Travel Planning

Sunday, Sept. 6, 2009--Copenhagen

The weather is quite nice here in Copenhagen. There have been some showers, but mostly it has been sunny. Today, I took a train to Farum, a suburb about 45 minutes away to visit Arne's family at their campground where they spend the summers in a camping wagon.

Evy, Arne's sister, has been in the hospital for 4 weeks, but she was back at the campground and is getting well. She had an accident where her leg was injured by a gardening tool as she stood up from her stool after weeding her flowers. Due to diabetes, she is slow to heal and needed special care. But while in the hospital a blood clot formed and lodged in her neck. They had to perform surgery to remove it. The only good part of all of it is that the doctors have found that her general health is fine. Therefore, when she is finally mended, she should be fine for a while!

Arvind picked me up at the train station. And Holgar and Anita came to visit during the time I was there. We had coffee and Danish pastry. It was good to see them all, but it was difficult saying goodbye knowing that I might not see them again. I have no present plans to return to Copenhagen. Since it will be a few years from now if I do, I have to worry about whether people as old as Evy and Arvind will still be here.

Upon my return to Copenhagen, Grethe's brother Morten and his wife came for dinner. Grethe cooked one of his favorites--stuffed peppers, potatoes and green beans. Dinner was great, and Grethe and I purposely avoided drinking alcohol after all the partying we have been doing lately. As usual, it was nice to see Morten and Helle. Since last year, they have bought a summer house that is on an island accessed only by ferry. They showed me photos and told me about it. It looks like a wonderful place with a view across the cattle fields to the sea.

Monday, Sept. 7, 2009--Copenhagen

I have not slept well since arriving here. I awaken early with worries about my travels from here. The first stop, Morocco, should be fine. But I keep encountering problems related to Venezuela. And it is complicated by the fact that to return from there, I had to book a flight from Aruba rather than from Venezuela. Today, I spent much time researching flights from various airports in Venezuela to Aruba. Part of the problem is that Venezuela puts a departure tax of approximately $100 on all international facts. With Aruba being just 15 miles (25 km) off the coast of Aruba, there apparently is little demand for flights that will be as expensive as they must be with that departure tax. For some reason, there have been no ferry services between the two countries for years. I finally found a flight that would go through Columbia to Aruba and cost over $200 without including the $100 departure tax. I found another flight that MAY exist that is non-stop and just about the same price. But nothing seems firm. That causes me to worry about getting to Venezuela and then NOT being able to get to Aruba for my return flight. Added to that concern is the knowledge that there are lots of safety warnings about traveling there. By the end of the day, I was exhausted dealing with it and starting to question whether I should change my travel plans and skip going to Venezuela.

Grethe came home from work, and we made frikadeller (Danish meatballs) together. It was a quiet dinner here together, again with no alcohol. Afterwards, Grethe watched Robinson, the local version of Survivor (and also its predecessor, since the local show started about three years before the U.S. version was broadcast) on TV.

Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2009--Copenhagen

I was awake at 3:45 worrying about my travels again. I got on the computer and started researching alternatives where I could stop for a few days if I decided to skip going to Venezueala. My first attempt was to try going to Iceland, since the cost of traveling there has decreased dramatically lately and it is a place I would like to see. That got eliminated as a possibility because of the number of airline segements required to go there and continue to San Antonio would cause my total on my ticket to be two more than is allowed. I tried Halifax and ran into a similar problem. I tried Dublin and did not like the choices I had for airlines. As of now, I am considering Barcelona. There are two problems related to it: I will arrive later than I want to arrive, and I will have to depart earlier in the morning than I like to depart for such a long travel day. Otherwise, it seems fine. Today, I will go to the Thai airlines office today to see about changing the ticket.