Confusion at the Airport

---

Geo: 55.6763, 12.5681

The flight was completely full, though the cramped quarters meant that most of us got little to no sleep. We arrived on schedule and welcomed the news from the captain that the outside air temperature in Copenhagen was 50 degrees. This was our first time to Copenhagen airport in literally more than 25 years, and it was admittedly a little challenging to navigate. We finally located the Avis car rental counter and (unsuccessfully) tried to clear up some confusion on our rental, but we finally got a set of keys and incomplete instructions on where to pick it up. After asking several people, we finally found our way outside and walked across to a massive parking garage, where our tiny Hyundai i20 awaited us.

When our port of departure was moved from Copenhagen to Kiel, I looked into options for getting between the two cities. The cruise company -- MSC -- didn't offer transfers, and the train looked confusing and would entail multiple transfers, both of which made me wary of arriving in time to meet the ship. Renting a car one-way, each way was prohibitively expensive, we so ended up renting the car for the week, and then just leaving it in a parking garage in Kiel while we were away on the cruise.

Armed with our GPS -- which has been our trusty guide on four continents now -- we headed out on the eventual 3 1/2-hour drive. The land route had us driving pretty much due west out of Copenhagen, across one of the longest bridges in Europe -- the Great Belt Bridge, which spans more than 9 km. Once across, we turned due south, into Germany and down into Kiel. Though they don't use the Euro, Denmark must be part of the Schengen Security Agreement, as aside from a small sign, there was no way to tell when we'd finally crossed the border between the two countries.

---

Photos

Upon Arrival in Copenhagen
Not too bad for no one sleeping...