Day 13 - Billund - Copenhagen - Fly to Stockholm, Sweden - Tuesday, June 26

We woke early, had breakfast at the hostel, and loaded in the car to drive to Copenhagen. Our flight wasn't until 16:15, but we wanted plenty of time for the 3 hour drive in case there was road construction or traffic.

Going across the Great Belt Bridge, paying the 230 DKK toll in cash.

We made really good time and found ourselves on the outskirts of Copenhagen around lunch time. Using the handy Maps app on my iPad, I navigated us to the nearest IKEA, which we'd practically pass on our way.

Imagine my excitement when I saw that a BabyDan baby superstore was right next door. Of course I had to go in to drool over the huge assortment of baby carriages. I don't know why I'm so enamored of them. My baby days are over, and I already own one that is built to last generations. The only reasoning I can come up with is that I appreciate baby carriages the way some people love vintage cars.

We had lunch at IKEA, and then discovered there were no shortcuts out of the 3 story warehouse. We kept coming upon one-way escalators and elevators that only went up, not down. It was a maze in every possible way, forcing you to pass nearly everything they sold. We may have been a captive audience, but we were also in a hurry, and with no room in our luggage for even a catalog.

The IKEA had it's own little windmill, which according to the sign beside it, said it provided 50% of the power used by the warehouse. Here are some of those IKEA trailers to rent for bringing your furniture home when all you have is a compact car.

We found the airport without incident (if you missed the exit, you ended up on the long toll bridge to Malmo, Sweden), and Daddy dropped us girls at the departures terminal while he returned the rental car and had someone there decipher the parking ticket we'd received in Copenhagen when Kelsey was in the hospital. Of course the ticket was entirely in Danish, and we still weren't sure exactly what we were ticketed for. Apparently we were to go to a machine and buy a ticket to put on the dash to park in that area.

In the airport I quickly learned that I was to go to a machine to print out luggage tags, then take the bags to a "luggage drop" to be checked. Finding the tag machines was simple, but finding the luggage drop was harder. It was hiding in that same crazy busy area we'd arrived in, where rail and metro tickets were sold, and thousands of people pushed through in all directions.

Our flight was delayed about an hour, and Daddy had some Danish Kroner to burn, so he bought a bottle of Aquavit at the duty free to take to our hosts in Stockholm. Liquor is really expensive and highly taxed in Scandinavia, so apparently it makes a welcome gift. He gave the leftover Kroner to the girls to spend on candy, so we departed another country with almost no coinage for keepsakes.

At the airport this lady was talking "babytalk" to her little dog, which was really sweet to watch. She just went on and on, probably trying to calm it before the flight.

This girl waiting for a flight had the most amazing ringlets I'd ever seen. It was all I could do to keep from reaching over and stroking them. Every once and awhile she'd look up from her mobile phone and look around, and the ringlets would bounce like little springs of happiness.

We flew on a narrow M-81 with 2 seats + 3 seats in a row. We sat 2 and 2 so both girls had windows for the 70 minute flight.

Customs consisted of walking through a door, since we had nothing to declare. There wouldn't be any colorful stamps recording our journey in our passports for this trip. The one stamp we got in Iceland from "Mr. Frosty" was illegible. Oh well, we're collecting other things on this adventure, like all the photos (about 700) I've taken so far.

Daddy's friend Gunnar Ewetz, who he hadn't seen in 30 years, was waiting for us at airport in the arrivals hall. He drove us to his home in Bromma, a suburb in Western Stockholm. His wife Birgita was waiting for us with a dinner of handmade Swedish meatballs.

Before the meatballs came a course of "sill," which is pickled herring. Both girls tried it, and while not their favorite, they ate it without complaint.

Gunnar taught the girls how to "Skol" (toast with a drink, nonalcoholic for them, of course), and a lively rendition of the "Hellan Gar" song was sung.

It was a beautiful evening and we stayed up entirely too late talking, catching up, and getting to know each other. Gunnar introduced the girls to their garden snails, which with his 2.5 year old grandson Nils, he'd numbered with a permanent marker. The girls went off hunting for the various numbered snails, and looking for any that had not been ID'd yet. They found a new candidate and it received the number 43.