Dinner at Birgitte's

One of the main lessons I have learned over here (aside from the main one--patience, and knowing I can't plan everything!) is acceptance and to not judge a book by its cover. The girls in the next few pictures have come to be pretty good friends to Rachel and I. Rachel and I were leaving the Arhus Festival one night, put our friend Maggie in a cab, and started walking home. We wanted to grab another drink somewhere, so we stopped in a place called Cafe Arhus.

Now, Maggie had told us not to go in there, that it was considered a Greenlander bar - which I guess means the people inside are mainly from Greenland and they are a little rough and tough. We walked in the bar and were a little scared at first. It definitely has character, and the characters inside are a little rough around the edges. The cafe is down by the harbor (which is where we were living at the time), and the men inside were manual laborers - men who work in construction and in the harbor. The cafe is a little blue collar if you will.

At any rate, Rachel and I ordered one beer and were planning on leaving after that. We ended up staying for awhile - the bartender (Birgitte) came over to us at one point because Rachel and I were trying to figure out what song was playing in the bar (it is a Danish song, and our FAVORITE song). Bigitte was very nice...her English was much more broken than the Danes at school, but we could understand her. She made a comment that if we wanted to listen to a song, she would play it for us. We ended up talking to her throughout the night, and got her phone number to hang out with her that weekend.

We ended up not meeting up that weekend, and figured that was it, and we wouldn't hear from her again. Rachel and I went out to eat less than a week later to treat ourselves - we were very distraught about our money and housing situation and just wanted to have fun. I got a text message from Birgitte while we were at dinner that asked if we could come to the cafe, she found a place for us to live. We went there later that night, and to make a long story short, she put us in contact with the man whose apartment we are living in now! We were moved in the next day! We were blown away by the kindness of her to remember us after one meeting, and to help us find this place to live. She made all the phone calls for us, got us directions, offered to pick us up the next morning and take us to the apartment.

We stopped by her work a few days later to thank her, and she invited us out for her birthday the next week. We met up with her for her birthday, and met her two best friends, Thai and Christina. We met her coworker and friend Chris as well. The next day, she invited us over for dinner at Birgitte's apartment for Monday night.

Dinner at Birgitte's that night was my best night in Denmark so far. The way they had everything set up for us was amazing - table clothes, white wine, red wine, water glasses, fresh flower decorations. Christina made the dinner and it was amazing. We felt very lucky to have been included in what we were told was a more special girls dinner for them than normal because they were not only celebrating Birgitte's birthday, but they were also pulling out the stops for their two new American friends. I honestly have never seen a dinner like this in a home in America. There is a Danish word for what we experienced that night, that is really not translatable in English: hygge. For lack of a better word, it means cozy.

At any rate, we were just blown away at how they treated us, how warm and welcoming they were. They were honestly interested in what we had to say. They asked us all kinds of questions about America (none of them have ever been), and even made a comment to us which resognates with our feelings on this experience: that it was cool for them to get the opportunity to talk with Americans and learn about our culture because they rarely get the opportunity to learn about it. They had been much more open and helpful than any of the other Danes we had met so far, and to be honest, I was extremely excited to be friends with Danes outside of the school. It almost seems as though the students at school are more uptight, and honestly look down at people like Birgitte and her friends. Again, this is where I learned my lesson. Back in America, I probably would not have become friends with Birgitte, based on looks, job, education level, etc, etc. And again, I have learned you can't judge a book by its cover because these girls have been the most helpful to us so far.

This is at Birgitte's apartment. On the left is "Thai" - her real name is Aom, but she is from Thailand and they call her Thai. On the right is an AWFUL picture of Birgitte...you will see better ones later. For some reason, they always love to throw out the peace sign?!?!

Left is Rachel; middle is Christina, and the right is Chris.

Funny picture of Thai getting ready to cut the cake we had for dessert.

It is also extremely rewarding to get to know these girls much better from a communication standpoint. The first night I met Thai, she barely spoke to me. She doesn't speak Danish too well (I am told), and was really bad at English. Again, these girls who don't go to University don't have as much need or experience with the English language (which is why the more educated Danes sometimes think less of them). Each time we have gotten together with these girls, it is extremely obvious how much better they communicate with us. They are all very nervous about speaking English because they don't want to sound dumb - Birgitte makes this comment often. She has said to me that she wishes I could speak Danish so I could see that she isn't dumb (which it is obvious she isn't). They lack confidence in their abilities, but we tell them they are getting better every time we see them, and that no matter how broken the sentence is, or if the verb is in the wrong tense, we still get it, we still understand and get the point.

I started Danish classes this week (which is seriously the hardest language because of the pronunciation - Americans speak from the front of our mouths and Danes speak from the back). Soon enough I will be the dumb one trying to talk to them!