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What a difference a month of travel makes. Faithful readers will recall that in June, I got "stuck" in Copenhagen's Kastrup airport for several hours and couldn't really come up with anything to do, so wandered aimlessly in the terminal and was annoyed by things like credit cards and postage stamps.

A little travel experience and a positive attitude adjustment sure help! This time, I had intentionally scheduled a 5-hour layover to give me time to bop into the city itself and have a beer, at least, before the flight home.

First stop: the book shop, to look for a Danish phrasebook in English. They didn't have any, but they did have an English phrasebook in Danish, which is almost as good! So I was able to pick up the aforementioned minimum vocabulary: please and thank you (tak for both), yes (ja), no (nej), hello (hej or goddag). I learned, but forgot, excuse me/I'm sorry, so it became important for me not to push or run into anybody in Denmark.

Next: information booth at the airport. I did a smart traveler thing, which was to simply ask the native Dane, "what can I do here in ~3 hours"? She was delighted to help and the advice was simple: go downstairs, buy and validate a train ticket, board the city-bound train, get off at the third stop for the city center, turn right out of the train station, and there you are, go nuts. So I did!

Happily, Kastrup airport has a Garderobe, a.k.a. a luggage check desk, where I could stow my suitcase safely. (I cannot imagine that American airports are allowed to have such a thing, but I'm not sure.) I ATM'ed some Danish Kroner (that's money; they are not on the Euro) which turned out to be simultaneously not enough and also too much (I had to put lunch on my credit card, so ended up with most of the Kroner unspent).

Copenhagen's world-famous amusement park, Tivoli Gardens, is directly outside the door of the main train station! I seriously considered looking around inside and having lunch there, but I didn't want to spend my entire ~2 hours standing in queues, so I just admired it from the outside and headed for the tourist info center. Armed with a city map, I walked one block up to Rådhuspladsen (Town Hall Square), a major pedestrian square and found a sidewalk café serving, yes, smørrebrød! Smørrebrød are traditional, elaborate Danish open-faced sandwiches which most tourist guides say are a must-try. Don't have to tell me twice. I had a nice dark beer and a smørrebrød platter featuring two sandwiches, some herring salad, and a slice of bluish cheese. It was tasty, very filling, and there were hordes and hordes of tourists to watch while I dined.

I carefully timed my return to the airport, and settled into the gate area at exactly the correct time, only to find that the flight was delayed. We took off an hour late, but made up time in the air and arrived at home almost exactly on time. The flight itself was not much fun. The really good news about SAS is, they have these extremely cool collapsible cribs they can install on the bulkhead for families traveling with babies. The bad news is, guess where my seat was. Two babies and a toddler... all well-behaved enough, but the one in the seat immediately next to me, and her parents, were all active and squirmy the entire flight. Forget about sleep for them or me. I watched "Million Dollar Baby" and "Spider-Man 2", both of which I had been wanting to see, so that was good, then tried an iPod+eyeshades sensory deprivation nap thing, which didn't work too well but passed the time.

The approach into Seattle was spectacular. We flew right over Lake Union, which was full up with boats for the 4th of July party at Gasworks and the impending fireworks. We arrived around 5 PM, so I had plenty of time to drink a large, icy, refillable Diet Coke at Denny's, then stop by to see mom, before heading home to relax and watch fireworks on TV before collapsing in bed. A great finish to an amazing trip!

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