May 22, 2000

We packed up for the long trip home and a day of sightseeing in Copenhagen. We rode a charter bus to the train station and put our luggage in a storage area. We walked through a light rain to get to the tour boat "Nato Badene". The boat took us through the canals where we saw the home of Hans Christian Anderson, the Old Harbor and Royal Residence , the "Littlest Mermaid" sculpture, the Royal Library (called the Black Diamond) and the Old Fish Market. We broke up into small groups for lunch and a variety of activities, some went shopping, some went to an English speaking movie, and others walked around the busy downtown area. At 5:00pm we met at the train station, grabbed a snack, our luggage (which is a lot with all the shopping we did) and boarded our first train of the evening. It was sad to say good-bye to our tour guide, John. He had become a good friend over the past few weeks. We had our own car with tables and just enough room to sit comfortably. They played cards, listened to CD's, read books, ate snacks and watched the beautiful scenery go by the window. The train went onto a ferry and we crossed over the Baltic Sea to Germany. The ferry ride was only 45 minutes and most people stayed on the train.

We switched trains in Hamburg at 10:18pm and got our own first class sleeper car to Frankfurt. The cabins had comfortable bunk beds and a full bathroom. Some of us went to the dining car for a snack before going to the cabins for our six hours of sleep. we got a wake-up call at 4:15am and gathered for a quick breakfast in the dining car before dragging our luggage off this train and getting on our final train to the airport. We felt like we have gone up and down escalators through every train station and airport in Europe. We get checked in at the Delta counter and spread out in the gate area to get a little more sleep before we board our plane to Atlanta. We have a couple of pieces of crystal that have been broken but we are in pretty good shape and awfully good spirits for the last day of a 16 day trip. We have only a little over 24 hours to go until touchdown in Tallahassee.