Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship

Nathaniel in Denmark

The Swimmer

“The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.”

– G. K. Chesterton

Reverse culture shock – strange term, right? The phrase gives me this mental picture of a swimmer feeling a literal shock from jumping into the ocean in February and then, like a VHS tape comically rewinding the scene, experiences an almost more disorienting shock at uncontrollably reversing back onto the shore. As anyone who swims in chilly water knows well, your body gets used to the water temperature after a while and you can even feel comfortable. Emerging from the water to return to familiar land often feels more disconcerting than the inward plunge. And the crazy thing is that with travel, we willingly choose to be the swimmer.

A bystander on the beach might ask the swimmer, “Don’t you feel cold? Wouldn’t you prefer to stay on the beach where the sun can warm you up?” After the four months I spent in Denmark, I think the question I would ask the swimmer is, “Are you different because you dived in and came back?” and I’m sure the answer would be “Yes.”

I’ve definitely been changed by my time abroad. Not all of my experiences were “good” in the sense of enjoyable, but they all affected me and helped me develop a new understanding of the world and my place in it. Like the winter-swimmer, I developed a sense of comfort in the once-chilly water of a new culture. And I, too, felt this weird sense of backwards motion as I returned to the culture I grew up with in the U.S. A week since my plane landed in Boston, that feeling is starting to subside and is being replaced with a mixture of familiarity, nostalgia, and (to my disappointment) boredom. It’s definitely good to be home; I missed my family and friends, and spending time with them makes me really happy. But in down-time or if something sparks a memory, I find myself missing the exhilaration, anticipation, and even the anxiety that accompanied exploring a foreign place.

The consolation I’m left with is that “Yes” I am different because of my time abroad. As Chesterton says, I do find some small things that I would once take for granted exciting and full of possibility like a new toy at Christmas. I never realized how BIG almost everything in the U.S. is – milk and juice, for example, is only sold in 1-litre cartons in Denmark, and my host family hardly ever had snack-food because it was so expensive. Opening the fridge and pantry in my home was almost overwhelming at first! I felt like it was all disproportionately large. The wonderful familiarity of seeing signs in English, hearing radio hosts and TV anchors speaking English without an accent, and simply knowing that everyone around me was from my country were privileges I never knew I should cherish. The U.S. was foreign in that it felt different, or I felt different, than I did back in August.

Now, I’m not worried about my future. I learned that I really love travelling, so maybe I’ll backpack some more? I’d really like to explore the U.S. – I’d like to see Yellowstone, mountain bike the Appalachian trail (or part of it!), listen to a super-indie band perform in Seattle, eat lobster in Maine. I want to meet people from all over, learn about their lives, their worldviews. I want to share my experiences with as many people as possible – for the personal gratification of doing so but more so on the slim chance that maybe something I say will have meaning for them. I know I’ll graduate in the spring, not with a fantastic GPA but a respectable one. I know my path will lead to medical school, and I know I’ll eventually become a doctor. But if my study-abroad experience taught me anything, it taught me to enjoy the things I don’t know, to delight in filling in the gaps between the “I know’s.”

I’m excited to explore them.

Conservation and Freedom

Danes love Denmark. Their countryside in Jylland heals them and calls them back to a simpler, more rural past; their access to the ocean feeds them and reminds them of their Viking ancestry (of which they are lightheartedly proud). As a country, the Danes try to do everything they can to preserve the richness of both their nature and their culture.

Two weeks into my semester in Denmark, I had the opportunity to visit an island called Samso (pronounced Sam-soo) about 3 hours northwest of Copenhagen. I’m deeply involved in sustainability efforts back at my campus (I went so far as to take a job picking recyclables out of the trash – have you ever stuck your arm shoulder-deep into a trashcan after a weekend party to fish out a misplaced bottle?). I’ve struggled with how to make my individual efforts count, especially when faced with mass-ambivalence towards “environmental awareness.” In the U.S. it seems like saying words like “environmental,” or “green” often flip some sort of off-switch in a person that causes them to passively ignore what you’re saying. It seems like too big of a problem (and in reality it is) for anyone to meaningfully contribute to a solution.

Visiting Samso was, therefore, inspirational. Back in the 1990’s, the residents won a Denmark-wide contest to create a 100% sustainable region, and since then they’ve made it a reality. Over the weekend, I saw the many innovative ways they did so. Gigantic 8-MegaWatt turbines drilled deep in the ocean floor waved a welcome as we approached the island. Using hay and heather grown across the island, the islanders insulate their houses, produce heat, and thatch their roofs. Large steel vats of water aligned in neat rows like solar panels soak up heat from the sun and then flow into people’s houses – and real solar panels decorate many of the more modern homes. An Energy Academy modeled after a Viking longhouse educates residents and communities worldwide about Samso’s efforts. Although they still import some gas, the energy that the share-owned wind turbines produce offsets this import.

Seeing a whole country (and especially this one region) dedicated to living as sustainably as they can was refreshing. I felt like I’d been walking in a swamp of lethargy and apathy and then been thrown a lifeline to pull myself into a new way of thinking. As I came to realize, the average Dane doesn’t necessarily think about living sustainably. Like so many other aspects of their life, they trust those sorts of big issues (e.g. healthcare) to the government and then take pride in following the programs it sets up. For example, my host family spoke with pride about Samso, and told me about all the wind turbines and other renewable sources Denmark uses to produce energy. But my host-brother still took fairly long showers (longer than me!) and they threw out leftovers fairly often. Both my host parents had cars, but they were limited in these luxuries by the high taxes placed on energy and water – they could only afford to have them because they had solar panels on their roof that provided about 90% of their energy. Toilets all had dual-flush functions (less water for fluids, etc); gas and even fatty foods were highly taxed to discourage their use.

The truly innovative aspect of Denmark’s approach to many societal problems is that they keep them as societal problems. They don’t ask individuals to tackle problems like water shortages or global warming on their own; instead, they set up economic and social incentives that set boundaries on what residents can do. Can we apply this to the U.S.? I’m not so sure. Above almost every other ideal, we hold freedom vital to our national identity. Wouldn’t putting higher taxes on resources as Denmark does essentially limit our freedom? Wouldn’t it be a gross violation of the liberty we hold so dear? An example of this mindset is the backlash against the ban on supersized sodas created by New York City’s former mayor Michael Bloomberg. However, I think we’re incorrectly defining what freedom is!

What I’d suggest is that we re-examine our concept of freedom. Since the Enlightenment ideas of Locke and Hobbes, we’ve had a notion that people enter social systems to avoid a chaotic “state of warre;” We still believe that you can do what you want until your actions limit someone else’s freedom. As this country matures (we’re still youngsters compared to many others!) I really hope we can grow to see that having largely unlimited, unrestricted access to resources actually limits everyone’s freedom – overuse creates a tragedy of the commons where soon no one has the freedom to use a resource because it’s quite simply gone. I think Denmark as a country, and individual Danes, recognize this; from what I saw, in trusting societal problems to society, they don’t have to worry about them. Despite living in an essentially socialistic society, could the Danes actually be more free than U.S.?

Friendship

How the heck do they spend so much time talking?! It’s ridiculous! Parties last from 2 o’clock on a Friday afternoon to 5 a.m. Saturday morning, and they’re talking the whole freakin’ time. Blah blah blah, yak yak yak. And they’re always smiling – you’d think they had a surgical implant that left them with permanent grins. And I have homework to do, blog posts for a scholarship I need to write, a future (really really important) career to plan….RIGHT NOW. They’re too happy…it doesn’t make sense. Something must be wrong underneath it all, right?

Wrong. So very, very wrong.

I’m honestly ashamed that those were some of my thoughts about Danish social life after being thrust into it for a couple of weeks. The complete change in my attitude towards them and towards friendship thankfully has, I hope, left me a better person, and such a complex shift is no easy notion to convey using mere words. I won’t attempt that here. But I think that a start is to give you some candid vignettes of my feelings and thoughts throughout the change. I realize that what I’ve written can seem choppy – but I think it’s the closest I can come to accurately describing the change. Each paragraph represents a fundamentally different mindset I was in towards the Dane’s focus on social interaction; I’ve written a short conclusion to try to give them some context. It’s an unusual format, but I hope something of value comes through…

 

Late October

Nate, come on. This isn’t so bad, I think you need to slow down. Sure partying with your fraternity brothers at Oktoberfest was fun, and you unexpectedly ran into friends from your program in Salzburg and explored with them. And it felt wicked classy to view the innumerable masterpieces in the Vatican with Jeffrey the art history major you met at DIS. But you enjoyed those times because you slowed down. Because you made time to get to know the people you were with. Isn’t this the same? Didn’t you come to Denmark to explore their culture? This is part of it! So let the worries about your work go…it doesn’t matter as much as this.

 

After the Studytour with My Core-Course to Sweden and Estonia

Wow you’ve missed these guys. Your host mother Dot can be such a control-freak but it just means she cares, and the family interrupts you working for the same reason! You know, I think you made pretty good friends with Ryan, Dan, Rachel, and Saman over this break. Sure, you’re not best friends, but it was fun to hang out with them. And once again, you weren’t worried about working. It’s stupid to say but I really think you’re better at interacting somehow. You’ve always been a bit socially awkward – case in point you used to bounce your leg and fidget when talking with anyone. But you felt so much more relaxed when talking with people during this trip! And more confidant, and even clever? I think you’ve been too focused on what you need to do; you haven’t been appreciating the fun people around you.

 

3 a.m., A Neighborhood Birthday Party

God, this celebration is still going? It’s so late, and everyone here is WIDE awake. And they’re just talking! Well, I guess the family over there is dancing and Anton is playing a game with his friends…this is really cool. I really want to be interested and interesting enough to be able to hold a conversation for this long! It’s incredible. Ok go talk to that guy, you haven’t met him yet.

 

Last Day in Copenhagen

Well, this is good I’m hanging out with my friends but I’m worried. They’re so new to me but I feel like I know them better than my friends, even my brothers, back at F&M. I guess I became friends with them back home by doing things together; Ryan and I did the relief trips to the south, Allen and I were roommates, Josh and I explored town. But do I really know them? Do I really know these four degenerates (and of course they’re not actually that bad) sitting around me and talking? Man, I haven’t been a good friend to my buddies back home at all – I’ve always put work first. How am I going to make it up to them in a single semester?

 

One week since coming home

I can’t believe this. I feel like I just got off the Tower of Terror at Disneyland – my body is back on familiar ground but my mind is still pumping with adrenaline and excitement. How can I possibly understand everything that happened in the last four months? How can anyone else? But being so worried about not being a good friend was stupid – of course I know my buddies! I think you just got tossed too quickly into having to worry almost exclusively about who you were socially. It’s incredible how much the Danes care about friendship – but it’s got to be both a blessing and curse though! For sure, that guy who just got divorced must have hated having to act so happy at the dinner. And it’s such a drain to have to be “on” all the time, to be ready to immediately put aside what you’re doing to laugh or comment. But it’s good too, right? They’re showing they care about each other, and it’s got to be part of their Janteloven precept that no one is better than anyone else. I don’t know, I definitely like just talking more than I used to.

Coda

As you can probably tell from the intro, in the first month of my study-abroad program I felt annoyed, frustrated, fed up with and confused by the huge investment of time and emotional energy my host family placed in their social life. Of course I wanted to get to know my host family, but it seemed that I couldn’t escape when I really needed to get work done. But fast-forward another month and I started to realize during my semester excursions abroad that I was missing my host family! Somehow through the thick-headed work-hard play-hard mentality I’d brought from F&M, they’d managed to get something through to me. Maybe it was their “hygge” notion of relaxing together with well-known confidants, maybe it was simply the comfort in trusting each other, but a very essential part of how it felt to be in the homestay with Dot, Jan, and Anton had grabbed hold of me at a fundamental level. Had I been too harsh, too quick to judge the time they spent together? Maybe it was more valuable than I’d thought…

The birthday party and study-tour were turning points for me. I started to really appreciate the art of conversation that my host family practiced whenever possible. And I was learning to really treasure the friends I was slowly getting to know in Copenhagen. I was coming to realize that without them, being in a foreign country would have no meaning. And I began to question myself and my other friendships – was I a good friend? What did that even mean? Another month and now I’m back home in the U.S. If nothing else, Denmark taught me about the importance of building strong friendships – and that you really do have to construct them, shape them with care and time and effort. As I said before, I look back at what I thought at the beginning of the program with guilt and even a bit of disgust, but hopefully it can help someone reading this to avoid my mistakes. To really appreciate whatever culture they’re visiting, open themselves to thinking and acting like the “natives.” And, of course, to talk with them.

Nathaniel Haycock - friendship

My friends from the DIS Program

 

Thanks for Kicking Me Off the Newspaper

Thus far, has your study abroad experience influenced your academic and professional goals? If so, how?

Your views on life can change only when something challenges them, throws them into sharp relief that exposes their true nature. For me, coming to Denmark was like realizing that a rolled up newspaper is not flat, but in fact three-dimensional. Throughout my high school and college experience, I had viewed going through the pre-medical path as a straight-line trajectory designed to give me the information I would need to eventually treat sick people. As if I was walking on the surface of this rolled-up newspaper, I continued straight ahead, convinced that I was moving forward by reading only what was on the surface. My experiences in Denmark have literally kicked me off this limited viewing platform and shown me that I have much more freedom in my chosen path than I knew. Walking on that straight-line path wasn’t teaching me anything about myself, and in the end I would have ended up right where I began. Seeing the Danes’ view on healthcare and life in general has introduced me to the value in taking my time – fully appreciating and, most importantly, questioning what I’m doing.

Learning about Scandinavian healthcare systems in the core course of my program introduced me to the merits of socialized healthcare. The goal of the Danish, Swedish, Estonian (they use Denmark as a model!), and to a large extent most European healthcare systems is to provide equal access to quality care for all of the country’s residents. Issues with illegal immigrants aside, they all do a fairly good job of this. Doing so allows them to drastically reduce their healthcare costs by focusing on preventative care coordinated through general practitioners. Partially because of their small size, but more so because everyone literally buys into the system (through taxes), they are able to minimize cost for procedures & medicines, and they can provide people with enough choice that hospitals & practitioners still remain on the cutting edge.

Interestingly, Denmark and the U.S. spend about the same amount of money on public healthcare, but the U.S. drastically outspends every country in the world on private healthcare options. But does this really lead to better outcomes? The common opinion in Denmark (and Scandinavia as a whole) is no. The U.S. may provide outstanding medical care to the few who can afford expensive surgeries or arduous therapies, but the millions of Americans still uninsured (and even those who are insured) seldom see this quality of treatment. People also wait to seek medical care until their condition worsens, which significantly increases the cost of their treatment. In contrast, EVERY LEGAL RESIDENT OF DENMARK IS INSURED, and receives affordable and (relatively) fast healthcare when they need it. Seeing the differences between the U.S. and Scandinavian healthcare systems so starkly contrasted prompted me to doubt my previous assumption that America provided the best healthcare in the world.

On top of this, the Danish approach to society attacked my American love of the individual. Sure, we can be patriotic and champion both freedom and individual rights, but are the Americans who are saddled with exorbitant medical bills, college tuition payments, and taxes really free? In paying 30-60% (depending on their income) of their earnings in taxes, the Danes in effect pay their way out of worrying about not only their healthcare, but also their education, infrastructure, government, and even unemployment/disability (as the government sets up rather secure and broad safety nets for any residents who “fall off the boat”). By having a socialized system, depending on each other, it seems to me like the Danes actually earn more personal freedom than many Americans ever get to enjoy.

The Danish approach to medical education also threw a sharp left-hook at my preconceived notions of my path to being a doctor. One night, my host parents had invited over a couple who happened to be medical students. However, when I saw them, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Not only did they look normal, they actually looked great! No dark bags remnant of long sleepless nights sagged under their eyes, they looked fit as if they had time to work out, and what’s more they had a kid! So astonished was I that I didn’t actually talk to them until after we had finished eating. When I finally did, I told them about my aspiration to be a general practitioner in the U.S.; they, in turn, shared their experiences of the Danish medical system with me. The Danish government pays them to go to medical school, and they even received extra money when they had their son. They work about 45 hours a week (and officially only 37 hours a week), and have ample vacation time. They each even took an entire year off to care for their infant son, and now are both close to finishing their degrees and entering internships. How different was this from the stories I’d heard of the daily, sleepless struggle that defines medical school in the U.S!

Along with a general Danish attitude of “being at peace with oneself,” this couples’ experiences convinced me that I didn’t have to continue running blindly along the pre-set medical student path in the U.S. Who ever told me that I had to go directly to medical school upon graduation? Why couldn’t I get into a great school, even with good-but-not-great grades? Although it’s slowly changing, the mentality in the U.S. towards medical school is part of why so many doctors burn out, why I thought this couple would be haggard and “hate their lives.” From them, I learned that, even if it isn’t completely normal, I could take my time in becoming a doctor. If it means that I’ll end up being more “at peace” with myself, and as a result better able to treat my patients, then I think it’s well worth it.

Denmark has taught me to “chill out.” I know that medical school in the U.S. will be a much more rigorous ordeal than in Denmark, but worrying about it will only make it worse. In taking my time with the progression through the medical system, I can critically question each step and, hopefully, try to improve parts that need revision.

Danish Hygge Food Culture

Smørrebrød, flaeskesteg, snobrød, risengrød, biksemad….herring. What the heck do these strange words mean? And moreover how in the world do you pronounce them? These were my first reactions to Danish food – it was something alien and bizarre – they put pickles and mayonnaise on herring for crying out loud! But as my host family in Copenhagen introduced me to the mouth-watering wonders of flaeskesteg (it’s like a savory juicy pork roast with a rack of crisp salty bacon on top, but better), the warm coziness of a bowl of rice pudding with a pad of melted butter flowing over the cinnamon and sugar you sprinkle on (risengrød), and, with much hesitation, to the way the weird combinations of ingredients in open-faced sandwiches (smørrebrød) actually compliment and enhance each other, I learned to really enjoy them.1

Smørrebrød delight the Danes and remind them of Julefrokost (Christmas-day Lunch). But to Americans these open-faced sandwiches seem unappetizing at best. At first, they were enough to make my stomach turn, but then I forced myself to take a bite… It wasn’t so bad! It even tasted pretty good, in fact. Sure, it was a bit too heavy on the sweet-and-sour flavors like pickles and herring for me, but the chewy rye bread‘s sweet nutty flavor actually paired really well with the savory meats and crisp veggies piled inches high on top. My favorite is one made with a chilled, thick slice of pork covered in red cabbage and pickles. Ot   her varieties are made with liver pate, meat-jelly, and pepper, or fried fish (usually cod) and remoulade (tastes like a more savory mayonnaise), or mini-shrimp marinated in salt-water and mixed on the bread with lettuce, cold butter, freshly cracked pepper, and remoulade. And what’s more? They pair these with herring marinated in either a sweet-cinnamony sauce or curry and then drink snaps and beer with it!3

I would come to find over the next few months that this, at first startling, pairing of opposites makes Danish food interesting, scintillating, and unique. Sour with honeyed, crunchy with smooth, intense with mellow – during a group dinner, Dorthe (one of my host parents’ many close friends) told me with pride that she would never serve a dish without considering these combinations. High-end restaurants like Noma inspire the world with their unique creations– have you ever had a generous helping of beef tartar covered in ants? What about caramelized milk and monkfish liver… Yummmmm. But what these dishes all have in common is a pairing of opposites that excites the senses.2

“Hygge” – the Danish catchphrase, shibboleth, and in many ways formula for living – also plays a lead role in their food culture. Danes go out to hygge with each other, thank each other for a hygge time together, and try to make their homes as hygge as possible. Hygge is both a description and an action – you can call a night spent with friends or a café hygge, but you can also say you’re going to hygge. It implies a sense of coziness, being together with close friends and family, trust and safety, but also living up to a certain norm. You’re expected to participate wholeheartedly in conversation but not predominate, laugh and smile but not overreact. The ideal is someone who is “man hviler i sig selv,” or rests in himself. The Danes treasure an environment that lets people be themselves, and enjoy doing so, without thinking about their outside concerns. Food reflects this harmonious hygge atmosphere – it allows the Danes to come together to enjoy conversation, laugh, share experiences, and discuss their views in a safe, trusting, and cozy atmosphere. At least in my homestay and their group of friends, eating together makes them family. All of them live far from the small villages and farms they grew up on in Jutland, and so they rely on each other for social support, good “hygge” times, and of course for “laekkert mad” (delicious food).4

I think the best food experience I’ve had in Denmark was a light meal of bread cheese red peppers and olives that my friends and I shared at Ølsnedkeren – a craft brewery Copenhagen’s Nørrebro neighborhood. The dinner wasn’t anything special, and there weren’t even any Danes there, but we enjoyed eating, drinking, and laughing together for almost 5 hours. Although the food is important, enjoying a cozy evening (“have en hyggelit aften”) together with friends is better.

 

 

Culture Shock Progression – Not so Linear

What struck me when I first saw this diagram was how closely it resembles diagrams of the Kübler-Ross model of the five stages of grief. Culture ShockThe griever feels at first denial, then anger, next bargaining, followed by depression, and finally acceptance. I really don’t like that resemblance, however superficial. It eliminates all the agency of the student traveler – disasters and loss happen to someone, they can’t control it, and that’s part of why loss is so traumatizing. They go through these stages as psychological compensations for a reality that they cannot change.

But contrary to grief, exploring a new culture is a choice. The person voluntarily (usually) travels to the new country, takes an active role in exploring and trying to understand the culture and people there. Through their actions and conversations, they can create their experience and in doing so have a considerable advantage over someone who is experiencing loss.

I think one of the most important things you learn during travel is how to master it, to ride it like a skiff with the ever-present knowledge that if you don’t stay of top of it you can get swept away. I don’t think anyone ever really manages to stay completely dry, but over time you can learn to at least keep the boat from sinking.

 

The Shaky Stallion

My first experience with biking in Copenhagen was not what I had expected. My friends who’d come here last semester told me that I had to get a bike. Luckily enough, my host parents said they had a special one they kept from their previous two students. And oh, it was “special” all right. At first glance it just seemed a bit old – a once bright-white stallion of a road bike that, like so many of its time, was constructed of solid steel. That, plus the weighty chain-lock meant that the bike weighed 30 pounds, if not more. But I resolved to enjoy it – I shouldn’t be picky about something I’d only use for four months, right? As I was pulling the old mustang off its hanger in the shed, my hand slipped and the bike fell with a resounding crash of rust and steel. “Ouch!” I cried – the bike had landed squarely on my right foot, and I was only wearing flip-flops! As I bent over to check what was left of my foot, I hit my head with a comical “Thump” on the shed’s crossbeam. My host father chimed in with an unhelpful “Why didn’t you just lift it?”

Sheepish and feeling like I had just entered a slapstick skit, I picked up the bike and resolved to make a fresh start. My host father gave me the key and went inside, still with a grin on his face, and I turned onto the path for a test-run. In the first 30 seconds, everything seemed fine. Then the front wheel started to wobble, and I heard a metallic “ka-chink-chink” as something that was probably important hit the pavement and bounced happily off. I remember thinking “Oh no….” and then I felt the bike stop mid-gallop and throw it’s rear end skyward as if bucking off an unwanted rider. I was tossed from the bike and landed in a muddy path of grass as the bike skidded to a halt beside me. I turned as if to say “What now?” and realized that the whole cross bar holding the front wheel, frame, and of course me had completely rusted-out and was rolling away on the path like a dropped horseshoe. Foot still hurting, mud covering my clothes but not my embarrassment, my lame steed and I hobbled back to the house.n1

My host father Jan is pretty handy and somehow he managed to repair the using a glue gun, duct tape, and a lot of laughter. I realized that the nonstarter of a test-run was pretty funny, and eventually managed to rib Jan back about lending me such a lemon. As I would come to find, this good-natured (and often surprisingly harsh and “too-soon”) teasing is a major part of Danish conversation, especially amongst good friends. With somewhat hesitant, but nonetheless renewed confidence in the stallion, I began to ride it to the train every day to get to DIS in the city center.

The great thing about Copenhagen is how ridiculously bike-friendly it is. Stairways almost universally have aluminum, grip-tape-lined trenches up which you can push a bike. Streets have wide designated lanes for the majority of workers who commute by bike, and the street lights even have separate signals for them. Bike racks are omnipresent, but anything from a lamppost to an open patch of grass serves as a parking spot because all the bikes have shoes (like police use for illegally parked cars) built onto the back wheel. Although the occasional drunk Dane will steal a bike to get home faster, the extremely high level of trust here means that most people just lean their bike up against a likely wall. Overall, Copenhagen is a bike haven.

The Shaky Stallion, as I began to call it, still jittered like an untamed colt over the cobblestone streets, and simply refused to stop when I applied the breaks, but it at least stayed in one piece for the rest of the semester. I felt like part of the city lifestyle on the bike, and I found a kind of relief in literally gearing down on the ride back to my homestay. Days jockeying around the city on that bike – despite its rusted bolts and our less-than-ideal introduction – have made some of my favorite memories here. Copenhagen is a city of bikers, and I had the privilege of joining them if only for a short few months.

Don’t Add Sugar (Nate’s Travel Tips)

Traveling isn’t brutality; it’s a skill you develop with experience. Visiting tens of cities and countries over a short span of time, or even visiting one for that matter, can be at once exhilarating and exhausting; I’m by no means an expert, but I have picked up some knowledge over the three week-long travel breaks we get for the DIS program in Denmark. I was lucky enough to travel through Germany, Austria, Italy during the first break, visit doctors in Stockholm, Sweden and Tallinn, Estonia during the second, and explore the United Kingdom on the third. I learned that if I prepared properly and kept the right attitude, the journey definitely strained a lot less and thrilled a lot more. If you read nothing else in this post, definitely read the tips!

Preparing keeps you sane – you can rely on the fact that you’ve brought what you need. Your pack becomes your best friend and source of comfort. It simply feels better to be walking around in a foreign place if you have the familiarity of your pack literally anchoring you down to the path. This also means that packing right is packing light – I found that with a light backpack I could avoid paying for lockers and save the time some people spend on going to their accommodation first. I also discovered a kind of “survival” kit of times I had to pack. Like Adams tells us in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, having a towel is strangely reassuring (as if you’re saying to yourself “I’ve come through all this crazy traveling and yet I managed to keep my towel, so I must have done something right”) and it’s wicked useful – I used it as a blanket one night I got to my hostel too late, a soft cushion for some Venetian glass I bought as a gift, and even as a tool to dry myself off after showering. Other items I wouldn’t usually think of like ziplock bags, locks (yes, multiple), tape and a notecard box (helps keep small items safe) came in very handy as well. The final and most important aspect of preparing I discovered was researching where I was headed. With this you have to strike a tricky balance – you have to know enough to have historical and cultural literacy of the place (Don’t go to Estonia not knowing it was a country like I did, it makes for very awkward conversations), but without over-saturating yourself. You want to have enough background to know what, who, and where to be interested in but still retain enough ignorance to enjoy learning about and experiencing the place. Being a boy scout about travel (“Always be prepared”) can earn you some derisive laughs from inexperienced friends, but you’ll have a much better experience if you are.

The other, probably more, important lesson I learned is to have a very certain attitude while you’re traveling. Being overly optimistic is foolish – things are going to go wrong, and not recognizing that before you leave will only leave you worse off when they happen. At the same time, you obviously have to enjoy the experience! That’s the key idea right there. Traveling is experiencing, and experiences in themselves are neither positive nor negative things. The effort, curiosity, and openness you put into them and the friendliness, helpfulness, and interest of strangers (yes, they can in fact be nice!) can come together to make the journey fun and rewarding. So, some tips:

 

  1. “Don’t Panic” (Again from the Hitchhiker’s Guide, which I read after my second break and found oddly accurate). Although I faced numerous, often daily, times that I wanted to give up in frustration and just lie down, having a constant faith that no matter how long it took, or in what way, I would get to the destination I had in mind. Just be patient! Taking a breath, mentally removing myself from the situation, when I felt myself starting to panic helped immensely.
  2. Open yourself to experience (Or learn to). Of course this is largely a personality trait but everyone has some leniency – I’m actually a fairly shy, closed person but I managed to open myself to talking with random strangers, meeting people (especially welcoming hosts), and I slowly but surely became more comfortable with it. In this is a willingness to not do just the touristy things, but to go further and to explore the “real” place, or at least less commercialized version of it. The people who live in a place make it unique, give it culture unlike anywhere else. Ask them what they think you should do! Maybe you’ll even get invited to do something with them!
  3. Accept your mistakes. During my first trip to Germany, Austria, and Italy, I had some really fun experiences as well, but my mistakes overshadowed them. And unfortunately humans have this horrible tendency to forecast how they feel in the moment into the future (ever tried to cheer someone up after a bad breakup? “But I’m always going to feel this miserable!”). But then I had this wonderful realization that I had to forgive myself. Picking myself up, healing over the two week course-period, and leaping into the next travel break made it so much more enjoyable than the first. And the best part? I’d learned what not to do from the first trip.

 

So I guess I’d like to revise how I started this post. Travel can be brutality, I see traveling like how I imagine many captains have described the ocean over the years: arg mate, ‘she’s a wild and beauty but ye need to tame ‘er, ride ‘er or shell toss ye overboard quick as that.’ (Sorry for being corny, haha). Travel will whip you around and kick you until you’re bruised washed up and close to crying on the side of a road in Rome at 2:15 am if you let it (true story). But it can also be an extraordinary experience through which you grow. Your Choice…

I’d like to finish with a connection to my interest in psychology. We panic when we perceive something as a threat. One of my professors described something he called the “Zone of Proximal Growth,” which can be thought of as the extent to which anything we experience can help us grow (literally, personally, professionally, etc.). Basically, we perceive everything inside this metaphoric “zone” as a challenge to be overcome and everything outside as a threat to be avoided. One of the main goals of travelling, for many people, is to expand their zone of proximal growth by being open to new unforeseen experiences and, as a result, grow from them rather than fear them and panic. As Floyd Skloot (2003) profoundly said: “It’s not so much a matter of making lemonade out of life’s lemons, but rather of learning to savor the shock, taste, texture and aftereffects of a mouthful of unadulterated citrus” (In the Shadow of Memory, p.197). Although he’s talking about learning to live with the loss of memory in dementia, potential travelers can learn a lot from his positive, but candid, acceptance and even joy in experience, no matter its quality. So, fellow traveler, don’t add sugar. 

 

 

Velkommen til København (Welcome to Copenhagen)

Nate-in-Nyhavn

Nyhavn – this canal leads out to the harbor, which you can actually swim in because they keep it so clean!

It’s the little things that catch your eye. Well, not at first. At first you’re Rushed, Rushed, Rushed ¿Confused? Tiiired, IMOBLIZED hungry Rushed and finally, after 10-plus hours and land in sight, relieved. You sigh, feel yourself relaxing just a bit, and then, only then, do you look around and notice these little things.

Like a translucent orb seeming to float, weightless, in mid-air that turns out to be a streetlight. Stoplights that flash a yellow warning before turning green. Colors that don’t seem to quite match. A citrusy, astringent aroma that seems to perfume all of the public transit busses and trains. A building that leans so comically off-kilter that it seems to stumble into its sturdier rectangular friend placed strategically to one side. And bikes. Bikes everywhere! Bikes carrying their riders to trains, bikes in trains, bikes in special lanes on the streets, bikes locked to other bikes locked to the omnipresent bike-racks.

A sign at the airport you saw earlier said “Velkommen til København,” introducing you in the friendliest way possible to the one of the most difficult languages to pronounce, at least in the opinion of your newly-made friends. And who even are these “friends?” You just met them 20 minutes ago! Now you’re exploring the city with them as if you’d known each other for the past year.

And then you notice the feeling that’s been resting calmly in the background since you left Boston. It’s a sense of purpose, of tranquility, lying under the more superficial feelings of anxiety and confusion. You’ve done this before – travelled to a new place with new people. It was completely your choice to do it then as now, and it worked out well before.

Times up! You slip out of your thoughts to your friend (yes, he is my friend now) calling out that you have to get back to meet your respective host families. My family? Right! Of course, I’m staying with people here. God you’re tired.

Later, they show up and your name is called as if you were back in elementary school and your parents’ minivan with the bumper stickers and comfy seats had just driven up. You feel so happy, elated, even joyful (and again relieved) to finally, finally meet the people you’ll be living with for the next four months. Jan (“Yan”) and Dot are friendly and funny, entertaining you as they take you on a car tour of Copenhagen. And the best part? They speak English as if you were still in the US. This string of familiarities soothes the jarring harshness of the unknowns you just faced like sleep taking away all the troubles of a day. Sleep! You’re exhausted. While on the flight, your body overcame it with adrenaline and numbness. Now, however, you’re parasympathetic nervous system is kicking in and you’re starting to really feel the exhaustion. You can’t wait to get back to your host parents’ house and just sleep….

But they don’t let you! They know (far better than your body) that it’s 10 am and it’s time to be up! It’s time to meet you host brother Anton! He’s about your age, with a big smile and easy laugh to match his gregarious personality. You spend the day with them doing various small activities. By dinnertime you’re almost incoherent. Your host family asks “What did you say?” repeatedly, because you’re repeating yourself, and them, and the world just doesn’t make sense. You think it will make sense after you sleep, so you finally give in and go to bed at 9 pm. Exhausted, bewildered, happy. You know this is what you should be doing. This is right….

This mingled apprehension, confusion, excitement, and odd sense of calmness made up the whirlwind that was my first day in Denmark. The plane arrived at Copenhagen airport at about 6 am and we had to wait until 10 for our host parents to arrive, so my new friends and I went to explore the nearest neighborhood: Christianshavn (not to be confused with Christania). The old, colorful, intricately-detailed buildings along this harbor melded beautifully with the cobblestone streets and fresh coffee we bought and made us feel truly in Denmark. Later, my host parents were smart enough to keep me up, which saved me from having any jetlag during the first week.

I chose to describe this first day in such detail beacause it’s actually a very good illustration of how I’ve felt since then. I’ve explored some of the most beautiful and historic places in Copenhagen, celebrated a Silver Wedding (25th wedding anniversary) with friends of my host family, made new friends, bungyjumped over the harbor, and visited my host grandparents in the source of the spirit of Denmark: Jutland (more to come on these later!). Through it all I’ve been feeling the same jumbled mixture of emotions as on the first day, but, most importantly, I’ve been welcomed. Directly opposing the stereotype of Danes as closed to outsiders, I’ve felt so accepted by my host family and literally every Dane I’ve met (not an exaggeration). They are friendly, warm, fun-loving, and always making jokes.

My experience with my host grandparents shows this best. Jutlanders are stereotyped by Danes from more metropolitan areas as serious, tough farmers with no senses of humor. When I arrived there with my host family, I didn’t know this (and was better for it). Jørgen and Mie, the parents of my host father Jan, certainly didn’t speak any English, but they were as warm and loving as the grandparents in a Christmas movie. I was content to sit and eat the authentic Danish meal they had prepared for us while they all spoke in the Jutland dialect, but about half-way through the meal Jørgen suddenly turned to me and said, in halting but coherent English, “I normally speak proper Danish, but today I’m speaking in my dialect so I can annoy Dot.” Everyone laughed. Up until this point I thought he spoke zero English, and to have him communicate directly with me, in my own language, was nothing short of a blessing. Jan, Dot, and Anton made me feel at home in Copenhagen – Jørgen and Mie made me feel welcomed to all of Denmark.

Clockwise from left: my host mother, Dot, me, my host father, Jan, Jan's father Jørn and Jan's mother Mie.

Clockwise from left: my host mother, Dot, me, my host father, Jan, Jan’s father Jørn and Jan’s mother Mie.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE BUREAU OF EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL AFFAIRS

The Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program is a program of the U.S. Department of State with funding provided by the U.S. Government and supported in its implementation by the Institute of International Education (IIE).

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