OUR EUROPEAN HOLIDAY - DAY 44 - PARIS TO COPENHAGEN...

Early morning call this morning, we had to have our bags out of our room by 6.30am, down to have a quick bite for breakfast and be in the foyer ready to board the bus by 7.15am.   Maurizo was taking both Gary and us to the airport.  Gary was flying back to London, us to Copenhagen and Maurizo then had to drive the bus through to Brussels to pick up his next tour the following day..

Gary discretely asked us whether we had intended to make a gratuitous payment to both him and Maurizo as 8 people from our group hadn't.  He had never come across this before,  Fortunately we hadd decided to and already had cash in envelopes for them both to hand to them this morning as they took us to the airport.  This was the first opportunity that we had as we had not gone out the evening before with everyone.  Australians are just not used to tipping and I think some of the others felt that they had already paid a huge amount to take this holiday and an extra $500 tip was a little too much.  Still we decided to because really both men went out of their way to make sure we had a really wonderful holiday. 

We arrived at the airport a little after 8.15am, which gave us 3 hours before our flight was due to leave.  By the time we found the gate in the right terminal and got through the check in and security process we really only had about 20 minutes to board, so it was a good thing we had come out early.

We boarded our flight on time, were all buckled up ready to take off when the captain informed us that he hadn't been given permission to take off and that we were in a queue and could be waiting up until 20 minutes.  This was a little frustrating as we were pretty cramped on this little flight.

Once we were air borne it was a pretty good flight to Copenhagen with us arriving about 20 minutes behind schedule.  Collecting our suitcases and going through customs was pretty much a nightmare.  The airport was crowded, there were planes lading every few minutes and trying to get luggage off the carousel was almost impossible.  They had five flights of luggage coming in on the carousel and the crowds trying to retrieve there suitcases were like mayhem.  You got squashed just trying to get in and collect your bags. 

Peter and Maria had decided against coming out to the airport to meet us because we felt pretty confident catching the Metro ourselves.  We have come a long way since arriving over here a couple of months ago.   Pete texted us the name of the station that we needed to get off at (Amagerbro) and he would be there to meet us.

Maria's parents had flown down for the weekend to visit and also to catch up with us and say good bye before we left to fly back to Australia.  They were all meeting with Rune, Heidi and Max for a late brunch to catch up with them also, so we joined them as well.   It was nice to catch up with our new Danish family again.  They certainly have made us feel very welcome.

it was after 2pm by the time we got there.  We all sat around chatting until after 4pm, and then we all walked back to Rune and Heide's place, that is everyone except for Maria who caught the bus home. 
Rune was lending Peter and Maria their car so that Pete could take both set of parents back out to the airport the following day when we were all flying off in opposite directions. 

It was 5pm before we got back to Pete and Maria's place.  Maria wanted to cook a very special roast dinner for us all since she had both sets of parents at their place.  She called it a celebration dinner and it was magnificent. 

Maria's Dad had the job of hanging 2 new lights up in their kitchen and we were able to have a lovely chat with Pete about our holiday.

Dinner was a wonderful get together filled with lots of stories, lots of laughter, wonderful food and good wine.  We really do feel very much at  home here with them all and were feeling particularly sad at the thought of leaving the next day.

After dinner, the men all went for a walk to the bank, whilst Maria, her Mum and I did the dishes..
After dinner Peter and Maria put up their wedding photos on the TV to share with us all.  Oh the memories, we were reliving them all over again.  it was such a wonderful day and definitely the highlight of our time away.

We had a really lovely evening together and none of us wanted to go to bed because it would mean our time with Peter and Maria would soon be over.  Steve and I went to bed around 1am.  Peter and  Maria finished writing "Thank You" cards to all the Aussies that had sent cards or gifts and we will take them back home with us and post them for them.

Although it was a bit of an emotional time, we did have a wonderful day with Peter and Maria and her lovely family.  Unfortunately there are no photos to share today...  after taking more than 6000 over the last few weeks, it was nice not to have to worry about a camera today....