I saw a mermaid!

Today is the day I finally made it to Denmark! Very exciting for me, as it was one of the places I was most disappointed to think I was missing. I got up early to catch my 7am train and cruised across northern Germany. Beautiful country side, and one of the nicest trains I've been on. There were only about 5 of us on the entire 3 car train! It was amazing to have it practically to yourself. I also got to take the train on a ferry to get across to the island. While a short trip (45 minutes) across, it was exciting to see the train drive on and off the boat. One more experience for the books!
I got to Copenhagen a little after noon, and got to walk halfway across the city to get to the hotel. While overcast, I still felt over-warm with my backpack on, so I made quick work of it to check in. Mormor, Joan, and Sam hadn't arrived yet. Turned out they had missed their connection in Amsterdam and were delayed by two hours for the next flight. Worked out perfectly though, as it meant I was only here about an hour and a half early, which gave me time to take a shower (after spending 30 minutes trying to figure out how to turn it and the lights on) and get cleaned up.
Once they got settled in, we went to wander a brief little bit. The brief is emphasized because it was definitely raining on us, and I was the only one with an umbrella. Puts a bit of a crimp on the exploration. We asked for a restaurant recommendation and ended up at a cute little cafe down the street. I had an excellent Caesar salad with rooster breast (more moist than almost any chicken I've ever had), Sam had apple die (Danish style) with ice cream, and Mormor and Joan split 3 open face sandwiches, which turned out to be huge! It was all delicious, and we topped it off with coffee and tea.
After dinner, we were going to call it a night, as they were all jet lagged. I decided I was going to go find The Little Mermaid first though, as the skies had cleared up, and I was primed for some walking. Mormor decided she's rather go with me, and got dressed again to join me on my adventure. It was amazing! The tide was out, and I couldn't believe how close I could get to her. Even better than I had expected. After taking tons of pictures, we spotted a windmill, that I thought looked amazing on the other side of the park. So...detour! Crossed a pond through some battlements (turns out it's one of the best preserved fortresses in this area) and up a hill. As we get closer to the windmill, we realize that the "lake" is in fact a moat. That we had crossed a true medieval castle moat and not even realized it! How cool is that?!
It was beginning to cool off though, and Mormor was still jet lagged, so we headed back to the hotel after this. On the possibly round about method, due to Mormor not trusting my sense of direction (which turned out to be correct), but back towards the hotel. We stopped to check out the guards at the palace this time, as we had cruised past them in my mission to see the Little Mermaid earlier. We even saw one of them slip up and step out of time! It was fun to be so close to them and watch them do their routines though. We were literally within 4 feet of them, and could even hear a couple of them talking to each other, and their whispered marks to stay in time.
Now though, we're calling an early night with the hopes of getting everyone on the European schedule by tomorrow...mostly. So hats off to an awesome day!