Little Girl in Copenhagen

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We went up to the Lido for breakfast, and today I chose two sandwiches, and this really seemed to irritate Sharon. They’re quite good, nice crunchy baguette roll, roast beef, some lettuce… yummm! Maybe it’s the crunch roll that’s bothering her because she can’t handle it! Still she chided, “Sandwiches are lunch.” But they can be pretty good at breakfast too. Sharon had a waffle.

We were on the “Best of Copenhagen” tour which first stopped at “The Little Mermaid”. This is a bronze statue coated in a blue-green weathered patina and seated on a rock in the water, near the edge. Most people were commenting, “I never realized that she was sooo small.” Our guide told us that she was a life-size mermaid. We got on the bus after our ten minute photo stop; only to discover that two of our group were nowhere to be found. There’s one in every group; or, in this case two. Our guide went out three times looking for them before our bus needed to pull forward. We had been the first bus in a group of seven busses doing this tour; but, that was changing rapidly. We were about to leave them behind, twenty minutes late when the come running up, out of breath. Their explanation was that they’d gotten on the wrong bus. They got their share of obligatory jeers.

We stopped in the courtyard of Amalieneorg Palace, witnessed part of the ceremony of changing of the guards. “They’re not supposed to talk to anybody,” our gray haired woman guide told us. “But some will talk to me when they walk by, if they’re one of my former students.” She says that they’ll say hi to her out of the corner of their mouths to make sure she knows that it’s them.

We next went to Christianborg Castle, and we did a 45 minute walking tour. Everywhere there were signs “Do Not Touch”. So many seats, no place to sit. We saw a large dining room, a large dance ball room, and everywhere we went, you must admit, they know how to make incredible wood floors. Denmark is a monarchy, and everyone seems quite taken with Queen Margery. Everybody seems to be pretty taken with the Crown Prince and his wife (their equivalent to Lady Di); except, perhaps his leaner, taller and slightly younger brother who isn’t all that sold of the importance of being born first.

It was about 11AM when we pulled in to the parking area of Tivoli Gardens on a side street. Work was being done in front of the entrance, so we didn’t get the really good bus parking spot. It’s said that Walt Disney had modeled Disneyland from his memories of a visit to Tivoli Gardens. It certainly has clean well groomed grounds with many flowers and is a very pretty place with mini-lakes/creeks. And it certainly has a thrill ride or two, and many places to eat around the grounds. We visited many of these, only to find that they were not yet open yet. Some were going to open at noon; but, this turned out to be a national holiday and it is quite possible some didn’t plan to open at all. We came across our guide, and she agreed that finding a food place that’s open is the problem, and suggested that we follow her to the “Waffle Place”. They were open and they had pastries and such, so I got a marzipan pie and then something that looked like a potato shape, dusted with chocolate dust and the guide told us that it contained cream and marzipan. The were quite good. Sharon had a lemony supersized cookie pastry. We both had a soda.

Our last stop was to have a canal ride which would drop us off by the ship. As canal rides go, I’d stick with the ones in Amsterdam. The walls facing the water beneath the many low canal bridges were often covered with graffiti, which was certainly more of a problem here than it had been in Amsterdam or Norway. Norway had just a bit of graffiti. Our guide in Norway had indicated that most of the graffiti is the work of immigrants who come, and then decide that Norway may not be the place for them after they experience their first winter. In Amsterdam, most of the graffiti is confined to certain areas. Our guide noted that the little mermaid has a “big sister” which we saw on the short walk back to the ship..

We returned to the ship in time to join our teammates for Team Trivia with Christina; but, Sharon went to mass instead. “What were the tiered stepped towers called that appeared in Mesopotamia?” I was writing down “Hanging Gardens of Babylon” when Steve suggested “Ziggurats”. He noted that the Hanging Gardens are an example of them. That came out of the blue and even his mother was marveling where that correct answer came from. Joan knew what type of fastener was invented by a Swiss scientist in 1948 and became commercially available in 1957. It was Velcro. Sharon could have helped with when Canada Day is. I went with a week before the Fourth of July; but, it’s actually only 3 days before our national holiday. The bonus question was to name the regions (three of them) from which the three spiritual schools of voodoo arise. We got Haiti right; but, settled on Jamaica and Dominican Republic as well. The other two are East Africa and Louisiana. We got 13 out of 18 points, coming in second. We later learned from those sitting around the 4-member winning team that their leader was googling the answers on his phone. Well! Our team name is “We Don’t Need Google!”

For dinner I ordered a repeat from the previous cruise: quinoa pomegranate, dumplings (thank-you Sharon), cannellini and lentil soup and sausage fettuccini; while Sharon got the “Everyday Chicken”, although she thinks that she may have gotten the equally acceptable rosemary chicken from today’s menu. Sharon had the poached pear dessert; while, I had the hazelnut mouse cake.

Nighttime Trivia with Becka started out well enough with a James Bond question that everyone knew: “What was the second 007 movie, the one after Dr. No?” That would be “From Russia With Love”. We faltered with “What is the only continent to not have a desert?” We went with the obvious: Antarctica. I had a bad feeling about this, and with good reason. The correct answer is Europe. And I missed a flag question. I don’t know why Nicaragua popped into my head, “What Central American country has a flag with one red star and on blue star?” And we were there recently when we took our Panama Canal Cruise. Sharon didn’t know either so I don’t feel so bad. And I let our teammates talk me out of Santa Maria as which of the three of Columbus’s ships not to make it back to Spain. Pinta and Nina didn’t seem likely to me; but, they insisted that it wasn’t Santa Maria. I learned later that they thought it wasn’t Santa Maria because that was Columbus’s flag ship. If they’d told me their reasoning, I would have told them that that was the ship that didn’t make it home! The bonus was to name the countries that host the tennis Grand Slam Events, which of course everyone knows. We got 13 and should have easily gotten one more point to tie for first; and we should have won outright.

We turned in early for extra rest leading into a long day in Berlin.

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