Mundane is also a word

My blogger friend Rachel Phillips is currently in the midst of a series of posts (three so far) about a trip she took with her friends Liz and Allal to Fés, Morocco. My blogger friend Tasker Dunham is currently in the midst of a series of posts (also three so far) about a trip he took with his friend Neville to Iceland. Both series are fascinating, somewhat exotic, and have a sense of immediacy about them because they are written in present tense.

I, on the other hand, haven't posted anything in a couple of weeks because my life in recent days is best described by The Three B's (or Bs): Blah, Bland, and Boring. [Editor's note. There really is no such thing as The Three B's (or Bs): Blah, Bland, and Boring. I just invented them. What truly would be Blah, Bland, and Boring would be if I told you that I still use the Oxford comma, which I most certainly do. --RWP]

I will tell you about a trip I took to Stockholm, Sweden, in 1969. I hope it will be fascinating and somewhat exotic. I will write in present tense in the hope that it will also have an immediacy about it.

It is February 1, 1969. I am sitting in the airport in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, waiting for my plane to New York City to start boarding. My wife and two small sons have come to see me off. I will be gone for a month. The temperature is 85°F (29°C). Suddenly a woman carrying a long woolen coat with a big fur collar hurries down the concourse. I say to my wife, "She must be going somewhere cold" and immediately realise that I too am going somewhere cold, Sweden in February, and the heavy coat I intended to take with me, which I kept when we moved from New York to Florida a year earlier, is hanging in our closet at home. It was so hot and tropical today that I forgot to bring it, and there is not enough time to go back for it. I will have to figure out something when I get to Sweden so that I do not freeze. I do not make dumb mistakes often, but when I do they are lulus.


On the long flight from New York to Copenhagen, the flight attendants come by and say "coop cough?" occasionally, which I take to mean "Would you like a cup of coffee?" It is not English exactly, but neither is it Swedish. The attendants also provide us with blankets and pillows. It is nighttime over the Atlantic and we cannot see the ocean. I do not sleep at all. As morning comes, I see that we are flying at a great height over a land white with snow-covered hills. I ask the flight attendant "What is that down there?" and she replies "Scotland". It is to be the only view of Scotland, apparently a frozen wasteland, that I will have in my entire life.

I land midmorning in Copenhagen, disembark, and get my brand-new passport stamped. Danes do not like it when people say "CopenHAHgen" because that is the way the Germans pronounced it when they invaded back in 1940. Danes prefer that you say "CopenHAYgen" whch I find odd since they themselves say "CoobenHAWN" and spell it "Købnhavn".

Upon arriving in Stockholm on the same plane, I get my passport stamped again and make my way to my hotel on Strandvägen, a beautiful boulevard in Östermalmstorg (the eastern part of central Stockholm) next to a canal. Stockholm is known as "the Venice of the North". After unpacking, I take a taxicab to the IBM laboratory on the island suburb of Lidingö, which is not pronounced "la dingo" but "leeding uh".

I have learned a few phrases in Swedish out of a little book. Till höger (to the right), Till vänster (to the left), Var ar herrtoaletten? (where is the men's toilet?). Travel is so broadening.

A man of my word, I have told you about my trip TO Sweden. Perhaps in the next installment, if there is a next installment, I will tell you about things I did and saw WHILE I WAS IN Sweden. It seems only fitting.

I may be wrong, but somehow this post doesn't seem fascinating or somewhat exotic to me. Let me know if you don't think you can stand a second installment.

I guess some bloggers have it and some bloggers don't.