Honeymoon Day 4 – June 4 – Copenhagen, Denmark and Baltic Sea

For the first time on our honeymoon, we really slept in – which was definitely nice. We had breakfast in the hotel, and then took our time getting ready and making full use of the free internet. We weren’t out of the hotel until after noon.

We re-traced our steps to get back to the S-Train, and then took that all the way to the port area. We couldn’t find any information anywhere about exactly which cruise port to go to, so we just guessed one of the two (they aren’t that far from each other). We ended up being lucky, so we didn’t have all that far to walk after we got off the train. And we magically made every turn correctly, so we had no back-tracking, even though we had no idea where we were going. Our back-up would have been to find a cab and get there that way, but Copenhagen is incredibly expensive – even just taking the public transportation system was $8-$10 per person.

We dropped off our luggage, handed in our sign-in sheet (which had been emailed to us after we checked-in online months ago), and boarded the boat. We got priority boarding because we have a mini-suite (I’m not quite sure if we got upgraded, or if mini-suite is just what they call any room with a balcony, which is what we ordered.) It didn’t actually matter though, because there was no line. It was 2:30pm, which I thought would be prime boarding time (it’s open 1:30-5:30pm), so I’m not sure how it was so smooth.

Jeff and I were a bit confused once we got on the boat and had no sign-in sheet and no card (usually when you check-in, you get a card before you board the boat). Then we found out we could go straight to our room, and the cards would be there. It was pretty cool when we walked into our room. It’s really big, especially as cruise rooms go, and we had a table with two bottles of champagne, a bowl of fruit, a beautiful flower arrangement, and some hors d’oeuvres. On the bed they had laid out our cards and information about the cruise, but also a picture frame, a certificate of “Amore” signed by the captain, and two “Costa” bath robes.

Pretty much everything (other than the standard cards and information) were part of the Honeymoon Package that Brian and Emily got us for (part of) our wedding gift.

We were really excited, so we opened the champagne and headed out on our balcony. Our view was mostly of the Copenhagen shipping harbor, though, so when we poured our second glass of champagne, we decided to take it with us as we explore the ship.

We did some exploring, but then found an area on one of the upper decks with cute wicker furniture and a nice view, and we decided to camp out there to read and relax.

Kevin and Lori Peterson gave us a book called “The Five Love Languages” as part of their wedding gift to us, and my parents mentioned that they give that book to all of the engaged couples that they council (through our local church). Jeff finished reading it while we were leaving Iceland, so I started reading it. It talks about the different ways that people express and interpret love – words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, giving gifts, and touch - and the importance of being aware of your spouse’s primary “love language.” It’s an interesting book, and it was fun for Jeff and I to both read it and talk about what we thought about the ideas in the book and how we thought it might apply to us. We even both took the little quizzes in the back to identify our respective love languages. We both seem to have “quality time” as our primary type – though we have different secondary love languages, which is interesting.

I think a lot of the point of the book is to spend some time thinking about how you and your spouse express your love, and to be sure that you have a mutual understanding about the meaning of various activities and actions. And also to be sure that you are doing the things that really are meaningful to your spouse, rather than just things you think are meaningful (or things that would be meaningful to you if they did them).

At dinner, we were at a table of eight, though only three other people arrived. They were two sisters, and one of the sister’s daughters, and they were from different states around the U.S. They were very nice, and interesting to talk to, though Jeff and I would probably have liked to have a table for two. We had to make some effort to have conversations relevant to the rest o the table - Jeff and I still talk about the wedding all the time – how fun it was, how happy we were, little details we just remembered.

For example, we were talking the other day about how special it was to have the BBQ at my parents’ house rather than just at a park or at a place where we rented a room. Any of them would have been fun, but having everyone over to my parents’ felt like they were really welcoming everyone to Minnesota personally. Also, it’s so fun that so many of our friends and family from out of town have now experience that part of our lives – when we talk about heading back to Minnesota, they have an idea of exactly what it’s like for us. We also talk about how cool it was that so many people were helping out, and how well everything seemed to work. Pretty amazing for people that were in a brand new place and often meeting for the first time.

Another thing we talk about a lot is how fun the reception was and how great it was that so many people danced so late into the night. I remember being at our friends’ Mandy and Jess’s wedding, which was one of the first weddings we attended as adults. Their families were really fun – partying and dancing. I remember thinking that even though we barely knew anybody, it was just a really fun atmosphere, and we wanted to stay and dance all night. This was also the event when Jeff told me, “I think I really like weddings!” It was so amazing to have our wedding and see that our families were sooo much fun and know what a difference that makes for the whole event. I hope that there were younger people at our wedding who had the same reaction Jeff did as Jess and Mandy’s.

After dinner, Jeff and I decided to head back to our room again. We put on a movie – “How to Train Your Dragon” – which was really cute. Jeff made a trip out to get some midnight pizza to bring back to the room (we’re on an Italian cruiseline – gotta have pizza!), but otherwise we stayed in. I read a bunch of our tour book about Tallinn, which was going to be our first stop. Very exciting!