (not like I had anything else to do!). This airport is big, shiny, sleek, and modern. My flight was already up on the screen (as were many flights even later!). I found the transavia.com (my airline) desks and they had computer kiosks! So I just checked in on there and picked an aisle exit row (hey the flight is just over an hour but might as well be comfortable lol). Then I could just drop off my suitcase at the baggage and go through security. They had interesting multicolored trays for all your stuff. I set off the metal detector but since I had zero metal on me besides a necklace and a ring, I was a little baffled. Anyway, she patted me down and said thanks for cooperating. I was like, well duh I have nothing to hide search me all you want LOL!

At the bank they had an exchange machine. I figure it was probably a pretty bad deal but I exchanged a little under 20 euros for 100 Danish Krones. I feel better about it because now at least I have a little money upon arrival in case my ATM Card or something doesn't work in the airport. The 5 or so euros I probably wasted is worth it for peace of mind knowing that I have some money to arrive with. The Danish Krone bills are so fancy! One side has like a Viking man/animal creature on it LOL

Inside security there's a huge shopping area - anything you could want! There's even a big communications area where you can buy internet access, etc. 16 euros for a whole day of wireless or 6 euros for a half hour. Well forget that LOL

11:45am - found a table with an outside view in the Food court. I will get something to eat in a little while and just chill and read about Copenhagen before the flight takes off.

12:30pm - got a slice of pizza at Sbarro (yes SBARRO LOL) and a bottle of water, it was expensive but good preparation for Copenhagen I guess.

1:15pm - find my gate, which is at the end of the earth (although on the signs, the airport so kindly tells you how long the walk to the gate area is LOL). No plane yet.

2:15pm - supposed to board, no plane yet. Finally the plane comes around 2:30pm. Then it takes forever to get the people off, then it takes an even longer forever to get boarding open. Finally on the plane about 3:00pm - only 15 min after the plane was supposed to take off. Flight time was actually just about 1 hour so we ended up landing not too late.

4:15pm - land and I find a restroom and go to the luggage carousel my flight was on and the carousel was moving but there was a whole lot of luggage on the belt ready to drop down, and I see my suitcase sitting there as if it was the first one from my flight or something. Awesome. LOL. Follow the signs to the train and buy a ticket, it was 28.50 DKK or about $5 - not bad for an expensive city, when you consider that London's equivalent is still like 7 pounds or almost triple that. Apparently I could have paid for the ticket in one of pretty much any major currency, and they would give the change in DKK. I should've paid with a US$ note or something LOL. Anyway, made it to the platform just before 5pm and a train to copenhagen station was leaving in about 5 minutes. Perfect. It came, I got on, and in about 15 min it smoothly and silently glided towards the main Copenhagen station.

5:15ishpm - get off the train and the station is HUGE. Follow the exit signs and BAM there is Tivoli Gardens. Took me a few minutes to find the tourist office and I was kind of rushing because I knew it closed at 6pm on Sunday, but I made it. Took a map and a whole other ton of paperwork. Little did I then discover that one of the city's famous bakeries had a little outlet ATTACHED TO THE TI office. How convenient :) So I bought a "chocoladebolle" or something like that - aka a CHOCOLATE BALL hahaha. A round pastry with chocolate on top (and maybe in it). It was 12DKK, which is around $2 I think. Not sooo bad considering this city. Set out to find the hotel, which I knew was just a couple blocks away. Found it and checked in. It just opened in a refurbished capacity with new owners on June 1, so I expected everything to be in good condition and it was.

Gave me a room and I went up. And I open the door. And the bed is like a bunk bed. And I pretty much freaked out. There were TWO TVs, one facing underneath the bed where there was a cute little couch, and one up top where the TV was. Wow. There's also a fridge/minibar and a complicated looking safe. Small but quaint. The bathroom was even smaller and the shower was just a little cube that wasn't even separated by the rest of the bathroom with a curtain or anything to keep water out of the entire bathroom. What a mess. I was like, wait, maybe if I just ask right away, I can get a new room with a bed down on the ground. So I go down and I am like… is there any way I can get a single room with a bed on the ground!!?!!?! So she looks and finds me one. Room 209. It also faces the courtyard so it should be pretty quiet at night. But. Omg. The bed is almost twice as wide, the bathroom has a fancy stone sink and bathtub (but again with no curtain of any kind so I still envision a terrible mess tomorrow. Only one TV but it is bigger. I can't believe these rooms would have the same price but I guess one has a bigger bed and fancier bathroom and is on a higher floor and the other has an extra TV and a couch? I dunno. Anyway I look forward to their breakfast which is apparently amazing. She told me when I checked in that I get one free drink of some kind at the bar, so I will have to take advantage of that tomorrow. I snapped a couple of pictures of the first room before I left for the new one, so you can really see the difference. One interesting thing is that the first room had a key slot to put the keycard in to turn on the lights like our hotel in Barcelona did. This one doesn't. Weird. Anyway the hotel is nice. So that's good. And they give you bathrobes! lol!

Also the wireless is not free but is 20DKK a day. That's less than $5 so I think tomorrow I will take advantage of it at least a couple days, because it's really helpful and would be cheaper than an internet café anyway.

6:50pm - I was hungry but also tired, so I set out to try to find something not too far and not TOO Expensive or big. On the way I stopped at a 7-11 and got a bottle of water for 17DKK. That's like $3 for a 750ml bottle of water. I paid about 40 eurocents for a bottle twice that big in Barcelona and Amsterdam. Oh geez. OK I just have to forget the price and not worry about it. I have gone cheaply enough this trip that I can splurge (unintentionally, really) for 5 days.

So I get to Tivoli, which is just about 3 blocks from my hotel, and the restaurants start coming. I see a bunch of names I recognized from my research and decided to eat at a steakhouse I had read good things about called A Hereford Beefstouw. I decided on it not because I wanted steak but because they had a salad bar for 103 DKK - ok that's really expensive for a salad bar, but it was probably the best salad bar I've ever seen. You name it, it was on it. Including 4 yes FOUR types of olives, whole filbert nuts, all the normal standard salad bar fare, . Things I don't even like, but that are expensive, such as roasted peppers, cooked onions, sundried tomatoes. A small glass of soda was 25DKK or a little less than $5. Oh my. OK, I'm forgetting about the cost. Anyway, it was really really good and kind of just what I needed. I filled myself but with lighter stuff like vegetables, and they had great watermelon and fresh pineapple that I had as "dessert." the restaurant itself is really neat. The steak knives were unique and the salt and pepper dispensers were wild. It's hard to explain. I should've taken a picture. Anyway. It was really good.

8:30pm - came back to the room and flipping through the tv stations to see what I get. Tons of english options, even some US channels like VH1, Discovery, TNT, plus plenty of other English options like the omnipresent CNN International, and several BBCs and Eurosport.

9:00pm - laundry time. This will be interesting in the little stone sink. LOL.

10:00pm - ended up doing it in the tub, much easier. LOL.