The first name I'm gonna call.... Denmark
What I know about Denmark:
Not much.
But here goes.
I visited Denmark in 1990. I had an appointment to meet a friend of mine, Anders B., from Sweden. Anders was going to come over from Sweden on the ferry, meet me in Copenhagen and we would do tourist stuff.
From Belgium, where I had been staying, it should have been relatively easy to take a reliable European train to Denmark, right? Right. Except I fell asleep and ended up in Germany, very confused and sad that I was going to be late meeting Anders who, after all, had left his country to come and visit with me. Because I was tired, sad and mad, I started to cry and solid blonde people all patted me kindly and said, in thick accents "Don't try, don't try," which I thought was rather sweet and I cried even more.
Eventually, within minutes, it was all sorted, and I was bundled off to the proper train and ended up in Copenhagen where I met up with Anders, on time. Anders, for some reason, collected the little cardboard trays that hot dogs are served on. He was also very excited because in Denmark, unlike Sweden, there was a certain red dye allowed in some long thin hot dogs (or wieners or whatever the heck they were called) that was ONLY allowed in Danish hot dogs. I could not understand why he cared, but politely agreed that yes, certainly, he must have a thin, long, red-dye-including hot dog from a street stand. He ate it (I was going to say "with relish" but that would be a terrible pun), and carefully folded away the little cardboard tray. I got a frisson of fear. Was he THAT odd? I didn't really know him well at all. He was just an ex-boyfriend of a friend of mine. Was Anders going to kill me? This was all a long time ago now, and of course much before Nordic Noir became so popular. Could it be that my frisson was FORESHADOWING for an entire genre of literature?!
Anyway. Off we went to Tivoli Gardens which turned out to be sort of an amusement park and I wasn't too keen, but walked around keeping my mouth shut, desperately wanting to go to a museum or bookshop or something.
Finally, we ended up taking a bus to Roskilde to the Viking Museum which was great.
I don't know ANYTHING about Denmark, obviously, except that it was very cute, tidy and the people were kind. Oh, yes, and I saw the mermaid statue.
Other random facts I know about Denmark, without Googling. I remember I read they were the happiest people on earth. Or was it the saddest? Or was that Finland? Or dentists. Now do you see why I need to read a book from every country on earth? I'm not going to even pretend for one minute that reading a book about a country will give me insight.
In my next post I will reveal the novel I have chosen to represent the entire country and population of Denmark. Don't be mad, Danes.
Hey, follow me on Twitter, if you like @susmithjosephy
Hastag #EarthReading y'all
Not much.
But here goes.
I visited Denmark in 1990. I had an appointment to meet a friend of mine, Anders B., from Sweden. Anders was going to come over from Sweden on the ferry, meet me in Copenhagen and we would do tourist stuff.
From Belgium, where I had been staying, it should have been relatively easy to take a reliable European train to Denmark, right? Right. Except I fell asleep and ended up in Germany, very confused and sad that I was going to be late meeting Anders who, after all, had left his country to come and visit with me. Because I was tired, sad and mad, I started to cry and solid blonde people all patted me kindly and said, in thick accents "Don't try, don't try," which I thought was rather sweet and I cried even more.
Eventually, within minutes, it was all sorted, and I was bundled off to the proper train and ended up in Copenhagen where I met up with Anders, on time. Anders, for some reason, collected the little cardboard trays that hot dogs are served on. He was also very excited because in Denmark, unlike Sweden, there was a certain red dye allowed in some long thin hot dogs (or wieners or whatever the heck they were called) that was ONLY allowed in Danish hot dogs. I could not understand why he cared, but politely agreed that yes, certainly, he must have a thin, long, red-dye-including hot dog from a street stand. He ate it (I was going to say "with relish" but that would be a terrible pun), and carefully folded away the little cardboard tray. I got a frisson of fear. Was he THAT odd? I didn't really know him well at all. He was just an ex-boyfriend of a friend of mine. Was Anders going to kill me? This was all a long time ago now, and of course much before Nordic Noir became so popular. Could it be that my frisson was FORESHADOWING for an entire genre of literature?!
Anyway. Off we went to Tivoli Gardens which turned out to be sort of an amusement park and I wasn't too keen, but walked around keeping my mouth shut, desperately wanting to go to a museum or bookshop or something.
Finally, we ended up taking a bus to Roskilde to the Viking Museum which was great.
I don't know ANYTHING about Denmark, obviously, except that it was very cute, tidy and the people were kind. Oh, yes, and I saw the mermaid statue.
Other random facts I know about Denmark, without Googling. I remember I read they were the happiest people on earth. Or was it the saddest? Or was that Finland? Or dentists. Now do you see why I need to read a book from every country on earth? I'm not going to even pretend for one minute that reading a book about a country will give me insight.
In my next post I will reveal the novel I have chosen to represent the entire country and population of Denmark. Don't be mad, Danes.
Hey, follow me on Twitter, if you like @susmithjosephy
Hastag #EarthReading y'all
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