We got up pretty early, a little before 8, and while Kai was running through the shower and getting himself ready, we helped clean up last night’s drinks and dishes and set up breakfast. I ended up cutting avocados and lemons in the kitchen, with other people working on cheese and cold cut platters, getting pre-ordered rolls from the baker, taking dishes up to the big dining room, etc. We had just enough time to pack up our stuff and put it in Uschi’s car before breakfast was ready at 9; while the others stayed, Uschi took us to the nearby train station in Neumuenster at 9:30, for our 10:22 train to Copenhagen, and we had a fairly uneventful trip, even though we had to stand for the first two hours or so of our five-hour trip through a very pretty Danish landscape, because the train was overly full and we hadn’t been able to get reservations for it. But once we were on the train from Fredericia to Copenhagen, we had seats and a very pleasant journey, which included several stretches across the ocean between Danish islands, and even a tunnel under the sea for a while, before we arrived in Copenhagen around 3:30. Our hotel was really close to the train station, and once we had scored a free map at the tourist information center, fairly easy to find. It’s a funky place called the “Annex” which is really the annex to the “Absalon Hotel” and features minimalist rooms in bright colors. Ours has a double bed, a single bed, a sink, a weird thing that doubles as a desk and a wardrobe, one bright orange and one bright green wall, and is perfectly acceptable. What makes it cheap (for Copenhagen) is that there are showers and bathrooms at the end of the long, rabbit-warren hallways for all to share, but they are all individual shower stalls and bathroom stalls, and that’s worked well, too. We dropped of our stuff and then went exploring for a few hours, initially without more than our paper map. Everything seemed very urban and under construction, but once we got a slightly better sense of directions, we managed to find the waterfront with a very interesting modern building, the so-called “Black Diamond,” a 2000s addition to the royal library. Kai thought it looked fascinating, and we decided to come back when it was going to be open the next day. We then walked along a canal to one of the many castles, and eventually managed to find the main pedestrian shopping district and something simple to eat–shawarma with salad and bread for pretty exorbitant prices, but we really needed food! We then walked around some more, watched a street performer and established that the main museums were (as I suspected) going to be closed the next day, and came home to the hotel at about 8 pm, pretty beat and in need of some quiet time and some planning time for our one full Copenhagen day.