Cloudy – high temp 52ºF
I managed to get what seemed like a good night’s sleep and woke around 7:00am. Unfortunately the rest of the family was not on my schedule. So I made coffee and checked Facebook where I saw that Karen had posted an hour earlier that she was awake and waiting for the family to get up so we could make the bacon and eggs for breakfast that we had purchased at Netto (a corner market). That was odd because I had just left a sound asleep Karen… Eventually Karen joined me and we both waited for the boys so we could have breakfast together. This was the situation at 8:49am:
Eventually I decided to cook the bacon and eggs. Karen and I ate and eventually we stirred the boys to wake as well. That was late morning, so by the time they ate it was more like a brunch. The weather was very similar to the day before… very grey, very damp, and wet.
After breakfast, The boys jumped on their devices, while Karen and I made plans for the day, and in order to motivate the boys to go, we set our destination as the Lego flagship store in the city center. We took the bus to Rådhuspladsen, and then began our walk down Strøget, what can only be described as tourist trap central. You could think of it like a long street that is an outdoor mall, but the popularization of this street has turned it into the city center destination for tourists.
After a short walk we arrived at a city square, Caritasbrønden. We took a family selfie and then had a family picture taken by a stranger. The selfies didn’t turn out well, but here is one taken by the stranger.
We continued down the shopping street until we spied the familiar Lego sign. Excitement was soon replaced by disbelief when we saw that the store had closed 5 days earlier for construction, and would re-open in 10 days time. We all thought, “Seriously?!? We are in Denmark and the only Lego Store in Copenhagen is closed when we are here?” We were disappointed, but managed to have a little chuckle about it, and then moved on to food.
Dylan had been asking for KFC ever since he saw it at the beginning of the Strøget, but that was a long way back so we found a little hole-in-the-wall place that served crepes, Belgian waffles, and sandwiches. I was in the beginning stages of a food meltdown, and it could be argued that other members of the family were too. I had a sandwich and the rest of the family had crepes.
Nearby was Christiansborg Slot, the Danish palace and government building. The building provides a lot of access, and I was interested in looking around. Unfortunately by this point Dylan began to complain about being uncomfortable. Temps were in the high 40s-low 50s and we were dressed appropriately, but perhaps his undergarments were getting the better of him… in any case he became extremely difficult, challenging every decision made and attempting to exercise his will over the rest of the family. As a result, although we walked around some of the building, the only areas we were able to go in to were the chapel, the gift store, and the tower. I was unable to see the splendor of the inside of the palace, and my patience was near its end.
After leaving the palace, we walked back to the KFC so Dylan could get his popcorn chicken, and then we made our way back the bus stop and rode back to the apartment. The day’s travels were wearing on each of us, and it was getting late, and most of us needed dinner, so we headed back to the mall and ate at a restaurant… we had some very delicious burgers, but the cheese on Dylan’s was not the cheese he expected, so he made a stink and refused to eat the burger… Karen scraped off the cheese, and he ate a little. Thus attitude and food became a major issue for the trip.