A hard day kilted – due to Mr. Obama

[GG]

Yesterday at 11 AM I had an appointment with my hairdresser. The saloon is in Helsingør, the town of the Castle Kronborg where prince Hamlet according to Shakespeare should have lived. It’s a 30 kilometers’ drive (20 minutes on the highway) and a bit far to go for a hair cut you might say, but my hair dresser, a young lady, is a very nice person and thereby worth the distance, I think.
She has never seen me in a kilt or heard that I'm a kilt wearer. Yesterday I decided that it should be the day and at nine o’clock I left home in my Gunn tartan kilt.
I started out with a walk at the coast of Øresund. By then I was phoned from the hairdresser saloon. My hairdresser had got seek but another hairdresser could take over. I agreed. The weather was beautiful and at 10 o’clock I was back at my car which I had parked at a railway station. Plenty of time still. Having got 65 I can travel almost free with public transportation (season ticket) and why shouldn’t I take the train? Half an hour and then half an hour to slender around the streets of Helsingør prior to go to my hairdresser – I thought.
The moment I was on the platform the train was there. By entering six high school boys and girls had their faces turned at me and really starring. They must have seen me standing on the platform. I heard one of the girls telling the others that she had a class mate who once had come to school dressed in a kilt. Then they had lost interest.
Three or four stations before Helsingør the passengers were informed that the train should go no longer but return to Copenhagen. Due to the visit of the American president all train traffic around the air port had been suspended and it would mean a lot of cancelled or delayed trains on this line going between Denmark and Sweden. When a few minutes later standing together with a lot of other passengers on the platform it had started to rain and it was pretty cold. Half an hour it took.
Instead of having plenty of time I was 15 minutes late. The hair dresser asked to my kilt and we talked about it, her children, my children and grand children, the visit of the American president and a lot of other things.
A little after 12 I was back at the railway station in Helsingør. A lot of people were waiting for a train to Copenhagen. Almost all they could do was to look at the other waiting people. Nevertheless, my kilt didn’t seem to attract much attention. Every five minutes informations of delays and cancelled trains due to the visit of the American president.
To make it short: It took me three hours before I was back at my car. Trains that stopped too early, trains that went too far, therefore changing between trains south and trains north and in between a lot of waiting on platforms. Never before have had so many Danes had an opportunity to see a man in kilt. When I was home Mr. Obama and his wife must have been half their way back to Washington.
Had I not been kilted, it had been unbearable...

Greg

[SFCRick]

sorry about the delays, but its not so bad when your Kilted

[cessna152towser]

Well it is a good way to build confidence for the future. Now that so many people have seen you kilted, wearing the kilt in a crowd should be much easier next time.

[Stratherrick]

Now, if only Mr Obama would wear a kilt, that'd be a sight!

My regards to Danmark. I have friends in the capital and went there for their wedding a few years ago.

Slainte

Bruce

[Kiltboy]

I hear you about presidential visits. Can't tell you how many times I've been held up in an airport terminal, or stuck on the airport tarmac because Air Force One is in the area. All air traffic comes to a halt as it passes/stops. Grrrrr....

[Frank McGrath]

You ought to try driving in Washington, D.C. When I was on the road, many times I had to drive down Massachusetts Avenue and was pushed off the road by an official motorcade. Mass Ave is the main link from the VP's house at the Naval Observatory and downtown DC. It is also known as Embassy Row. A lot of embassies line Mass Ave. Security is heavy and all who travel on Mass ave are photographed and filmed. And this on a daily basis. Even before 9/11.