I truly Love Denmark, even when I hate it. I love the fact it helps me study, pay my rent, raise my child in safety. I hate the fact it does not allow me to not need the government to have a life. I dont speak danish. I am one of the few who although gifted with languages can not go around any Germanic origin /structured language. I have both a photographic memory but also an affinity for sound, and when these two do not match in any way, my brain, tired, gives up. How can you pronounce Noget, nooul? I can't.
But without the language, job search gets harder. Service jobs in restaurants, are for the younger, prettier expats, and to be honest, I have a specific skill set.
So, I love Denmark but I wish Denmark loved me too.
I feel tolerated.
I feel like an outsider. With a few exceptions I have never been invited to people's homes to eat, and I have invited less and less. Me, who always had a table with food on Sundays, and friends coming over.
I become Scandinavian in my old age?
I love Denmark's crisp, clean air, the parks, the fact we can bicycle everywhere ( flat as a pancake). I love the summer houses, even if I do not own one. I love the fact people are not in your face with a finger, yelling "you should".
I hate the fact they go behind your back and complain, avoiding any confrontation.
I hate the noise levels. There is no quiet time, and it is a real terror at night in some parts of the city. Drunken idiots singing, playing their music as if it is 4 pm and not 4 am.
I love the fact some Danes are willing to look with empathy, and discuss and understand, reminding me of a time when the world made sense.
I hate that some other Danes just flat out tell you to go back where you came from, or hang up on you when you ask if you could switch to English.
I love the buses that are on time, but I hate I have nowhere to go.
I have done the concerts and the outings and the drinking. I have done the freelancing and the chasing and the learning. I wish my bus would take me to a place where people would be happy to see me, me as a person and not as a foreigner that makes them feel uncomfortable.
I would like my bus to take me to a job that would free me from the support, and make me feel equal.
I still believe it's possible, I wont give up hope.
I love Denmark, it took me years to adapt, integrate and understand, it changed me.
I love Denmark like a girlfriend that is a side piece, hoping that the guy will look at her and love her. But even if that doesn't happen, that is ok,even if I am in the hallway, or in the kitchen of the restaurant of Denmark, I am still in, and not outside in the cold.
If I ever leave Denmark, it will not be because Denmark was not good to me, or because I wanted it, but because one day, hopefully soon, I will have to start living, vs surviving. I will have to get to that place of quality of life, that I see around me and can not really grasp, just touch, at times.
I wrote in a news paper for a year, and could not get into a union, because I did not make the standard 20.000 dkk per month. Not even a small fraction. Was that right? No.
But it gave expats a voice for a while. It was a breakthrough.
l love Denmark, it's my home. And it's heartbreaking to feel such an outsider to a place you love that much.
I know now, that my child will never be perceived as one of the rest, either and that she will have to rely on her community, but communities of expats are made of students, of people passing through, of people set here for years and not really interested in mingling. So I know, although this is home, we will have to travel again, and see the world and come back and leave again till we find the place we will grow roots in, with less effort and less resistance.
I love Denmark so much, and I wish it loved me back.
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