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Oct. 11th, 2002 04:35 pmI'm in Copenhagen (København, as it is properly spelled), and this keyboard has too many keys. I can actually spell my name - Bjørn - correctly with this keyboard, without resorting to escape sequences.
Culture shock #1: People smoking throughout the airport concourse. Everywhere.
Culture shock #2: Airport security an elephant could slip through. My entry into Denmark was impeded by one disinterested clerk behind glass, who checked to make sure that my passport actually had a name and a picture on it. This was _before_ I picked up my baggage, so I could very well have smuggled a suitcase full of heroin into the country and no one would have noticed. Customs is settled by chosing one of three doors: EU Residents, Declarations and Nothing To Declare.
The Nothing To Declare door was unguarded. No one made sure I had nothing to declare. I just walked right through.
Moving through the streets of the city -- everyone is thin, and pretty, and smokes. All the buildings are between one and four hundred years old, with a few rare exceptions. A suprisingly large amount of signage is in English, rather than Danish. (90% of the Danish population speaks English fluently, along with German and French).
There are canals and picturesque bridges.
On the flight over, I discovered that Airbus finally did something right. In the A340 I rode over in, there was an LCD screen set into the back of every single seat, even in economy class. You could watch movies on demand or play games or what have you, all for free. But the _best_ thing, the really max-q super ultra cryogenic thing, was this:
External cameras.
Some bright boy put a camera in the nose pointing forward, and a camera in the belly of the plane facing straight down, and you can set your LCD screen to see either of these views. So even if you're sitting in the middle row, you have a gorgeous gorgeous view. SO COOL. Especially the landing. You don't often get to watch the process of setting up an approach. Whoever came up with that should win an award.
Anyway... yes, I'm in Europe. This fact has been incontrovertibly established. I am astoundingly jetlagged. It's five in the bloody evening here, and my body thinks it's eight AM after an all nighter. But I am very, very happy to be here.
I'm kind of suprised at how at home here I feel.
Culture shock #1: People smoking throughout the airport concourse. Everywhere.
Culture shock #2: Airport security an elephant could slip through. My entry into Denmark was impeded by one disinterested clerk behind glass, who checked to make sure that my passport actually had a name and a picture on it. This was _before_ I picked up my baggage, so I could very well have smuggled a suitcase full of heroin into the country and no one would have noticed. Customs is settled by chosing one of three doors: EU Residents, Declarations and Nothing To Declare.
The Nothing To Declare door was unguarded. No one made sure I had nothing to declare. I just walked right through.
Moving through the streets of the city -- everyone is thin, and pretty, and smokes. All the buildings are between one and four hundred years old, with a few rare exceptions. A suprisingly large amount of signage is in English, rather than Danish. (90% of the Danish population speaks English fluently, along with German and French).
There are canals and picturesque bridges.
On the flight over, I discovered that Airbus finally did something right. In the A340 I rode over in, there was an LCD screen set into the back of every single seat, even in economy class. You could watch movies on demand or play games or what have you, all for free. But the _best_ thing, the really max-q super ultra cryogenic thing, was this:
External cameras.
Some bright boy put a camera in the nose pointing forward, and a camera in the belly of the plane facing straight down, and you can set your LCD screen to see either of these views. So even if you're sitting in the middle row, you have a gorgeous gorgeous view. SO COOL. Especially the landing. You don't often get to watch the process of setting up an approach. Whoever came up with that should win an award.
Anyway... yes, I'm in Europe. This fact has been incontrovertibly established. I am astoundingly jetlagged. It's five in the bloody evening here, and my body thinks it's eight AM after an all nighter. But I am very, very happy to be here.
I'm kind of suprised at how at home here I feel.