well done J! maybe you'll be able to shift the culture after all!!! or at least better prepare the expats! proud of you - m and s, now in Toronto - and S went to the TEDx Toronto recently for inspiration!!
but first, i have to back up a little bit. during the afternoon break at TED, i was standing in the long line for coffee. i tried to break into the conversation the two guys in front of me were having with some or other funny remark. i was rebuffed completely. so, feeling fed up with the way that danes often are unwilling to talk to people they didn't go to kindergarten with, i tweeted, Dear Danes, you suck at talking to people you don't know. #tedxcph. almost immediately, @TEDxCopenhagen tweeted back that i just needed to keep trying. i answered them that i had seriously only talked to fellow ex-pats that day and wrote in danish that i even spoke danish, so i didn't get it. i saw a few retweets and favorites of my tweet before my phone ran out of battery and gave up the ghost.
i didn't really think anymore of it until i got home that evening and plugged the phone in and got it charged up. there were a whole lot of retweets (more than the 4 that show when i click the tweet, which is weird) and a lot of answers to it. and people weren't mad at me either, they admitted it was true and that it was sad and that we should do something about it.
but it got even more exciting when i checked my mail, where i had an email from a radio journalist who wanted to interview me on the air on friday on a national talk radio station about the tweet. it also happened that the new us ambassador to denmark, rufus gifford, would be in the studio as well, so they thought it would be fun if i gave him advice about living in denmark, since i'd been living here for 15 years. i couldn't say no to that. so on friday afternoon, i found myself giving the following advice to obama's top fundraiser:
~ book a holiday somewhere warm and sunny in january, because it gets really dark here then.
~ buy a bike and ride it.
~ visit all of denmark, because there's a lot going on, even over here on the mainland. in fact, the top three richest people in the country all live in my geographical area.
it also didn't hurt that the ambassador was a bit of a hottie (as is the journalist for that matter).
and tho' i'd rather gone off twitter, it kinda restored my faith in it as a happening place. and it goes to show that just a little tweet will get you pretty far. so get out there and start tweeting!
7 Comments
Close this window Jump to comment formThe neatness of standing in the right place at the perfect time ...
But a tweet without a forum is still just a tweet.
September 30, 2013 at 6:21 PM
So cool! And now you've a story for the next Dane who won't talk to you, 'Do you know what happened last time I got snubbed ...?'
September 30, 2013 at 8:35 PM
I'm so shallow. I looked at that photo and thought "Oh my, he's dishy! Damn you Julie!"
Molly is right, you have some cred now and even if you never mention it YOU know what happened the last time the Danes snubbed you!
September 30, 2013 at 8:42 PM
@Bill - i credit the hashtag #tedxcph
@Molly - good point.
@SpillingInk - sadly, he's gay, but there's always the journalist. :-)
September 30, 2013 at 9:02 PM
So amazing! @ Molly,... Perfect comeback!!
October 1, 2013 at 2:38 AM
Yay! I am still excited that you got to do this :)
PS- twitter is super cool, much better than facebook!
October 2, 2013 at 1:13 AM
well done J! maybe you'll be able to shift the culture after all!!! or at least better prepare the expats! proud of you - m and s, now in Toronto - and S went to the TEDx Toronto recently for inspiration!!
October 3, 2013 at 2:57 PM