Copenhagen (June 11-17, 2013)

My favorite activity was swimming at the Islands Brygge area in Copenhagen harbor. When we jumped into the cold water there, we realized that it was salt water. Very nice. We will see if the new walking path on Lady Bird Lake in Austin has a swimming area like this.

The first things I noticed in downtown Copenhagen were the widespread use of bicycles; the impressive number of tall, attractive blond people; and the incredibly high number of young people who smoke cigarettes.

At some point in history, the people of Copenhagen included two bike lanes on each side of many of their bigger roads. Imagine big bike lanes running for 5 miles or more each way from downtown Austin along Lamar and Burnet Lane with thousands of bike commuters each day. The bike lanes have their own set of traffic lights that some smart engineer has timed so that on bikes you ride quite far before having to stop at red lights for cars. Hank, Nadine and I rode our bikes about 5 miles from our hotel to the new aquarium, Den Blu Planet. I read that over 30% of people in Copenhagen commute to work and school by bike.

One day while it rained we saw Ironman 3, and noted that Nadine bears many similarities to Pepper Potts. In Copenhagen we also arrived at our first trip motto for Nadine: “Usually right, always certain.”