I had the date of the 4th of September in the back of my head as the one to be concerned about - but that it the date that I arrive back in Wellington. When I leave Europe is the day after tomorrow.
The day after tomorrow!
Suddenly, I feel like I've got no time left here at all - mainly because I've got no time left. On the other hand... I have actually managed to get to all the places I planned to try for, apart from Prague, as well as one or two bonus areas. I saw most of the people I wanted to see, and I've gotten up nice and early, so I'll be able to see some more Copenhagen sights.
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Museums are closed on Monday.
Once I saw the first "closed" sign, it was like - oh, yeah, I vaguely remember reading about that last time I was here. Luckily, there were plenty of other things to do; and I had made a late start, so I didn't have too much time to fill. :)
One of the first things I did was to take a canal tour. Appart from the Haunted Edinburgh tour and the free Edinburgh castle guide, this was the only professionally guided expedition I've been on this trip. It was pretty good - as well as pointing out the coiled dragon tails of the old Stock Exchange spire (with the three crowns to symbolise the three Scandinavian kingdoms), he pointed out the yacht owned by one of the initial Microsoft team and used in a James Bond movie, and talked about the sculpture created to celebrate the recent royal wedding: "The statues are meant to look like them, but the heads are much bigger than their bodies. But it's a nice sculpture anyway."
(I've just spent five minutes trying to find out which Microsoft bigwig owned the yacht, but my Google-fu is insufficient today.)
I also wandered around the grounds and foundations of Christiansborg Palace, which was pretty cool, and had a look in some of the shops, though I managed to avoid buying anything.
Then, it was back to Helen's place, where I transformed the leftovers from last night into a very nice shepherd's pie. We were going to try to learn the Settlers card game, but it looked like it might take a while, so we went for a quick walk around Gentofte (the suburb where she lives). Not many suburbs in Wellington have castles in them! (Well, it was more along the lines of a manor-house, but Bernstorff Slot is still plenty impressive.)
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Back to London around lunchtime tomorrow, hopefully meeting up with my friend David; I should stay with Ellen that night, I guess. And then... fly home late afternoon the next day. Freaky!
Posted by svend at August 31, 2004 7:13 PM