Tivoli and Beer

After visiting Sweden, we met Gitte and Siri at Tivoli. Tivoli is one of the world's oldest amusement parks. This ride kicked ass. It shot you to the top of a tower, then let you free fall! That's Tore on the left, Siri next to him, and me. I don't know who that other guy is, but he liked it too.

Here's the group just before dinner at Tivoli. I'm striking the Japanese/Korean/Chinese girl peace sign for picture taking.

The next day, it was time to tour the Carlsberg brewery. Here's an old beer delivery wagon that was used for Tuborg. Carlsberg purchased Tuborg a few years ago. They don't make beer at this factory (except for some specialty brews), that's all taken care of in the western part of Denmark, Jutland.

Here's Elizabeth petting the Jutland draft horses. They look like miniature Clydsdales that Budweiser has. Their stable is almost as nice as the ones at St. Louis, but no marble floors. Granite cobblestones are nice enough for the Danish draft horses.

Day trip to Malmo, Sweden.

We took a day trip over the straight from Denmark to Sweden. The city of Malmo (pronounced Mal-Muu), is a bedroom community for Copenhagen now, with the construction of the bridge between the 2 countries. We took the train on over in the morning, it was about a 45 minute drive from the northern Suburbs of Copenhagen where we were staying. Here's Elizabeth in the central square. This was some of the first sun of the trip, funny how we had to go to Sweden to see some sun!


The Swedes also ride their bikes like mad. This is the bike parking lot at the train station. These folks probably ride to the station, and hop the train for work over in Copenhagen. Must be 1000 bikes in there!







What's more European than sitting on the plaza enjoying a beer in the afternoon. What fun!





















Here's Elizabeth roaming through some of the old buildings off the central square. Later in the day, my friend Tore swung through town to pick us up and take us back to Copenhagen. What a nice way to spend a Monday afternoon!

Copenhagen!

Ahh, Copenhagen. We finally made it to Denmark. We took a canal boat tour of the harbor with Rune and Gunild as our tour guides. It was a cold blustery day, but we had a great time. This is the harbor area where the tour starts and ends, there are lots of cool restaurants and bars here now. We brought a yummy pizza on the tour with us, it kept us warm.

The Blue Lagoon

The blue lagoon was something we had heard about from the Travel Channel or something, plus they show pictures of it on the T here in Boston in the ads for Icelandair. It's a big cooling pond for a geo-thermal power plant that supplies electricity and heat to Reykjavik, Iceland. The water is over 460F deep in the ground. Here at the blue lagoon, it's a balmy 104. So nice. Check out the crazy characters in the Icelandic alphabet. The second line on the sign is Icelandic for Blue Lagoon. It was like a gigantic hot tub. I would love to come here in the winter and see if I could observe the northern lights while soaking in the lagoon.
View of the Lagoon from the relaxation lounge.


Whoa! What's the Joker doing here?

This is Silica on our faces. Supposedly good for Psoriasis and your complexion. Elizabeth says it made us break out. Also, it made her hair feel like straw. Time to head back to Leifur Ericksson Int'l Airport (that's Leif Erickson, the guy who discovered the new world) to hop on over to Copenhagen.

Trip to Iceland, on our way to Scandinavia

Yeah, vacation! We are taking a trip to Scandinavia to visit our friends who live in Denmark. We left on Friday night from Boston on Icelandair. They have a hub in Keflavik, Iceland, which is a short 4.5 hour flight from Boston. We scheduled a long layover of about 10 hours in Iceland so that we could see some sights. Here's what transpired.


Look at all of this luggage. We have lots of things for our Danish friends. They order from websites, have them delivered to our house, then we transport them. Saves them a lot of money in VAT, aka European sales tax at 25%!

Icelandair welcome screen. I was expecting Bjork.

Driving down the road in Iceland near the airport. We have some time to kill before the Blue Lagoon opens up for the day. We landed around 6 am and the BL didn't open until 10. Iceland is a place with almost no trees. Lots of lava and moss. It looked like one big national park.

Here's a sulfur hot spring we stopped at. It reminded me a lot of Yellowstone national park.

China and Japan for Work

Apologies to the 2 of you who check this blog from time to time. Here's a few updates for you. I took a 1 week trip to Shanghai and Yokohama at the beginning of June. It was a whirlwind trip. I was quite tired, and picked up a bit of a cold while I was there, so I apologize for my lack of exciting photos. Here's a few I took:


While in Shanghai, I took the Maglev bullet Train from near my hotel to the airport. This thing is fast. Our top speed was 301kph, or 180mph. This train can go faster, but at the time of the morning we went, 7:30am, they run at a lower speed. It was silky smooth. Very impressive. Just imagine if we had a few of these in the US.

Shanghai Airport Terminal

On to Japan. I was glad to be going to Japan, because I really like the food there. Especially after eating Chinese food for 3 days. We ate the same sort of food for each meal, and it got a little old. It was my first trip to China. Shanghai was quite an impressive city.



Here's the view below my hotel room. Those are all taxi cabs waiting for passengers at Yokohama Central station. Note, not a single cab ever honked their horn. Imagine the cacophony of horns if this was the US! I hate cabs.
Here's the view from my hotel, overlooking Yokohama bay. This is near where Commodore Perry landed when Japan was a closed empire. There was a little painting of his visit down near the harbor. The train station is visible in the lower right hand part of the picture. Bye-bye Japan, thanks for a great visit!

Not much new for traveling...

Sorry for the lack of updates, but I only been traveling to San Jose and Austin since my last visit. I will visit Kansas City this week, and I'll remember to bring my camera along for a picture of something (hopefully a giant steak for dinner).

We've been traveling less for work, due to the current economic conditions, hence the lack of posts. I will be visiting Shanghai and Tokyo at the end of April, stay tuned for lots of pictures of my first trip to a Communist country, as well as a return visit to one of my favorite places in the world. I can't wait to stock up on pens!