Airport escapades

What is it about security checkpoints at airports that leaves you feeling violated? Sure, some of them are polite and try to make you feel comfortable, but others leave you feeling as though you have been dragged into a side room and… ahem... interrogated.

 

I have spent the last couple of days in Denmark, first in Aalborg and now in Copenhagen. Staying in airport hotels is pretty miserable, but nice to be near for the flight in the oh so early morning. I had a flex ticket so I thought, oh goody – let’s try out the SAS Fast Security Check, only available to people with flex tickets or SAS gold cards. The SAS gold card concept makes me wonder what other fanciful things one might receive.

 

In any event, I thought, “Yes, a little bit of special treatment would be great right now”. So I roll on up to the special SAS security check and what do I find? Nothing less than a line that is around the same size as a regular security check.  Typical I think. Oh well, maybe it is a little bit shorter and a bit faster, think I, rather naively.

 

I scan the lines ahead of me, as the line branches into two. One line is full of black coats, scarves, and laptop bags, business men heading to Stockholm. They look efficient. The other line is full of women, reasonably business-like looking, all wearing coats and carrying multiple bags. I figure that they probably all have laptops too. It wasn’t really a sexist choice for me to stand with the men, after all, they look as though they are in as big a rush as I am and are positively throwing their laptops out of their bags onto the conveyer belt. At the same time, the chap in front of me chose the other line. I kept comparing my progress with him, thinking “we shall see my friend… we shall see…”.

 

Of course, once I had been barked at several times by the security guard (in Danish no doubt) that I needed to show my boarding pass (again??), and having had responded dumbly by throwing my phone from my pocket into a basket, being barked at again, responding “Sorry?”, and then being barked at in English to show my card, I promptly forgot about comparing myself competitively with the other chap.

 

I had the impression that his temper was rising as I persistently did not understand his orders. What would have been the next step? Rubber glove, Danish pastries served with Danish Christmas beer, or some bizarre mixture of the two? I daren’t think more.

 

Finally he was placated when I produced my card, which had of course been buried in my jacket. I have learnt after doing this many times now that it’s simply best to dump everything in your jacket pockets, much faster. I tempted fate and decided to display my displeasure with his barking by twisting my mouth slightly and grumpily passing him my card. I showed him with my rebellious behaviour, I thought contentedly.

 

In any event I survived the fast check in. I think next time I will take the plebeian path.

Swedish Meatballs

This time around it wasn’t so bad. After shifting countries and cities a few times, you start to get used to it. The sudden jump into a new culture can be said to be somewhat akin to rolling (inebriated) around in an Icelandic lake during spring - shocking, daring, refreshing, and on occasion, somewhat unpleasant (and yes, I have done that).

 

At least with the lake there’s always the hot shower to look forward to afterwards. Sometimes you wonder what form the hot shower is going to take in your life :).

 

But, it is definitely enlightening to move around. Although difficult and sometimes downright frustrating - “What do you mean you don’t like marmite? Are you mad?” – it is ultimately rewarding.

 

It took me two years to get over the culture shock I experienced in Iceland. Right as I started to feel comfy and as though I was a part of the crew (and started get a healthy hang of the language), I decided to move to Sweden with Kat. Now Sweden, to most of us kiwis, is regarded as the land of “hot blond chicks and the Swedish chef”. And on the very back of that reputation, I’m surprised there isn’t an invasion of kiwis here. They might be disappointed on arrival, I still haven’t seen the chef.

 

So here I am again, finding myself slightly bewildered and confused, trying to figure out how to wrap my tongue around the strange sounds they have in their language, trying not to get myself into trouble by disliking some of their foods (they get terribly offended if you refuse to eat something that they deem to be traditional).

 

Swedes love rules. They love rules so much that they made a rule that says you have to follow the rules. Don’t get caught crossing the road if you are in sight of a pedestrian crossing, or you might receive a few glares, or even worse, a sniff. At least the Icelanders were good that way, they don’t care about rules at all, an easy fit for kiwis. A typical example might be if a sign says ‘food this way’. Even if there is a kiosk sitting next to the sign, brimming with the most delicious food you can imagine, you can’t buy any of it. You have to follow the sign, can’t you read?

 

That brings me to the Gs and the Js. Swedes often have problems differentiating between the two letters in English, especially when spelling words for you, or when pronouncing them. This is because, without rhyme or reason, they can pronounce them both the same way in Swedish, or differently. Depending on either the mood of the speaker or where he is from in Sweden, or if he has decided to make life difficult for you. One day somebody tried to help me spell Gävle (pronounced Yavly). He started out with a perfect sounding “G”, and I proceeded to write down a “J”, because as I mentioned just before, they often get them mixed up. But it turns out it really is a potluck. This time he had it right, and upon seeing me write a “J”, he informed me “no, it’s a ‘G’, don’t you know what a ‘G’ is?”.

 

Typical!

 

Sometimes these kinds of misunderstandings turn out to be hilarious. I told an Eddie Murphy joke to my friend, the punch line being “so the bear wiped his ass with the rabbit”. Eddie Murphy made some comments in that particular stand-up about people screwing up his jokes. I mentioned this to my friend and mentioned that I was probably screwing it up. He then decided he would earnestly retell the joke without screwing it up, but despite his best intentions, the punch line changed to be: “so the bear wiped the rabbit with his ass”.

 

Swedes are blunt. Very blunt. English and Swedish grew up on opposite sides of the tracks, we developed words like please, thank you, and so on. Although they have these words they don’t seem to like using them all that much. In particular, I don’t really think they have a word exactly like “please”, so you can often hear what sound like orders from your girlfriend or friends, e.g. “can you please pass me the knife” becomes “pass me the knife”. I have it on good authority that they think the pleasantries of English are superfluous and make us sound like we are waffling on and wasting time. This is one thing I refuse to budge on though, I can’t stand the lack of pleases and thank yous. I guess I am a bit more of a stick in the mud than I thought ;). In their defence, they don’t consider it rude at all to speak your mind, and maybe that is something that we English speakers could do a bit more of. Since being here (and in Iceland) I have noticed that non-native English speakers don’t mess around in anyway when corresponding with each other in English. They just say exactly what they mean or want, totally (or usually) devoid of any pleasantries, and get on with it. This can be a bit of a hard pill to swallow on occasion, and its not a rare occurrence for one of us English speaking fellows to take some offence. But I think I’m going to cover that some more later.

 

For now, I am going to run off to find some Swedish meatballs!

The importance of looking after yourself

It's just starting to dawn on me that it's important to put myself first when it matters. There is a quote out there that goes along the lines of "we are all our own harshest critic". This small piece of wisdom is something that I should pin in everyplace I can fit a sticky note - because I am pretty sure I spend a sizable chunk of my day berating myself.

A lot of it is about self-respect. This simple little amalgam of a word has a lot going for it, and a lot of things that are involved with it.

If I decide I want to do something that is for myself (and really want to do it) and if it doesn't directly affect anybody else - then I should do it. If I like something then I should freely express it. If I really don't want to do something then I should not do it. It is not healthy to let oneself be diverted. To let it happen often, or on a regular basis, erodes at one's own sense of self and one's sense of control.

Of course there are times when you should compromise - we all need to do this, people cannot always agree. But there is an element of respect in allowing other people their choices. Sometimes your decisions or actions will make others unhappy, but there is no point in curtailing if it will be you that is unhappy at the end.

I have decided that I am going to enforce the choices that I make, and carry them through. I am tired of being disappointed in myself for not doing it.

There's one person that we all have no choice about living with - ourselves - so we need to make sure that that we keep a happy crew.

Missing Iceland

I told my workmates today that I am leaving in August.

Not the most emotional way to begin a blog, but today it feels like I am mourning something. The problem is, that telling my workmates that I am leaving means that it's real, that I am leaving. And it's dawning on me that I am leaving this place. Just as six months ago it dawned on me that I really love living here, and that I love the people (imperfections included).

Life has been good here in Iceland, the air always smells fresh and if you want to get away from people it's easy. And if you want to talk to people they are there, too. They don't say straight out that they are going to miss you. But you can tell they do, just in the way they joke about it. Icelanders don't usually say things straight out when this happens. They might blink, and then tell you that it doesn't matter because they wanted your desk anyway. But the way they smile slightly when they say it lets you know what they really mean. And I'm going to miss them so much.. the hardest found friends are always the best ones. Nobody invites you out for at least 3 months (if you are lucky, otherwise try 6), and then after you've proven that you're going to be around and they have decided they like you, suddenly there is no shortage of things to do. People invite you to their parties, invite you for coffee, movies, you bump into at least 3 or more people you know when walking around down town - even just the guy that served you dinner at a restaurant last week is happy to have a chat for a minute or two.

To the casual observer, Icelanders are cold and unfriendly. I say that they are just reserved, and that they open up once you get to know them. Sticking in there is the hard part, but once you get to know them it's the best feeling in the world.

It feels difficult to leave now, but is it always that way? When you finally know for sure that you are leaving someplace that you like, do you start to wax nostalgic immediately? I'm trying to think positively about the move to Stockholm, and I am excited, but at the same time all I can feel is sad. I feel like I'm leaving something important behind. If you asked me what that is exactly I don't think I could tell you. It's just a feeling that this place is special.

I know that Iceland isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and that I can come back in the future. I guess I just need to keep that in mind.

I wondered today if I am being a bit melodramatic with myself about this. But then I figured it's fair to be happy and sad about two things at the same time. So I'm reserving the right to feel sad about leaving.. but with the caveat that I make the most of moving to Stockholm. There are definitely positives to it (else I might not be going :-) ), picking up another language not the least of them.

Við sjáum til.