The end.

Well, that's it.  We spent our last day continuing our Copenhagen sightseeing.  We got a late start, since we didn't really need a big, long day of activity planned, headed to Christianhavn, another island of Copenhagen.  We were quite worried that we weren't able to get food today, but luckily our Aldi was open.  It was interesting to share our cheap sandwich-and-more meal construction strategies with another person, and see how our "simple" way of eating appeared to someone else.  The checkout guy was interesting too, he looked and sounded like a fairly stereotypical New Yorker, and said that Danes learn American style English, thus many have an odd Danish/New York fusion accent when they speak English. 

 

The highlight of our wandering was the Our Savior Church- a huge spiral tower that you can climb for 25 DKK- about $5.  We decided it would be worth it.  Copenhagen is a very flat city, so the tower afforded us a great view.  Our ascent was interesting too, up a number of increasingly narrow indoor stairways, culminating in an elegant, narrowing spiral on the outside of the tower. 

     

After that, we headed to Christiania, the autonomous land of the hippies.  Apparently the government, sick of the hippies dirtying up the parks, put them all in their own little area, a former army base, and let them basically run themselves.  It's a crazy place that feels nothing like the rest of Copenhagen.  It's also extremely heavy on the pot, and even more blatant about it than Amsterdam.  There are marijuana plants growing outside, and all manner of pot products just for sale on the street.  It was really weird.  

We sat by the impressive Copenhagen opera house to enjoy our last European sunset by the river.  Our last European sunset for who knows how long...  We've literally walked hundreds of miles this trip and met hundreds of people!  We've seen a bunch of different currencies and experienced a bunch of languages that we'd never be exposed to at home.

   

Tomorrow we're off to the airport for our flight home.  It's a 9.5 hour flight, departing at 12:20 pm.  We then proceed to fly against time, arriving at Dulles Airport at 3:00 pm.  I have a 6.75 hour layover there, much of which will be passed at Chipotle with Michael before I leave Dulles for Albany at 9:45 pm, arriving at Albany at 11:07 pm.  It's going to be a crazy day.

What's the USA going to be like when I get back?  Will it be different?  Will I feel differently about it?  I've never been out of the country for anything beginning to approach this long.  Will I quickly sink back into my old eating and spending habits?  Time will tell.

As I said, book me early, tickets are going fast!