Summer in Copenhagen looks a lot like..... winter in Copenhagen.

Last time I was in Copenhagen - on a business trip about 5 years ago - it was November  and the weather was grey, cold and drizzly.  So here we are, in the middle of June, just 2 days from the summer solstice and the weather is.... grey, cold and drizzly.....
We landed around 1:30pm local time, after an uneventful flight (my favorite kind of flight).  The approach to Copenhagen gives one a nice view (if a slightly grey, cold and drizzly one today...) of the bridge that links Sweden and Denmark .  On your left - Sweden, and your right, Denmark.

 One cool thing about this bridge is that it turns into a tunnel on the Denmark side, so from the air, it looks like it just ends in the ocean:

Side story, which has nothing to do with our trip to Denmark and Norway:  When Emily was 6 years old, we went to North Carolina and took the Chesapeake bay bridge/Tunnel.  I told Emily that this was a really cool bridge, because at some point, it goes under the water.  She got very quiet and after a few minutes said - sounding very concerned:  "Mom, I don't know how long I can hold my breadth under water....".


We made it to Karolina's and Peter's on time to pick up Axel from the day care center, which was full of very blond and well behaved kids....  By then, the drizzle had turned into what we weak New Yorker's would call pouring rain.  It is fascinating to see how pouring rain has absolutely no impact on the natives.  They keep riding their bikes, or jogging, as if this were a perfectly sunny day.  Most of them don't even wear rain coats.  This applies to little kids too - here is a daddy, having picked his 3 non-raincoat-wearing children from school, and bicycling happily across of the the "lakes"  (more about the lakes tomorrow)

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Wimps that we are, Joe and I came home after about 1 hour, and decided to just enjoy the typical midsummer Swedish celebration dinner prepared by Karolina:

 pickled herring (duh!), dark bread, new potatoes and sour cream.  We also had some Swedish meat balls, because Peter does not like herring - which I did not realize was legal in this part of the world....   All was delicious!

Not sure what Karolina and Axel were discussing (maybe the quality of the pickled herring??) - but they sure looked like they were having a bit of a disagreement about it....

Tomorrow, let's hope for some brightening in the sky, so that we can go to the old town and take the boat to see the famous mermaid.  Also, let's hope I can get some sleep, because between the jet lag and the fact that, at 10:00pm it is still complete day light out there (although in a grey, cold and drizzly way), it may be tough to get some zzzz........