if passports could talk

yesterday, in the flickr group, kristine had a shot of her passport and used it to tell the story of how she was soon moving on to her next assignment. i didn't have any idea what i was going to do for my photo, so i did one of those tribute shots, as they're called when you blatantly copy what someone did and give them credit. i located my old passport and my current one and, as can often be the case with these daily photos, took a little trip down memory lane.

old on the left, current on the right

my passports are fatter than your usual passport. and that's because both of them have had pages added to them. twice. you'll also notice that my old passport was green. it was my first one and i didn't know that most americans have a blue one. i was "lucky" and got the green one during a very small window when they issued ben franklin commemorative passports. it's actually thanks to benjamin franklin that we all have passports at all, as it was his idea. the unusual green passport caused me no end of grief when i was traveling a lot in the balkans in the late 90s. border guards constantly questioned its authenticity and one guard at the turkish-greek border actually said, "green passport, very bad, very bad," and made a slicing motion across his neck. i was quite alarmed, but the conversation stopped there as that was apparently the extent of his english and my turkish was nonexistent. i've survived to tell the tale, so i guess it wasn't really very bad. and i never did ever meet anyone else with a green one.

as an american, you get stamped everywhere you go and you often need visas. the first passport filled up because the macedonian visa took a whole page every time and i had to have a new one if i popped down to thessaloniki for a weekend or up to belgrade for a coffee. it was early days after macedonia found themselves, rather to their surprise, with their own country, and it took them awhile to realize they could issue multiple-entry visas. i eventually got one of those, but not before they had used up ten pages of my passport.

a number of countries - china and india come to mind - think nothing of taking up an entire page of your passport for the visa. and the visas are elaborately colorful and often feature shiny holograms. i guess they want you to feel you got your money's worth. on the bright side, they're usually good for a least six months, so you don't need a new one should you be sent those places again.  i did use up two whole pages on indian visas, as i had to go there frequently enough that one expired and i needed another. (audible sigh.)

the bulk of my travel occurred during the bush administration and i clearly remember standing in lines at passport control, concealing my passport, as i felt a little sheepish about being american during those years. i happened to be in the philippines when obama was elected and i very clearly remember the sense of relief (tho' bush was still president) when i realized that i no longer had to hide my passport while i stood in line. on that occasion, people in line saw it and several actually smiled and gave me a thumbs up. with the incomprehensible debacle of health care reform (who would seriously not want to limit the influence of insurance companies on their personal health?) going on in the US right now, i'm not sure i wouldn't actually begin to conceal my passport again if i were queuing today.

many of the pages are covered in stamps that say "københavn" because i get stamped every time i come back into the country if it's not from scandinavia or the schengen countries. it tapered off because eventually, i knew all of the guys at passport control and convinced them to not to stamp me every time.

i've loved the travel opportunities i've had through my various jobs. the job i'm starting in april will not have so many travel opportunities, but i've been thinking about it and i'm really ok with that. looking at all of these stamps exhausts me a little bit. when i see the dates for the convoluted trip i took from copenhagen to singapore to heathrow to gatwick to budapest to constanza and back to copenhagen in one crazy week, it makes me tired. i hope companies today are using the possibilities afforded by electronic meeting software, rather than sending someone to give a 30 minute presentation in singapore on monday and the same one in romania on wednesday. i remember thinking it was all very exciting at the time (tho' having to switch from heathrow to gatwick was madness and an example of how bad the travel agent was). but today, i wouldn't even want to do it. and i would probably have the good sense to say no, but in those days (sounds like long ago, but it's not even three years ago), i actually quite liked it and of course, felt i had to do all of the things that were asked of me.

these stamps document for me how far i've come not just literally, but metaphorically as well. i think i've learned to say no to such madness today. and i hope that one good thing to come out of economic crisis is that employees aren't asked to do trips like that these days, because companies think twice before spending 40,000 ($7,300) kroner on such a ticket. i'm going to lose my gold status on both SAS and KLM here in the next couple of months. and tho' there was a time, not so long ago, when that would have panicked me, i'm resting quite easily in the knowledge. the world is changing and times are changing and it's no longer environmentally defensible to pop over to london for lunch or take a private plane back from newcastle like we did in the mid-noughties. i loved those times and am grateful for all the places i've been, but i'm quite ready to stay a bit closer to home for awhile. and besides, taking the train down through europe is quite romantic.

friday confession - last one in the lounge

my dear friend polly (who isn't really called polly, but who will forever be polly in all of our minds) does friday confessions and i haven't done one in a long time, but as i sit here in the lounge, drinking free wine and having a multi-subject IM chat with my sister which involves telling her to just jump in and change her life, i thought that since it had been an awfully long time, i'd offer up a few friday confessions.  forgive me odin, for i have sinned....

~ i love really long sentences with lots of parentheticals.

~ i wish i worked in the same country as i live.

~ i did my first couchsurfing this week. and it was great. it changed my entire week for the better. and i heard great stories of adventures in exotic and out-of-the-way locales.

~ i don't really get those people who choose the nobel prize for literature.

~ i totally get those people who choose the nobel peace prize.

~ i wish they had the really good olives here in the lounge. but alas, they do not.

~ i fear the coming weekend is going to go by too quickly.

~ i'm pretty pleased that i'm going to istanbul on tuesday. even tho' i come home already on thursday.

~ every time a season kicks in in earnest, i'm convinced it's my favorite season.

~ i'm going to tivoli on sunday with a good friend. oh, and my child.

~ i'm really happy the cleaning girls are coming tomorrow.

~ i told husband this week that he was my sanity. and he did that little almost snort that sabin does when she's proud.

~ i fear it was a snort of fear, not a snort of pride.

~ it's a little disturbing to me how few people were on the train to the airport and in the airport today. if the economy is down in norway, it's really, really down.

~ it's mysterious to me why we are working frantically to finish the house and have it in beautiful shape, only to sell it and move away from it. why didn't we do all of this before?

~ i hope you'll all go check out (and vote for) my friend michelle's story in the latest issue of discounderworld. she's awesome. and she's the only other one i know who found her husband in macedonia like i did.

~ i think polly's pictures are getting better by the day.

~ and now, i confess i'm going to fill my wine glass and see if by chance they've put out some olives...

do you have anything interesting to confess this friday?

things i learned in norway

i'm sitting in the lounge, my flt should have been in 20 minutes, but instead it's in 50. however, i'm content because i love airports, there's free internet and yes, free wine (albiet italian not south african) and free coffee (strangely can feel the effects of the coffee more than the wine, which is perhaps something i should ponder on another occasion).

but i've learned a few things sitting here:

• if you are a bit chubby totally fat, but wearing a suit and think no one is watching, you should look around and see if anyone is in fact watching before straightening your skirt in a way which would make people who were watching glancing up curl up their toes.
• some british guy's wells (we're talking oil here not water) are showing very encouraging results.
• someone's competitor is laying up five ships (he wouldn't say who that competitor was, tho' the wife on the other end of the phone really tried).
• people have some weird notion that b/c they're in a foreign country no one will speak english.
• they are wrong.
• they've changed out the south african white for an italian one. 
• it's not bad.
• i just saw a guy with a red wine glass full of bailey's.
  
• if you wear some seriously cool high heels, wolford black stockings with some kind of tattoo-like patterns on them (yes, they are worth the $47 you must pay), flat-iron your hair and wear eyeliner that borders on night-time makeup along with your big hoop earrings and molly's fabulous beads, boys in shipping will tell you anything.

life is good here in the lounge.

have i mentioned that i love my job?

this is what's on my brain this week and why i'm not visiting all of you as much as i would like. instead of my usual late nights of surfing all the blogs i'm folllowing, i've been up late writing. for work! and it makes me so happy! i've had three days in a row of talking to inspiring people and i get to write up their inspiring stories of innovation and dynamic change.

and this place is so beautiful, that i just totally can't believe my luck life.

and today, after a morning of learning and enthusiasm and meeting new people who love what they do and are doing totally amazing, innovative things, i had a bit of time to drive a little ways down the coast and find the most beautiful little beach covered in these:

i can tell you that i am once again grateful that i'm gold, because that  bag isn't gonna be light.

i promise i will be by to visit soon, it's just gonna be a crazy couple of weeks. so please be patient with me!

i survived!

picture just meant to be a calming influence on my psyche

i love lilacs.

they're my favorite flower.

today was the day that i had to conduct an interview at my former place of employment. it's a very austere place. cold. formal. old-fashioned. and i'll admit i was shit scared a bit apprehensive about going back there. it was a place that was downright bad for my health and i was worried that setting foot in there again would set me back months in getting over it and that it might require building a second story on the studio to make it ok again.  but you know what? i was wrong. totally and completely wrong.

and it's partly because of a conversation i had with a friend last friday (HUGE thank you H!). she and i are doing an art show together in october and we got together to talk about that. she actually works at that place now (in a totally different department) and we talked about it. and i told her about my fears and my need to psyche up to go there. she said, "you're afraid of meeting your old self when you go in there. but it's not going to happen. you're a totally different person now." and she was so right. it was like her words just totally clicked into place with me and i haven't been worried about it since. she was right. there was no danger for me there, no matter the cold, marble surfaces. there wasn't anything there that could hurt me anymore.

it helped that the receptionist remembered me and was kind and welcoming. it helped that i saw a bunch of faces i knew and they lit up and greeted me warmly when they saw me (all but one the big introvert boss who stuttered a bit when i greeted him cheerfully--and admittedly it was nice to see him a bit squirmy, so that was also a good thing). it was even ok that the meeting room was one i had been in countless times.

and the interview was great. they were engaged and interested and i learned something and got great information for my story. i can tell that big changes are afoot and that it's a good thing. it's a different place than it was when i left a year and a half ago and i'm a different person too. and both are good. and it's such a relief. they say you can't go back and i can understand that. but sometimes, maybe you should go back, just to prove yourself that it's safe and you're healed.

afterwards, i had lunch with a very good friend and she had plenty of time, so we talked for almost three hours. and that was so great. we gossiped, we theorized (more about that later), we talked about books, we watched a very weird man in a BMW (i'll blog about that later when i can download from my phone camera) and we laughed and had great food and a latte. and now, i'm in the lounge again, waiting to fly on to a new place and new adventures. and that's as it should be. just another manic monday.

see, not always ranting

far too often, i'm complaining about some aspect of denmark and the danes that i simply cannot understand or appreciate, but not today. today, i'm madly in love. with all of it. that pretty little red and white flag. the copper roofs, the efficient public transportation. even that ridiculously tiny statue of a mermaid (granted, not a misrepresentation, as the word "little" is in her title). i am just loving it.

it's probably spring. it's probably because i'm flying today and flying always makes me happy. it's probably because the trains were totally on time and i was 20 minutes early for my morning meeting. maybe it's because i'm sitting in the gold lounge and they have some really yummy bread and sandwich fixings and english newspapers and a l'avenir chenin blanc from the western cape. maybe it's because i'm gonna get a venti latte at starbucks before i board my plane.

perhaps it's because since i got on the metro to the airport about an hour ago i've heard the following languages: russian, danish, english, portuguese, dutch, swedish, german, japanese and norwegian and i love hearing lots of languages. maybe it's check-in via SMS and then direct bag drop at the gold counter, followed by fast track security which means i'm in the lounge within 2 minutes of arriving at the airport (odin bless you, SAS). maybe it's that the computers for public use in the lounge are, you guessed it, iMacs (odin bless you again, SAS).

maybe it's light, bright, tastefully decorated government offices filled with top end designer furniture (so that's what they're doing with all that tax money). maybe it's unexpectedly realizing that the guy you've got an appointment with is the top guy and he made time for you. cool!

but really, it's because of the extremely pleasant hour and a half i spent discussing the environment with that top guy. i was completely reminded of all of the personality traits i really love about danes. they're so pragmatic and straight-forward. they're honest (as in candid) and logical and have lots of common sense (something i see lacking in my own country of birth whenever i visit--just think of airport security before your hackles raise, my american dahlings). danes are so funny in an ironic, dry way that i adore. and lastly, they don't hesitate to swear for emphasis. they're really, really good at swearing at the right moments to make a point or put you at ease.  and did i mention smart and well-thought out? well-argued?

so today, no ranting about the danes and denmark. just love. mad, spring love.

it's a whole 'nother world

i grew up in a small town of about 1300 people in south dakota. when people there talked about traveling, they meant to the black hills or perhaps a day trip to the "big city" of sioux falls. on special occasions, people visited relatives in other states or made a yearly pilgrimage to las vegas. once in a great while, you heard of someone who went abroad to a whole 'nother country (often that country was canada, where in those days, all you needed was a blockbuster card and not a passport to get in). europe was spoken of in hushed tones and shrouded in a mysterious and wonderful haze which conjured images of picturesque castles on hills and dark forests where fancy cuckoo clocks grew.

fast forward to the end of 2008. i'm on a shuttle to the office from the hotel in oslo. i overhear a conversation in which people are talking about their office christmas parties. one of which had taken place last week on a beach in angola. and was attended by a guy with a heavy scottish accent who was spending a half day in the office in oslo before heading back to angola for a week of work and then three weeks off back home in cape town, where it's such a welcome change to live after five years in the wilds of zambia. "cape town is almost like a normal european city," he said. i wanted to pipe in and say no, cape town is much BETTER than any european city i could think of, but i didn't.

i have to admit that i love having a job where these conversations are the norm.

hey, anybody out there want to meet me in london? i just read the pound has taken a real beating and it's almost on par with the euro, so it could be a good time for shopping. if we were shopping, which of course we're not because of our new desire to be more aware of our consumption. but i'm just saying, it might be a good time to go to london.

travel madness on the horizon

flights in my near future:

OSL-CPH -- October 8
CPH-AMS-IST -- October 11
IST-AMS-CPH -- October 18
CPH-AMS-YUL -- October 19
YUL-AMS-CPH -- October 22
CPH-AMS-MNL -- November 1
MNL-AMS-CPH -- November 9

on the bright side, i'm for sure headed for platinum on KLM!
even better, i'll retain gold on SAS with tomorrow's flight (for the 6th year in a row!). sadly, however, i will not be any closer to that holy of holies--pandion.

and why is Montreal's airport code YUL?