Day 7: Copenhagen and Cruise Boarding - The Mad Race

With a leisurely day before us, we woke leisurely, breakfasted leisurely, hung about leisurely, walked leisurely, and did all at an easy pace... until later when came our mad dash. But that's getting ahead of myself.

After doing laundry we donned wet coats and set off in the bright, warm Denmark air to go to the National Museum. Mia and I ate a scrumptious almond, butterscotch pastry as we sauntered to our goal. With free entry, we had not a care in the world, though our legs were tired from our adventures of the past few days (or few years, according to Rich, who counts years often passing during this trip).

The museum started with pre-history, where we saw an abundance of items pulled mostly from bogs where much of it was sacrificed, such as curly swords,

curly gold jewelry, Viking helmets,

lur horns,

braided hair(!! The sign said braided hair was a good sacrifice because it was simple, easy to give, but a great sacrifice of the women giving up their most beautiful feature),

bone harpoons, and so on.

Then came history. There were many religious artifacts, such as a large wood depiction of St. George slaying the Dragon,

 and altar booklets (wooden displays that opened like shutters or books to new layers).

My favorite display was of the double weapons, such as the musket/spear/bayonet, the pistol daggers, and the pistol axe.

There were other amazing weapons, many ceremonial, such as the gigantic broadswords you could not imagining anyone wielding better than steel beams. There was a also huge executioners' sword.

We saw things such as an iron fire ladder, ivory goblets with intricate vertical ornamentation,

metal ewers,

religious copes (long cloaks),

drinking horns,

instruments from all over the world (and a basic musical video that showed music of the world with pictures of the world and the instruments shown). There were room displays for all countries, clothes and dolls from China and Japan, (this is the Hina Matsuri display)

we saw a thing you hang kimono over to give scent,

there were bunches of Eskimo things like boomerangs and harpoons and kayaks,

a cool outfit set with skull crowns,

and Viking ruins.

The collection was good, lots of cools things, most of it was organized well and labelled, most labels in English, except for what they called the 'treasure rooms' whose display cases were stuffed with everything and there weren't any good signs with explanations. The sheer amount of artifacts was impressive. However, we had been pretty busy, had seen many cool things already over our trip -- especially the day before at all those castles -- we were too worn out to really take our time. So we spent perhaps 2 hours there total, then headed back to our apartment. We mailed some postcards first, then went to gather our things. Goodbye, Reventlowsgade #18.

We took a train to the station where we came out into Copenhagen the first time (did you know we will visit Copenhagen a total of 3 times during this trip?), walked to the Little Mermaid Statue again, got more pictures,

then started to the ship. We were on our merry way, but for one little problem: the ship was much farther than the ferry port, check-in was supposed to be 2 hours before departure (5:00), and it was... 2:39. Ahhhhh!!!

Thus came time for our mad dash, it seemed half of Copenhagen flew under our feet as we raced with our luggage and injured bodies to the Norwegian Sun that stood waiting in view but oh so far away. We were afraid we weren't going to make it....

But after 10 minutes passed we found ourselves much closer, as if some portal had opened up and allowed us to pass through. Taking heart, we struggled on in the hot sun.

We came to the cruise terminal 2 minutes before 3:00.
Not that it really mattered, because a bus had just pulled up with a group going to check-in. But we made it and all was swell. We checked in, heard our (Schjelderup) name pronounced by a Danish person (shee-el-der-oup -- as Js are pronounced as Ys, like as in 'fjord'), and -- yes!! -- boarded the boat. The comfort part of our trip has just began.

Though some things will need to ease in to be called in 'comfort': Rich didn't bring a razor, so he is now struggling to shave with a disposable razor; at every entrance and exit of every food place there are attendants to spray our hands with 'sanitation' (later, we figured this was due to the e coli scare); the announcements are repeated in four languages. Ahh, the troubles we must face :). So far we know that the ice cream and crepes are excellent, and the room is actually BIG! Well, you know, relatively.

We sat up on deck with some water and watched the boat pull past Helsingør (Denmark) and Helsingborg (Sweden). Now it is getting late and we will go to dinner, then hot tub. Life is so demanding.

We are so happy to be here!

~Myra