Postcard no. 1 Where in the world...?

Categories: postcards

Date: 17 February 2008 19:56:14

On Thursday 7 February, Felicia Fogg had to rise early (for her) get to the coach station to catch a conveyance to Heathrow. My flight wasn't until the middle of the afternoon, but what with a 2-hour check-in requirement, travel time to LHR, a bit of slippage built in for potential traffic problems and a massive gap in the coach timetable, I was standing in the early morning chill well before 8 a.m.

There weren't any hold-ups along the way and in fact we arrived a few minutes ahead of schedule. Feeling somewhat insecure about the high-tech check-in procedure (a piece of paper printed off my own printer and a random set of numbers and letters to type into a computer screen), I checked myself in, (it worked - to my surprise!), deposited my bag and steeled myself for a four-hour wait.

There was plenty to do to keep myself occupied, however. Toiletries (restriction of 100ml liquid) to be reshuffled into transparent plastic bags (this includes mascara!), footwear to be x-rayed (I don't remember going through this palaver when I flew to Barcelona last summer), lots of duty-free shops to browse around, money to be exchanged, lunch to be eaten, people to be watched and "Teach yourself Danish in Double Quick Time" to be tackled in the quiet moments - for that small country, gentle reader, was my first destination (to be followed shortly afterwards by a trip to Ireland).

My most entertaining moment took place at the bureau de change and proceeded as follows:
Felicia Fogg: Good morning. I'd like to exchange £X for Danish Kroner and £Y for euros, please.
Bureau de change lady: Certainly. You must be going on a long trip.
FF: Well, just briefly to Denmark and then straight to Ireland.
BDCL: I see. It's quite handy that they are right next to each other, isn't it?
FF: Well, um, they're not that close.
BDCL: All those small countries up there are quite close, though aren't they?
FF: Ahm, well, I shall be flying back over Britain from Denmark to get to Ireland...cos it's west of the UK.
BDCL: Is it really?
FF: [Drawing a map with her finger on the counter]. Well, err, yes. Here's Heathrow and Copenhagen's over here. And then Dublin is back this way.
BDCL: Oh, d'you know, I never did geography. I did history instead.
FF: [Restrains self from blurting out: Well, I didn't do geography either.... But I know where European cities are.... and YOU work in one of the world's largest airports. You might have worked out the locations of one or two places by now!!]

Gentle reader: I was on the brink of saying it... but I smiled (did she detect the disbelief on my face?), thanked her for my currency (checked she'd given me the correct notes) and left her to astonish her next customer.