My Glamorous Job?

Day 5 of my first tour and I was exhausted by the time we reached Copenhagen. The group is actually great and things have been going well. My talks are still a little shaky (was it Gustav II or Carl the X that sacked Copenhagen?) and I had a wicked bout of insomnia for two nights.

The group is from all over North America. There are two couples from Canada, a family from Delaware, a family from Oregon, some Californians, and folks from Nebraska, Arizona and Alabama. They are a highly educated bunch. Two professors - Entomology & Psychology - a neurosurgeon, an obstetrician, an attorney and a dentist. Some folks are retired and some are teachers.

There has been absolutely no drama and everyone gets along really well. There are four teenagers, which honestly freaked me out before the tour began. They are all girls and range in age from 13 to 17. They are actually all really sweet, smart and travel-savvy (one has already been on three tours!). Two of the girls are friends - traveling with the mother of one girl - who wanted to come to Scandinavia because they love Scandinavian music. They love the Hives of course and a whole bunch of bands I have never heard of. We were able to bridge the generation gap with Keane, but I don't know any of the other bands they are into. I am going to plug into one of their iPods soon and take this opportunity to get exposed to some new music.

I realized at the onset of this tour that I would have to pace myself. I am doing three tours in a row with essentially no day off. The day I do have off I need to fly from Bergen back to Stockholm. So - I am taking advantage of afternoons and evenings that I have free during the tour. This group is really well-traveled and independent. This means on a free afternoon and evening - like the one we had in Copenhagen - I have no problem with setting them loose. On some tours I may arrange an optional activity - a happy hour, or trip to one of my favorite restaurants - but for this first trip I took the night off.

The hotel has an Italian restaurant downstairs, so I ordered a pizza margerita to go. I picked up some cans of cold Carlsberg at the corner store (10kr per can, versus 20kr per can from the hotel bar). The front desk gave me some ice and a real glass. I camped out in my room with wifi access and put the beers on ice in the bathroom sink.

When the pizza arrived...I poured a beer and had a nice quiet evening to myself.