The Denmark Debacle

Runner up for post title: "Dude! You got a Dane. . ."

Overall, I'd have to say that my trip to Denmark was a mixed bag. The Danes are an interesting people. My Pakistani cab driver described them thusly: "they are rich, but Denmark is a small country, and the people are small minded". Interesting. They seem to be very proud of their culture and heritage. My impression is that this involves brotherly regicide, surprisingly diminutive statues of fictional characters, extremely beautiful architecture, and some nice pilsner. What's more, their economy combines a confusing mixture of outrageously high prices and a relatively worthless currency. So a sandwich costs 47 kroner which is about 7 euro or 10 dollars. As a tourist I found that this creates a sort of perceptual dissonance which is mildly annoying.

Anyways, I flew in to Copenhagen starving to death at about 9:30 pm on a Tuesday. I got to my "hotel". The motto of this place is "The Cheapest Rooms in Copenhagen". 65 euro a night. Not really that cheap yo. and the room looked like a water heater closet(exaggeration). I put my stuff down and went searching for something to eat. Everything was closed. At 9 fucking 30.

I recruited some loafing street children to find me a place to eat. While this gave me fleeting delusions of gangsterdom, the children were ultimately unsuccessful. Luckily, I remembered that Ben Allee had told me that Copenhagen had an odd abundance of Seven Elevens. The kids pointed me to one and I bought dinner at the sevie just like my sophomore year of undergrad.

To my extreme chagrin there were no nachos. I only had a hundred kroner so I bought three beers some honey roasted peanuts and a bag of gummy bears. Back at the "hotel" I set up my desk and ate/drank my dinner.

The next day I woke up and worked on the presentation a bit. Mark had given me the email of a friend he had living in Copenhagen, so I called her at around 2. We met up and hung out for a while. She's cool, although she seems to talk exclusively about how every man she comes into contact with tries to get in her pants. What's with that? Signals like this confuse me. Ultimately when I meet a woman for the first time, and she can't stop talking about her sex life, it's a turn off. In my experience these women are usually batshit crazy.

Anyways we had a couple of beers and then she took me back to her place and proceeded to show me every picture in her three photo albums. It was actually quite entertaining, but when it was over I got the hell out of there. We made some plans to go out to a club the following night, and I walked back to the hotel in the rain.

The next day I walked over to Copenhagen Business School where I presented my paper at a panel on "Markets and Justifications". Inevitably these panels have vague, dubiously meaningful names. Admittedly my presentation could use some refinement and clarification, but at this point, I've presented twice, and I feel like I can draw some conclusions about the way my work has been received. In a room full of political economists and economic sociologists, I'd say about fifteen percent had any clue what the fuck I was talking about.

Have you ever tried to teach Hegel to disinterested undergraduates? I swear the grad students, post-docs and professors in this room looked exactly the same. Obviously, it's not because I'm smart and they're dumb. It's because:

1) my topic is really fucking esoteric and hard to explain
2) I'm not the best public speaker. I'm not bad, but let's face it I'm no Cato
3) I don't yet have a "take home message". I think this is the kicker.

After the presentation I ran into my undergraduate adviser from Reed. This guy is everywhere. As usual we had a really great talk and I came away thinking that maybe I'll be able to pull all of this shit together yet. I need to get deeper into the relationship between cognitive sociology and behavioral finance to tease out where my work fits into the broader theoretical scheme of the sociology of markets project before I get into the specifics of the rise of shareholder value. So that my perspective is distinct and my points are clinically precise. This is the only way to put together the dynamite dissertation I have tumbling around in my brain.

The rest of the day was spent attending various panels.

After the panels were over, there was a dinner reception at the Copenhagen city hall. Pretty fancy digs. Nice food and some interesting dinner conversation about how prices are determined in the wine market.(Incidentally this is a topic that I have discussed about one million times. Get wine anywhere near a group of economic sociologists and they just can't help themselves.)

This is where the group of friendlies formed. If you ever went to camp you know what I"m talking about.

Through some mixture of the social interaction patterns, prior ties to individuals and institutions, and symbolic interaction you end up with a group of people who become your social circle: Mark my friend from the institute who studies the Lottery, a professor from a school in Illinois studying Islamic finance, a British postdoc studying accounting and a Brazilian girl studying Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR). Everyone and their mom is hot for CSR these days.

After dinner we went out for a beer. These people turned out to be pretty cool. The beer ended at about 10 and I was supposed to meet my local guide-from-the-night-before at midnight. Two hours to kill in expensive, rainy Copenhagen. What to do?

Seven Eleven Skol!

If you happen to be in Denmark and are looking to kill some time, or if you're a wealthy and unimaginative alcoholic you might want to try this entertaining and inebriating way to see Copenhagen.
1.First, go to the central train station in downtown Copenhagen.
2.Pick a direction and start walking.
3.If you see a seven eleven, go in and buy a can of beer.
4.Open your beer and keep walking.
5.The next seven eleven you see, chug your beer.
6.Go in and buy another.
7.Loop steps 4 through seven until unable to speak or see.
Now you're charming!!

I drank a few beers and walked around. Went to see the little mermaid. She is indeed little. So many drunken foreigners. Finally I met up with the lady and we went to a hiphop club. For the record, if you ask whether or not I like something and I say "it's okay." I mean it's okay for you. So clubbing isn't really my thing, and neither is hip-hop. But I was determined to make the best of things. The loudness made it difficult to hear what the girl I came with was saying, but I'm pretty sure it was something about some guy who was hitting on her. We bought a whole bottle of Vodka, and sat down. Watching scantily clad late-teen girls dance around is surprisingly little fun, and the girl kept asking me "Which one do you like?" This totally freaked me out, so I pounded three quarters of the Vodka bottle and took off.

Obviously the next day was a little rough. But I hauled my ass out of bed and went to a few panels. After the reception that night we went back to a hostel where some of the peeps were staying. Canadian political scientist, hot Brazilian CSR girl, Minnesota law and society girl, British post-doc accounting guy, Islamic finance guy, lottery guy, hot French CSR girl, and I drank several beers. A good time was had by all.

The worst part of the trip, of course, was the end. As a complete moron I am incapable of accurate and effective planning. Consequently, I mistook the time of arrival at destination on my flight itinerary for the departure time. Too much time bull-shitting with cute French CSR girl. When I realized my mistake I hopped in a cab, but the traffic was horrible. Despite my efforts, I arrived too late and was forced to mortgage my future to buy a last minute ticket back to Cologne. Losing all that $$$ made me feel like JeZeus just took a shit bleeding marijuana dump all over my head.

This always happens when I travel, and yet I can't stop.

When I'm traveling and JeZeus dumps out all over me at least I can keep going and put it behind me. Maybe I don't get dumped out on as much when I'm sedentary, but when I do I have to wade around in it until I can clean it all up.

Anyways I got the flight home. Copenhagen to Frankfurt, and then Frankfurt back to Cologne. UUUEEEGH. Frankfurt. When I got to the Frankfurt airport it was a madhouse
as usual. What's more, in true German corporate fashion Lufthansa will fuck you in the ass whenever possible. The Frankfurt airport experience combines the ease and efficiency of German bureaucracy with the fun of repeated and uninvited financial sodomy.

Sitting in the madness I tried to tune it all out and focus on getting home to my bed, my wireless internet access, and my waiting guitar. Ah. so nice. Then something strange happened.

I had my headphones on, so I experienced it as a shift in all peripheral and background sensory input. Suddenly the madhouse had turned calm. It was like the eye of the storm. I look around to find that I am surrounded by old people. Sitting quietly. Too quietly. At first it was a little like the birds. I had a brief vision of airport dwelling septuagenarians roaming the gates, harvesting organs from the young and exhausted.

(This scratches the surface of my subtle unease around all old Germans: Is that leather that Grandpa's wallet is made of? If I opened the Ark of the Covenant would his face melt off? You know what I mean.)

My whole flight was old people. The whole flight. Whoa. Maybe this happens when you fly into Orlando from Tempe or something, but it's never happened to me. Anyways, my initial unease faded and the whole thing changed from the Birds into more of a Cocoon deal. Which made me Steve Gutenberg. But where is Tahnee Welch's hot hotness?

Hell I'd even settle for one of those animatronic Dolphins.

When we finally did get into Cologne, I had to take two trains to get back to my flat. So tired. On the first train, seven German teens got on and sat all around me. They offered me a swig out of a liter coke bottle. When I declined, the youth specified that the mixture contained Vodka as well as soda. Again I declined. If somehow I could only decline such meaningless social engagements without actually having to communicate in any way, . . . and simultaneously avoid being rude. Anyways, this of course opened up the opportunity for them to ask where I am from and what I am doing here.

Whenever someone asks me where I'm from I always say California. Saying Oregon confuses them, and trying to specify the exact amount of time I spent in Portland, Eugene, Berkeley, and Brooklyn is way too much. Whenever I tell a German that I am from California they have one of three reactions:

1)Liar! Why would anyone ever come to Germany from California?
2)Cool! California must be really nice, I wish I could go there.
3)Hey, what about Arnold?

The teenagers opted for choice 1. Another problem I have is trying to explain why I am in Germany. Do I say that I am a student?

Germans in my position call themselves scientists. Which is cool, but I feel strange calling myself a scientist given my proclivity for using imprecise words and phrases such as "douchebag" "Fuckin'A" and "Fuckin'A Right".

Sometimes I say that I am a researcher. Sometimes I say that I am working on my dissertation. Most adults are okay with that one. Sometimes I say that I'm a sociologist. This is actually better here than in the US. But inevitably they will ask me what exactly I study.

In anticipation of this secondary question I often just say I'm an economist to avoid the inevitable confusion that results from a brief explanation of what I do. Ultimately, trying to explain any of this is a pain in the ass so I just told these kids that I was a student. They asked how old I am and I told them I'm twenty eight. Their response (translated by the one who spoke English):

"If you're twenty-eight why don't you have a job?"

Crushing. I comforted myself by drinking a can of Carlsberg I found in my bag and rode the train back to Eherenfeld. Walking from the train station back to my flat I actually felt like I was coming home for the first time since I left Brooklyn.

Not so bad after all.