I'm sitting in the international departure terminal in Newark, N.J. In a little more than two hours, I'll be leaving United States airspace for the first time in my life.
I'm going to Denmark, home of the company for which I work. I'll spend a week meeting my Danish co-workers on their home turf and learning more about our product from the people who actually assemble it. I'm repeating the phrase Jeg taler ikke dansk (I don't speak Danish), which in my southern U.S. accent comes out sounding more like "Yay taylor iggy dance." They tell me that's how I'm supposed to say it. The fact that I taylor iggy dance is OK; most of the Danish are conversant in English; many speak it better than you or I.
The Airbus A330 on which I'll spend the next eight hours is parked right outside the window by which I'm sitting. I'll land at 7:35 a.m. in Copenhagen, which will be 1:35 a.m. EST. Another 45-minute flight to the city in which I'll be staying, and I'll be a foreigner for the first time.
I have three books, four magazines, a digital camera, this machine, 900 songs in my iPod, a bottle of Dasani and a bag of miniature Reese's peanut butter cups. I have a passport, a boarding pass and 1,000 Danish kroner in my back pocket which I purchased for 202 American dollars. The femte kroner note features a picture of a fetching woman in a hat, the first time I've ever seen a picture of a woman on money. The woman's name is Karen Blixen. A quick Google reveals she wrote Out of Africa, among many, many other things during her 70-year life which ended in 1962. Imagine the Americans honoring artists on their money. We're stuck with #$#*(ing politicians.
It's going to be an interesting week. Check back for updates.
1 comment:
Having been there myself recently, thre ony word I learned was "Herer" (maybe spelled in correctly). It means "men's room." That was about all I needed to get by for a few days.
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