On August 17, we woke up very early and made our way to the nearby Billund airport to board our 6:20am flight.
We got to the airport and began to check in. For some reason there was a problem with my ticket, and the ticket agent had to call someone and get it sorted out. H. and I both breathed a sigh of relief when my tickets were finally printed and I was allowed to continue.
One thing every LEGO fan must do when flying out of Billund is visit the airport LEGO Store!
Why? Because, well, first of all, why wouldn't you?
And second... you can buy this exclusive-to-here set!
That said, the set barely fit in my luggage. My backpack's zippers wouldn't even close all the way anymore.
A short while later, we were boarding our first flight -- from Billund to Frankfurt.
In Frankfurt we had an almost 6-hour layover. We had not planned that, but as I mentioned in a previous post, the airline had changed our first flight time from 10am-something to 6am something, and that meant we had a very long turnaround.
I was in need of some over-the-counter meds, but for some reason it's really tricky to buy medicine in Denmark and Germany -- I'm not sure how it is elsewhere in the EU, but in these places, yikes. You can buy liquor, condoms, vitamins, cigarettes... any of that easily. It was just sitting out. But if you want actual medicine (Tylenol or Tums or cough syrup) you have to go to a pharmacy.
Some googling told me that there was a pharmacy somewhere in the Frankfurt airport. I spent about an hour trying to find it. I walked miles around the airport and asked at least three employees. Finally I learned that it was outside the security checkpoint. So out I went and I got my meds. Getting back to H. and our luggage required me to go through security as well as TWO passport checks.
So I kept getting Frankfurt passport stamps. I ended up with 3 new ones that day.
Finally it was time to board our 10-hour flight to the U.S. We'd paid a little extra to get two seats together (luckily the had seats in pairs of 2.)
Lufthansa has some seriously creepy Sim-type folks in their safety videos...
There were several crying babies on this flight. One was a toddler who absolutely shrieked its mf-ing head off. I had my earplugs and my industrial headphones on and could still hear the child many seats away. The baby across the aisle from us put up a good racket, too. And poor H. had to deal with the person in front of her moving their seat back rudely.
But eventually we landed in Denver. Thank goodness we had a 2-hour layover here, because we needed every minute of it. Well, I did (H. had the global fast pass thing.) The line for customs took about an hour, and after I got through that, we had to go through security again. By the time we got to our gate, it was almost time to board our flight.
On the Denver-to-Portland flight, H. and I were separated, and I got a dreaded middle seat. Thank goodness it was a shorter flight.
Finally, finally we made it back to Portland... home!
I then proceeded to spend the next 4 days in a state of total jet lag. I was really out of it.
^Randomly, a picture of some fries H. bought (and shared with me) circa Belgium.
So that's that!
But before I go, I like to make lists of things I wish I'd done, am glad I did, etc. and so on. This helps me plan for future trips, but maybe it'll help someone else who's planning their own trip.
Places I Loved So Much, I'd Gladly Go Back:
*Paris (all of it)
*Ghent
*Bruges
*Amsterdam
*Tivoli Gardens
*The LEGO House
Places I'd Probably Skip Next Time:
*The Jane Austen Centre in Bath
*The Anne Frank House (gotta do it once, though!)
*Versailles' interior -- I would like to explore the grounds more, though
*That hotel in London.
*That hotel in Copenhagen.
*The carousel in Montmartre.
*The train ride from London to Paris.
Things I Wish I'd Packed:
*A second USB cord.
*A small bottle of shampoo/conditioner. I'd assumed the first hotel would have some available, but it did not, and the nearby store only had large bottles of shampoo.
*Even more meds than what I thought I'd need. Who knew regular stuff would be so hard to get over there?
Things I'm SO GLAD I packed:
*A bed sheet (every hotel we stayed at had duvets only, and it was so warm while we were there! I loved having my sheet.)
*My neck pillow (how did I survive my previous Europe trip without it?)
*Industrial headphones (bless you, mufflers of most noise.)
*Water bottle holder with clip (I drank a lot of water on this trip, and it was nice to have a way to carry it.)
*My USB fan
*Rice cakes. They're one of my go-to snacks, and I really didn't find them anywhere until we got to either Amsterdam or Denmark, I can't remember which, but really late in our trip. Plus they took up room in my suitcase on the way to Europe, but were gone (and left a vacant spot) on the way back.
*Clothespins (useful for hanging up clothes to dry, closing snack bags, whatever.)
Things I brought along but never used:
*Pages from the Rick Steves guidebooks (I'd read them all so thoroughly and planned everything/entered what I wanted to do into Google Drive that I never needed the actual pages once I was in Europe.)
*A second, older European converter plug (rendered useless since it didn't have USB ports and I'd neglected to bring a USB-to-power plug!)
Things I brought but rarely used:
*A hoodie (darn heatwave)
*British pounds. My mom had given me some (leftover from her previous London trip), but hardly any places in London accepted cash! Even the food carts were card-only.
*Sweatpants (useful for wearing while I was washing/drying my pajamas, but other than that they just took up space.)
And now for some awards...
Most Beautiful Places: Ghent and Bruges
Most Fun Place: Billund! With Disneyland Paris and Tivoli Gardens tying for a close second.
Most Sobering Place: The Holocaust Names Memorial
Favorite Food: The waffle/pizza lunch we had in Ghent, followed closely by the pizza and salad from the Tivoli food court.
Favorite Hotel: The IBIS Amsterdam Centre Stopera
Friendliest People: Denmark
My Favorite LEGO Store: Amsterdam
Best Overall Public Transportation System: Paris
Best Dog:
Fin.
