A Year in Denmark

Today is November 30th. Last year this time, we were arriving in Denmark to start the current chapter of our lives. Can you believe it has been 1 year today? We certainly can't. The year has FLOWN by. For some odd reason I keep thinking we arrived here in February or March and I have to remind myself that we came the last day of November. It has been a wonderful 1st year back in Denmark. We have had a completely different experience than we did in 2002-2003. Which I think it is good because it has provided us with a more well rounded opinion on Denmark and that in turn helped us to understand even deeper what Denmark is, and what it means to be Danish.

We quickly remembered what we fell in love with here and what we missed so terribly. Our friends and family in the states will probably tell you that we hold Denmark on a pedestal. This pedestal is so high that often I think it has become an annoyance. (Seriously though, Denmark REALLY is THAT great!) On the other hand, and as a shock to folks back home, this past year we finally found a few negative things that we hadn't seen before. And while it can be sad to us that we did find these negative things, it actually somehow strengthened our relationship with Denmark. I suppose loving a country is no different than loving another human. Your love is stronger when you learn flaws and love not despite but because of them.

The best way, I can sum up our current feelings about Denmark is to quote something from a book I recently read.

"Chris asked, Do you think he was happy?

Yes, But he was thinking that however much Marek loved it, it could never be his world. Not really. He must have always felt a foreigner there, a person separated from his surroundings, because he had come from somewhere else. "

That actually sounds a little sad. But the point I am making is, we LOVE it here. We LOVE almost everything about life here. But the more we learn, the deeper we get into knowing this country, the more we realize, we will never be Danish. I think if we stayed our whole lives here (Just as Marek did in the above quote), we would become very close, but it will always be obvious us, that we clearly will always be foreigners here. Maybe its because we doubt we will ever find ourselves loving "Anders And"the way the Danes do, we will never master remoulade, I'll never be able to ride a bike in high heels and a skirt/dress and if we can help it lakrids (Salted liquorice) will never enter our mouths again! :o)

I'm so very excited to see what the next year in Denmark brings us and what new adventures we will have and what new things we will learn. I'm excited that this next year we will be able to enjoy Denmark without the language barrier. It is amazing how much you don't learn about a country if you don't speak or understand the language even if they all speak yours. I'm happy to say that we don't have to say, "I don't speak danish" or "I speak a little danish" anymore, and that we can finally say, "I speak bad danish" :)

Some of you will remember that when we moved here last year, we changed the name of this blog from, "Learning to Love Dallas" to "Learning to Love our Lives Abroad" along with changing the appearance of the blog. While I am not changing the name again, I did decide that since you have been looking at the same layout for exactly a year, I'd give it a nice makeover.