This book picks up the adventure the day I came home to Denmark after eight years in South Africa. I had no job, and I moved into a new apartment that had once been part of a dental clinic—great bones, wrong anatomy. I had to redraw the boundaries with the neighboring units, build a bathroom, install a brand-new kitchen where none had ever been, lay the floors—the works. It was a huge undertaking.
Somewhere between the jackhammer and the paintbrush, it hit me: I was fifty-nine. After so many years abroad, finding my footing on the Danish job market might not be easy. It wasn’t. I applied for anything that looked even remotely possible—often far outside my lane as an architect and project manager. On average I sent five applications a week; when I wasn’t rebuilding the flat, I was writing cover letters.
Then I stumbled across a posting from the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They needed someone to oversee the physical security of buildings. I wasn’t a specialist in embassy hardening, but I had seen more than a few embassies around the world. I interviewed, sat the tests, passed, returned for another round—and one day the phone rang. The head of section offered me the job. And just like that, ten years of state service—and fresh adventure—began.
In these pages I share some of the projects I worked on—always within the strict bounds of the confidentiality I’m sworn to, now and forever. I hope you’ll find the stories both revealing and entertaining.
Warmly,
David Wiik Udbjørg
P.S. Along the way I tweaked my name. I adopted my maternal grandmother’s maiden name, Wiik, as a middle name—a word steeped in North Norway: Engeløya, the village of Vikhamn, fish, wild nature, and a family line that reaches back to the Viking Age. It feels exactly right.