Back Home in Copenhagen

Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2008--Tbilisi (Continued)

Ate a wrap sandwich at a place where I have seen long lines many times. It was juicy and delicious. Then I exchanged all the rest of my money except what I needed for taking the bus to the airport.

I returned to the apartment in Tbilisi and said goodbye to the family which had become friends to me. Picked up by bags. Eduard, the father, walked with me to the bus stop and made sure that I caught the right bus.

The bus was rather crowded with people returning home from work. But there was room for me in the back. I stood the whole way to the airport because of my luggage which included my backpack on my back, too.

Read from a new book I had bought while waiting at the airport. Found 3 seats together without anything between them and was able to recline and sleep some. It would be after midnight before I could check in.

Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008--Tbilisi to Munich to Copenhagen

By 1:50 I was checked in. I noticed that the airport here is also served by other airlines in the Star Alliance that would take me to various places on my ticket--London, Vienna, Riga, etc.

Tbilisi has a nice terminal. It is new while being small. In fact, it probably isn't much larger than the one in Corpus Christi. Beyond passport contol, there were even better seats for waiting, so I reclined across 4 of them and napped some more while waiting for them to call us for boarding.

I had a seat hog beside me on the flight from Tbilisi to Munich. He wasn't very large a person. He just felt free to put his arms and elbows beyond the armrest and into my space. I was frustrated, because I was planning to sleep and knew that I wouldn't be able to do so with his arm pressing against me and moving during the night. Then I got an idea. I wrapped my blanket around my arm on that side and put it down against the armrest inside my area. That caused his arm to be against the blanket whenever he came into my space. He didn't after that. As I figured, it made him feel too warm to be against the blanket!!

There was a delay in the flight from Munich to Copenhagen of almost an hour. It was my first delayed flight on my trip this year, I think. It seems that there are more likely to be delays in Europe and the U.S. than in other parts of the world.

Nurse Grethe was at the airport to meet me. It was the first time someone has done that since Arne died. It's nice to come out of customs and see a familiar face waiting. We took the metro home. It was the first time I had been able to do that, since they didn't start running that metro line until after I had been here last year.

Grethe prepared a nice meal for the evening, and Jens, Robert, and Claus joined us. I felt amazingly well, since I napped a couple of hours after getting to the apartment. She served roasted pork with crispy skin, brown sauce, new potatoes, pickled pumpkin, pickled asia, and pickled cucumber. That was preceded by tuna mousse topped with caviar as an appetizer and followed later with Danish apple cake (a pudding really) for dessert. We had white wine, red wine, sparkling water, etc. It was a typical Danish feast. Ummmmm!

It is nice to be back in Copenhagen. It isn't as difficult to be here anymore now that 4 years has passed since Arne's death. The city still feels like home to me.