The wallet is now empty!

Saturday, May 31, 2014
Copenhagen, Zealand, Denmark
Copenhagen, Denmark May 31, SaturdayWhen We arrive it is cloudy but the clouds burn off and it becomes a lovely cool day in the low 60's. We have booked a ships tour, walking and canal ride. Our guide is a middle aged women that is very good at herding cats, that would be keeping up with 23 people walking through crowds and traffic while lecturing on the sights. First we have a walk on the canal that has been redone recently to meet the demands of the many cruise ships to the city. Today they seemed to be at capacity with 5 ships. We can see Sweden from here. The countries here seemed to have changed control over the years back and forth. Denmark was not too success in that department. We see The Little Mermaid in the harbor. She is not so little and is now filled with concrete since she has had her head cut off twice. The crowds are huge so we did not get any access for a personal photo. She is the symbol for Denmark from the Hans Christian Anderson stories. Susan got her t shirt here from an artist who had his work printed on shirts. We passed canals, churches, the citadel, and statues on our walk. The royal family in years past had a large numbers of children who married into the royal families of other European countries. This helped very much with relations between the countries. When the children returned here with the new religions of there countries they would build a church for them. We passed an Anglican and Russian Orthodox Church. Mostly the people here are Lutheran. The story goes that Martin Luther recognized that the Catholics were corrupt because they became rich selling forgiveness for present and future sins. He came back and denounced them to the people. The priests here who had made themselves rich rather poor as their vows had dictated were escorted out of the country peacefully. The queen, who does not have power, is MUCH loved here. She makes herself and family accessible to the people. They live in a square that is walkable and drivable. The guards stationed outside the palace have orders to shoot, if necessary. The guards were probably 18 to 20 years old. the royals are extremely wealthy.We hear stories about the resistance movement in WWII. We hear that when the Jews were scheduled to be rounded up the people put 6900 Jews in boats every night to evacuate them. Only 100 remained to be sent to camps where they survived. Most were old and refused to leave. After the war few returned. This is a very rich country. There was a long list of huge corporations that are here. Mersk shipping has 100,000 employees world wide. Drug companies are here and the Lego was invented here. There are many high end stores.This is a democracy now. Here they want every equal! SOOOO, they tax everything. The Value added tax is 25%. The income tax starts at 45% and goes to 69% for the highest wage earners. There is 180% tax on foreign cars. Since everyone is equal, education is free through maters degree and health care is free. The guide said they have no poor here. BUT, there is no longer enough young people paying in to the system to pay all the retirees who get equal pay. They are going to raise the retirement age and start buying health insurance. Does any of this sound familiar. They are also a very 'green' country. They are 20% converted to wind power going to 50% in 5 or so years. They use no oil for heating. They incinerate their trash for heat in Copenhagen. They once had a problem with immigrants moving here to take advantage of their equality policies. They have had to restrict immigration to the point it is now difficult to get in to live....novel idea. The guide says it rains half the time here, but we have a sunny late morning with blooming flowers around. Our canal tour back to the ship takes us past the very expensive apartments. The new opera house was a gift from the Mersk family. Another city that is built on islands connected with canals and bridges. This was supposed to be a 2 1/2 mile walk but I am sure it was more by the time we got on and off the ship. We made it! 
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Comments

dwlp.travelkids
2014-06-01

You may be out of money, but it sure sounds like you have been getting a lot of bang for your bucks! We expect you will have to look at your pictures when you get home so that you can absorb it all. Keep on having a wonderful time.

2025-02-17

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