Adventures in Italy 1: Copenhagen

Back in 2000, I had the opportunity to go to Italy for a conference, way up north in Como (which is where the lake is that Anakin Skywalker and Queen All-a-dollar hung out at in Star Wars, Episode II). It was beautiful there, but Linette couldn't make it that time, and Linette and I always wanted to go and see the more historical parts of Italy like Rome and Venice. Sharon and Roger had been talking about it for some time as well.

With Shaylee and Erika graduating this year, (and perhaps off to missions and such soon thereafter), my go-getter sister Sharon decided it was time to go for it. They had been saving up frequent flyer miles for a long time in preparation. Sharon tried talking me and Linette into bringing Erika and coming along, but at first we couldn't find flights for less than $2000, and our summer already had some other travel scheduled, and we had just gone to Mexico in December, so we just didn't think we could pull it off.

But after spending perhaps far too much time searching, we found that we could fly from Las Vegas to Rome (via Copenhagen, Denmark) on Norwegian Airlines for $474; and fly from Venice to Los Angeles (via Istanbul, Turkey) on Turkish Airlines for about the same; so with that and Delta flights to get us to and from Salt Lake City, it was still spendy, of course, but became theoretically doable for us. So after much waffling, we finally decided to go for it. That was followed by months of researching where to stay, how to get around and what to see. And Linette and I spent quite a bit of time trying to learn a little Italian with the help of a podcast and the Duo Linguo app.

I was pretty nervous about having the whole trip come together, because all it would take would be Delta not getting us to Las Vegas; or Norwegian canceling that flight; and we would be completely hosed. Our experience of getting hosed in both directions on our Mexico trip left me worried. But it turns out that all of our flights were reasonably on time and got us where we needed to go, so that was wonderful.

Finally, the day came, and on Saturday, June 11, 2016, the Kartchners headed out on their flight in the morning.



And we headed out on ours a couple hours later.

We had fun talking to a couple from Korea while we waited for our first flight, and then got talking to a senior missionary couple on their way to Guatemala. So much so that they had to call our names to get us on the flight. Oops.

We had a couple of hours in Las Vegas to relax and read books. We were all determined to pack only one carry-on (plus a backpack) each (partly to avoid Norwegian Airline's $68 per bag fee; and partly to make getting around Italy more reasonable). So we had to pack light.

Norwegian doesn't provide meals or even drinks without paying a lot. Knowing that in advance, we came prepared with snacks and waters and it was no problem.

After 9 hours of travel, I noticed that our Norwegian Airlines flight flew exactly over Riverton. That was a tad ironic.

Finally we arrived in Copenhagen, Denmark. We really liked the cute hats on the Norwegian Airlines stewardesses, so I had Erika pose with them. They were surprisingly excited to oblige.

We liked this twisty bench and its Copenhagen skyline picture.

Hans Christian Andersen was a famous Danish writer, and is the one who wrote The Little Mermaid. Here is a display about him if you want to click and read a bit about him. The airport had a small replica of the famous Little Mermaid statue that is in the harbor.

We had a 6 hour layover in Copenhagen, so Erika and I got bus passes and hit the town. (Linette was happy to rest and read and keep an eye on the luggage at the airport, since we'd been up all night).

So Erika and I had fun wandering around Copenhagen, looking at the fun architecture and the little galleries.

Here's a funky piano we saw in one shop.

We came across this church and took a peek inside.

We thought the ivy wall next to this building was impressive.

We don't know what this is, but it was in front of the "Design" museum, and I thought it was cool.

Apparently they designed this chair for the whole family!

As we continued walking towards the harbor, we came across a cool church by the fortress.



Then we entered the fortress and walked along the grassy ramparts.

Open wide...



I think the sign behind Erika's head meant "stay out" or something, but my Danish isn't so good.

 Finally we reached the harbor and saw the Little Mermaid statue. (In Europe there's a lot of unclothed art, so we just had to come to grips with that).

So of course I had Erika pose opposite her.

And we came across this fountain that was shooting water all over the place.

So Erika joined in the fun.



On the way back to the metro, we walked through a square with a big palace of some sort, and I thought these guards looked cool. (If you can click and zoom in, I love the guard's sideways glance).

This fountain at the airport looked like a dandelion.

We had to have a Danish in Denmark.

And a lot of this was going on throughout the trip, as we tried to eek out some sleep in our crazy, jet-lagged schedule.

After seeing Grandpa Merrill's pictures of Copenhagen, I had always wanted to see it, so I'm glad we had this layover and that we were able to get out and see a few things in Denmark.

A few years ago Linette and I went to the Holocaust museum in Washington, D.C., and read about how the Nazis would go into a country, use the post office to get a list of jews, make them wear a star to identify them, then round them up and start shipping them to concentration camps. Well, in Denmark, the post office just couldn't seem to get that list put together for them. And when the jews were required to wear a star, the king and queen of Denmark wore one, too, and then all the people in the country wore one, so you couldn't tell who was who. The war ended before the post office complied, and so the jews of Denmark were spared much of the tragedy of other countries. I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Denmark since then.

In our next episode, we join the Kartchners in Rome!

(p.s. Some of the pictures look better BIG. You can click on a picture to see it big, and use left/right arrows to quickly go through the other pictures now that you've read about them. Just so you know.)