Last day, truly, in Copenhagen - August 20, 2018

This is one of those cities where it is easy to feel at home. I simply love the old buildings in the Old Town. Living here is costly, we are told, but very convenient. Same as it is at home. For example, Midtown Atlanta is very cool and convenient but old and expensive. People who live out of the city must suffer long commutes to work. Therefore and similarly, most people here have apartments in the city and if they can afford them, they also have summer cottages in the suburbs where they can visit onn long summer weekends or on holidays. There they have a little piece of ground where they can grow a garden or put up a volley ball net. As I understand it, people here can only rent the ground for the summer house. Some have a little house but others have only a shed where gardening tools are kept for the garden but there are no overnight facilities. It seems universal, people need to dig the earth, sow seeds and reap a harvest.

I'm a little sad to leave Copenhagen because I like it so much and I also know this probably the last time I will be here. While that makes me a little weepy, I know there is so much of the world we have not experienced yet.

We have a very early flight to Barcelona tomorrow so our big to-do today was a dry run to the airport using the Metro. I simply love how other countries embrace and value their public transportation systems! It's in our future . . . it must be! OK, back to the topic, it was a very good thing we did the dry run. We bought the 24-hour transportation passes that will get us through all the zones we need to travel and boarded the "S" for the city. The signage in the City Central train/subway station is virtually nonexistent and the advice we got from the extremely nice lady (from Mexico, no less) at Tourist Information yesterday in Old Town was off on here info - just a bit. After bumbling around a while we finally figured things out and got our plans in place. We plan to wake at 4:30 am, and be at the airport by 6:45 am tomorrow in time for our 8:45 am flight. We will take the "S" to Nordhavn and then switch to the M2 to the airport.

It was easy returning to the city via the M2. We emerged at the Magasin du Nord station, a fabulous 175-year old department store, and walked to the center of the Old Town. This day gave us a chance to revisit places we visited last year like the beautiful Holmen's Kirke, first built in 1563 and most recently famous for having hosted the wedding between Margrethe II of Denmark, and Prince Henrik in 1967, We also walked past the gloriously beautiful nearby Stock Exchange building. Stock Exchange? Who knew?

We took photos of the Christianborg Palace as we walked by. This is a working palace today and it's where the Queen meets royalty, presidents and people in audience . We took notice of the artful statues that decorated each corner and pillar.

At 2 pm, we stopped at a posh square where stores like Louis Viton, Prada and even Disney were nearby. This large square featured a fountain in the center. The restaurant did not have waiters who came outside to take orders. Instead, there menus perched on the closely packed tables on the street. Guests made selections, went inside to place orders and were give cool little metal number placards. When the order was prepared, waiters served the meals to the table. We found a small table and Stan went in to order a tuna sandwich for me and a curried chicken sandwich for Stan. After placing the order and paying, Stan came out and said, "I love these $50 lunches." Meanwhile a performer set up on the square. Soon he was singing "Perfect" by Ed Sheeran; "All of Me" by John Legend and Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah." Wow! He was so good; I was completely mesmerized. So was a drunken guy who felt the moment and passionately danced in front of the performer. Finally someone came to gingerly escort him off the square. But then, for some reason a policeman arrived. He chatted with the performers and they had to leave. Maybe the music was a little loud; maybe the square was a little crowded. Regardless, the performer had to leave the Square. What a loss! The singer was very good! No, he was exceptionally good! And the concert was free. We were sorry to lose him.

Our food arrived. No wonder it cost $50. There was enough food to feed at least four or five people. It was very fancy and very good!!! We took far more than half of it with us as a take out.

We walked on to the Kings Garden and the Rosemond Palace with its beautifully trimmed grounds and gardens. The gardens were once kitchen gardens growing berries, vegetables and herbs but today are merely decorated only with perennials.

Close enough, we walked on to the Botanical Gardens. Yes, of course, we walked these grounds before but they looked so different today than in the winter of last year. I hope the pictures of flowers and plants do justice.

Ok, before we left this very sophisticated town, here are a couple of observations . . . first, USA parents are missing the boat. Older babies and toddlers here are pacified with a piece of sturdy bread. You will see very few plastic pacifiers and you will see even fewer baggies of Cheerios or Goldfish. Kids are put in strollers or on carts attached to bicycles and given a hunk of crusty bread. Kids love their bread; they munch, chew and suck. They are good to go for a long, long while. The bread lasts a long while and it's cheap! Smart folk, they are!

My second observation is people here are cool as cucumbers. There is little evidence of stress at all. They just ride their bikes to work, do what they need to do, enjoy their coffee and tea, say hello, and take care of their kids. They rarely flip anyone off or even frown. Whoa, wait a minute! Yes, we heard one stressed-out dad today. Wow! We were in the restaurant on the square with the music and the dancing drunk, when we heard this stressed dad was almost shouting, "This is just an American tourist trap! And we are leaving!"

Ok, y'all! Let's guess where this gent was from. We were a little embarrassed. Maybe the big guy failed to look about and realize that he had to go inside to place his order for food and drink at the counter. He just sat there waiting on someone to come out to serve him, getting madder and madder. Maybe he's never before visited Moe's!!!!