Sunday, November 11, 2007

Kom tilbage til mig, Amerikansk stil...

Post title translates to: "Come back to me, American style..," which is what I found myself thinking tonight.

It is now 2:37am, Denmark time (CET). I just biked the 20 minutes home from old city Copenhagen. I can't wait 'til my bike-home-time is halved on December 1st when I move. Anyway, I had an experience biking home that made me realize/believe I am becoming more Danish with each passing day. I had intended to go out to Globe or Dubliner tonight for some good ol' Guinness and Irish craic, but after dinner Libby and I decided we were tired so we lame-d out, went to 7-11 and purchased a bottled of Bailey's Irish Cream (Hey, that'd be ninety craic, except that it cost 130 kroner, which rapidly deducts from craic scores) and a carton of Matilde chocolate milk. We heat the chocolate milk, added a substantial amount of Bailey's, and settled onto the couch to watch Nynne, subtitled.

Apparently it was too much for us. We fell asleep and awoke 2 hours later. My hot chocolate + Bailey's had long grown cold. I pulled on my white knit scarf and hat set (really cute), thanked Libby for a "hyggelig aften," grabbed my bike from the courtyard, and headed home. Biking home in -1 degree Celcius temperatures, sleepyfaced, and perhaps a little whacked from the bit of Bailey's I actually drank, I had an experience that is now prompting me to think that nationalities are like liquids in beakers that you can transfer back and forth, making up people. I will probably read this in the morning and wonder what the fuck I was thinking when I was typing it...

I was biking down H.C. Andersen's Boulevard, near the lakes. There is a lake front restaurant there. I've never been, but it looks pretty nice. Problem is, there isn't much sidewalk, so people leaving the restaurant/bar late tend to congregate in the bike lane. I have seen this dozens of times biking home. This is not okay. This is especially not okay when two drunk retards cross my [clearly straight and unwavering] path, causing me to swerve and cut off a fellow cyclist. Now, getting to the title of this post. Back in the days when I affiliated 100% with being American, a finger probably would have been raised (and, no, not my pointer finger in a "No, No, No, naughty, naughty" manner...), and I probably would would have yelled something from the adjective-noun or adjective-pronoun families. Examples include "fucking retards!" or "Goddamn idiot!" But, tonight, I didn't yell anything of the sort. Surprisingly, no fingers were flipped, and I yelled "Pas på!," which is fairly polite and translates directly to "Watch out!" in Danish. I didn't even think about it. I just yelled in Danish without thinking. Very strange indeed. My Danish has greatly improved since I've been here, but I usually don't reflexively think and speak/yell in Danish inadvertently and simultaneously.

I contemplated this the whole way home. In my tired, stupified state I had regressed to an extraordinarily civil, Danish behavior. How was this!? Somewhere between Rosensomething Alle and Godthaabsvej, I came up with my beakers of national affiliation idea. I was inspired enough to write a post. Where have my American ways gone? Will I ever get them back? Perhaps I will return to the US and be a more civilized person. Perhaps I will continue asking very Danish questions, such as "Is that right?" in English, and using words like "rather" as adjectives. Strange.

One thing is for certain... I will probably look back on this post in the morning/in a few days/weeks time and wonder what the fuck I was talking about. And I'm glad I'm ending the post in a very American way, using terms like WTF. Good.

1 comment:

Cori said...

Great post. I am envious. All I could have yelled in Danish was some nonsense about foxes, ivory and thanks for the food. It's funny, I'm not generally a swearer, but I do wish I had something besides this tinkling little bell to do when someone cuts you off. It's just not possible to make them sound at all angry. Sounds more like you are in a hurry to go play with some kittens or draw rainbows and unicorns. Loved the entry about the purses on your other blog as well. Nice to hear another American perspective.