Heading home, there were a few lessons learned. One, we were so happy with ourselves that we had left ourselves plenty of time at the airport. This is not my M.O. when traveling domestically but internationally? I am early. Mostly because in the States, I travel light and I have TSA Pre-Check. This trip, we packed a lot, wanted to get VAT back, and, of course, had no special status to accelerate getting through security.
We followed the signs for the Détaxe for our VAT refund. This needs to be done before checking bags or you need to have all things bought in your carry-on. The latter wasn’t an option for us since we had bought so much champagne.
Honestly, the whole process makes me realize that they don’t really want you to get your VAT back at all. There were only two machines but fortunately, we were the only ones there. The scanner didn’t work on phone barcodes and the dumb thing would time out while trying to get it to work. Boo! Finally, a customs guy called us to the window and helped us with the last few bits. But really, if there had been a line, it would have been really stressful!
Next, we went to check in our luggage. We were in a line since they didn’t open until 7, which was really 7:15. Then, our bags were both overweight, so we had to pay. This was not a surprise. This also took awhile since the automatic payment system was down and the attendant had to read our cc numbers to a central agent.
Then, I decided I wanted to try to get to terminal 2E to look at the shops. So we went through passport control, but then realized that we were not in the correct place since there was no way to get to our gate. But then, we were stuck. So we waited again to exit without incident. Ooops. It was unclear how we were allowed through by the machine in the first place, but it was probably due to our flight’s code share between Air France and SAS.
Then, we walked through the airport shops separately and met at the gate.
We knew the connection in Copenhagen would be tight but we landed late. Many people on the flight had connections between 5-30 minutes by the time we landed. We landed in Terminal A. Our connecting flight was Terminal E. I was closer to the front so we ran separately. I wouldn’t have left Jyostna except I thought I was working Tuesday and getting a sub would be hard. As it turns out, past me was nice to future me because I actually had the day off!
We both made it with about 2 minutes to spare. We debarked at 12:16 in terminal A and the doors locked at the terminal E gate at 1235. This included passport control, where the officers were really nice and let people cut to the front. Showing up breathless and wild-eyed is something I think they see somewhat regularly.
So, our trip ended like it began- with a wild, long sprint that resulted in starting off a long-haul flight nice and sweaty. But we made it.