Min Danske Familie

On Sunday night, I did the hardest thing I’ve done all semester. I said goodbye to my visiting family.

Most of you probably didn’t know I had a visiting family, and really, that’s my own fault. I haven’t written anything about them all semester, which I’ll blame on my constant business, but that’s a poor excuse. Some of you might not even know what a visiting family is! In that case, I’ll explain. The visiting family program at DIS matches students up with Danish families, giving participants an opportunity to learn more about Danish culture, traditions, and everyday life, as well as the chance to create meaningful relationships. Since I was not living in a homestay, and really wanted a taste of family life in Denmark, I signed up for the program, and got matched with a family a few days before I arrived in Copenhagen.

There they are in the picture above – Lene, me, Oliver, Amanda, and Jens, posing for the 900th time for a decent picture of us all. (Missing from this picture is Anna, their rabbit. Unfortunately she was not available to be photographed that night).

I distinctly remember being so nervous the day I first met them. Would they like me? I wondered. Would I like them? What would we talk about? What if I didn’t have anything interesting to say? Or messed up somehow? I was worried, but I shouldn’t have been. None of my fears were realized. I feel like I got the best family in all of Denmark.

On my first visit, went went to see Fredericksborg Castle in Hillerød, which isn’t far from where they live. This was my first visit to a castle, and I can’t imagine having one just right down the road from me, especially not one so beautiful. After a tour, some ice cream, a day of playing Mario Kart and ping pong, and a delicious dinner, I knew we were going to get along just fine.

And so we did. I followed up that visit by joining them for Amanda and Oliver’s birthday party, where I learned to make traditional Danish lagkage (layer cake), and got the chance to talk to a lot of their family members about culture in Denmark, culture in America, where they overlapped, and where they didn’t. Surrounded by candles, Danish flags, and good conversation, this was the first moment I truly understood the meaning of the Danish word hygge, a feeling and experience that reemerged every time I visited that house in Hillerød.

With countless Snapchats and Facebook messages supplementing our time apart, I never felt too far from my family, even when my own busy travel schedule prevented me from seeing them as often as I’d liked.

On Sunday, I got a little taste (figuratively and literally) of Danish Christmas. Amanda and I made æbleskiver, the name of which is deceiving, as they don’t actually have any apples in them. But that’s alright, because these little guys are delicious in their own right. Essentially, they’re little round pancake balls, which you can then cover in sugar or jam, or as I did both. After this little snack, we went down the road and picked out their Christmas tree, and not long after I finally got to learn what handball was all about! Lene plays on an adult team, so I went to watch her match, and learned a few tricks from Amanda (who plays herself and is scary good).

We finished off the night with some dinner and risalamande, the traditional Danish Christmas dessert of rice pudding with almonds and cherry sauce. In the pudding, a shelled almond is hidden, and whoever gets the almond gets a small prize – chocolates, some trinket, a marzipan pig. Yeah, I know. Of course, if you do get the almond, the trick is to hide that you have it for as long as possible, so everyone else will eat the whole dish in search of the almond. But the winner of the night was Oliver, and being pretty excitable, he didn’t hide it for long (which honestly I was thankful for. Risalamande is delicious, but man was I full).

I learned a lot about Danish culture from my experience. I learned to spot the differences in their home and my own. But I also learned that Lene, Jens, Oliver, and Amanda are more similar to an American family than they are different. Oliver is just like any 11 year old who loves to play games on his iPhone, and who loves to kick my butt at Mario Kart. Amanda is just like any 13 year old who loves Justin Bieber and The Body Shop, though she’s certainly the best teenage baker I’ve ever met. While it’s our differences that make us interesting, it is those things we have in common that unite us. The most human similarities transcend national borders. And family, in my opinion, is one of those things.

To Lene, Jens, Oliver, and Amanda – since we’re friends on Facebook (and I’m always sharing these posts), I have a feeling you might be reading this. And if all that I said on Sunday night wasn’t enough, I have one last thing to say:

I will miss you more than anything. You have made my time here in Copenhagen so incredibly special, and for that I cannot thank you enough. You are so wonderful and kind, and I hate to be leaving that behind in just five short days. But because I’m sad to leave, I know I have been very lucky. I don’t know for certain when I’ll see you next, but I do know that you will always be my Danish family.

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