We've arrived!

We've safely completed the first leg of our journey! The flights from Minneapolis to Rekjavik, Iceland, and from Iceland to Copenhagen, Denmark, were very nice, once we were airborn. We had a one-way ticket, and the airline was very leery of allowing us to board the plane without proof that we were going to continue to travel and not stay in Denmark. So we had to scramble a bit to find paperwork that would satisy them. In the end, all was well and we had killed much of the time that we would normally have spent sitting by the gate, but it did provide us with a moment of panic.

On the flight from Minnesota to Iceland, we sat next to a very nice Englishman from London, who reminded us of Ricky Gervais. An interesting conversation was sparked by the USA Today article headlined "Gas Prices Hit Record High" and we all agreed that urban planning was the biggest problem facing the United States.

Just after takeoff we witnessed an excellent show presented by Mother Nature.

Something like seven hours later and we were able to catch a glimpse of Iceland! Close up, it looked very much like the moon probably looks.

We were greeted at the airport by Bente and Sanja, who took us to their home. A few initial comments about Denmark:

1. This is a land were young and old people ride bicycles as an everyday means of transportation.

2. Football (soccer), handball, and other sport practices are close enough to where people live that young kids can walk or bike themselves to the fields. Imagine! No culture of "soccer moms" to be found.

We walked to the grocery store and found that there were bicycles for sale right at the end of the meat aisle. Kristina finally gets the yogurt that she loves.

Before dinner we took a short bicycle ride around a lake. I think that we were the only people biking for fun. Everyone else was using their bikes to get somewhere. On main streets there are usually four lanes going each direction. Going from the center outward, there is one lane for cars to drive in, one lane for cars to park in, one lane for bicycles, and one lane for people to walk in. You have to watch out! There is no free right turn in a car because there are so many bikes turning.

Bente, Steen, and Sanja have a great internet connection, so most likely there will be more updates before we leave Copenhagen! Until then... hej hej.