Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

I got out of Denmark a few days earlier than planned. I left my hotel at 4 a.m. (Danish time) Friday and got back to my apartment at 6 p.m. (EST). That is essentially traveling from 4 a.m. until midnight, or 20 hours. Ooeee. But I found I was able to doze a bit on the KLM flight from Amsterdam to Atlanta, which is usually hard during the day flight back. (I had to fly from Billund to Amsterdam and change flights.) It was my first time not using Delta, though they are a partner so I got those precious Sky Miles, which become an obsession despite their apparent uselessness for booking actual flights.

KLM - that's the Royal Dutch airline - was fine. Their tag line is: "The Reliable Airline," so you can see they aren't reaching for the stars here; of course they still didn't manage to attain that level of service. The flight attendents seemed nicer, the plane seemed nicer and each passenger gets their own little TV screen and the option of watching TV (news, comedy, drama, educational), watching movies (fairly big selection) or playing video games! Saaa-weet. I kept falling asleep while doing all of the above and waking up with my headphones around my cheeks.

The food was wretched. And weird. I can't catch a break on the Scandinavian menu, folks. Between a salad of celery, pickles and ham chunks in mayo to a soup I still haven't deduced the origins of, it was a rough flight foodwise. But, one up on Delta for KLM: they serve chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla. That is bold indeed in the flight food service industry.

Unfortunately, I was seated in a weird row - my TV was mostly in front of the guy next to me, an oil rig worker returning from a 6-week shift off Nigeria. Seemed like a nice guy, apart from the porn 'stache and halitosis, and it turns out he's from Louisiana so I was an instant fan. Until he started rubbing my hand and saying things like, "Since we're sleeping together, you might as well tell me your name." Ick. Major Huzz inducer, there. And it's so hard to get away from creepy guys in economy... I was pressed to the other side of my seat and was still brushing elbows with him. If something like that happens again I do believe I shall request a seat change. There is no reason I should be subjected to pervy come-ons during a fucking 9 1/2 hour flight. You may add an extra hour to that for the baggage handler who damaged a panel that had to be checked before we left and the Atlanta weather that forced us to fly in circles for half an hour before landing.

So by the time I got out of ATL (through customs, baggage, security, baggage again) on a flight scheduled to arrive at 1:40 p.m., it was 4:30 p.m. -- and rush hour traffic in a major storm. In ideal conditions, the drive takes 35 minutes. But, if you can do math you must already realize it took 90 minutes yesterday. Woohoo! And that was 90 minutes of me putting my foot on the clutch, then tapping into first, then braking, foot on clutch, tapping into first, braking, rinse and repeat. I swear my left leg hurts today from the bumper-to-bumper fun of standard transmission.

OK, just to end on a slightly more positive note, I have compiled a bunch of photos of the headquarters of my company and some random Danish shots. (Why I'm bothering to end on a positive note, I don't know. I seem to write better when surly.)



View from the cafeteria at work.


Not actually at work. Drive-by photo of the sea. That way lies Sweden!


Another picturesque drive-by.



Me gleefully smoking indoors at work. They still have smoking lounges on every floor. Wow.


The 0 floor smoking lounge... well, what would you call the first floor if the second floor was called the first? That's how they roll in Europe.


Snacks awaiting conference folks in one of the many training rooms.


A view towards the 1st floor, where the entrance is. There are two sets of these steps leading down around "the Monolith," (on the right) which contains a theater.


A tree grows in Denmark. In the building. Actually, there are several trees.


The view from my hotel.


The cafeteria at work. They have their own kitchen staff who serve lunch every day. The Danes are charged a pittance only because if the company made meals free the company would have to pay huge taxes on it. I'm charged about $3 for a buffet of fresh fruits and veggies, strange Danish standards and delicious bread and cheese. It's worth it. And I use my security pass so it doesn't require I have money - the company deducts it from my pay.


A view from the training area towards the cafe. That is a glass door that requires a security badge to get through. All the security doors are very "Star Trek."


The building is sort of shaped like a figure 8 and the cafeteria and monolith are inside the courtyard of one of the centers. The other contains an outdoor courtyard with landscaping.


A (British ex-pat who lives in the U.S.) colleague chats on the phone. Danish law requires that every worker have a window in his office so the architects get very clever. And there is a moat around the building. It's about a foot deep and consists of rain water.



The view of Atlanta all the way home. Sheesh.

Denmarking Time

A drive-by shooting of Danish architecture near the queen's summer home here in Aarhus. (I'm very annoyed that I can't center my cutlines in Blogger... it centers all the text instead of just that which is highlighted. I am vexed.)


It's been a good trip to Aarhus; short and not entirely productive in the way I expected, but enjoyable. We have a conference for users going on and I have enjoyed interacting with newsies this week - the informed political discourse, bordering on the inappropriate, and the understanding we seem to have of each other by profession and calling. (Though I guess you could say I have been called away.)


I'm so tired right now. The jet lag has caught up with me despite my clever use of melatonin to fool my brain. My brain cannot be fooled! And this was a long day as it's 11 p.m. and I've just returned from the "formal" business dinner at the MusikHuset. (And I have no idea who the guy in the skull cap smelling his fingers on that web site is... we didn't actually have any music, just a long meal and lots of fancy forks and glasses and three kinds of wine.) Lots of folks in town for the conference are going out to the bars tonight... but, alas, I cannot. I'm too tired and I actually have to work in the morning.


It's funny, I could easily go into the newsroom hungover and still perform my job well. But I just can't be "on" and clever and handle misteps in front of groups of people when the possibility of vomiting is sitting like a demon on my shoulder. So I've had to grow up and be a bit more responsible.


Of course, I've already made plans to go out to the bars tomorrow night since I am now flying back to the states Friday instead of Monday! I will, at last, be forced to change planes in Amersterdam instead of getting a direct flight from Copenhagen to Atlanta. Ah well. And I will have to leave the hotel at 4:30 a.m. to get to Billund airport for a 6:45 a.m. flight to Amsterdam. I can already taste the bile that will be rising in my sleepless gullet Friday morning... am I the only one who gets sleep-deprivation indigestion?)


So, to bed. There might be some uncomfortable gastronomic events tomorrow as it's already very late. Public transportation is lovely here but I need to be at work by 8:30 a.m. and that means getting on the bus by 8 a.m. For a prima donna like me, that means getting up no later than 6:30 a.m.

Rainbows and Whatnot

It rains in Denmark. A lot. The sun beauty is fleeting, the rain torrential and constant as the North Star. BTW, the North Star is actually a variable star or Cepheid. It's brightness waxes and wanes. But no matter its shine, it marks north with the tenaciousness of a terrier on the trail of a mouse. Or some equally visual but more clever analogy. Hey, beer and melatonin are working some magic on my brain.

Anyway, it was a night of (lousy) room service with a (great) Ceres Royal Pilsner, Euro-MTV (actual videos!) and ironing. I did spot a rainbow on the water and I saw a cloud that was raining over the water but not over me. That was a strange and unusual sight... it looked like the cloud was draining it's cloudness into the water in great gray streaks.

Good night.

Back in the DK

First, I am forced to figure out how to use Blogger in Danish... all the usual buttons and levers are here, but they now have Dansk words. I need Hjaelp to Log ud or vis blog or indstillinger or skabelon. Sheesh. Second, that corn phallus is courtesy of Terminal E at the Atlanta airport. I have not worked out what the hell it has to do with Georgia... or international flights. But it is the dirtiest looking cob I've ever seen in my life. I get that it's supposed to look like a plane... but it doesn't. It looks like the beginnings of a very weak plot for sci-fi porn.

I'm in Copenhagen airport, which up until my last visit in July was a bastion of smoking goodness. They had these wonderful little kiosks all over the place that would suck smoke away through vents. Well, the nonsmoking ban is in effect and it is all gone. THIS is why I need to quit.

Oh! The sun has just come out. It's been raining since I arrived at 8:30 a.m. Hurray! Denmark is lovely when it is sunny.

It's 11 a.m. here and I'm waiting on a noon flight. There was a baby a couple rows back on the flight from Atlanta who had a very rough trip. So we all had a very rough trip. I'm tired and riding on caffeine. Straight to the office when I do get to where I'm going. Sure, you think it's all glamor and whirlpool tubs, don't you? Nope. More like delayed flights, overpriced and crappy coffee and screaming babies. Still, I wouldn't trade it for the copy desk and a million dollars. Hmmm, well maybe a million dollars, but surely not for less than that. Well, maybe like $500,000 if it was tax-free. Call me, we'll talk. But I need weekends off.

At Last! A Date with the Atlantic!

Heaven.

My tour of the Carolinas wrapped up in Myrtle Beach and I can't think of a better ending to a lovely work week. All of the many hours spent driving my rented Kia Spectra (surprisingly good pickup) on two-lane highways were worth it to spend half an hour in communion with my favorite awe-inspiring locale: the beach.



From Charlotte we went to Rock Hill, then back to Charlotte, then to Columbia and from there to Myrtle Beach. My hotel was an unfortunate error in judgement, being in the middle of Broadway at the Beach. Neither Broadway nor the beach were in sight of this hotel. Just hordes of vacationing families opting to soak up chain food, chain shopping and chain amusements... all while a most incredible beach was a 2-minute drive away. When I got into my room, I could hear the faint screams of children on some form of amusement park ride. At least I assume that's why they were screaming. Could have been a T-Rex roaming the place and I wouldn't have noticed.



But never mind all that. Upon arriving in MB, my colleagues and I set out for the beach and scored a parking spot of perfection - right where the parking lot turns from pavement to sand. I fairly bounded down to the water, tossing my shoes and my bag onto the sand and dashing to get my toes in the Atlantic. And what a magical night it was. A storm system brewing off the Carolinas made for some rip currents and middling waves, but the temperature of the water was somewhere in the 70s! You simply don't get water that warm in the Atlantic up north. It was incredible, the water a greenish-gray frothing friend.



I've lived away from the ocean for many years now and it's the one thing I've ever missed about growing up on Long Island. The primeval scents that waft off the water, the softly salty air, the endless horizon... the ocean has always been a love for me. (And it can be a dangerous relationship; I almost drowned off the Hamptons when I was about 21. There was a storm brewing then, too, which created a hellacious rip current.)



But my spirits were lifted and I felt childlike standing in the waves and getting the bottom of my skirt soaked accidentally, letting my toes sink into the sucking wet sand and looking for shells.

The Sea Captain's House. Yarrr, you'll be waitin' for Davy Jones hisself to serve ya in this wee restaurant where time slows to a grindin' halt for that landlubber Jimmy Buffet's cover songs.


We were right near a restaurant that had been recommended - The Sea Captain's House. It's literally a house on the beach in classic gray clapboard. We walked in and were greeted by a septuagenarian hostess who calmly informed us there would be at least an hour wait. We decided to give it a go as the waiting area was the backyard with a view of the beach and a bar. But half an hour in, when no one in this large but breezy beach bum lounge lizard purgatory had been seated, we decided to move on. The old woman of the sea suggested the Flamingo Grill and off we went to North Myrtle Beach.



The meal was delicious - seafood should really only be eaten in places where one can see sand on the ground. And it topped off a perfect seaside evening.


Driving to and from Myrtle Beach takes a long time as there is no major road in or out. But the views along the way are wonderful. It reminded me a lot of driving out to Montauk.

I drove home a day early because I realized I simply have too much to do before leaving for Denmark Sunday. But it was enough to have Thursday night in the arms of my oldest love, the ocean. Sigh.

Me and my boyfriend. Long distance relationships are so difficult.

Surprising Charlotte and The Case of the Difficult Hot Soak

With a little more time to investigate Charlotte, I find it's quite nice. Some impressive statues (for a change, these are not of Civil War generals) and groovy architecture, this "Queen City" has more style than I perceived on first glance. From architecture that manages to be both modern and retro to a plethora of water features, Charlotte is definitely a Southern Belle - she's made up and coiffed perfectly.

But that means absolutely nothing if there is nobody about. Tuesday night, it was a ghost town. Wednesday, the opposite. It's warm but a cool breeze slipped in and out of the buildings to make ambling along Tryon enjoyable. Dinner at Rock Bottom was a treat for this beer lover and the walk back in the dark was the perfect moment for Charlotte to show off her many well-lit charms.

My idea of the perfect relaxing evening. I'm so old.

Then, of course, we come to the Difficult Hot Soak. I was so excited to have a whirlpool tub in my room! But I had no idea how difficult these puppies could be to operate. It took 20 minutes to fill with water (I am NOT complaining, because it's so big I actually floated!) and then it took me 15 minutes to figure out how to turn on the jets. You can see from the photo below that the instructions were a bit... worse for the wear and hard to read. I finally won my bubbly soak by going cromagnon and pounding on the damn button repeatedly until I was rewarded with jetty goodness. But after all that effort, I didn't feel very relaxed. In fact, I spent 10 minutes in the bubbles and that was enough.



This is why I need a servant boy. I can't be bothered with minutiae like preparing a whirlpool bath. I want to just walk in the room, get in the tub and have my cabana boy pumice my feet and serve me a fruity drink. But how to expense him...

Flights

None. Rental car: 883 miles driven.

Bags

The usual demo gear/backpack combo. My huge pink suitcase (I was mocked, finally, for this girlie monstrosity) was stuffed to the gills since I didn't have to worry about flight restrictions.

Palmetto Pride, Heeeey!

So, there I was barreling down (up!) 85 north toward Charlotte today on the Palmetto Pride. I cannot believe they have the chutzpah to put Palmetto and Pride in the same neighborhood, let alone on the same sign denoting the name of the highway!


Have you seen the palmetto bug? Have you????

They're just giant cockroaches. That's all. Why would you be PROUD of them, South and North Carolina?? Why??? It gives me the huzz.

Particularly as I've got a gruesome little tale about palmetto bugs in my childhood. I won't share it now but you just ask me about it sometime... buy me a couple shots of whiskey first.

The upside of driving for work is that I'm free to set my own schedule and stop as I please. The downside is that I get no miles and I'm the pilot... without the groovy hat.

So Atlanta to Charlotte, no big deal: 4 hours. Hit about 45 minutes of bumper-to-bumper in Atlanta. Of course. The rest was pretty smooth sailing. All except for the slow jerks. You know who I'm talking about. It's a 4-lane "highway" from ATL to N.C. and that gives us 2 lanes on each side. The slow jerks are the ones who get in the passing lane and stay in the passing lane. Doesn't matter that there is a veritable parade of folks riding tail; it doesn't register for a slow jerk because they apparently have no ability to see in their rearview mirror. Oh, how I loathe the slow jerk. Pull over! Pull ovah!

I wound up riding the wind tunnel of a New Jersey Lexus for most the way. New Jersey folks LOVE to tailgate and they do it so very well.

Dinner was unremarkable, but the hotel I'm in is quite lovely - there is a jacuzzi in my bedroom. Really. And I'm at a Hilton, not some seedy pay-by-the-hour hole. But there's something a little sad about a jacuzzi in a king-bed room when one is traveling alone. It seems a terrible waste.

All for now...


UPDATE: If you check the comments you can see that in my ingnorance, I wrongly accused the good people of the Carolinas of having pride in the palmetto bug. Seems it's actually a type of palm tree. Not much of an improvement, but I'm cynical and mean spirited.