Aske

After great excitement and a far too long summer holiday, Maria finally arrived in Copenhagen last Friday.


I had made many a phone call to Wales, France, Sweden, Denmark and Norway before I managed to pull all the strings in the right direction concerning the surprise-gathering in the last weekend of August. I was nothing but very happy when I realized that five of the five invited friends of Maria were going to turn up in Copenhagen as planned.
I wanted to make Maria meet her good friends from UWC again, just as a little reminder that even though you live in the world's most foggy place in an isolated ocean, doesn't necessarily mean that your past life abroad is gone forever. I don't quite know if I managed to make her face that, but I indeed hope so.

My first intetion was to make one social day or two in Copenhagen, but got extended to a four days program. The fact that Maria had to change her flight and was going to arrive one day earlier than planned, didn't make it easier.
But we had, I think, indeed a great time in Copenhagen. Big thanks to the people who came with such a short notice.

Talking about the point of the blog and the aim of our lives for the next five months, Ethiopia.
It all seems very strange to me in this moment that I only have three days left in my quotidian and predictable "Western life". I do look more and more forward to the trip and worry less now than what I've done throughout the summer.
It does all look so surprisingly organized ("all "refering to the contact person of ours; Daniel) which really makes me calm down. We will just try to handle the obstacles as they come along and take it all as just one, big, cultural experience.

As Maria mentions we have now got a confirmation that we will have a shower and cooking facilities - which is great. We even know that we will be picked up in the airport by "someone", which is also a good sign of organization.

We ordered travellers' checks today in my local Copenhagish bank. It was quite a mess to find someone who had any clue of how to issue them. When we asked for it, the caissier looked anxiously at two of the other staff and tried to avoid the forestanding difficulties by asking "in which bank are you registered as clients?"
Maria's immediate reply "the Faroe Islands" made them even more insecure.
With a quite hessitating voice she mumbled "hmm... ohh.... well".
It is clearly nor fashionable nor common in Denmark to use travellers' checks - but we managed to find them.
Ready for pick-up Thursday afternoon.

We both now got our health insurances, malaria medication, plane tickets, vaccinations and dollars in travellers' checks.
I have barely spent any money this summer and yet my budget is tight after three months of full time work.
I keep getting astonished by how expensive it is to travel out in the world with a personal, naive hope of saving it.
Maybe this is why the world has not yet been saved.

Tomorrow some more things have to fall in to place. I will, hopefully, start finding a suitcase to pack and we will, hopefully, find a shelf on which we can empty half of Maria's suitcase as it is already too heavy.


Not much time left here.
But yet I have not quite realized that it is so soon.
It will come,
mañana, mañana