Do I have a sign hanging over my head, or what?! At home I seem to be the one people ask when they have questions or need directions. I thought it would stop when I left the States, but the affliction has followed me. My first day in Copenhagen, I watched as a man in a suit looked around the airport lobby with a puzzled look on his face. I wasn’t worried—I was out of culture, after all—but he came straight up to me. “Sorry, but I’m new here, and I don’t even speak Danish.” I could see the disappointment and confusion in his face as he scanned the crowded lobby again, trying to figure out who else to ask. I’ve been stopped countless times since in a variety of languages, including five times today. Can somebody tell me what’s going on? Do I seem more approachable because I'm short, or...?
On a related topic, people don’t seem to recognize where I’m from. At the University of Leicester, the persistent rumor was that I was from Canada. “Oh, is that where Florida is?...” Everyone is speaking French to me here, although one man stopped me on the street to ask if I was Danish or Swedish. Must be the blond hair. Not. Well, I’d like to be from somewhere else, but that’s a topic for another time.
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