April 21st, 2023 Day 108 of 128

Coppenhagen, Denmark

Good morning from sunny, but chilly Copenhagen! Megan and I took our late excursion meet up as an opportunity to continue to get little extra rest. I am still not 100% and she is now congested as well. The consolation in that is that a lot of passengers seem to have gotten a cold as well as we changed climate so drastically in the the last couple of weeks. So we are all in good company and despite many a COVID test, it is just a cold. We went and had brunch again in the Lido this morning and then met our excursion group at the Main stage at 1:00pm. Some other passengers had gotten off this morning and took the shuttle into town and then came back to the ship for the excursion. If we had been more motivated we could have done the same thing this morning as well. Our fist stop was Tivoli Gardens in downtown Copenhagen. It is celebrating its 180th anniversary. It was a cross between the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and Disneyland. We had two hours to walk around this park and we took the opportunity to get Megan and unlimited ride wristband and she had a chance to ride some rides and just be a big kid. She twisted and turned and flipped herself upside down more than once. I wish we had come here first thing this morning and spent the whole day here. Next time. We met back up with our tour group and took a scenic drive around Copenhagen. We saw the palace, the opera house, a replica of David by Michelangelo, Rosenberg castle, some of the places Hans Christen Anderson lived and St Alban’s Anglican Church. There were daffodils opening everywhere and cherry trees blossoming. There is actually a cherry blossom festival here tomorrow. We were told several times today how blessed we were to be here at this time. The weather was lovely. It is Friday here and everywhere we went we saw tons of locals hanging out outside enjoying the weather and the sun shine. Our last stop on our excursion was to the Little Mermaid Statue. The sculptor Edvard Eriksen created the bronze statue, which was unveiled on August 23, 1913. We have seen the replica of the statue in Solvang, California several times and it was nice to finally see the original. We were back to the ship around 4:30pm and had time to relax and take some extra time to get ready for our special dinner this evening. We met for a cocktail party at 6:30pm with other passengers and had the opportunity to spend the evening with several officers and Gus Antorcha, the president of Holland America. We were treated to a lovely dinner in the Pinnacle Grill and had two other lovely couples seated with us and had the Hotel Manager, Henke as our table host. The conversation flowed so easily and everyone had such a lovely evening. Before we knew it, it was almost 10:30pm and we were one of the last tables in the restaurant. We were home shortly after. We came home to a vase with some of the tulip bulbs left over from the 150th celebration event with a note that said “From Florist”. I had an even later evening catching up with loved ones back at home but it is the blessing and curse of the time differences when we are traveling. We are currently 9 hours ahead of CA time and will be for about another week. Tonight we will sleep while the ship sails toward Oslo, Norway. We will have a scenic narrated sail in through the Fjords in the morning before we dock at the pier. Looking forward to a new country and a new adventure there. Wishing you all great rest and a fantastic weekend ahead!!