Proud to be an American

One thing my foray through various airports this time around taught (or re-taught) me:

What language do the French speak to the Italians?
English. (That's right--both Romance languages, but they understand each other better in English.)

What language do the Germans speak to the French?
English. (And then the French surrender.)

What language do the Swiss speak to the Danes?
English.

What language does anyone speak to the Japanese?
English.

What language do the Norwegians speak to the Danes?
Well, Norwegian or Danish, depending. As one of my Danish colleagues informed me, "Danish is exactly the same as Norwegian, except that it's spelled correctly."
But it's okay, because the Norwegians and the Danes still all speak better English than a lot of Americans (and by "Americans," I mean "southerners") I know.

Also, the US is apparently still the only country to have realized that, when boarding an airplane, it is far more efficient to have the back rows board first, and so on, rather than just let everyone crowd on at the same time.

Danes ARE Great

So I realize I'm a bit tardy in posting pictures of my Copenhagen trip, but I finally got around to putting up a few, below. It really was a great time. Friday it rained all day, but I still walked around and saw some great sites. The castle that serves as their seat of government, their absolutely amazing national library, more gorgeous blue-eyed blondes, that sort of thing.

Saturday morning I got up and walked to the train station. On the way I stopped at a little sidewalk cafe and got some toast and coffee for breakfast. It was around 9:30 or so when a group of 8 or so Danish men and women came over, sat down, and all ordered a pint of beer. For breakfast. I love this place. Took the train up to Helsingor, the city on the narrowest part of the strait seperating Denmark and Sweden. Saw the town, but more importantly, toured Kronenberg Slot, the coolest castle I've seen yet in Europe. It used to be the "tollbooth to the Baltic" because they'd levy a fee from any ships going through the strait (Denmark has a very remarkable history...) and they'd fire on anyone who didn't pay (the strait is narrow enough, although apparently Admiral Lord Nelson managed to make it past in 1801 to attack Copenhagen). Also, it's the location upon which the castle in Hamlet is based ("Helsingor" = "Elsinore" in English, although I have to say, I didn't find a single thing rotten in the state of Denmark).

Got back to Copenhagen (or "C-town" as I like to think of it; not to be confused with the town of the same nickname in east-central Connecticut) around 3 or so and took a boat tour around the city's many canals. It was the first nice weekend day they've had in Denmark (by "nice" I mean "sunny with the temperature hovering around 60 or so"), so everyone in the city was out enjoying it. People were packed sitting along the docks and piers and quaywalls and jetties and other nautical things that line canals and harbors that people can sit on. Walked around one of the mile-plus-long pedestrian streets for awhile and came across the best street-performing band I've ever heard. There were three of them, one on guitar, one on drums, and one singing. They played Marley and sounded like Marley. They played Stevie Wonder and sounded like Stevie Wonder. They played Kelly Clarkson and sounded like...okay, no they didn't. But they were great. Also, everyone in the city was pretty much plastered by about 8 p.m., probably because they all started drinking at the same time as my breakfast friends.

Went to a couple of bars both Friday and Saturday. I was very impressed with how almost every single bar there has some sort of live music; mostly a guy on acoustic guitar singing, sometimes with another singer. And all very good, too. Saturday night I was just going to have a drink and then go back to the hotel to rest up for my early-morning flight, when I met this (fairly drunk) older American couple who said I reminded them of their son. They kept buying me drinks, so who was I to refuse? Except that they KEPT buying them, so when the guy left to use the restroom, I took the opportunity to duck out and get back to the hotel. Very nice people, though. Well, except that they were from Long Island and he was a Yankees fan (although she was a Sox fan from NH originally, so I suppose it was okay).

All in all, easily the best solo trip I've made in Europe. Too bad I couldn't get anyone to come up for the weekend; would have been even more of a blast.

The view from my hotel window at night. It's the brand-new Copenhagen Opera House.


They have publicly availible bikes. Drop in a coin the equivalent of ~$3 and ride it all around the city; get your money back when you're done.


The touristy (and locally trendy) area of Nyhaven.


The seat of the Danish Parliament, Prime Minister, Supreme Court, and Queen's official offices.
All in one handy spot.


Kronenborg Slot, or Hamlet's castle. Whichever. Either way, it's pretty darn cool.

The national library. It's even cooler on the inside. (Not that I would ever go to a foreign country and purposely check out their library...no, not me.)

My next apartment. It's a converted torpedo boat hanger. The condos go in excess of $2 million. The girl on the right is Amy, our tour guide. I'm pretty sure if I ever get back to Copenhagen, I'm going to propose to her.

During our canal tour, we were fortunate enough to witness this Danish warship firing on and chasing down a foreign invader. Or not.

A view of my hotel (the right-most big building) from the water.

Nyhaven on a sunny day (same place as the third picture from the top, above). On the right, you can see my peeps waiting to greet me on the pier after my successful sea voyage.

Copenhagen

I think I've found my new favorite city in Europe. This place is amazing.

1) I've been harboring a long-held theory that Denmark is the epicenter of hot women. So far, this theory has proved correct. You can stand on a street corner and fall in love an average of three times a minute over a 15-minute period. I thought Norway was amazing, but this place beats Oslo hands down.

2) They bicycle everywhere. Which contributes greatly to the fact that all of the blond-haired, blue-eyed Scandinavian women are in fantastic shape. They have bike lanes on all the major roads, and I think there are more bike commuters than automobile commuters. Again, pictures to follow.

3) It's an incredibly charming city, very easy to walk to all the points of interest, and well laid out.

4) Water, water everywhere, and worked nicely into the city planning.

5) The mark of a civilized city is the availability of public restrooms. Not only does Copenhagen have those in abundance...payment is optional!

6) Universal health care. Universal retirement pensions. Free university education. I'm salivating just thinking about it.

7) They love American music. Especially jazz and folk. And even a little country. Which genres are really the only American music worth loving.

8) Did I mention the stunning blue-eyed blonde Scandinavian women?

Going out tonight to sample the Thursday evening nightlife...purely as an academic matter, of course. Will let you know how this fits in with the above observations.

I Hate Alitalia

You know, the Italian national airline. First of all, the concept of a national airline is pretty ridiculous to me (despite my occasional left-leaning tendancies, capitalism does still have its merits). Second of all, they suck. In fact, they suck so much that when I put in my travel request for this trip to Copenhagen, I told the travel office at work, "hey, if you're going to be flying me on a carrier out of Rome, DON'T fly me from Naples to Rome. I'll take the train instead, and it'll be cheaper for the Navy, and even though I'll have to haul my luggage up and it'll take a little longer, I won't have to deal with Alitalia OR the Naples airport, so it's worth it to me."

So of course, rather than listen to me and save the government a hundred bucks, they book me on an Alitalia flight from Naples to Rome so I can catch my SwissAir flight from Rome to Zurich to Copenhagen.

So of course when I arrive in Copenhagen at 8:00 p.m., my luggage doesn't show up. And when I go to the lost luggage counter, I find out it's still on the ground in Rome. And by the time I get through all that, it's 9:00 at night. Guess how many clothing stores in Copenhagen are open after 9 p.m.? (Hint: it's less than 1, and it's a non-negative integer.) Guess how many clothing stores in Copenhagen open before my 8:30 a.m. suit-and-tie meeting tomorrow morning? (Hint: same answer as the previous question.) Guess what I'll be wearing instead of a suit and tie? (Hint: looks a lot like the wrinkled sweater and cargo pants I got off the airplane wearing tonight.)

I should have realized this was going to happen when I got to work this morning. We have this super high-tech electronic padlock that we lock our office door with at night or when nobody is in the room. The lock was broken when we got there, so we were all locked out for the first half-hour of work. As you can see, the day didn't progress much from there.

On the bright side, this is the coolest hotel room I've seen in Europe. Pictures to follow.

Happy More Easter

A couple months ago, one of the Catholic chaplains for the base announced they might be able to get us tickets for Easter vigil Mass in the Vatican. So of course I emailed him that I was interested and then promptly forgot about it. Until Thursday, when he emailed me back telling me I had two tickets reserved in my name at the US Bishops' Office in Rome and had to pick them up by 12:30 on Saturday afternoon. So, unable to find suitable hotel accomodations on a day's notice, a bunch of us decided to drive up and back to Rome on Saturday. We made it to the bishops' office with 15 minutes to spare before closing time. Unfortunately, they had already given our tickets away (apparently it wasn't technically a reservation). So we decided to go anyway and ended up sitting in St Peter's Square watching the Mass on the big TVs, which was still pretty cool. Also got to take a nap on the nice, grassy hill by the Colosseum and the Roman Forum (I didn't want to pay to take the Colosseum tour for the third time, having done it most recently three weeks ago).

Had a bunch of folks over for Easter dinner yesterday. Nothing fancy...traditional Easter ribs on the grill, chips, wasabi potato salad, and the like. It was the first time I'd ever cooked ribs, and I have to say, I did a damn fine job. Brought some up to my landlord's family since they bring me stuff all the time, and they seemed to be happy about it, although they had apparently just finished eating when I brought them up and weren't all that eager to dive right in.

Going to Copenhagen tomorrow through Sunday. That should be a good time. My job rocks.

Happy Easter

So a guy goes into his kitchen one Easter to grab some milk. He opens up the refrigerator door, and there on the top shelf is a cute little bunny rabbit. The guy says, "what are you doing in here?" The bunny says, "what's wong? I'm the Eastew Wabbit." The guy says, "yeah, but why are you in my refrigerator?" The easter bunny says, "well, look what it says on the wefwidgewatow doow." The guy says, "well, it just has the label that says Westinghouse." "That's wight," says the bunny, "I'm just westing."

Happy Birthday US Submarine Force

You'd think after 106 years we'd figure out how to put windows on the damn things.

Election Day

So today is the second and final day of Italy's general election, and it's an exciting one. The votes for both the Senate and the House (of Deputies) are statistical dead heats at the moment (the winning party determines who becomes Prime Minister). I'm watching the returns on the Internet. Very exciting. Early in the night, it looked like Sr. Prodi, the center-left candidate, had it locked up, but now it looks like Sr. Berlusconi, the incumbent Prime Minister, has staged a comeback and may win. Which will of course result in accusations of vote rigging and crooked electioneering. The thing that should make us all hang our heads in shame: 83.6% voter turnout.

Ever have one of those days at work where you feel like your entire professional existence is just a big waste of taxpayer money? Oh well; at least I'm wasting it in Italy.

On the bright side, only one week until the Boston Marathon.

Also, I got a survey in the mail from JD Power and Associates. You know, the guys who rank customer service for different categories of companies. They want to know how the service is at the dealership where I bought my Mercedes back in CT. They enclose a dollar bill in with the survey as a "token of our appreciation." How wierd is that?

Mmm, mmm, good

Just came back downstairs from another great lunch at my landlord's apartment that they had to twist my arm oh-so-hard to get me up to. I think he kind of likes it when I come up, because it keeps him from having to be the only guy putting up with all those women. Without me, he would have been on his own with his wife, mother, mother-in-law, and two daughters. The youngest daughter was complaining about having an 11 p.m. curfew. The oldest daughter apparently had done some shopping for her parents and brought out the receipt to try and collect from them (sound familiar?), but they kept refusing to pay. Then when she wasn't looking, her grandmother stole the receipt from the table and gave it to her father to hide. It was pretty funny. Maybe you had to be there. Then as we were finishing up, my landlord's sister-in-law's family showed up and it reminded me of a gathering of the Colchester Rileys--you know, where there are eight different conversations going on at once across the same table, and everyone's trying to talk over each other, except this was about three times louder. Very entertaining. And then since today and tomorrow are the Italian elections, my landlord broke out an envelope full of ballots and handed them out like candy. (Don't ask me; apparently they get the ballots at home and then bring them in to the polling stations. At least, that's what I think I got out of the questioning.) And of course, more lively discussion ensued, mostly along the lines of, "Berlusconi is a crook!" and "Berlusconi is the best thing to happen to Italy since sliced pane!" (Not that I've ever seen sliced pane here, but you know what I mean.)

Also, my landlord's wife said that, so long as we pay for the ingredients, she would like to cook up a giant traditional Italian lunch or dinner for me and fifteen of my closest friends. Guess I'd better find fourteen more friends....

This gets better every day

Iraq Findings Leaked by Cheney's Aide Were Disputed

You know if it were a Democrat in office, they'd have had articles of impeachment flying through the House by now.

Row, row, row your boat

Finally got the kayak on the water for the first time this morning. Had a nice little test run of an hour or so down in one of the small port towns in the area. Test runs are good since it's the new boat I picked up and I've never paddled it before, and you learn things like, "I really need to shorten up the foot braces since they're still set to the height of the 6'6" guy that I bought the boat from" and "hey, I can't take the clip off the rudder with my paddle like I could on my old kayak, so I need to not forget to take it off before I get in the water if I actually want to use the rudder."

I don't think kayakers are a common site here in Naples. I put in at a tiny little boat ramp in a large public parking lot on the main strip of aforementioned small port town. Got a lot of funny looks from the old Italian men fishing off the pier. When I actually put the boat in the water and was putting on my spray skirt and life vest, three or four of them wandered over and just stared unabashedly as I got into the boat and paddled off. Gorgeous day for paddling, too--bright and sunny, and about 60 degrees. Didn't take any pictures because I don't have a decent dry bag for my camera yet. Next time, though.

Oh, turns out if you're wearing a wet suit and you happen to have scraped up your knee four days previously and have a nice scab on it, your sweat inside the wet suit will cause the scab to melt and stick to the inside of the wet suit when you take it off (since it is, after all, basically rubber). I was going to take a picture and post it here, but since I almost vomited myself when I saw what it looked like, I decided to spare you, gentle reader.

oh please oh please oh please oh please

Dodd Considering Presidential Bid

Yeah, like that would actually ever happen. In my wildest dreams.

(Note: I clearly need to come up with some wilder dreams.)

Why I don't play sports involving physical coordination

Went for a run today before lunch. Due to a combination of the phenominally poor Italian road engineering, and my own immense lack of physical coordination, I managed to take a pretty good spill onto the asphalt about halfway through. (In my defense, there was a random rock sticking up out of the asphalt that I didn't see.) Fortunately I just sliced up my knee and not my recently-repaired beautiful face.

Guess how awesome this felt after running on it for another 15 minutes, then walking around all day on it, then dumping hydrogen peroxide on it after I got home?
(Hint: your choices are a) not good, b) not at all good, or c) I hate seeing a grown man cry.)

Happy Opening Day

For the record, as of this writing, the Red Sox are in sole possession of first place in the American League East.

Saturday in the park

Ran a 5k road race on Saturday morning; first one in ages. Couple of reasons. 1) It's the (re-) start of my "Get Chris Back in Shape" program (I figure now that I've been cosmetically altered to have Brad Pitt's face, I might as well get myself the body to match), and 2) it was a fundraiser for the Naples area 106th Submarine Birthday Ball. And I happen to be the co-chair of the Naples area Submarine Birthday Ball Committee. Compare to being the prom committee chairman. Complete with meddling principal and everything.

Got home from the race and it was a gorgeous day, so I decided to help out my landlord and his wife and do some work in the yard. Sat out in the sun for an hour and a half pulling weeds and listening to Jimmy Buffett. Then my landlord and his wife and his mom had to twist my arm to get me to go eat lunch with them. Oh well, life is tough, right? We had, among other things, "spaghetti putanesca." Which is sort of a curious name, given that "putana" is a less-than complementary term for a woman of questionable morals. But the spaghetti was good.