My Internet connection at the house was spotty and was used primarily to quickly check in with the office on Skype and check email. So, this post is catch up from Days 4-11.

On Day 4 we picked up a car from Eurocar. We had made arrangements for a car like a Ford Focus, but they had run out all the cars in that class. They upgraded us to an Audi A6 which was pretty nice. We got a Garmin Nuvi with the car, which proved to be a great addition to our travel experience. It took a little getting used to, but once we were familiar with the Nuvi's instructions, it became pretty intuitive. From Copenhagen we drove to the other side of the of the same island that Copenhagen lives on to a tiny town called Vig Lyn where we picked up keys to the house Viddinge Bakker which my brother Alec and his wife rented for my family and my other brother's (Sean) family.

The house was marvelous--large, with three double beds, a fold out couch, and bunk beds. It had a nicely appointed kitchen with a large kitchen table. The living room had a nice high efficiency stove. It had a great big wrap around that circled the whole house and a wild garden that was several acres in size. The garden had lots of trees that turned large portions into a kind of labyrinth. It had two firepits and a kid's club house along with a swing and a several ropes to swing from. At the bottom of the garden was a greenhouse. There was a large grill (which we ended up cooking on twice) that was big enough to cook for 17 of us.

My eldest brother had another house about 4 kilometres from the house we were in that included a hot tub and an indoor pool. My eldest brother, his wife, five kids, my parents, and one additional guest stayed there.

On Day 5 all of us headed to Fredrickssuund for a play with Viking roots. The drive was quite nice, but the play was in Danish based in Norse Mythology (which I'm not familiar with) making understanding what was going on next to impossible. We did have some pretty lovely bratwurst with a sweet spice mustard for supper. The play and review were going to get us back to the house very late, so my brother's wife and my family decided to head back at intermission for the sake of our collective little one's sleeping needs. After we got back to the house, we put together a nice little supper from local vegetables and salmon which we fried up with a little butter.

On Day 6 everybody went to Roskilde to check out the Viking museum. The museum includes rides out in Viking skip replica's. The older teenaged nephews and along with guest went out in one of the ships and spent the better part of an hours rowing around and sailing a bit. While they did that, we went through the museum and enjoyed looking at the Viking ship remains. They had taken the small pieces that had been excavated and put them into metal frames so you could see the true size the ships. Replicas had been put into a kid's section, where the children could dress up in viking clothes and play on the ships. There was also a movie on the building of an exact replica of one of the ships, and a journey around the British Iles to demonstrate that it could be done. The movie was very cool.

On Day 7 the whole family headed by car to Kronborg Slot in Helsingor, Hamlet's castle. We headed down to the casements where prisoners were kept. It was pretty dark--we ended up buying a little flashlight from a vending machine--and fairly creepy. Interestingly, there were pieces of contemporary art installed in the casements--one of which was a look at torture (presumably because torture occurred at the castle). That particular piece included pictures from Abu Ghraib in tiny lit Mandelas in the wall. It was rather disturbing. My daughter was really troubled by the casements and my wife had to keep her comforted and out of the more dark and scary sections.

A trip up to the royal's quarters had many antiquities including paintings from 16th and 17th centuries. Again, there were some pretty interesting contemporary installations in place including one of the laid out bones of a knight in three different motifs--the first a traditional laying of bones, a sword, and a cup. The second was the same layout but in stainless steel with a Macbook pro as the skull. The last was purely a digital representation of lights.

Near the end of the rooms, was an installation of a hand giant fan.

On the 8th Day the entire family went to Tivoli. I am glad that we went, but don't need to ever return. The park has a feeling of being old--not in a falling apart way, but in a well maintained antique kind of way--with well manicure topiary, pretty gardens, and beautiful venues for live performances. Unlike American amusement parks, the music at Tivoli is largely live and quite good. There is a marching band that plays several times a day and a live brass orchestra that plays much of the day. Ice-cream is plentiful and cones are ridiculously large. They have better-than-passable Belgian Waffles that can come with soft serve ice-cream.

We went on the miniature cars, the large Ferris wheel, the "Mine"--which is quite an amusing ride taking you through an animatronic mine which boasts having a dragon sneeze on you. It is worth taking a ride on. We went on the "Roller Coaster" which is a simple, but fun little coaster. The Aquarium is a single large tank, but again--worth taking a glance at. We also went on the Carousel, which seems quite old--but runs very slow.

Day 9 -- To the Little Mermaid. My wife, daughter, and I drove to Holbaek where we took a train into Copenhagen and walked down to the Little Mermaid passing by St Alban's Kirke, a lovely little stone church close by a star fort. The walk in the park was pleasant and we picked up fresh raspberries on the way. The Havfrue isn't as little as I had originally thought and was mobbed by tourists. Again, I'm glad I saw her, but really don't need to see her again. She is rather out of the way. We walked down the waterfront passing Amaliehaven, which sported a rather wonderful fountain and two interesting contemporary monoliths. We continued down to Nyhaven where we looked at the architecture and then popped by the Nationalmuseet where we went to the children's wing and hung out for a little bit.

Day 10 sported the morning helping by brother figure out how to return his rental car and get his bike fixed. He and his family are biking around Denmark. We bought groceries for supper at the local grocer in Asnae. In the afternoon we spent some time at the beach--which was covered in dead jellyfish and baby crabs--where we found some amazing volcanic glass. We then popped over to the little mall and did a tiny bit of shopping in Asnae.

Day 11 has us coming home. I'm sitting in the middle seat in the middle row at the back of a 777 right now. Just as the beginning of the trip started with airline debacles, it seems to be ending with them too. When we got to the airport, we found ourselves in a very long lineup. We were told to remove ourselves from the queue and head over to the self serve area--which didn't recognize our locator number. We got back into the line and slowly made our way to the front where we found that we had no record of having tickets in the system. It took two desk clerks to figure out what was going on and finally we were checked in. Security had secondary screening of my wife, but was pretty quick. When we got onto the plane, we had a short flight to Heathrow. Then we went through the machinations of getting from Terminal 3 to Terminal 1. At Terminal 1, we popped to the service desk to try and get out of the middle row at the back of the plane with no luck. There the representative asked if we had checked 9 bags. 9 BAGS?! Turns out that the rep in CPH triple entered each of our bags. We had to go through security again, where all three of us were put into secondary screening. Finally, they sent us to the wrong gate entirely--a USAirways gate. Luckily the new gate was only a hundred metres or so away.

If you plan on seeing any signficant part of Denmark and you don't plan to stay in an urban centre close to the train, plan on renting a car. However, expect to pay quite a bit in gasoline. The lowest grade gas cost about 11.70 DKK per litre or about $2.50 USD per litre. This translates to roughly $9.50 USD per gallon--better than the $11/gallon I was prepared to pay. Over the course of the trip, we spent roughly $235 on gas and traveled about 1005 kilometres by auto or 625 miles. This meant it cost about $0.38 per mile.

Free parking is plentiful but often limited in the time you can stay in a spot. When you part, you will see the number of hours you can park listed below the parking sign. Your car will have a little clock face on the windshield. Put the time you arrived on the clock face.

Now back to the real world and work.