Copenhagen in a Day

Saturday, April 2, 2010 (Part 1):

Wow! What a day we had. In fact, this was to be the first of quite a few very long days -- so many that I was completely unable to keep up with my journal. I was constantly days behind. And on this first day of our whirlwind vacation, we saw Copenhagen -- all of it! We saw all of the top sites in the city. It was great, and it left me thoroughly exhausted.

First, a few words of Danish will help sort out where we went and what we saw.

"Slot" = Castle

"Kirke" = Church

"Havn" = Harbor

We started our day shortly after 9:00am by walking to Slotsholmen (a castle, get it?). This is where the first castle in Copenhagen was built in the 11th Century by Bishop Absalon. The original castle was destroyed in the 13th Century by the rival Hanseatic League. The palace that stands here today was not built until the early 20th Century and currently houses Parliament and the High Court.

We had hoped to tour through the ruins of the original castle and the stable area, but we were a little too early for that. Nothing was open yet, so we just walked around the extensive grounds and enjoyed the statues and the architecture. Much of Copenhagen today is built on fill, but this particular castle is one of the few areas that was originally solid ground!

What a Coincidence

I began my trip to Europe on Tuesday, March 30th, but that was not the beginning of my vacation. I was on a business trip! Quite coincidentally (really!), I had to be in Vienna for a two-day argument as part of an insurance arbitration proceeding. This was a double coincidence because (i) the argument was scheduled to immediately precede the date I had planned to travel to Copenhagen originally and so it meshed perfectly from a scheduling standpoint and (ii) the argument was scheduled to take place in Vienna which was one of the cities Katherine and I had planned to visit. I may never be in Vienna again in my life, but for this one moment in time, I had two reasons to be there in the same week!

And so, I spent Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in Vienna on business, and then flew to Copenhagen on Friday evening (April 2nd). My trip to the airport was uneventful, and I had no difficulty getting ticketed and finding the gate. The plane took off on time and landed in Copenhagen on time, and, by about 7:45 p.m., I was hugging Katherine outside the baggage claim area. We found each other very easily. IT WAS SO GREAT TO SEE HER! And it was so nice to have her as my own personal tour guide in this city.

One of the first benefits of Katherine's knowing the city is that we were able to take public transportation into the city. We took the train. We had to change to a second train at one point, but it all worked out very well. And it was fast. Upon arriving at the train station in the city, we walked a bit to our hotel, and that allowed Katherine to give me a very basic orientation to the city.

We stayed at the Hotel Danmark. It was quite nice and very conveniently located in the center of town -- very near the City Hall. After dropping off our luggage at the hotel, we walked through the central town square, past the City Hall, and found a restaurant near the Tivoli amusement park (unfortunately not open for the 2010 season until mid-April) for a late dinner. The photos here are of the City Hall.

Back at the hotel, we mapped out our plan of attack for the next day. Basically, we had one day to see the entire city. We had a very ambitious agenda and I hoped very much to get to everything on our list.

A European Tour

I have just returned from a nine day vacation with Katherine. It was the second week of her two-week Spring Break from her studies this semester in Copenhagen. Our plan was to see three cities in one week. We started in Copenhagen -- so that Katherine could show off her new "home" to me -- and we then proceeded to Prague (in the Czech Republic) and Vienna (in Austria). We had a wonderful week together, and I will now be spending considerable time over the next few weeks trying to faithfully record some of the wonderful things that we saw and did.

These three cities are equally enchanting but they are very distinct each one from the other. Copenhagen is a city of the sea. It is defined by its extensive watery coast, inlets and canals.

Prague is a city that reeks of history. It has a very old, very charming city center which is watched

over and dominated by a medieval castle on a hill. Vienna is the most cosmopolitan of these three cities, but it maintains a strong classical music tradition and is home to some grand 17th and 18th century palaces. I loved each one of these cities.

I have selected three photos for this first entry in this blog series. The first photo is a view of a portion of Copenhagen that features the inner harbor, the Christianshavns Canal and, at the top of the photo, the city's beautiful opera hall.

The second photo depicts one corner of the old Town Square in Prague, taken from the top of the famous Town Hall clock tower.

The third photo is of the Schoenbrun Palace, located only a few miles east of downtown Vienna. This was the Hapsburgs' summer palace and was built during the middle of the 18th century. It was intended to rival Versailles, and it does a pretty good job of it.

Offices, Old and New - Part II

The BIG MOVE has happened! Last Thursday night, we left our offices in the Oliver Building for the last time and for three days (24 hour each day, I am told), our offices were moved one block away to the new K&L GATES CENTER, on Penn Avenue.

I am happy to report that all of my things were moved safely and soundly. I am not missing anything and, most importantly, my desk was disassembled and reassembled in perfect shape. There are few things about the new office space that will take some getting used to (like the fact that I need to take my key with me to go to the ladies' room), but our new space is really very nice. The conference rooms are simply gorgeous and the views from our floor (the 29th floor) are quite spectacular.

Here are some photos of our new offices.

Scrabble, Seriously

Anyone who knows me even casually probably knows that I love to play Scrabble. Consequently, I instilled a love of the game in my children from a young age. Now that they are young adults, we still play, but there is one significant difference. They beat me! All the time! We always have good, competitive games though, so I keep coming back for more. [I like to think I give them a run for their money. I may be being naive.]

A few nights ago, Chris and I played a game of Scrabble and he beat me good. We both managed to play a 7-letter word, but he got two of them! And so, he racked up an amazing score of 425 to my paltry 294. I memorialized the event by taking a picture.

Maybe I'll do better next time. . . . Or not.

More Blizzard Photos

Here are some additional photos of our blizzard conditions:

The first is of our driveway and shows Katherine's car all covered in snow. It is difficult to see, but we have not finished all of our shoveling. The area in front of Chris' garage door remains un-shoveled. We'll have to attack that tomorrow.

The second photo here is of our two puppies, Bingley and Darcy. They are shown here in the morning, right after we had opened the garage

door. They probably thought they were going out to address their morning toilette, but no-o-o.

They encountered a bit of an obstacle - a wall of snow that

was taller than they are. Needless to say, they had to "hold it" for a while.

And the remaining pictures here are provided to try to give you a better sense of the depth of the snow. The first shows a flower box on the rail of our rear deck. This flower box is about

5 inches tall. You can see here that the height of the snow on top of the box is about 3 times the height of the box.

The final picture here is of the patio table that sits on our back patio.

The diameter of this table is about 60 inches. My best estimate is that there are 2 feet of snow piled up on this table.

The Blizzard of 2010

In my own humble opinion, weathermen usually err on the side of being overly pessimistic - in other words, predicting the worst. Well, they missed this one by a mile. For several days, we have been warned that we were to get a big snow storm on Friday night. The predicted snowfall was 4 to 8 inches. Well, they missed that prediction by about 300% - or more.

The snow began to fall slow but steady at about 6:00pm. It started out wet and slushy, solidified a bit, and then began to come down fast and furious. After dinner, Chris and I went out and shoveled about 6 inches off the driveway and sidewalk. We were feeling pretty good that we'd gotten a jump on it. Two hours later, I took the dogs out, and 4 more inches had fallen!!! I shoveled a path to get the dogs to the side yard, but figured it wasn't worth much more effort at 11:00pm.

This morning, we awoke to a true winter wonderland. Because this was also a windy storm,

there was a lot of drifting. We took a measuring stick and began to measure the depth of

the snow. Our first measurement, on the front stoop, was 17". But in parts of the driveway, it was over 2 feet!

It's noon time now and we've shoveling for about three hours. It's a nasty task. Chris is still out there, but I had to take a break. We have almost broken through the end of the driveway but, there, our biggest

challenge awaits -- a 3-4 foot high mound left by the snow plow.

The dogs always have the toughest time in the snow, and this snow is really confusing them -- because they can't see over it! I was willing to let them stay out with us while we shoveled, but they were not interested. [Have I mentioned, they are very intelligent dogs.] They were thoroughly confused because they can't get through it and they can't see what's going on. Bingley seemed stressed out by the whole scene! Darcy was a bit more oblivious, per usual.

I took a few pictures (some of which are posted here) but the pictures (white on white) do not tell the story well. There is no real depth perception in them. But you can believe me. We have a lot of snow!

is no real depth perception.