Concluding

Conclusions are hard. They are often done at the end. I’m going to do a pre-conclusion to my blog, I may have a little under two months left before we fly back but in regards to the blog, I think I’m done, and have been for awhile. If I change my mind I can re-conclude, or post whatever really, no rules to this that I know of. I no longer have the necessary motivation to write about my daily life in Denmark, and I am tired of the travel-writing thing. All that remains is to conclude.

So here it goes: There are no conclusions. The exchange doesn’t really end when school does anyways, or when I go home even, and so how long do I keep this up? The experiences of this year will be with me for good and there will be plenty more to learn from those experiences as I move forward. For the sake of my colleagues I will try not to be the guy in the staff room who makes everyone role their eyes when I start with “When I was in Denmark…”, but expect a bit of it, next year at least.

Hamburg

(Not only am I getting worse at remembering to write, I am also getting bad about posting what I have written. This Hamburg bit for example is two weekends ago.)

This past weekend we made the trip to Hamburg, and though it meant a difficult Monday (and Tuesday), it was well worth it. The weekend started on Friday night when we visited the Imtech Arena and watched Hamburg win an important home game against Bayer Leverkusen. We have seen a few games this year but this was our first Bundesliga game and it was a whole new level, it surpassed all of our expectations.

We had heard of currywurst before this trip and though we were skeptical about what is simply a sausage in curry sauce, we tried it for the first time and I would have it again. Sometimes I think things taste better when you eat them outside, we had this experience in Munich at the Christmas market eating our way through the streets and the currywurst gave me that familiar feeling. Another highlight was the Fish Market on Sunday morning (which is much more than just fish) but for us it was also breakfast, your choice from a wide variety of fish on a bun. I had herring to start (how Danish of me) while Gus ordered smoked salmon (lox) and Jesse and Leanne ordered the same fish, which we later learned was mackerel. Gus and Leanne switched part way through and the mackerel was so good I got myself one too. Next time (I will be heading back with my Dad in May when we go take in the Hamburg vs. Bayern game) I want to try the smoked eel and I have done my homework, I will now recognize the word for eel though I can’t remember it without seeing it. I read somewhere that it is a good one and the eel salesman at another stall was entertaining enough (despite the fact that we couldn’t understand him) that I want to try the eel, maybe I’ll bring some home.

Hamburg is a working city, a busy port and this makes for a lot of water and we enjoyed the canals and the river views. We have recently come to accept that we will not make it to Amsterdam so we saw the waterways of Hamburg as something of a consolation. We also paid a brief visit to Hamburg’s red light district – Reeperbahn – but Leanne and I seem to be past the age (or maybe we’re just boring) where such neighbourhoods hold any allure, the boys were wide eyed and amused by the drunks unable to open the taxi doors at 9:30 in the morning and the sex shops advertising creative attire. We had a coffee and then hurried through the pee stink subway station to the trains to whisk us away to another area of town before we checked out and headed back to the ‘routine’ of our daily lives in Ringsted.

Ireland, land of Guinness

I have just returned from a study trip to Dublin, recovery is slow. Ireland is one hour behind in time and then on the day we returned clocks went forward and so I am feeling very much two hours lost. In addition to the time change the downtime that students used for either shopping or resting was spent making sure that everything was where we thought it was and that we knew how long it would take to get there and so much of the walking was done twice to avoid getting lost when trailed by a group of 29 students.

Dublin was in some ways more than I imagined and in some ways what I have come to expect in European cities. My favourite experience was the trip to the harbour town of Howth, a short train ride from Dublin, where we had access to a hiking trail along the coast; this was the Ireland of my mind's eye. There was a convenient pub located along the route (Gaffney's) where I enjoyed fish and chips accompanied by a Guinness, delicious. My other favourite was the Literary Pub crawl where we visited a handful of pubs in the company of two actors who told us about Dublin's rich literary history and performed scenes and quoted from a variety of texts. 

What was also of interest beyond the city was the experience of travelling like this with a group of students, not the same as a trip to the beach with 14 and 15 year olds. One of the most striking differences between here and home has been the different age group I teach, here my students are older, and as I have mentioned before, the drinking age is lower. The result is that most of the students on this trip were legal drinking age (18) so the expectations for student behaviour are formed with this in mind. They are supposed to be functional each morning, they are supposed to be on time, they are given a suggested curfew, and from there we just expect them to be responsible (and given this degree of freedom they were quite responsible). For my part it was a great leap of faith that was difficult to make, and then I found myself with my colleague and three students at KFC at 2:00 in the morning.

The author advises you to drink Guinness and all alcohol responsibly, this is especially relevant when in a town where a pint is never more than 20 paces away (author J.P. Dunleavy).

Ole’ Man Seifert

Last year one of my favourite things that happened in my classes was the advent and writing of the school paper; Second Beach Stag Party. Our boardroom sessions hold a place in my heart and I hope to continue with something similar when I get back, but in the meantime Ole’ Man Seifert has evolved.

In two weeks time I will be accompanying a class on a study trip to Dublin, and as we approach the trip our focus in class has shifted to all things Dublin and Irish. As I was doing my own reading I came across a column in the Irish Times written by a fictional character (http://www.irishtimes.com/ross-o-carroll-kelly-7.1837434), and I was reminded of Ole’ Man Seifert (who was a fictionalized version of myself, a little older, a little grumpier).

So now my students have created fictional Dubliners who are writing columns reflecting what we have been learning about Ireland and the whole process is a lot of fun. Our invented characters make us consider what an Irish character might be like, and through these characters I will be able to read what they have learned. A little fiction, a little creativity, but we still have writing reflecting thoughts on the materials studied.

Today’s class will start with a sharing of what their fictional character did on the weekend; Breen O’Sullivan (my character) works at Guinness with his father. He started Friday after work with a couple of pints with his da, and he stayed on after his da went home to have a few with his mates. He managed to pick up some food at the chippie and stumbled home knowing that if he went back to join his mates he wouldn’t make it home. When he got there he started watching his old tape of the Ireland vs. England match from Italia 90 when they tied 1-1 and Ireland went on to appear in the quarter finals where they lost to Italy 1-0. He sang himself to sleep (mostly The Fields of Athenry) well before half time. Saturday was a write off cause he felt like shite all day and Sunday he spent with the family celebrating the baptism of his sisters fifth child, finally a daughter. (My own character and his actions owe a lot to the recent influence of Roddy Doyle who writes Irish English so you can hear it)

Portugal

We recently put another stamp in our passports (metaphorically speaking since we haven’t seen a stamp since arriving in Denmark) when we went to Portugal on our winter break. For the boys it was love at first site, palm trees, ocean, and a guy playing the accordion on the subway with a small dog on his shoulder. This trip was planned with the kids in mind, not that they all aren’t, but this one even more so. 

We went to a town called Cascais, which took maybe an hour to get to from the airport in Lisbon.

The hotel was near the ocean and it had a pool, these being the two things the boys insisted on. Most of our time was spent either in or around the pool, or walking along the oceanfront. We were lucky enough to have our accommodations upgraded and on the days we had sun we saw it nearly all day from our wrap-around balcony on the top floor. The weather was mixed, but one day it was nice enough that we sat on the balcony in shorts and luxuriated in the sun.

The oceanfront was largely rocky with a few beaches here and there, but the rocks were beautiful and the crashing waves were dramatic. The times we could descend to the shore we had fun climbing and were thrilled with the proximity to the powerful waves whose fallout provided us with the occasional shower. 

On sunny days we saw lizards (one bit Gus’s jacket and wouldn’t let go) and even a snake.

Our one ‘tourist’ day we took a bus to a region called Sintra which is built on a large forested hill where we visited the remains of a castle built by Muslim occupants in the 8^th or 9^th century and the Pena National Palace (far more recent- 18oo’s). 

The bus ride was a ride I will always remember, the bus going quite fast down impossibly narrow and winding roads. We stopped off at the western most point in Europe and took some pictures, exchanging cameras with a girl and her mother and taking pictures for each other.

We stayed one night in Lisbon on our way back and enjoyed walking through town where at one point I was separated from the boys and Leanne for a few moments, long enough so that someone asked if I might want to buy some joints. Leanne thought it was funny because I also seem to attract the people selling religion, I had been targeted a few days earlier in Cascais, I guess I must look like I’m looking for something.

That was Portugal, a quick visit and one more country to add to the tally of countries visited. Strange how we can visit so many countries but if we were back home and travelled the same distances we could still be in Canada.

Captain Canada

These days I find myself thinking about being an ambassador for Canada. I’m not considering a career change or anything but somewhere in the paperwork that got me into this exchange situation it was mentioned that when you are a teacher on exchange you are an ambassador for your country, you are representing Canada. That made sense on a surface level but now it makes a whole lot more sense and I find myself thinking about it perhaps more than I should.

Take for example the staffroom. I remember when I was a student teacher that we were encouraged as practicum teachers to use the staffroom, I didn’t. I mean I went a few times but then it just started to feel like unnecessary pressure. It didn’t help me to be surrounded by swimmers when I was flailing about in my paddling pool. At home I always go to the staffroom, it’s like eating lunch with family in there. Here I started going to the staffroom but found it so difficult to eat, and talk, and think…. it is a big room, buzzing with Danish and picking out the English from all the buzz was too much for my ‘too many loud concerts’ damaged ears. Now I find myself wondering: “Does not going to the staffroom make me a bad ambassador for my country?”

Okay, so that might be a lame example, but I think it illustrates a point. If my students think I’m a hoser, then by extension the Canadian education system is a holding tank for hosers who are no doubt turning out another generation of hosers (Wikipedia suggests that the term ‘hosers’ is primarily used by people imitating Canadians as opposed to being a term Canadians themselves use). Likewise if the Danish teachers think I’m a hoser…

It’s a lot of pressure, for some I am the only Canadian they have ever met; their impressions of Canada and Canadians will be shaped by their interactions with me. 

So now I am faced with a dilemma, do I teach the content I had planned this week or lecture on the glory of double gold in both hockey and curling?

F*ck Skolen

I wish I remembered Catcher in the Rye better. Twice this week I have sat in the same bus seat and looked up to see the phrase F*ck Skolen; you don’t have to know much Danish to figure that one out. I wasn’t upset by the sentiment as Holden was, but it lingers with me. The first morning I saw it I shared it with my first class and they wrote the story behind it; sometimes F*ck school was written by a student who was bullied, sometimes one who was having a bad day, in other versions a teacher wrote it. I liked them all, I related to them on several levels (none more than the teacher who realizes what a phony they have become), but my favourite part of the experience was hearing F*ck school repeated again and again on a Monday morning.