Denmark Trip - Day 23 - Tved, DK to Vancouver, WA
Summer House, Tved – Woke at 1 AM, finished cleaning up the summer house, packed the car, and left to pick up Lotte for the drive to Billund airport. Lotte graciously agreed to drive us to the airport and was waiting for us at her house with coffee. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 6 AM which meant we needed to arrive at the airport by 4 AM. When we arrived at the airport, we found out our flight had been canceled. I checked my email to see if there were any messages and sure enough, they sent a message around 2 AM saying our flight was canceled. Thankfully, they also sent another message saying they rebooked us on the 10:15 AM flight which would hopefully get us to the Amsterdam airport on time for our next flight to Portland, Oregon. We checked in and checked two bags. To console us for canceling our flight, KLM Airline gave us two vouchers for 150 DKK each that we could use for purchases in the airport. So, I splurged, and bought rolls, cheese, and coffee for everyone. We hung out in the downstairs lounge talking about the wonderful time we had and not wanting to say goodbye. But unfortunately, the time came, and we had to say goodbye to Lotte 😞. Carol and I went through security and went upstairs where there were a bunch of duty-free stores. Carol bought some more LEGO gifts, and I tried to spend the rest of our voucher on soft drinks and candy. We waited at the boarding gate and, surprise! They announced the plane would be ½ hour late. We finally boarded the plane and were detoured to a different door where we had to walk down a flight of stairs, across the runway and up a flight of stairs to the back entrance of the plane. Having to carry our luggage up and down stairs was a bummer. But, when I discovered our seats were at the very back of the plane, I was glad because we didn’t have to crab walk down a narrow aisle to get to our seats. As I was putting our luggage in the overhead compartment, someone started yelling at me. I couldn’t figure out what he was upset about until I realized my backpack was hitting him in the head. I apologized profusely but, the look on his face was not one of forgiveness 😡. The flight to Amsterdam was short but the walk to our next boarding gate was long. We arrived at the gate after boarding had begun and thankfully, were able to board without problems. The plane left Amsterdam around 3 PM and took 10 hours 22 minutes to fly 5,100 miles to Portland, Oregon. The first meal was a choice of Tortellini or Chicken Curry (I got the chicken and Carol got the Tortellini). Later during the flight, they served a breakfast sandwich, beverage, and pudding. The sandwich was terrible, but the pudding was surprisingly good. We arrived at PDX around 2:40 PM Pacific Time and went through passport check and customs. Apparently international flights unload further away from the main terminal. We had no idea where we were in the airport and just followed the crowd to an exit where the sign said we needed to take a shuttle bus to baggage claim. There was a long line waiting for the shuttle bus and when we finally got on, we had to stand crammed together like sardines. We made it to baggage claim and I was quite happy to see our two checked bags sitting there waiting for us. We walked outside to where the Lyft and Uber drivers pick up people. Carol used the Lyft app to request a Lyft ride. The Lyft driver took around ½ hour to show up and apologized saying the traffic was terrible. The driver was from Ethiopia and very talkative. She said she came to the U.S. with her husband who came for work. We finally got home around 5 PM and were happy to see Petrina and Larry had left some Bleu Door bakery items for us. We later found out that Petrina and Larry both got COVID-19 while we were gone. Petrina was better but Larry was still testing positive. So, we decided to wait until Larry was better before talking with them in person. We texted them to let them know we got home and thanked them profusely for taking care of our house and plants while we were gone.
Things I Learned On This Day (#TILOTD) –
- Billund, Denmark is the birthplace of LEGO
- LEGOLAND is an amusement park in Billund, Denmark
- Billund Airport has a huge green COVID-19 made out of LEGOs hanging in the main lobby
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