Tuesday May 13 - Wednesday May 14, 2014 - Travel/Odense (Liz)

Well, our trip is underway! Props to Luftansa for providing us a complimentary bassinet during our long-haul flight from SEA to FRA. Claire slept for part of the time, Mark got a smidge of sleep and I got none. We were also very pleased with how well Claire did - of course she got antsy at times and wanted to move around but there was no shrieking or crazy crying. Then she slept all the way through our much shorter flight from FRA to CPH. Our first flight left Seattle at 1:30 pm on May 13 and our second flight arrived in Copenhagen around 11:30 AM on May 14. By that point, Mark and I were totally exhausted. But we still had to take a train another 1.5 hours to Odense, our first destination.

Up, up and away!

Claire had the best seat on the plane.

We learned the hard way that it's best to get seat reservations on a train even if you have a Eurail pass (for which reservations are not required), because otherwise you may get kicked out of your selected seats a few times. We were seated by some fellow Americans who had a much more harrowing trip to Denmark than us, as there were several cancelled/rerouted flights that resulted in the trip taking 48 hours

Mark is training Claire to love trains.

Well, we finally made it to Odense, a quaint Danish city on the island of Funen, which is known for being the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen. Our bed and breakfast was about a 15 minute walk from the train station. We were about ready to collapse when we got there, only to find the door to the house locked with a sign and a telephone number for guests to call. Well, our cell phones can't make international calls so wonderful Mark set out to find someone whose phone we could use. On his 2nd attempt he found someone who spoke English and soon thereafter the B&B owner showed up and we were in business! We all took naps (Claire was very grouchy at this point) so that we could go walk around the city in the evening.

Blockbuster still exists in Denmark.

Germany and Denmark aren't known for outstanding cuisine, so we just hit up the grocery store for dinner. We had Ramen, crackers with garlic cream cheese, yogurt, and cucumber. We have a kitchenette in our room which is quite handy.

Haute cuisine!

Then we followed our guidebook's recommended walking tour of Odense. Most things were closed, but we will be headed back to some places such as the Hans Christian Andersen Museum and House and the Danish Christmas store. There were lots of cobblestone roads/sidewalks and I really like the town. It's quite quaint. On our tour other things we saw included several cathedrals (one whose doors automatically opened for us as we walked by which was a little creepy), the Radisson which had a bunch of statues including one of HC Andersen with a female bust, and the HC Andersen Haven which is a park dedicated to the man himself. They had some beautiful deep purple/blue flowers which I really liked and then a statue of Mr. Hans C. from 1805 which hasn't aged really well.

Things we observed today:

• The stoplights are LED and are flat. They look so weird and almost seem fake. the pedestrian lights around the tourist area have people figures with top hats to resemble HC Andersen. Unfortunately we didn't get a photo of one of those.
• Everyone bikes! Well, we knew that already, but still it was shocking to see so many bikes. Virtually every street has a dedicated bike lane in each direction completely separate from the road.
• EVERYONE IS BLOND!
• U.S. credit card technology is way behind the times. Because we don't have chip/PIN technology in our credit cards, no one wants to accept our card. Slightly frustrating but I blame the U.S. and not the Danes.

Hans de Milo