This comes courtesy of the superbly inimitable
Greg. In light of all my recent travels, I'll be doing this one with a travelling spin.
But first, the obligatory fine print:
The Rules are:
- We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
- Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
- People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
- At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
- Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog..
1) I never thought I would say this, but I am honestly of the opinion that I've been travelling too much recently, particularly air travel. I am tired of flights, especially flights lasting longer than 5 hours.
2) I would admit to how much of the past 12 months have been spent out of Denmark, but it's a scary amount. It's also long enough that I worry about my visa status. It won't be a problem now, but might be when my visa is next up for renewal.
3) I used to not notice jetlag so much, in fact I was pretty cavalier about it, but on my trip in December, it was simply interminable and not fun, and that pattern seems to be continuing. I can't tell if the jetlag is actually worse, or if it just seems worse, perhaps in combination with #1.
4) On this last trip, I came close to doubling my life stats for missed flights, by which I mean missing my second ever flight. The first one was many years ago, from London Stanstead to Lisbon. The silver lining was that I gave myself an extra morning in Cambridge. At that time, I was working at a place called Cambridge School, and amused myself (if not my colleagues) by calling in and saying that I was 'in Cambridge...but the wrong one' and would therefore miss a day of work.
5) That Stanstead to Lisbon flight was missed through my own negligence (well, and letting myself be persuaded that there was time for that end-of-vacation lunch near Hyde Park). This last almost missed flight was due to a late previous flight, combined with increasingly surreal security at Heathrow (oh, and have I mentioned that I'm also tired of having to take my shoes off to go through airport security?), which led to me doing my very best O.J. Simpson impression through Terminal 4 to get to my connecting flight, which amazingly, I caught.
6) I do wonder about the political correctness of refering to
those Hertz ads. Speaking of which, as I have never known anything about American football, it was only during the overshadowing trial that I realized that O.J. Simpson had been a football player. Since the Hertz commercial was all about how fast he could run, I had grown up assuming that he was a track star, maybe a sprinter.
7) I've always been of the opinion that the more stuff of sentimental value in your checked luggage, the more likely it is that it will disappear in transit never to be seen again. In real life, I have never had a bag lost by an airline for more than a few hours. Until now. I am still waiting for two suitcases, and have been waiting for almost two days now. In those cases are things like my mother's quite extensive collection of costume jewelry, and what for me amounts to an entire handbag collection. Nothing that will cause my life to end if it doesn't get found, but still, I consider my biggest travel superstition to be on its way to being realized. Of course, I'm still hopeful, but not too much.
8) I'm anxious to put a photo to this post, except, well I have good news and bad news. The good news is that my camera was in my carry on luggage. The bad news (for me, possibly good news for you, dear reader) is that the cable to connect my camera to my computer is in one of the checked bags. So, this will have to be photo free. I almost said 'visuals free', but that's not right. At least, I hope this post can be viewed.
O.K., and now I'm supposed to tag 8 people. I would, but I won't, not because of any aversion to tagging (though that has been known to happen), but more because almost everyone I read has done this one, and fairly recently at that. If you haven't done it, though, and would like to, then consider yourself tagged, and I look forward to finding out some things about you.
***Update, 20 July...for all who expressed concern, the bags are back, one a few days after this post, and another one the day before yesterday. Interestingly, some kind person or people in baggage handling decided that I was clearly becoming too fond of material possessions, and liberated me from the box with my mom's costume jewelry, as well as one or two other small consumer items of little value. All things considered, it's o.k., and sort of fits in with that part of my summer....***
If there is one thing that I can point to from my summer so far, and say, 'Yes, this is the essense of it, this is the great secret I have learned', it is the following:
