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JOERGEN BUNDGAARD U.S.A. WEST COAST TOUR |
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COPENHAGEN • Day 14 • Day 15
Frankfurt – Copenhagen. Arriving in Frankfurt International Airport, we had to wait several hours for the connecting flight. It was a waste of time, and it was boring. It was partly my mistake, during the planning process of our tour, and after having travelled for so many hours, you only want to get the last leg over with and go as soon as possible to Copenhagen. We were beginning to be rather tired. We arrived on schedule in Copenhagen at 3.10 pm, and soon we were sitting in a taxi and on our way to our home, where we arrived at 4 pm, which gave us enough time to take our suitcases into our apartment, away from the rain, which had been the weather condition since early morning in Copenhagen. We wanted to collect Misnabo, our cat, before it was dark, so we got hold in our car and drove out to Ballerup, where we had placed our cat in a “Missepension” two weeks earlier, and we managed to get to her, before 5 o’clock.
Our day and night watches returned only very slowly back to European Standard time for both of us. I must admit, that for once, we had a problem sleeping after our tour overseas, which for my part was rather unusual. Some very strange situations occurred during the first days after our return, where we could feel dead tired on the most unusual times of the day, except during the nights. I have always considered people to be very self-interested and self-promoting, when they complaint of suffering from the so called Jet Lag, but now I could see, that they might have had a good point in saying so! Our Jet Lag did disappear, but it felt as a very strange phenomenon – unpleasant – but is that what it takes to tour the Continent of North America, I will do it again any time. It has been such an adventure, and the days we spend south of San Francisco stands as very special for us. I think that one of the major reasons for the Jet Lag was that I had such a problem forgetting, that I was not still in the USA, where I wanted to be, but I had already returned to Europe, and deep down I did not want to be back so soon! That will of course be punished in some way – and for me it might be the reason for my Jet Lag. We are now back to our normal “business as usual”, and well on the other side of any signs of Jet Lag. We get to sleep during normal sleeping hours, and we are uploading our pictures from the tour, as well as visiting friends and family members and writing about our RV tour along the West Coast of America, from Los Angeles in the State of California to Seattle in the State of Washington, November 2012, so now everything is back to normal. Click here to see more DAY 14 photos posted at "Else Duch's Gallery" on Picasa.
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Day 14. Sunday, November 25, 2012.
Misnabo was pleased to see us, and she went quietly into her transportation box, and she did show us, that she had a very pleasant stay at the pets’ home, and we were very pleased to observe her positive behavior. Since returning to our apartment, she has been as nice as ever and present at all times, and that showed us, that her stay at the pets’ home had been much more positive for her than we expected.
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It was early Monday morning and still raining heavily against the windows. Not even Misnabo was awake but I could not get myself back to bed again knowing all too well, that my body was still following U.S.A. West Coast time which meant that in three hours' time I would start feeling tired again even if the clock would tell me that it is 6 o'clock in the morning. Since 1991 I have regularly devoted a large part of my spare time on my hobby, Model Kit building. I like the type of concentration and that kind of problem solving attitudes which are necessary when creating the specific models. This morning might be a favorable time to return to my working table and to forget the time zones.
The Discovery TV channel had earlier been the source of inspiration when trying to find historical objects to construct. A whole series of TV programs discussed the importance of, e.g. 10 different aircraft, 10 warships or 10 tanks, and they came up with three of each category as winners. Discovery explained and gave reasons why these machines were considered to be the most admirably of all those mentioned.
The first three models were airplanes - Spitfire Mk. IX, P-51 Mustang and MiG 15, all had taken part in conflicts in different parts of the world. Eventually they all had unique qualities as fighter planes, e.g. in W.W.II and The Korean War. It was a long time since I had constructed the model ship of R.M.S. Titanic and I felt that I was now ready to return to the construction of ships again under the same conditions that were valid when Titanic was constructed. I started constructing three warships one by one, HMS Warspite, a Queen Elisabeth Class Battleship from 1913, Iowa Class Battleship U.S.S. Missouri, and the Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier U.S.S. Nimitz, of which U.S.S. Missouri ended up to be the number one in construction and details. I am proud to say that U.S.S. Missouri now has found its new and permanent home with our dear friends Bruce and Pati Belknap in California, USA. When you are constructing the Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier as a model you soon realize that U.S.S. Nimitz has a variety of aircraft stationed onboard. It might be a good idea to construct every single aircraft as a model, keeping the size already agreed upon for comparing sizes of fighter planes during that time. I started with SH-60 B Seahawk, U.S. Navy Helicopter A-4E/F Skyhawk, U.S. Navy Carrier-based Attacker F/A-18A Hornet, U.S. Navy Carrier Fighter F-14A Tomcat, U.S. Navy Carrier based fighter and ended with the construction of E-2C Hawkeye 2000, U.S. Navy Carrier-born AEW Aircraft stationed at U.S.S. Nimitz.
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Day 15. Monday, November 26, 2012.
Out of pure historical interest I had purchased a book about RMS Titanic and later I bought a Model Kit of the ship. It had taken a long time to construct the model of Titanic, because I had decided that every detail should be dealt with, even the port-holes had to be made and installed and every millimeter of the ship would be painted over and over again until satisfactory. I have never worked for such a long time at any model kit before and I can honestly say, that I was very satisfied with the result. RMS Titanic and the book about Titanic now both belong to my grandson Andreas, with whom it seems that I share the pleasure of working in challenging situations.
I then decided that I would make these machines as plastic models in the size 1:72 for the aircraft, so that I could compare them by their size, and the ships would be constructed in the size which would be available from the store.
It was an unfinished aircraft model E-2C Hawkeye 2000 which caught my eyes that Monday morning and I felt ready to continue and start the day assembling and painting parts of this aircraft, and when I would feel tired again then at least I could say, that I had used this peaceful morning in a very constructive way.