This weekend I struck out on my own. I went to Hannover, Germany on Thursday night, arriving Friday morning. I noticed that the skyline was littered with cranes for some reason. Only think I could think of is that I saw the portion that was along the Mittelland kanal. Where of course they have many cranes to load and unload barges. The primary reason that I went to Hannover was to visit my employers' global competitor. Unfortunately, I could only get within 20 km of their building. I couldn't get a taxi where I was at, and I was running out of time before my connecting train to Kobenhavn, Denmark. I was discouraged that I got so close and had to turn around, but at least I tried.

On to Kobenhavn! My train to Kobenhavn went up to the Baltic Sea where I took a 45-minute fairy across to the island where Kobenhavn is located. On the fairy I had a nice view of a windmill farm, I pasted several on the way up to Kobenhavn. I found out later that the politicians of the area don't really like them because they think they are ugly. They think about the windmills, like we think about billboards. They are good moneymakers for landowners, but neighbors don't like them much.

When I arrived in Kobenhavn I found a hotel and went to eat dinner. I walked around a little, but by then it was getting dark. The next morning I checked out of my hotel and went to leave my bag in a train station locker. I then headed out for my day of walking. I went through the tourist shop district as they were opening their stores. Not very busy at the time, but when I would return later it was very busy. After that I headed to the harbor in search of "The Little Mermaid." I found it after seeing Amalienborg. The only thing I could figure out is that Amalienborg was some governmental building. It had a changing of the guards while I was there. I think I have a picture or two of that. It wasn't that impressive since the guards would look around the whole time they were standing guard. They would even push you away from them if you got to close to them. Oh well, it was fairly interesting. After there I went through a fortification that had an old type of windmill. It was neat to see those windmills that are always painted in paintings. Next was "The Little Mermaid." A writer placed "The Little Mermaid" in the harbor. Some of those at GTL built this up to be a really neat thing to see, but in fact it didn't do much for me. It was very close to the shore and people were crawling out on the rocks to take pictures with it. Not my kind of tourist photo point. I have pretty much decided that the photo companies have gotten together to build these monuments all over Germany so that tourists use more films. Sort of like the argument that card companies have fabricated holidays to sell more cards. Could be true. The next part my Mom will love. I went through a park and happened to find a flower garden. Just in the middle of the large park, there were these roses and other flowers behind some trees. So, I found a pathway and took some pictures of the flowers. There weren't any people around there, so I don't know if I was supposed to be around or not. No one said anything, so I guess it was okay. Then I went through the tourist shops again. By this time there were many people out and about. There were also con men.

I didn't know that they played a version of the shell game in Kobenhavn. I stood there for at least an hour watching the con men at work. I didn't realize how many people were in the con. There was the one man actually working the little boxes (or shells), and then he had four friends working with him. When I first walked up I only thought one of the extra men was working with him, but after a few minutes it was obvious that all four were working together with the shell mover. There was a rough, tough guy who lost a lot. There was a slick-talking guy who always tried to convince others they were right and they should bet money on their guess. There was an older guy with an umbrella that anyone that walks up wouldn't even think he was in on it. He tried to be the soundman of good advice. Then there was the money-man. He would always win right after a tourist lost his money so that the shell mover didn't have too much cash at any given time. I thought this was key so that if they got caught. They wouldn't get too much money taken away. Even when the others won, the shell mover would only fold their money in half so it looked like twice their money. That way he didn't really have to give them any of the money.

After that I went through a residential area and just people watched for a while. I saw people doing exactly what we do here in the States. Jogging around the lake, playing with their children and feeding the ducks were among the many activities that were going on.

After I caught my train home two Swedish girls asked to sit in my compartment. They were very nice college students from Stockholm. I enjoyed the opportunity to talk to them about their views of the United States. Very educational to learn how other nations view the United States and our use of power across the globe. That is a discussion for another place and another time. After my train rides I made it home and caught up on sleep that I had been missing for the past few weeks. 18 hours of nearly continuous sleep. I even surprised myself. I am seeing Spain in my near future.