Native tongue

I am going to Norway on Wednesday. As always with my holidaying I have placed the fact that I am going to have to go on a plane to the back of my mind. In actual fact I am going to have to go on two planes, as I have to change at Oslo airport. I am already dreading it and eating kalms like they are smarties. Which they might as well be, I’m still crapping myself. But when I get there it should be super and I’ll have a good few days before I have to start dreading the flight home. I’m going straight from work tomorrow which means I need to pack tonight. I have no idea what is clean but the upside of travelling on your own is that you really don’t care what you look like. So horrible hooded tops and jeans a go go. In fact the fewer choices of clothes the better, then I can stuff the suitcase full of books. I’ve been to the library especially. In order to make all case space available I went to the website of the place I am staying to see if they provide towels. It was then I remembered my deep and quite useful skill.

I am spontaneously fluent in all Scandinavian languages.

This skill first presented itself when I went to Amsterdam. There I stunned and amazed my travelling companion by effortlessly understanding train announcements and reading signposts. What was really good was that the train announcements were followed by an identical announcement in English so I could check I was right. All trace of bi-linguality was instantly lost the second I returned home. Until, that is, today. Sadly the website of my hotel is only in Norweigan. I was hoping that something would leap out at me and low and behold. I spied the phrase Klikk her for mer info. Something inside me whispered ‘click here for more info’. It was like a bolt out of the blue. My gift had returned.

I am willing to admit that it helps that all the languages I am fluent in are just bizarrely spelled English. But what’s wrong with that? Hasn’t held the Americans back.

Part of the joy of going away is not having a clue what is going on. I went to Iceland in February and spent 2 hours in an art gallery watching an Icelandic film. My gifting must have failed me as I didn’t have a clue what was going on (I’d guess at a film about camping) but I watched the lot and thoroughly enjoyed it. I want to go to shops and have no idea what is inside packets. I want to walk past newsagents and have no idea what any of the magazines are about. It also helps that when people walk past me and say ‘What the hell is that girl wearing? I bet she didn’t pack enough clothes to make room in her suitcase for books.’ I have no idea what they are saying. Unless of course they say ‘Wot tha hel is that gul waring? I bit shhe didddnt pak enuf cloves to mayk rume in her sootcas for boks’ In which case I’ll understand instantly.