No One Writes To The Colonel

This is an entry I put in for a travel competition. Limited to a certain amount of characters, it did not suit my natural tendency for explication of tiny salient details.


The waking sun shimmered on the horizon and coloured the endless plains of sand pinkish yellow. I yawned sleepily, vaguely aware of the smell of bread crisping on that battered metal mesh over an open fire. No dressing was necessary: climbing out of the sleeping bag and putting my riding boots back on was all there was. I didn't think I could get used to it so easily, but the rustic outdoor desert dwelling habits sank in as easily as getting back into the saddle. 

The day began with a simple breakfast of toasted bread dipped in hummus and little glasses of sweet tea out of a hulking kettle licked black by flames. Sitting on rocks or crossed legged in the sand, bread in hand and tea close by, the chatter that ended late at sunset started to rouse with the rising sun: its brightening rays transforming the colours of the desert, lighting in pink, orange, yellow and gold, our path through the valleys and dunes.


It wouldn't matter if I were Gabriel García Márquez writing an exquisite two paragraphs (forgive the seeming comparison, it is not. He is the latest novelist I have fallen into enchantment with); the test is actually of social media savviness, requiring your voting public, that is, how many friends you have on Facebook or names in your email address book, or indeed Twits following you. It's not the first social media competition disguised as a writing competition. It's just a little disheartening for the writer who puts in the effort when upon reflection, the person who spells holidays with a 'z' is as liking to win a "writing competition" as G.G. Márquez.


Pfff. First world problems, eh!

Missing the mundane

It's strange that I still open my email every day with a little molecule of the old grey matter pushing expectant for a casual hello from this boy I once knew, a sweet chap, wild and unpredictable in a curiously demure way. But it's been ages now since he waved a white flag and ducked into the trenches behind his granite wall. I wonder what he's doing.  I think of him fixing the bannisters or giving the garden a final once-over before the winter suspends it in yearly petrification. It's those little things I miss the most: his mundane always enraptured me. Take the rest of the world: bombarded all too frequently by the plastered smiles depicting mock ecstatic shock at their supposedly outrageous lives. Photos of groups all laughing or pulling faces.  Always with the manic happiness.  I don't buy it for a second.  Even the world "friend" means nothing anymore.  But He - He wrote about buying a new squash racquet. About the wrong shelves that were delivered - twice. About the trailer he replaced. About ordering too much mulch - what to do with the surplus?  It was all so real, so grounded, so completely alluring.  

The lure of the exotic pulls people to twist their tales into bold events, smattering their one liners with 'ha ha's' of guffawed laughter, fingers pointed to show cameras their shocking behaviour, everything supposedly new and unique. And for what? To get attention; to paint a self portrait for the world to see how happy they are; what extraordinary lives they lead. The lure of the exotic is in the mundane. Heaney knows this: his quiet subject matter, a woman with floury hands or a grumbling iron monger, can echo for years with gut wrenching nostalgic reverberations.  He knows the real secrets of the extraordinary lie in the ordinary.  In the quiet irritation of a conscientious home owner who cannot find the right colour for the bannister, and resignedly covers his colourful attempts with neutral white. Like the rest of the walls. The inner workings of reality, not the weary bullshit of the public faced. A feigned moment of glory broadcasting to the whole wide world. 

It turns out He was strolling up the gentle black-brown curves of Dame Etna. The casual hello came: the old grey matter's psychic reach is not obsolete yet. 

This is IT

I had a lot of time on my hands today so I started typing on my phone... the length ought to tell you something about quite how much time I did have and might also indicate the risk category I fall into for arthritis of the thumb.  It's just a ditty about my week I wrote for my own amusement. 

In addition to my new job with Danmarks Post (yes, I'm a postwoman in a cool uniform now), I am currently employed by a temping agency who have assigned me to a conference hosting job. This began on Sunday at 08:00 and continued through until today -my last day, these other days starting at 07:00. Thank goodness for the superb public transport, which takes me precisely 4 minutes to walk from my house to the metro platform and 22 minutes to the metro stop outside The Bella Center conference location. I have witnessed many sunrises the past 2 weeks and have reached the point where I am arriving too early for the occasion. A sure sign of winter approaching in case the cooling temperatures and falling rainbow of leaves didn't convince.

Training for the job was a simple affair. It being an IT–conference (a very prestigious one at that, with tickets for the 7,000 attendees ranging from €1,500-€2,000) the technology is pretty advanced. On "my" desk, as on all other Registration desks, are no less than 4 computers for the self-registration process. I've lost count of how many attendees paused at the monitor and exclaimed "How do you work one of these?" before laughing at their apparent originality. Being the polite hostess, of course I politely engaged in a hopefully-not-too-obviously-rehearsed titter of giggles.

That was Sunday in a nutshell. It was not a busy day, on the contrary, the actual conference events didn't start until Tuesday so it was a small occasional trickle of people to deal with only. Given that there are about 20 manned Registration desks, at the sight of an unregistered attendee entering the large hall, faces lit up in the hope of attracting the generally overweight, stereotypical pasty computer nerd, who tended to look slightly surprised at the wall of neatly attired women vying for their attention with our professional 'come hither' smiles. Little else work-wise happened, but of course on the more interesting social end, you'll always find interesting people in new workplaces. Plenty to be found here and with the large gaps of empty time to fill, needless to say, we all formed groups with the sole purpose of entertaining each other to kill time. Much fun of course.

Monday morning, 07:00 began another day of registering. Busier but only in spurts when bus loads of attendees arrived. Lots of lulls and this went on until closing time at 20:00.

Tuesday began on Registration, large crowds now piling in, the taped off snake queue finally losing its status as an obstruction. For perhaps 2 hours solid, there were 2 people at any one time registering at each of the desks. Printers working working working to get the badges to the eager faced conference nerds. After the rush, all died down again as the nerds assumed positions in the various rooms, halls and areas.  I don't mean to be cruel calling them nerds, but if you only saw (most of) them, I know there would be enthusiastic nods of agreement. The other breed prevalent here I shall call Managerial Knobs. I'm basing this category on two over heard conversations with the slick distinguished and slightly oily looking suit types. The first conversation I heard was between two of these who clearly had just met here and were engaging in an virility contest:
MK1 "So how many kids do you have?"
MK2 "I have 2, how about you?"
MK1 *oozing smarm now*  "2 yeah? I have 6 of them"

The second example was at the welcome drinks when a group of MKs were chatting business. A regular nerd walked by them, but got stopped by one of the louder MKs who slapped him on the shoulder and exclaimed loudly for his new MK friends to hear, "John, put a smile on your face. I'm paying for you so enjoy yourself and look happy, haw haw haw!" John went from pasty to puce faster than the the processors his company sold and skedaddled pronto. Turning back to his MK buddies, he said in an off-handed manner, "Yes, he's just another of our IT technicians. Now, where were we?" 

There were a lot of regular nice people in the mix too of course - it's just hard to miss the sore thumbs sometimes. 

So after my brief stint on Registration that morning, the rest of the day was assigned to being a guide in the main hall: now this job borders on cruelty. Basically it involves standing in one spot for hours on end in case somebody wants to know where a particular room is, event is being held or toilets are located. It's boring and painful. Some of this time was spent overhearing the conversations I mentioned above, the rest I was miles and miles away in a nice daydream filled with armchairs and foot massages.

Back on registration desk this morning. The conference finished at 16:30 today so it was always unlikely that anyone would register at this stage. One, as it happened, did register. On the first 2 days, the free bottle (a stainless steel jobbie from Dell) hadn't arrived so vouchers to be redeemed were handed out. There were stacks of these bottles behind us today so swapping bottles for vouchers promised to be the most exciting event of the day and indeed it was! There were 10 of us at one point on Registration for this task, would you believe. Presumably it makes for good optics to have us smiling white shirted staff perched there when our heads are not buried in phones composing stories. 

There promised to be little more work to be done for those poor souls working on the floor as 'guides' in the main rooms. I can only sympathise with the agonies of many hours standing stationary or almost stationary. I had the strangest physical reactions to Tuesday's 9 hour standing shift in the Atrium: in order to relieve the expected stiffness that creeps into the joints, from time to time I would lift up one foot and stretch by pointing my toes. As I did this, joints started cracking in the middle of my foot, followed by a loud crack of my ankle joint. This happened on both feet, and as the day drew slowly out, the intensity and volume of the joint popping magnified. But this wasn't all: not long after the feet and ankle popping took off, the knees decided to join in the symphony. By 19:45 just as things were winding down for the now tipsy nerd fest, taking a step unleashed a rhythmical clattering of internal joint popping. Very strange, but it killed the boredom somewhat playing with bodily joint popping rhythms.   

That's it from this temp. 

Pop on.  

FIN

Un Journal de Paris

 Trip to Paris: August 2011

Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris

Day 1: arrived late in the evening.  The trip itself was to be a surprise for the gang who were over there: I had told them that I could not come so it was just Tara they thought was coming for the short week. We took the directions that Julie the host had given, taking the little airport train to the main metro line.  At that point, I sent Tara out to the platform where Julie was waiting, and from behind a ticket machine I watched as they hugged greeting each other, grinning away to the bemusement of strangers passing by.  When they were deep in conversation about the travels, I approached from behind and muttered towards Julie "This isn't Nørreport..." She swung her head in my direction, stared for half a second in confusion before breaking out in a huge grin, French exclamations and a big hug!  We chattered and giggled intermittently, then boarded the train heading to the city.  Half an hour later, we emerged from the underground weaving journey into the 5e arrondissement and to her door within minutes from there. And what a door it was!  A gorgeous old horse entrance leading into a cobbled courtyard where her house was tucked away discretely behind larger apartments.  In the courtyard the gang were lounging about, on benches and chairs, the table set with baguettes still in their bakery pockets, a selection of cheeses, wine and salads ready for a late supper.  After the hugs, greetings and chatter we settled down to a simple but stunning supper.  Plans were set for the next day to visit Pere La Chaisse and we went to our rooms to rest for the next day.

Pere Lachaise

Day 2: the weather was stunning. Even in early morning, the heat of the day was building.  Breakfast was to be a lengthy affair: firstly with a trip to the local bakery to pick up the bread and croissants. Cups of coffee, grapefruit juice, cheeses, marmalades were on offer and we ate well, predicting a long day out strolling the streets and graveyard.  It was early afternoon when we were all ready to set off to say our hellos to the dead in Pere La Chaisse.  Not my first trip there, but the first for some of the others, so the usual tombs were visited: Balzac, Chopin, Merleau-Ponty, Jim Morrisson to name but a few.  It was not as green as I remembered, perhaps the grassy squares in Nørrebro's cemetery filling in gaps in memory.  We spent several hours wandering about, sometimes aimlessly, just enjoying the art work of statues and tombs against the green leafy filtered light in the heat of the day.  Coffee and late lunch was the next plan to be fulfilled so we wandered around to a cafe / bar called Chat Noir in the same arrondissement - a colourful mixed area, a very different feel to the 5e arrondissement which being a mere 10 minute walk to Notre Dame is quite an exclusive area.  We sat indoors and ordered coffees and ate the sandwiches we brought with us - cheese and the baguettes bought that morning with a jar of kosher vegan pesto - not that we had any Jews among us - rather it was a random purchase, and one I would make again!  Tasted excellent.  Coffees were followed by a cold French beer.  And before we knew it, 5o'clock came around and it was happy hour, so we ordered €2 crisp white wines and sat outside in the baking heat sipping.  We eventually made our way back home and prepared a delicious dinner of couscous, stewed vegetables, hot sauce and melon salad. With this we drank more wine and stayed out late in the garden until it was time to retire again. 

Midnight in Paris

Day 3: The usual long lazy breakfast of still-warm-from-the-bakery bread, cheeses, marmalades and croissants, coffee and teas, sunshine in the garden.  The only set plan for the day was to go to the Louvre for which we had free entrance as Julie's friend was working on Friday evening and could get all of us in.  Since the others had been there for several days before we arrived, Julie took this morning / afternoon to walk Tara and I around the 5e arrondissement, showing us the old Roman arena behind her house, the Luxembourg jardin, and the corner which Woody Allen has put on the map with Midnight in Paris.  We picked up fresh bread on the way back for the late lunch were were to have since dinner time would be occupied with the Louvre visit.  At 6pm we met outside the Louvre, having strolled there from Julie's, ambling by the Seine pausing by many of the vendors selling books and trinkets, past Notre Dame over the island and to the square outside the Louvre where we stopped for coffee having arrived a bit early.  All gathered there at the designated time and our guide arrived minutes later, whisking us through some staff entrance, skipping all the queues in the giant pyramid topped centre.  Since people wished to see different artists and exhibitions, I took off on my own, heading to the Dutch section, the Scandinavian section, Egypt, Greece and Iran and planned the tour based on these locations.  So for three hours we all pottered around soaking up the grandeur and loveliness.  We met outside at 9pm just as the sun was setting.  There was a fareground in the gardens so with our museum weary feet, we drifted that direction, bottles of wine purchased nearby in hand, and sat between the ferris wheel and the fountain, chewing on sandwiches and swigging gulps of red.  We stayed until we could stay no longer and were shooed out by caretakers.  We drifted along the Seine for an hour or so, stopping eventually at a cluttered little bar where they sold €3 beer - no name, just 'beer'! It was quite nice despite its generic identity.  As the early hours of the morning crept in, we took our tipsy selves home. 

Day 4: there was nothing at all planned for Saturday.  Some talked of visiting the Eiffel Tower and other touristy things, but I've done all that tourist business on previous trips, so I declined, instead settling into a late morning sitting in the garden with a book, then doing the grocery shopping with Julie in the afternoon.  For the evening, I had plans to go see Midnight in Paris in the cinema that is featured in the film.  About a 20 minute stroll from the house.  It's been playing in the cinemas in Paris for many months now, but still the theatre was jam packed.  Lovely film, lovely experience, made even more lovely by being right in the centre of the film location.  Arrived home to find the gang splayed out in the garden, awaiting the arrival of the final members so they could begin to make the crepes and drink the cidre that Julie had bought from a tiny farm in Brittany near where her family has their second home.  It was every bit as delicious as she claimed - sweet, bubbly and refreshing.  I could have drank a gallon of the stuff!  After crepes and cidre, we took our full bellies out for a late night stroll, stopping on those Midnight in Paris steps again.  

Day 5: final day.  There is a fresh fruit, vegetable, flea market half an hour away across the river on weekends so four of us got up early enough to visit and buy vegetables.  The weather had turned; this day it was grey and drizzled intermittently, but pleasant in its own way.  If you've seen Midnight in Paris you'll understand!  We ambled around the market for an hour or so, then stopped at a grotty looking cafe for coffee.  We had skipped breakfast, knowing we could find some interesting foodstuffs at the market.  And we did.  I chose an Algerian delicatessen and ordered a sort of soft layered savoury pastry, filled with tomato and onion, then a sort of corn biscuit sandwich filled with pressed dates.  The others choose sandwiches and other odd pastry things from the various tiny shops dotted along the streets.  We headed home with some fresh fruit and vegetables.  We got home, packed and then headed out for one final Parisian coffee shop experience.  Up to a small cluttered square in the far reaches of the 5e arrondissement where we were genuinely shocked by the prices for the first time since arrival.  Truly a tourist trap, they were charging between €8 - €9.50 for a simple pastry, and that did not include coffee.  We eventually chose a small bakery on a corner which had some chairs outside and had some reasonably priced coffees and delicious pastries.  

All too soon it was time to say our goodbyes and head back underground along the weaving rails to Orly.  

Copenhagen postcard sent to Paris, Aug. 1935

At midnight the flight touched ground in torrential rain Denmark.  As the aircraft pulled up on the tarmac, an apologetic sounding pilot informed us that there was no sheltered exit walkway from the plane to the terminal available, and to make matters wetter, the entrance we pulled up by was undergoing repairs, so we would have to make a dash to the next one further away.  Needless to say I was saturated to the skin by the time I got indoors again.  You really do get what you pay for with budget airlines. 

C'est tout.

time is the fire in which we burn

Distortion

In the distance through the sweet night air, hummed and throbbed the pulse and hazy chorus of music and ambiance. Distortion had arrived and it brought people to the streets like ants milling out for a spill of picnic honey. Being a lover of the older rock and roll, the music held little appeal, but the non stop chatter about Distortion this and Distortion that peaked my curiosity enough to venture out to the city centre on Wednesday night.  The warm sun of the day settled behind the buildings and a balmy night of background music filled every sense with the true vibrance that only small cities like Copenhagen can capture.  Like a jar filled with sparkling fireflies; such was the beautiful feeling of a glistening night in this cosy city.  People filled every street corner, and bikes cluttered the patches of cobbled squares.  In every hand a drink, the other gesturing as the voices rose above the music and joyful expressiveness poured out of every beaming soul.  The music didn't seem to matter: if there was a blast of it nearby, bodies rocked and swayed to the bouncing rhythms, occasionally crescendoing into full throttle dance.  As the night played on, men casually peed in the streets, the flow of nature's call not interrupting the flow of conversation.  In any other context this might seem strange; but there is a casual easiness to this place, a looser sense of being human that pervades even that most natural but secretive functions.  Progress from one street to the next was slow. A thousand people drifting this way and that eased the pace to a meandering amble.  The quaint cobbled streets became sticky and beer cans rattled as unseeing feet knocked them.  Meanwhile the can collectors wandered around, eyeing the loot, and saved us from what I imagined would be wading ankle deep through a sea of empty green cans.

As the ground became stickier, the music now fading, my eyes became heavier: it was enough excitement for one day.  I took my leave at midnight, happy that I had experienced the street party that is Distortion.

A brief synopsis on the origin of our discontented state:

In the beginning our heads were larger than they are now, twice as big.  We had four legs, not two, and an equal amount of arms.  On our big heads either side had a pair of eyes, a nose, a mouth and in the middle perched ears: two on each side.  Like two modern heads were somehow melted together from the back of the skull until the conch of the ears were a hair's breath apart.  Bodies were more rounded and when arms and legs were splayed outwards; great speeds could be reached by cartwheeling across the vast plains of earth.  Most bodies had a male side and a female side, but not all.  Some were double male, some double female.  Only mixed gender bodies could reproduce when a child was desired.  But all were satisfied and content in their happy pairing. 

Zeus pondered these wondrous creatures with a mixture of awe and pride.  But soon these sentiments festered and a deep envy filled his soul for these happy creatures and with furious bolts of lightening he lashed out and slashed each body in half; leaving them tottering lost and alone on two unsteady legs; condemning us to half blindly seek our lost other half.

Hr Plato: tak for det 

Påske i København / Easter in Copenhagen

Friday 22nd / Good Friday, one of those rare days in Ireland where it is illegal to sell alcohol: bought a bottle of Prosecco on the way to Danish friends Christina & Jonas' house for the arranged Easter lunch - traditional Danish style, naturally.  There were approximately 15 in attendance and so the basement had been reserved for the banquet.  Six large tables pieced together to accommodate the crowd and the dazzling abundance of food.  Baskets of rugbrød (rye bread) dotted the table, punctuated by bottles of glistening-from-the-freezer Snaps (almost pure alcohol the Danes love to drink at seasonal events).  Baskets of boiled baby potatoes, boiled eggs, fresh chives, mayonnaise, remolade (like a lumpy tangy mayo), the Mexicans brought a bean dish dripping with melted cheese on top and a large bowl of delicious spicy guacamole, various types of fish: dried white fish from the Faroe islands, marinerede sild, karry sild (types of traditional pickled herring), a giant and unbelievably delicious veggie quiche just bursting with spinach, tomatoes, peppers and various other colourful delights.  It was like Babette's feast without the bankruptcy.  Prior to sitting down indoors, we basked in the hot sunshine, dotted around the big garden on chairs, benches, grass, and sucked on juicy dribbling slices of cool sweet watermelon, just shooting the breeze to the drifting tones of New Orleans jazz humming away like sweet sounds of distant honey bees hovering at blossoms.  The cool shade at the banquet table came as a relief, our appetites now whetted by the watermelon and wine, and we set to work building ever more creative smørbrød (open face sandwich), interrupted regularly for another round of "skål" (cheers!) and a quaffing of ice cold Snaps (potent alcohol!).  

So after a long lovely lunch, with the loveliest bunch of people one could hope to dine with, we shuffled gently out to the garden to bask in the afternoon sun once more. The wine long gone by now, it was beer for the afternoon and evening, with no less than two more outings to the local shop to restock.  That sunshine kept evaporating everything!  Sweet things for dessert started appearing late in the afternoon.  Banana bread, French crepes, little chocolate eggs, all grazed on slowly by full bellied folk as a cow might distractedly chew cud.  As the sun set and the cool early night air started to raise goosebumps, that was the cue to drift homeward.  A spectacularly lovely day, followed by an 8 hour coma.  

Saturday: a slow start to the day, vague notions of going to the library were dismissed in favour of sitting in my back garden in shorts, t-shirt and bare feet with a compendium of readings in search of some topic interesting enough to fill 25 pages.  I should say that summer arrived nearly 2 weeks ago, so it's been shorts and t-shirt weather. I'm a bit tanned actually. The day was interrupted several times, welcome interruptions I might add, firstly by Belfast boy Paul from University out and about on his bike enjoying the sun.  We had coffee and a chat for an hour then off he went on his merry way.  Back to the sunny reading, then another visitor: Alina the Romanian from University this time arrived with a few cans of beer, and who was I to say no to some ice cool beverages on a hot day?  We sat there until the afternoon sun was cut off by the high buildings and then went to make food - a homemade pizza this time, I had prepared dough the night before so it was fat and swollen as it should be.  A delicious pizza later, we headed into town to see one of the CPH PIX (film festival) films - I had lots of tickets from volunteering I did for the festival, so I got to go for free.  We went to Gloria cinema on Rådhuspladsen (town hall square) to see a film about red haired people, the translation roughly being "Our Day Will Come" or something like that.  A French film starring Vincent Cassel (he was in Black Swan).  A wonderful, dark comedy, very action driven which was lucky for me, as when the film started, the subtitles were in Danish and the dialogue, naturally, was in French.  It didn't actually make much difference, I read the subtitles, and listened to the French - a language I once had a basic level of - and it was fine!  And funny, a great film, really enjoyed it.  

Never being one to celebrate Easter, I had no plans for Sunday.  I woke up early as had been a spring habit with the morning sun waking me directly, so I decided that a long run was in order after the Friday Feast.  Now usually I decided my occasional runs based on routes that I already know the distance of - such as Frederiksberg Have, the local park, is 2.4km per circuit.  But on Sunday I decided that I would simply run for an hour, just focusing on time not distance.  I took in a lap of the park for the scenery and elephants (it backs onto the zoo) - I still delight at the sight of those weird prehistoric looking things and just kept on going, occasionally telling myself in a southern drawl to 'run Forrest, run'.  Not that I needed much spurring on.  The warming morning air was just perfect for trotting around the pretty, leafy roads of Frederiksberg.  So exactly an hour of weaving around, I trotted back indoors.  I measured the distance which came out at exactly 8km.  Now, it had slipped my mind that morning that I had said to Belfast boy Paul that I wanted him to take me along to this yoga class he takes up in the far reaches of Nørrebro, a neighbouring area.  I may not have run 8km had I remembered that, so perhaps not a bad thing.  We met up in the afternoon and cycled to what looks like a hippie reclaimed warehouse, up some dark weaving stairs and into a beautiful large light filled studio in the attic room.  There were about 8 or 9 people in attendance, and we all fished out rolled up mats from a little cupboard at the end of the room and laid them out.  I might add that I have never done yoga in my life, but being rather bendy in ways, I always suspected myself to have innate yoga skills!  In some respects, I took to it fine - a few balance issues on the standing poses, but I can grab my two big toes and bring one toe about halfway up to my ear while sitting down (the bow and arrow pose) which I was chuffed with, 'cos you never know when you'll need to bring your toe up to your ear.  The class went on for 2 hours: I was expecting an hour, tops, but it went pretty fast all the same and ended with a 15 minute relaxation which was so nice I had trouble staying awake.  

My body felt so 'worked' after all that, so it was time to abuse it again, we figured.  I headed home for some much needed lunch, then arranged to meet up with Vida the German, Alina the Romanian and Paul again at Nørrebro Bridge to sit lakeside and have a beer in the late afternoon sun.  It was so picturesque: the Dannebrøg (DK flag) had been flying on the bridge for a while now (perhaps since the christening of the handsome Prince's twins a couple of weeks ago?) but as the sun drew nearer the horizon, the flag removers came to take them down.  It was quite lovely to watch then lower these four giant beaming red symbols of lovely Denmark against that perfect clear blue.  And we fell into a thoughtful relaxed silence watching these men at work, when out of the blue (literally) appeared no less than 14 hot air balloons of every colour you can imagine, drifting across the skies over the lakes, their perfect reflections doubling their number!  It was gorgeous and whoops of delight and clicks of cameras became the symphony to the drifting sight.  The day had surely peaked... but no, there was more to come.  A ringing telephone. Chatter in Romanian. Laughter and many many "bina bina bina" - Romanian for an affirmative.  Click, the phone is hung up.  A beaming Alina excitedly announces that a woman who she had befriended on Twitter had just docked her yacht in Christianshavn, and did she want to come over - the posse too!  Easter on a Swedish yacht?  Yes please!  A few bottles of wine purchased and a high speed cycle to Christianshavn, we found a beautiful white yacht, adorned with the Swedish flag, with two smiling faces on board.  We hopped on and thus began a wonderful evening which would end in the early hours, after much interesting conversation with these Swedes (one originally from Romania).  Still in shorts, sandals and t-shirt by 2am, the cold was beginning to catch up on the wine, so it was time to head home.  

That’s how it ended. Easter in Copenhagen. For a thoroughly secular place; they sure do know how to have a happy Easter.  

It doesn’t snow in Ireland [A Christmas story in May]

I eventually made it back to Denmark - I say eventually because it took several days to get out of blizzardy Dublin and involved an overnight camp in the airport - which actually turned out to be an amazing night! I’ll get back to that in a bit.

About lunchtime on Monday 20th December, the skies got dark and large flakes of snow started drifting down, ever the heavier. The airport was still open and functioning when I got on the Aircoach at 16:30. Plenty of time to make it in for the 18:45 flight to which I had already checked in online. Just a bag drop to do. BUT - the roads and the millions of drivers were not prepared for the snow which was now coming down at an alarming rate! So obviously everybody seeing the snow panicked and immediately took to the roads to get home. I have never seen traffic so bad. The M1 was a car park. What should have been a 40 minute journey took 1 hour 40 minutes and we only made it that quick because the driver took off his usual route and cut through Swords village. With finger tapping at bruising point, the moment the bus pulled up at the airport the anxious passengers leaped up into the aisle, no exception in my case, grabbed my case and I ran at speed through the airport in a scene not unlike the Home Alone panic airport rush and luckily enough there was still a staff member at the otherwise deserted SAS Check-In desk 9. She took my baggage with an air of trepidation not quite masked, but with typical flawless Scandinavian efficiency. I proceeded to run to security, now only 15 minutes before the flight was due to leave, tugging my belt off as I darted through the crowd control tape leading to security. It was ominously quiet at security so I got through in record time. But as I glanced at the board to see what gate to go to, the depressing words "CANCELLED" started flashing. Groan. I calmly re-threaded my belt, and asked a staff member where I collect my baggage. That sounds like an easy task, but I omitted the throngs of people circling the yellow vested woman so that alone took 10 minutes of forcefully eyeing and vying for her frazzled attention. Standing at the carousel for 40 minutes with a bunch of Danes, the familiar sound of Danish was somewhat comforting. I just wanted to be back here. Once the bags finally re-emerged, dazed and confused from their futile trip around those underground belts, it was a quick dash to the SAS desk to re-book on the next available flight. The next morning flight was full, so they put me on the 18:45 flight instead. Okay, grand.  But now I had to get out of the airport and find somewhere to stay for the next 24 hours. I had heard South Dublin was the worst hit, with record amounts of snow, so heading back to the parent’s house was out of the question. But my buddy Mildred who lives close to town kindly offered me her couch for the night. It took over an hour of standing in the snow to get on an Aircoach; the queues were that long and the roads were that bad. Eventually I got back into town and made my way to Mildred's. Normally a 20 minute walk from O'Connoll Street, but this time taking 40 dragging a heavy case through the foot of snow leaving in my wake a cleared path for the lucky street walkers headed my way.

She had the heating in the house blasting when I got there, it was heaven! I cracked open a bottle of Bailey's I'd been given, and we drank a few glasses of that. Very necessary after the evening I had. Next day I refused to get out of "bed" until 11. Felt great to get a lie in - the first one all week, in spite of many many many late nights! The weather had eased considerably, and flights were coming and going from the airport so it was looking good. I couldn't risk another looooong bus journey so I was back on the Aircoach by 15. However, the snow decided to start falling again around that time; more of the heavy variety. Got to the airport around 16, in what were pretty much blizzard conditions, on a bus that was sliding and skidding on the hidden ice all the way. A huge queue had already formed for the 18:45 flight. I stood next to a guy from Northern Ireland, a Swedish woman and a Lithuanian woman. The latter two trying to get home for Christmas, Northern Ireland guy trying to get back to DK to spend Christmas with his kids. We whiled away the time waiting for SAS to make a definitive announcement by trying to explain to the women that it doesn't actually snow in Ireland and that's why there's no such thing as snow tyres or tyre chains here! Funny against the backdrop of a blizzard so bad, the building across the road was invisible. Finally SAS confirmed what we were all dreading yet expecting: no flights tonight. Seemingly it takes 4 hours of no snow falling to clear the runways and there just wasn't going to be a break in the weather for that length of time on Tuesday evening at all. But the SAS staff passed on some promising news too: SAS were going to charter a special flight just for us at 09:30 to get us all home for Christmas. It was good to hear, especially as every 10 minutes on the loudspeaker, a gruff announcement was made that "Any passengers on cancelled Ryanair flights, please leave the airport, go home and re-book your flights". And to add salt to the wound the announcement continued: "Please return any duty free you have purchased back to the duty free shop." Owch! They won't even let you drown your sorrows with cheap booze!

Since it was about 17 when SAS announced the rescue plan, I had made up my mind to spend the night at the airport. There was little point in spending 3 hours getting home only to have to be back in by 07:30 to check in. The Northern guy said he too was going to stay overnight while the women said they were going home. Mad pair! So I had an airport buddy for the evening. We immediately set a direct course to the bar upstairs and ordered ourselves a couple of Guinness's. We got on like a house on fire, yapping away about this and that, until the bar closed at 20 and we had to find somewhere else to pass the time. We found another bar, The Fáilte Bar, downstairs at Arrivals and found ourselves squashed in a booth with two older women and a son in law of one of them. They were waiting for the arrival of two young kids from Belarus. Saw Adi Roche, founder of the Chernobyl Children’s Project, was there too sitting on the far side of the bar. We sat with the ladies and the fella, laughing and joking, reading trashy newspaper horoscopes to each other, until their time came to head off. Our next recruit was a Polish guy who was standing at the bar when I was ordering yet another round. He was all smiles and a bit shy, so I insisted he come sit with us. Jarek was his name, and I remember little else about him except laughing long and hard when he insisted that he could not sit in the middle because "he didn't want to split up a lovely couple"! We howled laughing at that - and explained to him through ruptured gasps of laughter that we had no idea who the other was, and that we hadn't even swapped names yet! We did at that point though – “Hi, I’m Damien” and “Hi, I’m Sue. Nice to meet you!”
We parted ways with Jarek when the bar closed and Jarek wanted to head out with his friend (who had been snoozing on a nearby couch) to puff on a few cancer sticks. So we bid our farewells and best wishes and so Damien and I had to find something else to occupy us. It was late but we were too wired to even think about camping for the night just yet. So we set off on a mission to find the elusive entrance to the brand new Terminal 2. Barely open, it only services two airlines: Ethiad and some other Middle Eastern airline. We wandered until we found the innocuous door leading to the beautiful and glamorous Terminal 2: down a long unfinished tunnel which was very much exposed to the elements brrrr! It had a roof, alright, but cheap runner carpet over chipboard on the floor, and air vents which had not been sealed yet so it was minus temperatures in there. A quick dash through and we emerged in this almost empty cavern of a place. The strangest thing was that the Ethiad flight from Abu Dhabi landed that evening? The Sheik must have a magic carpet Damien mused, sending us into fresh gales of soused silly chuckles. We wandered around discovering all the nooks and crannies of the new Terminal until the sleepiness started to creep in. We went back through the arctic corridor to Terminal 1 and went in search of a spot on the floor to set up camp. But since there was reportedly 40,000 people staying overnight that night; finding a spot in what looked like a refugee camp proved impossible. After a long and futile round trip through Terminal 1, finally we decided to trek back through the arctic corridor to the opulent loveliness of Terminal 2. Why didn’t we just stay there? I’ll have to blame the Guinness for clouding the obvious. We found a cosy spot in The Oak Cafe. Others had the same idea, but there was space and enough chairs to make makeshift "beds". The marble floor looked a bit cold. So that's how my night in the airport ended.

Now, what struck me most about Night in the Airport, was the sheer brilliant mood of everyone there! I have never had so much fun in an airport in my life - people were ready to make jokes and strangers were finding airport buddies for the night and little groups of people were forming to keep what were already high spirits even higher! It was wonderful. Something Damien and I had commented on at the time even; comparing Danish and other cultures with the social ‘more the merrier' attitude of the Irish: best summed up in the word ‘craic’. Danes have they word for a great night out. They call it ‘hyggelig’ – a word approximating to ‘cosy’. Not quite the Irish style which seems to involve the infecting of strangers with good humour. I had thought when deciding to stay overnight that I'd find a book, a corner and read till I fell asleep and that would be as good as it could possibly get.

How wrong can you get?