The Second Happiest Place on Earth – Day 1

Or at least that’s what I learned during pub trivia the Monday before we left. On a “whim” (because that’s what we do) I signed up for the LEGO House Fan Tour back in November which necessitated a trip to Denmark. So Sue and I started planning things out but leaving time for unplanned stuff. First thing we found out… March is still the off season. Museums are closed on Mondays. LEGOland does open until the end of the month, same for the famous Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. This is one of the by products of acting on a whim, but I’m not sure with Sue’s work schedule we would have been able to pull it off any other time.

We arrived about a week before the tour to give us time to explore at least part of the country. We decided to visit a few places: Odense – home of Hans Christian Anderson, Copenhagen, Helsingør – home of Kronborg Castle where Hamlet’s set, Malmo, Sweden (because it’s just across the bridge) and Jelling – home of a UNESCO world heritage site dealing with Vikings and Bluetooth before exploring Billund and LEGO House.

Saturday & Sunday: walked 6.48 miles

The flight from Indianapolis to Billund (via Detroit with a layover in Amsterdam). You may already know how anxious I get when travel somewhere. Especially by airplane. So I was already dreading this part of the trip… it’s just the way I am. It has nothing to do with the science of flight, it has to do with passengers. The nurse practitioner basically saying I should wear a mask throughout the trip (or I could get the plague and die) didn’t help matters. Someone posted an article dealing their anxiety which dealt with just not wanting to get in other people’s way. On a flight they would gather their stuff and rush out as fast as possible. This fits with my feelings flying and when people invite me to come over or stay with them when I’m in area. I don’t want even a friend or family member to have to deal with me. Meeting for a meal? Sure, but I’ll make sure it is quick, again don’t want to waste anyone’s time.

“One man’s ’simple!’ is another man’s ’huh?’”

When we arrived in Amsterdam we had a 6 hour layover which gave us time to go into the city. We had heard it was “simple” to get there from the airport… it might have been, but exhaustion turns “simple” into an adventure. Due to some misunderstanding – we should have switched trains at the first stop like the person giving us tickets said. We didn’t, we went by the belief that it should be direct. Therefore we ended up at the football stadium on game day. Remember this is Europe, so “soccer”, lots of people with scarves politely queuing. Once we figured out where to go and that our train tickets wouldn’t work on the Metro we bought another ticket to get to the central train station all was good. We wandered, picked up a few caches and an Adventure Lab & stopped by BrewDog (We’ve visited other locations in Las Vegas & Columbus,Ohio so we knew what we were in for) before returning to the airport, which was a lot easier since they had people helping poor lost tourists and our old train tickets allowed us through even when it was the metro. We did have to go through security and I realized I’ve gotten spoiled with TSA pre-check. Having to take off my belt, shoes and making sure my pockets were completely empty (I had my train ticket in my pocket and had to start over)… I had forgotten what a pain it can be and felt stupid holding up the people behind me. 🙄

The only flight that had any issues was the commuter jet heading to Billund. Sunday night it was oversold and needed at least a dozen people to check their carry-on bags. Upon arriving at the small airport I was surprised that there was no customs to go through, so no passport stamp for me! Sue had arranged our rental (and Audi SUV of some variety) so I played sherpa.
Our hotel was dark when we arrived. While all the information I had gave hours, I must have missed the Sunday hours in which reception closed early. I found our room key in an envelope with my name on it amongst a pile of other keys and we climbed the stairs to our room and crashed. I had not slept on the flight (I don’t usually sleep on flights).

Note: Sue crashed… being in a completely different and inconvenient time zone has made it so she can’t really worry about work. Which tells me we need to figure out a way to this more often. I’ve been only worried about typical anxiety filled social and financial stuff. Not a daily grind of work which is completely different. I believe our Guard Elephant helped make her feel safe from the wild creatures roaming Billund late at night.