On most of this train trip we saw what seemed to add up to be hundreds of windmills ... not the kind you see on Dutch post cards, but the modern kind that generate electicity. There's plenty of wind on the North Sea coast, and the Germans and the Danes are using that wind to reduce and eliminate their need for nuclear, oil, and other forms of toxic power.

Like the Germans, the Danes smoke too much, but they're a little better about keeping smoke off the trains ... all three cars were non-smoking. On the ferry the smokers tried to make up for lost time, so the only place we could stand to be was on the deck outside. Our ship was being followed out to sea by a sea gull who was sailing in the updrafts from the smokestack. During the entire ten minutes that we watched, this bird did not flap its wings once.

Not many foreigners bother to learn the Danish language, so English was widely and fluently spoken everywhere we went in Copenhagen. The train station was a little bit crazy, but tame compared to Hamburg. Many people come to Copenhagen to go to Tivoli, a very old and famous amusement park conveniently located across the street from the main station. The Tourist Information office is next door to Tivoli, so when we found the place we took a number and waited for about 15 minutes. It was kind of like going to the DMV.

We were set up with a room in a private home for 375 kroner (about $40) per night. We were in the Christianhavn neighborhood, which was a ten-minute bus ride from the station and about two blocks from Christiania - our main destination in Copenhagen. We unloaded the burden of our backpacks, checked out the view of the fishing boats on the canal out our window, and went off in search of good food. We were told that we could find smoke-free eating at a vegetarian place in Christiania bearing a name that translated to "Morning Place." They weren't open in the morning, but we're not morning people anyway.