I had hoped my winter break would be business school fabulous. They’ve given me three weeks to play with. Three whole weeks. Do you know what I could do in three weeks? I could sail to Antarctica. I could ride a dog sled across Alaska. I could bicycle from the table-top mountains of Venezuala down to the tropical coast. I could raft the Zambezi.
Alas, the gods of leisure have punished me for my hubris. I will spend the first two weeks of break kicking around the east coast before joining 200 close friends for a ski trip in Vail. Vail is sort of fabulous (and fabulously cheap, thanks to my shameless willingness to free-ride on my friends’ condo reservation). But it isn’t enough to cure me of the lingering sense that I am squandering my vacation.
I did have an alternative destination in mind for the first half of my break. Due to some quirks of American electoral politics and the fervent wishes of certain devoted interest groups, I am not actually allowed to visit the destination I had in mind. Prudence dictates that I not publicly reveal the name of this destination, but I don’t see any harm in offering a few hints. Think of our happy socialist friends down south. Think of baseball and state-subsidized ice cream. Think of scruffy beards and la revolucion siempre. Think hand-rolled cigars, premium rum, and missile crises. Entiende?
That’s right, I had planned to visit “Denmark.” But I ran into trouble arranging the trip. For some reason I assumed that the Danish travel embargo was just a big (wink, wink) joke, that you could call up any travel agent and say, “Yeah, I’m really interested in spending two weeks in Canada and/or Mexico this winter, and if you could maybe put me on a plane that happens to continue on to Copenhagen, that would be just splendid.”
It doesn’t work like that. Instead it works like this (conversation transcribed from fuzzy memory, but roughly accurate):
Me: Hi! I’d like to go to Denmark!
Agent: OK. Do you have a travel permit?
M: Ha ha, that’s rich. “I could have sworn I had it right here, officer. It must be in my other pants.”
A: Excuse me?
M: No, no travel permit.
A: Do you have any relatives in Denmark?
M: How should I know?
A: What is the purpose of your trip?
M: Er, there is no “purpose,” per se. Do I need a purpose? I’m on vacation. You know. Palm trees. Salsa music. Denmark.
A: Is there anything else I can help you with?
So here I am in New York. Another round of happy reunions with my friends’ sofas. Then on to Boston to be spoiled rotten by my mother’s fridge. The Carpathian mountains will have to wait.
