September 18 & 19, 2026
I’m lumping 2 days into one blog post since I had very little time until I arrived home. So, yes, I’m writing this Sunday afternoon after having arrived home very, very early in the morning (3 AM). But let’s get started with our two travel days home.
On Friday, the 18th, we were up early to get breakfast at the hotel before going to the train station to go to the Copenhagen airport. Our stay in Malmo was really nice. The view on the 11th floor from our bedroom was really nice looking over the bay leading out to the sea. I’d stay in this hotel again if I was to ever return to Malmo. After a nice breakfast on the roof of the hotel, Denise and I headed to the train station. Kim and Ilene were flying a bit later so elected to relax more in their hotel room before going to the airport. I would have done the same thing. When Denise and I arrived at the train station, we could see that something was up when we went to the platform for our train. The announcements kept saying that there was an incident and that our train would be late. I think we had to wait an extra 30 minutes before a train arrived. By then, there were quite a few folks with their suitcases and stuff wanting to get on. I think the train took most everyone, but it was crowded. It was a 20 minutes journey from Malmo Central train station to the CPH (Copenhagen) airport. Getting through security was easy and we had some time to go to a nice lounge for more food…like we really needed it. Our plane was on time. But funny story…we were flying Norwegian Airlines to Dublin, Ireland. After showing our boarding pass and walking down the jetway, we noticed other passengers walking on the tarmac and boarding from the back of the plane. It turned out that they boarded from both ends. And we were row 31 out of 32 rows. We apparently missed the sign that told us that we should have boarded from the back of the plane. But it was too late. So once we were on the plane and about midway, we became fish really swimming upstream trying to get to our seats. And we had to place our bags on the middle of the plane. So when it was time to get off the plane, again they disembarked from both ends. But we had to sit there and wait until all were off so we could make our way to our baggage. Fortunately we did not have to make a connection.
Once in Dublin, we had to make our way to where hotel buses came to retrieve hotel guests. Unfortunately, I could not sleep much the night before traveling and studied how and where to catch this bus. We walked right to the area (Zone 16) and the bus was there. So we just loaded our bags on the back, got in and away wee went. We stayed in The Metro Apartment Airport Hotel. And it was pretty nice too. Once in our hotel room, being quite tired, we just chilled until we felt it was time to go into the city using the public bus system. We left around 5 PM and the bus stop was close to the hotel. We had play tickets at The Gaeity Theater to see Judy Garland, the later years. The ride into the city was so busy. There were so many lights and the streets so full of buses. Nonetheless, we got into the area with plenty of time to get some dinner and then go to the play. We found a pizza place that had ‘Detroit’ style pizza. It was pretty good. After dinner, we enjoyed a gelato ice cream and then went to the theater. It was a Friday evening and the streets were full of people. But surprisingly, not so many in the theater, whcih should have told us something. The play was about Judy Garland and her later years. And we should have known that the subject matter would have some language. But at intermission, we decided we had heard enough and did not want to hear more. So we left. I think the acting was good. The main lady did a nice job of portraying Ms. Garland. She also sang well. But the choice of words was too much. Before the show, we were going to use Bolt to hail a car. But with a little more time, we decided to use a bus and save about 30 euros. It took a bit to find the right bus stop and we got on the E2 bus instead of the E1. The E1 would have gotten us closer…about a 4 minute walk…versus the 10 minute walk we had to make from our bus drop off point. It was all good…not raining and a nice night. We were back at the hotel by 9:30 PM giving us the opportunity for a little more sleep before getting up early to travel home.
4:30 AM came earlier for me. I think I got about 4 hours sleep waking up around 2 AM. I just don’t sleep on travel days. Eventually I got up and showered. By then Denise had woke up and started getting ready. We were signed up for the 5:30 AM shuttle back to the airport. Our flight was at 8:50 AM and getting through passport control is different in the Dublin airport. You literally go through US customs there instead of doing it in the USA after your flight there has landed. Anyway, we got seats easily, both on exit rows with lots of leg room. The flight to Washington DC went well. I was able to sleep a little bit even though I was in a middle seat. About midway through our flight, I checked connections onward from DC and low and behold, all planes going west were now oversold. I’m still not sure what was going on. Anyway, we had to punt. In DC, I learned that Chicago was limiting planes to land due to thunderstorms and that was causing disruptions everywhere. So I chose a flight to Pittsburgh, then Denver and then SLC. Bad choice as the Pittsburgh flight ended up swapping out planes due to mechanical issues and then the connection to Denver suddenly became oversold. So if we got there and could not get on that Denver flight, we’d be going to Chicago and then to SLC. So we punted again and chose a flight to Chicago. Bad, very bad, choice. We got to Chicago only to find out that EVERY flight was delayed at least 2 to 3 hours. That impacted flights taking off and coming in from airports all over the place. In the end, we ended up getting on the last SLC flight that departed around 11 PM. We arrived in SLC around 2 AM and by the time we got a Lyft car and driving to our home, it was 3 AM. My head hit my pillow at 3:15 AM after a 30+ hour day. But I’m glad to be home.
Well, this is my last blog for this trip. It was a great trip seeing this part of the Scandinavian world. Would love to go back someday buy I always say that but never do.
Here are some more pictures:
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