AU REVOIR!
2010
Again I wake really early - it’s as if my jet-lag has reversed itself! At least it means I am packed and ready to go with time for a quick jaunt through the Øregårds park, across to a favorite baker to get a pastry to munch on, while I make my way down to the Øresund - the sound between Denmark and Sweden - through an area filled with huge old villas, many of them embassies. The fanciest of them all has been Poland’s Embassy for as long as I can remember, which is kind of funny. I am bundled up with a big scarf and gloves against the piercing wind coming across the water, and when I get there a dripping young women is just getting out of the sea.
“That must have been cold!’ I say, and she looks thoughtfully at the waves and says, ‘Yes, today it was kind of cold.’ I hurry back for my 10 am meeting with Sonja, who’s waiting for me in a beautiful Audi. We stop briefly in front of the house, where I lived with my parents, which still looks much the same, and then we drive to the cemetery where my parents’ ashes are buried. “Buy some flowers from me,’ Oswaldo had said.’ ‘From me too,’ says Sonja, so we buy 3 little pots with red roses and put them near the headstone. My father passed away 32 years ago, but the terrible day my mother died in 2000 is still very fresh in my mind. It’s nice to be there with a trusted old friend like Sonja, Then we drive up north through the pretty autumnal landscape - it’s a gorgeous sunny day - to Tisvildeleje on the cost, where Sonja has a new summer house. We admire the incredible view and descend many stairs to go for a really brisk walk along the sea until we reach the little town, a sort of Danish Buzios, where we have lunch in a cozy restaurant - the only people there. Then it’s time to return to Hellerup, where Sonja puts me on the train to the airport. Denmark is a small country, where people behave according to established rules. Thus I am surprised out of my reveries, when a trim and well-dressed grandmother, maybe my own age, with a large pram, barges into the section, where I’m sitting, shouting,”You guys have no right to sit here, can’t you see it’s reserved for prams? Get up!’ This is not said in a nice way and causes some commotion, this is after all an airport train - and not all passengers speak her language. But I get up and stand until she has settled down - after which I do the same.
My flight to Paris is uneventful, but the trip into town is not. I don’t feel like submitting myself to the caprices of a taxi driver alone, at night, for the 50+ euro ride, so decide to take the airport train, the RER, line B, as I have memorized. There is, however, a transport strike, and also my French sim-card has disappeared, so the whole thing is a bit stressful. I ally myself with a 22 year old New Zealand backpacker (just arrived from northern Italy where he picked apples for a month). Oswaldo manages to call me on my Danish number to find out how things are going, and we ask him to call ‘Francesca’ to say that ‘Stuart’ (the backpacker) is on his way. After a couple of hits and misses I manage to emerge at St. Michel, where Oswaldo is waiting, bundled up against the sudden Parisian wind and cold. I don’t know what happened to Stuart, whom I left searching for Line 2 at Gare du Nord....
A FULL LAST DAY
Saturday, October 16, 2010
I HAVE BEEN LONGING TO REVISIT THE ØREGÅRDS PARK, A CONSTANT FEATURE OF MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH, AND WALK THROUGH IT ON MY LAST - BRISK AND SUNNY - MORNING
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