Feeling Beautiful

What you are about to read is an actual conversation that is about things that actually matter.  Warning: men may want to not read this entry.

me: Today was a good day cuz
       I felt beautiful today

Unnamed friend: Oh I love feeling beautiful!

me: but then the wind came and messed with that
       Danish wind is unquestioned in its ability to ruin perfect hair

UF: uggh

me: I know. But its ok. b/c I was beautiful for awhile and thats enough

UF: I'm getting a hair appointment today. Then I'll feel beautiful too.

Feeling beautiful really matters, in fact, it may be a basic human right that at least all women should have the right to access.  I've spent hours lamenting what Danish water is doing to my hair.  How do I wash it?  What products work over here?  Who knew so much wind would require new facial moisturizers and new hair conditioners?  Europe doesn't feel the need to have the same hair colors as the US and I can't seem to find that exact shade that says ... "ahhh this is Jenny the way Jenny should be".

Its also curlier here, which forces new hair decisions.  How do I style this?  I think I want the hair of Shiri Appleby on the left.  I like the bangs and the slight curl.  But are bangs the way to go? 

Here are two options.  Jenny with and without bangs. 

Its a tough decision, but in the end, beauty is as much an attitude, a character descriptor, and a sense of being as it is a physical condition.  I can live with that. 

But deep down .... I want to be them all; beautiful outside and inside.  Or more accurately gorgeously me in all that I was created to be.

I cried because I didn't know what else to do

I could of been mad and I was, or I could of been confused and I was, but in the end I was too many emotions and I simply cried.  Life has been swirling around me in its varied complexities and its been hard to know what to think about any of the things that have happened in the past week.

Somedays the world becomes very small and you connect with people on a personal level that transcends any culture you are working out of.  In Haiti its not the politics that anyone is concerned about - its the children and the survivors.  In my program were no longer concerned about all of our cultural differences and instead are banding together to understand an ambigious and slightly unfair academic culture.  In my church it's not about all of the things that can annoy us about each other, but since we realize that we are not guaranteed visa stays or even unlimitless days together, we need to capitalize on the time we have.

I spent a day crying when life seemed to crash down on me, but I'm done now.  I cried for me and I cried for my friends, but today I'd rather go forward, hope in God for tomorrow, and diligently work towards what I see before me.  It's time to rechoose hope.

You would never see an American doing ...

My last blog outlined a few of the glaring cultural mis-steps that I've made in the last week, but there are some things that I still look at in wonder.  Serenity made the comment that, "There are very few things I can never imagine an American doing. There are so many different kinds of us..." Which made me start thinking, what are some of the quintessentially Danish things that Americans (at least the vast majority of us) would never do?

1) Think that salted black licorice is candy. This fact alone makes me question if Danes actually have taste buds.

2) Think that bread and cheese a breakfast make.  Just bread and cheese.  If you are truly adventurous ... put some jam on that cheese or have two breakfast rolls with different kinds of cheeses.  [Sigh] Our weekly brunches make me long for pancakes, biscuits and gravy, omelets, and hashbrowns.

3) Bike through the snow and ice in high heels.  I'm not really for sure what to say about this phenomenon, but I think it is commendable.

4) Keeping the time-code of Jente.  This one is a bit tricky but, Jente is a deeply held Danish belief that everyone is equal.  So equal that you would never show up late or early.  You show up on time.  This means if you arrive at someone's house too early you stand out on the doorstep until the exact time of your arrival.  Heaven forbid if you are late!  One of my professor's continually tells me that "It is your shame to be late."  I seem to be unable to hit the on your nose type of time and fail quite utterly here.

5) Refusing to go anywhere without looking fabulous.  In my first year of college, I went to my 7 am class in my pajamas for an entire semester. When I told this fact to the Danes they were astonished.  What was I thinking?  You must look good when you step outside your house.  Gone are the days that I could leave in sweatpants, pajama pants, hair in a bun, athletic shoes on, or without makeup.  Now I look good all of the time.  (Even to go next door to the Pakistani grocer for milk.) Its a sad development. 

6) Keep their wardrobe colors tightly constrained to black and nuetrals.  This entire country wears black and only black.  There are occassional bits of color, but I think they are from poor unsuspecting tourists that have yet to discover that black reigns supreme.  On rare occassions, I feel free to flaunt my love of color and people just stare at me, which is a bit weird, but I choose to think they love it so much that they can't stop looking. 

All in all, I love it here.  Its interesting that there is nothing like Wal-mart, you rarely eat out, and everything closes by 6pm.  You can change, you can adapt, you can learn the steps of the Danish dance.  It helps that despite the differences that people are people the world over and they can be just as crazy as any American I have ever met.  These pictures make my point better than I could express it in words. 

"You would never see a Dane do that..."

I've heard that phrase more this week than any other time since arriving in Denmark.  It must have been a very un-Danish week for me.  In retrospect,  I also found out it was un-Swedish and un-British so I'm thinking I was Icelandic.  (Having never been to Iceland, means that I was probably simply American.)

So here are some things you would never do in Denmark: 
1) Use the oven to make something that is just for you.  (Guilty.)
2) Wear athletic shoes to keep the snow out.  (Guilty.)
3)Turn on too many lights. Instead use candles to make up the difference. (Candles when you can have electrical brightness?)  Guilty.
4) Use the Danish language incorrectly.  I thought I was saying that I was sore, but instead I told everyone that I had murdered myself.  (Jeg radbrækket mig.)  Fantastic.
5) Climb on counters to reach high shelves.  (Guilty.) In my defense I'm shorter than the entire rest of the population, but step stools are apparently available.

On another note:  In London, they don't use the phrase goofing off.  How sad, since it is a fantastically useful phrase.  They do have a phrase for wasting your time, but not for the having fun part of goofing off.  So they asked me what you would say if you were wasting time and I answered, "I was piddling around."  Apparently there, piddling means peeing.  So ya, I just told everyone there that I was peeing around in the kitchen.  Fabulous.

Life is funny and some of the mistakes need to just roll off your back.  I'll do better next week or I'll just have to laugh at myself again.  In the meantime, I'm imagining myself on a lake, like Joshie above, and the wind is in my hair and I'm screaming for all I'm worth with the pure joy of speed and wind.  That's not so Danish either, but I think that's ok.

Six months in and what I miss most.

Two years ago when I was moving to England, (Oh you missed that? No worries it didn't happen.) I came across a list that told me what I would miss the most from the US.  I actually blogged about it back then and now that I am 4 days shy of having lived in Denmark for 6 months it seemed time to evaluate.

1) That old list told me that I would miss food and I do.  There aren't words to describe how much I miss some of the food.  These are at the top of my list: Campbells soup (you use them to make so many other things), pop tarts, sausage, American bread, chocolate chips, anything mexican, and anything Chinese.  Though to be honest, I have adapted and I now prefer eating mostly vegetables.

2) I miss speaking English and hearing English.  I'm learning to love Danish but, how could I explain missing a language that makes sense to me?

3) But more than anything, I miss people. 
Here's some examples of the people I love on another continent.  Serenity, Kristin, and Rebecca.  I've gotten the privilege to live with all of them at some time and their quirky senses of humor and ability to dress in black make me love them.

I miss kids.  This is Payton, my friend Jamie's oldest, and Serenity's boys, Jon, Jake, and Drew. These kids let me play with them for hours, challenge me in epic video game battles, allow me to play dress-up, and alternately believe I am a princess or a ninja warrior.  I adore them.

Teenagers.  They are fantastic.  Courtney and Meghann are some of all-time favorite teenagers and Nikki who just teenagerdom behind her, was in that category not so long ago.  They are the ones that can convince me to try crazy things, believe sleep-overs are fun, and make me laugh more than anyone else I know.




So that old list was partially right, I do miss things that are quintessentially American but, you adapt and you move on.  What you don't move on from are people.  I feel blessed to live in a world where living on another continent is not like living on Mars, untouchable and out of reach, but its more like living a long drive away.  Someday soon I'll make that drive, but until then I can just let everyone in the US know how much I love them.

Dinosaurs and such

I popped over to London for the weekend with Ellen, one of my housemates, and I got the opportunity to fulfill a lifelong wish: dinosaur bones.  (The picture is not of any actual exhibit in the museum, but of Jake, my friend Serenity's youngest boy who loves dinosaurs almost as much as I do.  I thought of him the entire time I was staring at those bones.) Apparently, most Brits have seen the dinoaurs, not dinosaur-Jake but the actual dead ones, countless times and they are just boring bits of rock/bone to them, but to two country girls transplanted into huge European cities, they are phenomenal.  So we went and they were indeed ... BIG.  Thats really all there is to say about them. 

We then went to the Victoria and Albert museum and became highly cultured and learned all number of things, but our favorite part of the overwhelming culture were molds that were taken of other famous European landmarks.  (i.e Trajan's tower, David, and various other things that are too cultured for me to remember their names.) Our reasoning for loving these specific items was that they were so... BIG.  Apparently we like big things. 

We also like being able to speak the language.  The whole weekend we just kept looking at each other and saying things like, "Washing machines in English are so much easier to use."  "Its weird how when there is a problem with the train and they let you know in English, how much better it is than just sitting there and hoping there is nothing that you really needed to know in all of that Danish that was just spoken."

London, what an amazing place, it not only feels free to have childhood wish fulfillment, but they speak English.  Phenomenal.

Sverige vs. Danmark

Its a centuries old rivalry that I am now living in and trying to decide the victor.  Which is the better country; Sweden or Denmark?  I live in Denmark, my family lives in Sweden.  I live in a large city, my parents live in a small, oh so small, town.  Denmark has more stores, but Sweden's stores are much bigger.  Denmark's national colors are red and white (not such good colors for me) and Sweden's are blue and yellow (yay blue!).  Its a tough one for me to decide.  Perhaps pictures will serve as undeniable data to help determine a victor. 

This would be known as snow; both beautiful and cold.  Sweden or more accurately, Älmhult was covered in the beautiful white stuff, while Copenhagen was cold and snow free.

Point to Sweden.

Pizza and Kebabs in Sweden are simply better.  I am not biased in any way on this issue, it has nothing to do with the fact that I have to have a kebab in Denmark, I know that the kebabs could not compare. 

Point to Sweden. Sverige: 2  Danmark: 0

Sweden has a game called "Assassins" that involves you buying and selling on the black market and then hiring assassins to kill off all of the other players.  This game is a Christmas tradition in our house.  Its actually illegal to sell this game anymore, which makes it all the cooler. 

Overwhelming point to Sweden. 
Sweden: 3  Denmark: 0

Unfortunately for Sweden, Danes are crazy.  No day in the entire year displays their craziness better than New Year's Eve.  There are fireworks, but that is commonplace in Europe, what makes the Danes stand out is that their fireworks might just kill you.  Everyone is shooting them, not those little bottle rocket types like in the US, but the massive, Disneyland-would-be-proud-of-you kind.  So not only are fireworks going off in a 360 view, but some are coming towards you. 

Resounding point of fun to Denmark.

On the food part of this debate, Denmark has an ice cream cake that may be one of the best culinary inventions known to man.  Every type of ice cream is represented as is marzipan and an unidentified crust.  Kebabs may be good, but this may be better. 
Point to Denmark.

Sweden: 3  Denmark: 2.

Finally, dancing.  Swedes are reserved creatures, while Danes come out of their shells for some good fun.  New Year's involves not only fireworks, but dancing.  Of course you don't need to have any real moves, in fact the less you have the better.  Its about fun, not talent.

Point to Denmark for loving the untalented.

Sverige: 3  Danmark: 3

So the debate still rages. For me there doesn't need to be a winner; I'm just happy to get to live a bit in both of them.