Coming Home

We’re back in Copenhagen, after a weekend in Odense, visiting Andreas’s family and having our first Thanksgiving!  It was also Andreas’s and my first Thanksgiving as a couple.  Even though all the time apart during dating and even after we were married was difficult, it’s kind of exciting that we still have some firsts to experience together.

This weekend, was also the time I felt most at home with Andreas’s family.  He stayed in Copenhagen to party it up (read: play indoor hockey) with some of his coworkers, so he wasn’t around for Friday, or a lot of Saturday (seeing as he was so tired from being out late the night before that he fell asleep at 8 pm) but it didn’t seem to really make a difference to me.  I definitely missed him still when he was gone (just because we’ve spent nearly a year apart in the past, doesn’t mean that I still don’t miss him when he’s gone for a day), but I was perfectly fine hanging out with his family on my own.  Just another thing to scribble onto the long list of things I’m grateful for this year.

Anyway, coming back home was wonderful, because we finally have one!  I really feel finally like we’re coming home.  Not coming to that place we’re staying for a few months while we wait to move to the next place we’ll stay for a few months.  So even though we’re missing a lot of important house-y things, I’m feeling more at home (in this particular apartment, and in Denmark in general) than I’ve felt in a long time, and that, I think, is really, really good for me.

I thought that making the Thanksgiving dinner my family makes would stave off my homesickness, and it did, in a way.  But to be honest, I was a lot less homesick than I thought I might be.  I couldn’t feel so lonely or far away from my home and family when I also feel like Denmark is my home and Andreas’s family also belongs a little bit to me.

PS–I still miss my family.

Voting Day: Is America Really #1?

So today is the day Americans choose their president!  I’m going to try to write as politically neutral post as possible, but I wanted to address something I’ve been seeing on my newsfeed all afternoon.  There are certain times of year when patriotism suddenly peaks: the 4th of July, Veteran’s Day, Memorial Day, etc. aaaaaand election day.

Most people who know me know that I am not a particularly patriotic person, so in general I try to ignore these surges in American pride, but there are two things that really get me.  “America is the greatest country on earth.”  and “We’re #1!”

First of all, who decided that America is the greatest country on earth?  Oh yeah, Americans.  You know, if anyone ever names themselves the “greatest” anything, it probably means that a) they’re not the greatest and b) they’re really arrogant.  Now, I wouldn’t call myself “worldly” by any means, but within my limited experiences outside of America, I’ve seen other countries, and their citizens, doing things so much better than the states does them, from tax and healthcare systems to how safe one feels walking the streets (or you know, leaving their baby out on the street) to their very ideas about patriotism.

In Denmark, you see the Danish flag everywhere, but not in the same way as you see American flags.  An American flag most often signifies pride in their country, and goes back to that “we’re #1″ feeling that almost always accompanies American patriotism. Danish patriotism is, I guess, a bit softer.  Danish flags are used for celebrations that don’t really have anything to do with patriotism at all.  They’re used to decorate birthday cakes, and during any and all parties (New Years, Christmas, etc.) They think Denmark is great, but they don’t take it so far as to say they are the best, no questions asked.

I guess what I’m saying is that I think it’s dangerous (yup, dangerous) to believe that you’re the best.  If you’re the best, where can you go from there?  You can’t be the bester.  Saying that America is the number one country on earth is like saying they do everything better than everyone else, and I think this is partly why people over here in Europe tend to roll their eyes at us.  How is America going to get out of the dunghole it’s gotten itself into if they still think they’re the bee’s knees?  How is denying that we have problems going to help us solve them?

The United States of America is great, and they do a lot of things well.  You get free drink refills and candy doesn’t cost as much as a car (and your car doesn’t cost as much as a house), but the US has a lot of work to do before it can even try to proclaim itself as the best country in the world, and it could start by working on humility.

Can we get some common sense over here?

So by now, I’m sure that everyone has heard about  the whole Todd Akin thing.  The ignorance, the “apology,” and all of the drama that ensues.

I heard about it first on Facebook, then from my husband while he was browsing Reddit, again while reading through blogs, and finally I saw it featured on the Danish six-thirty news.  American politics are embarrassing enough, with more drama than a trashy teen television show before you mix in the real idiots.

Now, my Danish has somehow still, miraculously been improving, and I actually understood a lot of what they were saying about the incident on the news.  To be fair, none of them called anyone an idiot, and didn’t mention the word ignorance, so they were a lot more objective than I’ve already been here, but while they were discussing it, it seemed that they couldn’t quite erase the bemused expressions off of their faces.  They even said “this is quite difficult for Danes to understand.”  Overall, it was even more embarrassing to see our news being covered in Europe.  They did a small spot on it again during the morning news that I was watching while attempting to finish the sleeve of my nephew’s sweater, and the anchor asked her guest why this was even an issue in the states.  The guest responded citing that American politics are quite entwined still with religion.  A president in the US is expected to pull out a few God Bless Americas every time he makes a public appearance, while she admitted that if a Danish politician were to do the same, he would be laughed at.  She mentioned that the US tends to play to and honor Christian values instead of science and common sense.  She even managed to say it in a fair, non-judgmental tone of voice.  Kudos.

Now, if some Americans heard that, they would probably say “you bet we do, and we’re proud of it!”  but even as I look at that sentence again, I can’t help but cringe and wonder when the US is going to catch up.

As an American here in Europe, I often feel the shadow of the US following me around.  I’m often the token American, and I feel like I have to answer for everything (ridiculous as it may be) that the US does.  The “US” being politicians, corporations, psychotic individuals, etc.  The title of this blog, An American Hermit Crab in Denmark, is actually the title of one of my poems, and I’m feeling more and more like I’m carrying my “home,” the US, on my back wherever I go here.  I wish it were easier to realize that the people who leave the states to live somewhere else are often the people who aren’t the most thrilled with how things are going there, and are the last people who can really answer for the shenanigans that play out on the news.

The best part about feeling the shame of having such awful human beings as leaders in my home country is seeing people rise against them.  Maybe if things get weird enough, the general public will have a breakthrough and we’ll turn, as a country, a bit more towards science and research, and if we’re lucky, maybe towards some common sense, too.

Guess what we just finished!

Well, it’s done.  We now have a fat envelope of papers filed neatly into plastic sleeves which are numbered, and indexed to perfection.  If Denmark doesn’t say yes to this, I don’t know what would convince them.  That’s right, our visa application for Denmark is finished!

It’s been a busy couple of months getting it ready.  One might think “how much work can that really be?  Just get together your certificates, copy a few passports, staple it all together and voila!” but one is most definitely wrong, when it comes to a Danish visa application.  I have to admit to a twinge of jealousy when my sister who lives with her husband in Malaysia, just had to go down to the embassy and “get” her spouse visa while I sit here wondering whether or not I will cry with relief when mine (after months and months of anxiety, worry, and paperwork) comes through.

Andreas has done the majority of the research, posting often on Ægteskab Uden Grænser.  They have helped so much, and I know we wouldn’t be where we are without them.  I feel so fortunate, and I hope that eventually we might be able to say thank you, or pass on the support we’ve had.  Now that it’s all packaged up, only waiting for an index and out next move before we send it in, we both feel a sense of almost-relief.  It’ll be final next Wednesday when we post it, and then, again, we wait.

While in the process, I have learned countless things, a few of which I will share with you here:

• You will use 150 paperclips faster than you ever imagined.
• If you think an envelope is big enough, you’re probably wrong.  Buy a bigger one.
• Even if the answer-box looks very big, write very small.
• Smile a little when you get ID pictures taken.  Apparently even small, cute me can look threatening when I’m serious.
• Patience, patience, and a little more patience
• You’ll get to know your local copy machine pretty well.
• Take a day off, always venture outside to stave off the “meh”s and the “bleh”s
• You think you have enough proof that you have lived in Sweden?  Get more proof.
• There is no limit to the number of times a gluestick can be lost.
• If we can get through all of this together, we can get through almost anything.

It’s been frustrating and difficult, and it’s far from over, but boy will I be glad when it is.  I’d like to say “bring it on Denmark!”  but what I really mean is “please, Denmark?  Please?”

Almost ready to be signed, sealed, and delivered.

 

Olympics, of course!

I LOVE the Olympics.  I love the Olympics.  Which might seem weird, because I’m not “into sports” so to say, but there’s something about the Olympics…

And I have to say, this year I even have extra love for the Olympics.  For one, it’s providing me with a distraction, so I don’t dwell on how soon we have to move (again) to another (temporary) apartment.  And trust me, having a distraction is almost necessary at this point.  Any prolonged thought given to the fact that I don’t have a permanent home on the horizon is pretty detrimental to my mental health.  I’m fed up.

But anyway, back to the Olympics!  There are three big things that I’ve been noticing as I watch this year.  We are lucky enough to get two Danish channels here in Sweden, so we’ve been watching on those.  First of all, I can’t say how happy I am that they air badminton!  I’ve always loved badminton, but I have almost never seen it played professionally before.  In the US I think it’s considered more of a joke sport, which is really unfair, and I’ve never seen coverage of it, even during the Olympics.  They also show a lot more of things like rowing and handball (which is now, hands down, my favorite team sport to watch…pun sort-of intended).  I guess I’m just lucky that my taste in sports is pretty similar to that of the Danes’.

The second thing that has made this Olympics even more of a pleasure to watch is that I’m cheering for Denmark.  Four years ago, while I watched the 2008 games, I had no idea I would be meeting my future husband in a week, or that he would be Danish, or that the next time the Olympics rolled around, I’d have a new loyalty.  That’s right.  I said it.  I’m not really cheering for the US.  That’s not to say I’m “un-cheering” for them, and if there aren’t any Danes in competition, I’ll root for the American, but I’m not super-excited about any of the medals they win.  And you know why?  It’s because they win so many!

I know that the US sends many fantastic athletes to compete in the Olympics, and that’s definitely something to be proud of, but isn’t it just a little boring when you expect to win medals across the board?   I’ve been having more fun this year, cheering on the Danish team because they don’t win everything, and they don’t mind or think that they deserve to win.  It’s always more fun to cheer for the underdogs.  The Danes are happy for any medal they can get, whether it’s bronze, silver, or gold, and they’re often happy to come in fourth or fifth, too!  There’s no attitude of expectation or entitlement, just enthusiasm and anticipation!

Which brings me to my third point.  Somehow, my Danish is managing to get better, despite the fact that we hardly remember to speak it, and I mostly watch Swedish television.  Anyway, the point is that I’m starting to understand a lot more of the Danish commentary than I expected to.  Now, I don’t understand all of it, so I can’t tell you if the sort-of subtle sexism is present, and I never watched very many sports in the states, so I can’t really compare it to other commentary I’ve heard, but I really enjoy it.  Their voices raise and get excited when the game is close, and they congratulate their opponents on a good play or hard-won point.  Also, they shut up when there’s nothing to say.  I like that a lot.

I’ve been watching badminton (with a smattering of tennis and rowing) all day, and I’m looking forward to the Danish handball game tonight.  I have to say that I have a soft spot for the Danish men’s handball team.  They’re just so cute, and I also think it’s a bit sweet how proud Denmark is of them (they won the Euro cup earlier this year).  Hooray for the Olympics!!

A Change of Heart

When I was a kid, I always figured that when I grew up, my intense love of candy and sweet things would just sort of die down.  Candy is for children, not adults.  As I grew up, I realized that that was simply not true, and throughout college, I bought those five-pound bags of M&Ms and Skittles (and Sour Patch Kids).  In my defense, I also shared (having a five pound sack of candy is a pretty good ice breaker, after all) but all-in-all, I ate a LOT of candy.

I have spoken a few times about the candy “buffets” here in Sweden, and one thing I love about them is that they’re not just for children.  Sure, it seems that brightly colored sweets with brightly colored scoops and brightly colored bags scream “THIS IS FOR CHILDREN” but here, everyone seems to ignore that and I’m more often waiting for a mild-looking middle-aged man to be finished scooping his sour watermelon gummies than I am tripping over children eager to fill their sacks to bursting.  As an adult here in Sweden, I am given free license to love candy, and love candy I do.

However.

Something is happening to me, and has only begun happening to me since I’ve come to Europe this January.  Slowly (but ever-so-surely) I find myself less attracted to heavy-duty sweet things.  This is not to say that I don’t still eat cake and candy and cookies.  But I find myself eating just a few pieces of candy here and there and the attraction to cakes and cookies is shifting.  I used to want to eat everything I saw.  If I saw a triple layer peanut butter fudge layer cake, I’d want it.  If I saw turtle cheesecake, I would want it.  If I saw Oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookies, I’d want them.

Now, I sort of go “meh.”  When I was a kid, sometimes my parents would buy one of those big boxes of leftover donuts that they had for cheap at the end of the day in the grocery-store bakery, and the next day, we would each get to choose a donut (or a half a donut) to eat for breakfast.  I can vividly remember my mother saying one morning that the donut’s frosting was too sweet, and it made her mouth tickle.  Too sweet?  It was frosting, for goodness’ sake!  My mouth didn’t tickle!  Those silly grown-ups.  Now, I can totally see where she was coming from.

I think it comes from the fact that cakes here aren’t the same as cakes in the states.  Now, I can’t really generalize about “European cakes” because I don’t know that there is such a thing, but from what I’ve experienced, the cakes are always lighter, with thinner layers, and more airy cream-like fillings, not nearly as much frosting, and much less sweet.  I’m definitely not giving up on my good ol’ American treats, but I definitely want to learn more about how to make cakes that are not so heavy, dense, and sweet.  And when I do want to make one of my standby favorites, I’ve recently discovered the best way to indulge…

…miniaturely!  I tried to get a good photo of the finished mini-slices of cake, but it wasn’t working out for me.  I figured since it wasn’t happening this time (we were mostly eating the cake after dark) that it didn’t matter much because this is how I plan on making all my layer cakes in the near future.  A side-benefit is that I can make a half or a quarter recipe, and we don’t have quite as much cake that we don’t know what to do with!  Also, they’re really cute.

Overall, I’m pretty pleased with my change in taste, and I think it goes hand-in-hand with trying to eat better.  However, my tastes have not changed so much that I want to eat licorice, so don’t worry, I’m still the same old me!

Dreams

I dreamed last night that my residence card came in the mail, but that I had to go be on America’s Next Top Model to get my picture taken for it.  Sadly, I also dreamed that my mom had another baby (17 years after the youngest) and named it Fab Yellow Submarine Moser, so I don’t think the residence card dream is a very trustworthy prophecy of what is to come.

However, when I called my mom to tell her my doofy dream, we also ended up talking about other things, and I mentioned how getting a KitchenAid mixer has been one of my “dreams.”  There’s something about a KitchenAid that represents more than just a kitchen appliance.  It means I will make bread every other day and my own noodles!  I can just imagine it whisking and beating frosting into a perfectly fluffy finished product, and warning my curious young children to keep their fingers away from it (and seeing in their eyes the desire to touch it, just to see what would happen).  And speaking of dreams, these curious young children are the most-dreamed-about-of-all.

The reason I mention all of this (aside from “because I haven’t done anything noteworthy in the past week to warrant a blog post”) is because I’ve been thinking a lot about things that are close to my heart, things I want.  A lot.  Besides a KitchenAid mixer and babies, one of the things that tops the list is a home.  Now,  I can’t claim that I never had a home and I moved around all my life and all I wanted as a kid was a steady place to live.  I had an awesome home.  I lived in a big farmhouse that I am so, so happy I can still sort of call home.  However, I realized that I have moved 5 times in the past year.  Five.  From college, to home, to Illinois, to home, to Denmark, to Sweden, and that doesn’t include all the travelling in between.  We’re moving again next week, but instead of a smooth across-the-hall move like we had hoped, things got bumped around a bit, and we’re going to end up moving all of our stuff down to the next building to live with my sister-in-law for a few days before we move it all back up again a week later to our new place which we’ll have until August somethingeth when we’ll have to move.  Again.

Besides hating the tasks of packing everything and moving over and over again, it’s beginning to take a pretty solid emotional toll on little old me.  Moving from my college town of Green Bay back home was bittersweet (the bitterness of leaving friends and the city and campus I grew to know, the sweetness of knowing I’d be getting married soon and starting a new life with my husband).  Moving from the Wisconsin farmouse to a stinky Illinois apartment in a sketchy part of town was a bit heartbreaking.  Moving to Europe was amazing (knowing I’d not have to have a long-distance relationship with Andreas) and horrible (saying what felt like an awfully permanent goodbye to so many people, places, and yes, things.).

I guess I’m just “over it.”  I’m not a young restless soul with a thirst for adventure.  I’m a crotchety old soul with a thirst for a cup of coffee and a place to plant my roots.  I want to buy a bed, and plates, and not say to myself “should I really get this, if we’re just going to have to lug it around for the next _____ amount of time?”  I know that this, along with my KitchenAid mixer and my longed-for babies, is just on the horizon, but the many moves in the meantime sort of cloud my view, and I’m left feeling a bit helpless, a bit homesick, and a bit detached.

Anyway, tomorrow is my first International Knitting Group meeting, and I have pretty high hopes!  Wish me luck with my nerves, and all this home-wanting angst.  Why am I not 45 yet?!

Escaping America

In my early-morning wandering of the internet, I stumbled upon this semi-facetious article concerning how little support our president has from some Americans.  He ends the article urging idiots to flee the country.  The article was harsher than I’ll ever be, but it got me thinking a bit.

Now, the actual reason that I left the states was because I fell in love with a Dane, married him, and actually want to live with him, but the fact remains that we could have lived in the states.  Once we were married, we could’ve applied for a greencard, most likely gotten one, and gotten Andreas a fine job in America.  We could’ve lived there happily, had our family, and gotten old and wrinkly.  People often ask me why we’re not living in the states.  Why we chose to live in Denmark (especially since the road to eventually living there has been rocky).

The most basic answer to this is: our babies.  While we live here, it doesn’t matter if Andreas is laid off.  It wouldn’t matter if he was disabled, or I was disabled, or if we both had very menial jobs for our entire lives.  Our children would have healthcare.  They would be able to go to the dentist every year.  They’d be able to get a good education without heaping debt on their heads.  Andreas does have a good job, and chances are, we could have taken care of everything our family would need, and then some. But I still feel better living in a place where everyone else is also taken care of.  Where Andreas will pay higher taxes, if he gets a higher-paying job.

I feel like we could trust ourselves to “give back,” and make sure we never got too rich, and always helped those less fortunate.  But sometimes, it’s hard to know exactly how to do that, and honestly, I don’t trust everyone to do the same (How could I, when the gap between the rich and the poor is so wide and sparsely populated?).

One big reason, besides security, that I moved to Europe is because I agree here.  Things make more sense here.  We should take care of one another, and give everyone an equal chance.  Isn’t it a bit funny that here, in the most “atheistic” country is where I see some of the most “Christian” values?

The US could be a great country.  It is, in many ways.  But the need for change is enormous.  The best thing about the states is that it is allowed to push for change.  It’s not easy, by any means, but it’s allowed.  It’s sad that in a country that could be so progressive, people who want security, fairness, and equality feel the need to “escape.”

Another sad part?  That I was always too lazy, and too chicken, to ever invoke any of the change I always wanted in my community.  But maybe I could have if I didn’t have to work a couple of jobs while going to school full-time just so that I could have things to eat.  (Just kidding, I’ll always be a chicken).

Culture Shock

Let me begin this post by saying that I am not, in any real way, experiencing culture shock.  However, a friend of mine is studying abroad in Paris this semester (after studying abroad in Madagascar) and I was reading her blog post on culture shock.  Except…she’s not experiencing culture shock either…let me explain.

After being in Madagascar, and experiencing culture shock basically every minute of every day, she came back to the states for about a month and experienced a wicked bout of reverse culture shock after which she has traveled to Paris and feels like she’s experiencing..well…nothing.

She said at one point that she was speaking with a French person about the differences between French and American culture and couldn’t really think of many.

I know I’m in Denmark, not France, and I’ve never experienced anything particularly exotic, but I still beg to differ.  I notice a few dozen little differences every day, and while it’s not culture shock it’s sort of like…culture…tingling.

I’ve noticed that people don’t eat “lunch” here.  They eat “middagsmad” or “eftermiddagsmad” which means “noon food” or “afternoon food.”  And while this may seem like the same thing, it’s generally a lot lighter than our lunches.

I’ve noticed that people use prams a lot more than strollers.  (Might I insert here that it’s getting very difficult not to rave about how wonderful everything is here instead of merely remarking on a few small daily differences I’ve noticed.)

People here ride their bikes and walk places, and normal people take the busses, not just people who have lost their licenses to too many DUIs.

One word: Roundabouts.  (by the way, I love that “roundabout” is, in fact, one word.)

These are just little things that don’t really seem to make a difference, but to me, it just adds to the atmosphere, and I really feel like I’m in Denmark, not America.  In time, I think that the novelty will wear off and they will just be everyday life, but I hope I can put myself in a mindset to consciously remember how much I like this place, as life becomes more “everyday.”