Back to School

The past couple of weeks Elizabeth and I have been enrolled in a Danish class with other members of the hockey team. The class is taught by an old, seemingly toothless woman, straight out of Woodstock. Everyday she comes to class wearing flannel pajama pants, a collared "woods woman" type of shirt and a brightly colored dew-rag/head wear telling stories about her girlfriends and the Danish police. She has definitely kept the class entertaining to say the least. To show you what we mean by entertaining we will tell you a few stories...

1. This would be more humorous if you were sitting in the class with us, but our storytelling will have to suffice. Our first day we went around the table and introduced ourselves to the teacher. The introductions went smoothly and she thought she had a grasp of each name in the class. As we moved onto the lesson, one by one we had to repeat after the mastermind of the Danish language. Thankfully Elizabeth and I were at the end so we could hear all the words that were mispronounced and corrected by those who butchered their attempts before us. However, despite our good fortune in our seating arrangements, our luck would only last for so long. After muling over the words in my head I was prepared to tackle my first Danish phrase. This preparation was completely destroyed by one gigantic word from the teacher...ROD! Yes, that's right, she called me ROD and threw me completely off so I could not remember what I was supposed to repeat. After fumbling through, Elizabeth, who was next, politely corrected the teacher before she spanishized her Danish pronunciation. Now, we understand that this was the first class and didn't expect her to remember our names, so this was not a big deal. The real fun began when each and every time it was my turn she either called me Rod or Ron the entire class. It was extremely hard to say my Danish line without busting out in laughter. It is so bad even Elizabeth is giggling through her turn as well as all the other people in the class. Our second class went much the same way. Our third class was going along the same lines until one of my teammates, Mike, interrupted while giggling and told her my name was Rob. She vowed to remember my name (ROB) associating it with a story of her past. She lied. The very next rotation, she decided it was time to call me ROGER. Now the whole class had their heads down laughing uncontrollably. Despite this, we finished the class and have accepted my new names, Rod, Ron and Roger, which are used interchangeably throughout each class. At least I now have a new locker room nickname and Elizabeth is pleased that this team does not call me BOB.

2. If you don't really like learning, then this class is for you. If you like storytelling, then please sign up ASAP. For every ten minutes of language instruction, there is twenty minutes of "Girlfriends' stories". This is partly our fault because someone always a) asks a question which leads her off topic or b) makes a joke, which again, leads her off topic. For example, I asked if it was common to have a cat on a leash because Elizabeth and I saw some "yahoo" walking their fluffy lump the previous day (sorry cat lovers). This turned out to be the wrong question to ask. She looked at the class like we had four heads in amazement that this is not common practice among North Americans. She then went on to tell us stories about how her girlfriends prance around town with their cats in tote. She even went so far as to admit that she had tried putting her cat on a leash as well. Currently, she does not walk her cats because they refuse to wear a leash. That's a shocker?!? There are many other stories that she shared with the class that I would love to share with you but I pay the typists by the hour and must move on to the next item.

3. I shall call this one "Sex, Drugs but no Rock'n'Roll." Rob and I were sitting on our couch one evening looking over our Danish workbook when he found a shocking image. There was a page that displayed a bedroom from a typical danish house to help us learn and visualize the translation of things from a bedroom. Rob asked me to scan the page to see if there was anything wrong, I said "no." So he said "Are you sure?" Again, I said "yes, I am sure." He graciously told me to look above the bed where there hung a picture. As I looked closer, I saw a little more than I bargained for because I was looking at a black and white drawing of a fully nude woman. Now, we are clearly mature enough to handle this, but knowing the workbook is intended for children, we felt a need to laugh, hysterically. At the next class after Rob's discovery, I felt the need to share our "dirty little secret" with a fellow classmate. Unfortunately, our teach noticed us giggling and asked if something was wrong. I was laughing so hard that I could not respond, so my classmate said take a look at page 37 and the whole class burst into laughter. The teacher went on to tell us that in Europe they are more relaxed / less prude when it comes to the human form. We all understood this to some level but our teach then took us to new heights. She went on to explain how she also had a picture like that above her bed. Rob, who could not fathom the sight of our sixty year old teacher, cautiously asked "Is it a self-portrait?" She burst out in laughter and said "Nej (NO), but the picture is quite lovely because it was painted by someone famous." The whole class was in tears at this point and did not need anymore fuel to the fire but we got some anyways. For no apparent reason, she felt the need to share with us how her and her friends would export pornographic magazines to fellow Europeans because it was free in Denmark. Along with this she mentioned the drugs portion of the story. She went on to tell us how her and her friends would sit around eating "hash brownies" while flipping through the pages of said magazines. At this point, we were running over our time limit and also feeling a little creeped out, so the class thought it best to call it a day. However on our way home we were disappointed that we did not cover "Rock'n'Roll."

As of right now we are done with class until after Christmas. However, we won't be looking to rehire her as our teacher seeing as how we only managed six classes out of ten scheduled. Of those classes we actually did thirty minutes out of ninety in actual work. We were warned up front that an hour session is actually forty five minutes with a fifteen minute break in the Danish teaching world. We were not warned about consistent cancellations, random stories, and receiving new names. All and all we have many fond memories and some good stories for years to come, but very little knowledge of the Danish language.