I thought I’d got to know the Danes and their blunt, earthy sense of humour well enough. Apparently not – I was taken aback so much by this sign at the till of one of the ubiquitous ‘Joe and the Juice’ branches in Copenhagen city centre while waiting for my juice, that I had to surreptitiously get my camera out of the handbag quickly to take a shot before Aragon himself (I assumed) turned around with the juice:
The return flight was on the same tiny propeller (seating: two-plus-two rows, twelve of them) that I had flown out with (they look dubious but both flights were the most punctual I’d taken out of London in years). Being the Friday afternoon flight, it was packed to the rafters. There were a family of five sitting around me: the middle-aged parents plus a son of about fifteen in the row in front, two girls slightly older across the aisle. Together they were a picture of the quintessential Scandinavians – tall, blond, blue eyes, with the air of Copenhagen urbanites. Then, just as we were about to take off, they suddenly extended their arms to one another, across the aisle and seats, and held each other’s hands tightly. The pair of sisters stroked one another’s arms up and down for additional comfort and assurance.
I would usually like to think of myself as liberal and racism-free, but frankly if we had been on a transatlantic transporter and them a family of Muslims, I probably would have screamed for attention at this clear display of impending collective martyrdom. As it was, I could only guess that it was a case of genetic fright of flying that could only be assuaged by this peculiar form of physical bonding. As soon as we were safely airborne, the finger-locks were withdrawn and they all slumped back into newspaper-reading and Ipod-hopping, respectively, leaving me wonder what unusual encounters lay ahead in our Moroccan trip, commencing in twelve hours.
The return flight was on the same tiny propeller (seating: two-plus-two rows, twelve of them) that I had flown out with (they look dubious but both flights were the most punctual I’d taken out of London in years). Being the Friday afternoon flight, it was packed to the rafters. There were a family of five sitting around me: the middle-aged parents plus a son of about fifteen in the row in front, two girls slightly older across the aisle. Together they were a picture of the quintessential Scandinavians – tall, blond, blue eyes, with the air of Copenhagen urbanites. Then, just as we were about to take off, they suddenly extended their arms to one another, across the aisle and seats, and held each other’s hands tightly. The pair of sisters stroked one another’s arms up and down for additional comfort and assurance.
I would usually like to think of myself as liberal and racism-free, but frankly if we had been on a transatlantic transporter and them a family of Muslims, I probably would have screamed for attention at this clear display of impending collective martyrdom. As it was, I could only guess that it was a case of genetic fright of flying that could only be assuaged by this peculiar form of physical bonding. As soon as we were safely airborne, the finger-locks were withdrawn and they all slumped back into newspaper-reading and Ipod-hopping, respectively, leaving me wonder what unusual encounters lay ahead in our Moroccan trip, commencing in twelve hours.
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