We never skip a free breakfast and today is no exception. Our train leaves Copenhagen HBF at 9:37am. Our bags are packed for train travel, we have our breakfast and push our tremendous rolling bags down the street and into the station where we board at platform 14. Our train trip is a little over 4 hours, staying on the same train for the entire trip to Hamburg, Germany. My ticket indicates we are on carriage 28. The train will be in the station for only a few minutes so we will need to find our car quickly and board. As always, this luggage is difficult to move about through the train so we need to get it on our assigned carriage the first time. I'm looking for the, well, what I call the car chart, that shows what cars are on the train, what are the numbers of the cars and where one must stand to be adjacent to that car when the train arrives. Instead, I see a DB conductor and ask him. In perfect English, he answers, "It's over there but it's backwards. All the cars have been reversed so the first car is now the last and the last car is first".

This seems like information everybody would want but, right now, we need to get to the far end of the platform. Pushing one suitcase down the long platform, Karen pushes the other while I encourage her by yelling, "Hurry. Faster. Let's go". It doesn't help but it makes me feel better. She just scowls and lumbers onward. Now the loudspeaker is blaring in Danish, releasing this information on the change and everybody on the platform is moving to opposite ends except for the people in the middle who are OK either way. The train rolls up and boarding begins. I can't see our car number, just #22 which stops right in front of us. Mom screams, "Get on! Just get on". I hesitate boarding the wrong car since moving our luggage through the train itself will be impossible. Most people have little or no luggage which allows them to board quickly and secure seating. We board and find space on #22 for our luggage but there are no seats left. The train is packed and we must find our reserved seats 61 & 62 in carriage 28. We walk through 4 cars looking until we get to the end. Mmmmm. This is a 1st class car, it's empty, here's seats 61 & 62 and the electronic signs in the cars, previously not illuminated, are now flashing the station name and carriage number. #28, our car. We've made it.

Now we sit for a four hour ride. We roll from Copenhagen through the the Danish countryside for a good hour until we arrive at Rodby. Here is where we board a ferry, not just us but the whole train. It stops at the pier and, just like the cars and trucks, the train rolls right onto the ferry. We park next to the trucks on deck 3. The conductor says that everyone must leave the train and make the 45 minute ferry journey as a ferry passenger. We exit the train, leaving most of our stuff and an elevator takes us up to the 5th floor where we find stores, restaurants and seating with views of our Baltic crossing in progress. Shopping is duty free and apparently a big thing here for the locals as they all stock up. Mom and I get some fries and watch as Germany looms in the distance. As our time draws near, we descend to level 3 and wait to board. The train doors open, we take our same seats with the rest and the train moves slowly off the ferry, now in Puttgarten, Germany.

Two little kids are screaming outside the train and running along side. They were late in returning. Mom's on the train, Dad is looking for the kids and the train is leaving. We pick up speed as it leaves the ship and we no longer see the children. The train finally comes to a stop a few hundred yards further at the station port side and the family is now back on board. Somehow they made it.

Now we travel for over an hour until we reach Hamburg, Germany's 2nd largest city. It is the country's biggest port and the second-busiest in Europe. Connected to the North Sea by the Elbe River, it's crossed by hundreds of canals. The people of Hamburg are known as "Hamburgers". The beef patties on a bun were named after this city, where presumably they were invented. See also "frankfurter" (Frankfurt) and "wiener" (Vienna).

With our bags located four cars away, we leave our seats early and join our luggage in advance of our arrival in Hamburg. We're not sure how much time the train will be in the station and we need to get our stuff off in time. At Hamburg, we exit and walk across the street from the station to our hotel. After check in, we return to walk around the train station, checking out the mini mall located inside, check out a little in town and then stop at a sidewalk cafe for a pepper steak and some fish where we sit outside and people watch. It's after 9 but still light outside when we return to our room. Tomorrow we leave on the final leg of our train trip, Hamburg to Rotterdam.