Bridge Planned, 8/20/1993 From Sweden To Denmark

Could Start Construction
Before Century's End

By Bob Van Leer

(LONDON, ENGLAND, Aug. 20 and 21, 1993) - We disembarked from our cruise ship, the Crown Odyssey, at Copenhagen, Denmark, this morning, took a tour and then boarded a British Airways plane for London where we arrived just before nine this evening.

  Our group, going to California locations on British Airways, was the last to leave the ship. Disembarking over 1100 passengers and their baggage is a chore all by itself. We had to clear the ship so the next load of passengers could come aboard. But our plane was not supposed to leave until 5:30 p.m. So they sent us off on another bus tour to give us something to do before leaving. 

Our guide gave us a little insight into life in Denmark. She said a small, ordinary car costs $20,000 in Denmark. The way she phrased it, "We pay for three cars - taxes are so high". Cars are considered a luxury and taxed accordingly unless they are used for business. Japanese and German cars are the favorites. Denmark only makes one kind of car, a small electric car that sells for $10,000.

BRIDGE TO SWEDEN
  We were taken to the fishing village of Dragor, a town that goes back to the 13th century and is now a fishing village and ferry terminal for ferries to Sweden. Our guide said a lot of Swedes take the 1.5 hour trip to Denmark to buy liquor because Danish laws are more favorable. She said there is a serious proposal to build a bridge, or bridge-tunnel across the 15 kilometer strait from Dragor to Malmo, Sweden. This idea is not universally popular, including with our guide. She said the planning is to start work on the project in this century.

  Our plane to London was late. It was a chartered British Airways airliner that brought a load of cruise passengers over and took us back to London. We arrived at London just at dusk and were able to see the Tower Bridge silhouetted against the white reflection of the Thames River as we passed over London to land at Heathrow airport.

VALUE ADDED TAX
  At the Copenhagen airport our guide took us to the place where we were to get papers stamped to receive a refund on the Value Added Tax (VAT) we are supposed to receive back. The refund procedure is clumsy and confusing. The official there said we needed to get the stamping done at London, the last European Community (EC) we visited. Even our guide was not aware of this.

  At London, the refund procedure wasn't any simpler. It was necessary to stand in line to get to one official who stamped the papers I had. But he couldn't refund any money. This meant standing in a second line. This official said of the two claims I had, one was short a piece of paper. He could refund this on a credit card which would take three or four weeks. The second claim he could refund to me in cash. In British currency. To convert this into U. S. dollars would require standing in a third line. I elected to have this refunded by credit card also. I'm not really sure of what they mean by credit card refunding but we'll see.

  It is clear that refund of the VAT isn't designed to make it easy. For some countries a representative came aboard the ship to facilitate filing. But there was none at Copenhagen, the only place we bought enough to qualify.

  Local money is a real hassle on a trip like this, visiting 8 countries in 14 days. We have a pile of miscellaneous coins left over. The EC is working on a common currency. This would help the tourists quite a bit.

  Tonight's stay was in the Excelsior Hotel, a large, and well appointed, hotel on the edge of the airport. Tomorrow starts the really long voyage home, London to San Francisco to Portland where we will stay the night and drive back to Gold Beach Sunday.
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