As agreed upon, we slept in to take the later flight back to Amsterdam. My body had other plans. It was up ready to go by 7 per usual. I did my best to stay quiet and let Alex sleep. By 8am, I realized this muddy be what my dog feels like when she wakes up at 5:30 or 6 and I dont get out of bed until 6:40. I lost my patience at 8 so got up to get ready and pack for the day. Of course that woke Alex up, so we for to go down for breakfast earlier than planned. Part of the reason that I was okay pushing back the flight was my excitement to eat breakfast at the hotel again. There were some options that I was not hungry enough to try last time so I did a little happy dance inside at the idea of enjoying them this morning. We ate on the back patio again. While eating I observed that the section of the hotel where the elevator was housed is actually an addition to the building. Interesting to see the difference of keeping up old buildings and architecture while modernizing the city. Meanwhile
a still awaking Alex mused more on the lack of air conditioning so requiring an open window to keep cool at night which probably requires some time to grow accustomed to the sound and light that then filters in. During this time of summer, Denmark only receives about 6 hours of darkness. The sun greets the day at 4:30 and doesnt dissipate until 10:30. For a person who needs more than 6 hours, like Alex, that is less than ideal sleeping conditions.
After our morning start, we took the metro back to the airport to check in for our flight to Amsterdam. Of course, like American, KLM repressed the ability to check in without seeing an agent first due to the Covid requirements enforced by different countries. This meant we were by a very long line. Alexs eyes about jumped out of his head. Used to it from my own experience helping American Airlines work through this challenge, I settled him in line to wait while I went to collect some local snacks to bring back to my team. This included the ever popular Nordic treat - salty black licorice. When Reimerh had Alex taste it on the
Tivoli visit, his facial expression was priceless. Apparently that is a reaction from our very sweets based food tolerance Americans. I like to think I controlled my reaction a bit better, though Im sure I did not. Returning to line Alex haff moved about 3 feet in the 20 minutes I was away. This set us up for failure to make the flight on time. The fact that they held the plane for connecting passengers last times around made me hopefully they would do the same this time. As the lines for flights around us dwindled, a surprise to us was the support from other airline agents. Soon the queue was moving much more quickly as passengers were pulled for checkin by Air France and Cathay agents. Youth would not likely see that same support back home. My guess was either the same vender supported all those airlines so could access the system to support despite the uniform differences or roles in Denmark were a bit different around air I didnt question it too much, just enjoyed the fact we made our through away a much quicker pace now.
line we had to wait in. Next came security where Alex and I experienced what it was like to not have TSA precheck for the first time in years. I was impressed by the advanced technology at this airport though. Instead of an agent checking your passport and boarding pass, you scanned your active boarding pass at self service gates not much different than a ticket to the subway. Then the lines were managed by automatic gates expanding and collapsing the queue. At the end of the queue, a screen paused and distributed passengers from the line into each scanning machine queue. My guess is there were sensors to tell queue length, but it could have been manually run by a controller though I didnt observe one. Similarly the scanning machines had automated tray dispensers with lighter indicators on open ones keeping that line moving.
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