Trip Recap
Best thing about the trip: getting to use the business class lounge on our way out of the country. Oh my! How will I ever travel cattle class again? I knew the lounge would be nice, but I had no idea that they would have a whole big buffet set up and you could go eat and drink your fill. Even the alcohol was free, though we didn’t partake.
I could have easily stayed there all day, but Erik was getting pretty restless because he wanted to run around so we had to leave the beautiful, beautiful lounge before Mike and I were really ready. Not before we had sampled a delicious cheesecake, though!
Erik was pretty good on both flights, though he barely slept on the first one and didn’t get a single wink in on the way home. I managed to watch District 9, which was really good, but also confusing since I kept being interrupted by a four year old. I also saw Zombieland, which was totally hilarious. I’d heard of it before, but the title was a turn off. There were some other movies as well, but I can’t really remember them. I think I saw more movies on the two flights than I’ve seen the rest of the year combined. Sort of sad!
For me, the highlight of the trip was meeting Reebert and Sandy! We had to go take care of some business in Gothenburg, so were able to meet up at a restaurant near our hotel.
I was trying to get Erik to come pose with us, but he wasn’t having any of it. We forgot about picture taking until the very end, so it was a rushed affair.
Sean, Marie’s son, is a very sweet and giggly little guy! It was so easy to get him going, just by smiling at him. Erik was extremely jet lagged and cranky, so he didn’t leave the best impression. Bah. Silly kid.
One of the bad things about the trip was our rental car. The company, Sixt, offered winter tires for an increased fee. We choose that option, but then they didn’t actually have any cars with winter tires. We were driving around Scandinavia in the winter so we were not happy. We mostly drove Mike’s family’s car and let the rental car sit at their house. Good thing, too, because when we went to refuel we found that we couldn’t open the gas tank. We were pulling the lock lever over and over, but it just wouldn’t pop the lock. We are most decidedly not impressed with Sixt.
The other highlight of the trip was spending New Year’s Eve in the weirdest hotel room ever. We were originally supposed to stay another night with Mike’s family, but Mike decided he wanted to drive back to Copenhagen in the middle of the day to make sure we didn’t encounter ice problems. Before I could go look at hotels on the internet (I read a ton of reviews), I had a major crying spell and refused to come out of my room. I’m mature like that. The full story is friends locked at LJ, so just leave me your e-mail if you care about details.
Anyway, Mike was in charge of finding the room. His main criteria were price and location. We ended up at some place called Hotel Cabinn, which looked great from the outside. It was new and very clean. It was a short walk to the metro and very near the airport.
It also featured bunk beds instead of real beds.
You would think we were at a youth hostel, but no. I’m not exactly sure what the conversion would be, but I think it was about $100 for the room. Mike said the top bunk barely had a mattress. I slept on the bottom bunk, but it was much narrower than a twin bed and my pregnant belly kept hitting the frigidly cold wall. The heat didn’t seem to work well. Even Erik wanted to sleep with covers. At one point I heard him crying for me, begging to have the covers put on.
I wish I could have gotten a picture of the bathroom. There was a shower head and shower curtain in middle of the bathroom, so basically everything got soaked when you showered, even if you pulled the shower curtain as tightly as you could.
The problem with spending New Year’s Eve in a Scandinavian country was that the whole place was shut down. We took the metro into the city center and wandered around one of the most famous streets in Denmark (so Mike told me, I don’t know). We found a couple of bars, but weren’t sure we wanted to take Erik into them or even if we could take Erik into them. Finally, we ended up at a pretty nice Mexican restaurant. We ate pizza. Strange combination, but I have learned to never eat Mexican food in Scandinavia if it can be avoided.
It was pretty damned chilly out and everything was closed, so we didn’t wander around the city as much as I would have liked. We were out long enough to be yelled at by a drunken tourist. “Fuck you, American imperialists!” Nice. Just the language I want my four year old to hear. Must we really be cursed at while with our child?
After a very sleepless night, it felt like we were never going to get home. Our flight was delayed because of technical malfunctions, which made me want to cry. Eventually we found a little play area and Erik had a grand time playing with a whole slew of other cross-cultural children with American accents.
Luckily one of the dads went to check on our gate and discovered that we were supposed to be in line even though the flight wasn’t scheduled to leave for at least another hour and a half.
Once we got there, we figured out why.
Oh.
My.
God.
Longest line EVER.
We were in line the full hour and a half while every single passenger was patted down and all our hand baggage was manually screened. Our flight left even later than the planned delay because the security screening took so long.
I’m just so happy to be home and getting back into our normal routine. I was a very bad girl and skipped the gym today. I couldn’t face fighting for space with the New Years Resolutionists, plus I am not sure how capable I am of doing BodyPump right now. I can do the actual pumping of the iron, but the bending down to change weights all the time sounds like something I’m not interested in. I can barely put my shoes on. Oh how I dream of a time when shoe stores will stock my size and I can just walk in, pick out several pairs of shoes to try, and find something comfortable and flattering. No internet hunting. No grandma shoes. No returning of the shoes. Wouldn’t that be a sweet, sweet world? I probably should just bite the bullet and buy some Birkenstock clogs, but I hate to spend that kind of money on such an ugly shoe.
