Les Hannah, day 9, part 1

This was my first day of teaching at Esbjerg Handelskole. Well, it was not supposed to be; it was supposed to be a day of planning my schedule and I was to begin teaching tomorrow; however, the buzz about the school and my physical presence made it nearly impossible to do anything but head straight for the classroom.

 I need here to revisit one of the clichés we English teachers tend to warn our students about: “stands out like a sore thumb.” I shall have to trace the etymology of that phrase to see why it is not, “stands out like a Cherokee in Denmark.” I was clearly one of a kind within that school. But that is not the point of this entry.

The point is I was back in a classroom, my natural setting. It was like released a rehabilitated bird back into the wild. This is the first time this semester I had been at the front of the classroom. Because I knew this Fulbright assignment was coming I was deliberately not scheduled to teach anything at NSU, so on paper it looks as though I was doing nothing at my own University, but those who know me know that is not so. I was very busy. So much so that this Fulbright somewhat snuck up on me. I alluded to that in a previous entry, and it holds true still. But it sure felt good to be back doing what I know I am good at – teaching.

I went before three classes today. The system here is different, of course, from an American university, and it is different even from American high schools. Here, the students stay in the same room all day and the teachers travel around from room to room. I also noticed that the rooms had bean bags where students would lie about during the delivery of the lessons. This is typical and not at all alarming to the teachers.

These classes meet for 80 minutes at a time, which is close to a two-day-per-week schedule at NSU, so I am a bit used to this. The teachers told me that if I wanted a break during the class period simply stop and give a break, but being somewhat familiar with this type of format the 80 minutes was really nothing. And it went by quickly. The students in the first class were a bit intimidated I think. After all, these were first-year students, similar I suppose to Freshmen in a university setting, and the first-year students are usually a bit more reserved when it comes to certain things – like speaking up in class. One young lady asked most of the questions in this class, so she drove the discussions; that’s fine; she asked good questions. Other students I called upon; I took command of the classroom, which is my style. Take charge and own it for (in this case) 80 minutes.

Les Hannah, day 8, part final

Finally showered and dressed for the day I sat in the sun room for a while longer, this time watching television instead of strange birds. I found a few English language programs, but of course most were Danish or German language. I know enough German to follow some of the dialogues in the shows, but could not keep up. Had the TV on mostly for company I suppose.

However, the company was not the best, nothing good on TV here either, so I decided to go for a walk. There are several trails around the house here; I decided to follow one or two. I must have walked for two miles (I guess I should really try thinking in kilometers). While walking I followed that little creek that flows just behind the house. The trail parallels the creek for about a half kilometer (see, it’s not that difficult) before it forks, and I found myself in a real Robert Frost moment, so I did what he did; I took the one that looked like it was less travelled, and yes it made a difference. I ended up in the middle of a field in what appeared to be a marsh. Water, water everywhere, but I didn’t want a drink. OK, enough of the literary allusions. I turned around and went back, then followed the more traveled path. It came out on the road about a kilometer from the house. So then I turned around and walked back.

Once back at the house I checked emails and watched a bit of television. I checked the scores from yesterday’s college football games and found my beloved Oklahoma Sooners victorious over those pesky Texas Longhorns. (Here you must imagine me doing the inverted Longhorns hand gesture.)

After my crimson and cream settled back down some I watched a bit of the movie Krull, in the German language. The movie is odd enough any way without trying to do rapid translation with elementary languages skills, so I decided to go for another walk – this time on the beach. My house is only about three minutes walk from the beach.

So I walked. And then I walked on the beach. I found where the little creek that runs behind the house melts into the North Sea. I stood there for a while watching the two waters come together. In all the times so far that I have gone to the water behind the house I have yet to see any fish in it. Yet, in the brackish area where the two waters merged there were lots of little fish, crabs too. I actually caught one of the small crabs, smaller around than a dime but about as thick as four dimes stacked atop one another. It was a feisty little critter, trying to pinch me but its pincers were too small to do any damage. I got the hint though and let it go.

I continued my walk on the beach, heading southeast down the shore toward Esbjerg city center. Along the way I stopped from time to time to pick up sea shells for Lexi. I tend to do that when I go places where there is a beach. She has been asking me for a couple of years now to take her to the ocean, and I have promised to do so and will when I can, but in the mean time I bring her shells every times I can. Not sure if she likes, understands, or appreciates them or not, but I do it anyway.

Anyway, I ended up with a pocket full of sea shells, and sand. And before I realized it I had walked two kilometers. WOW! Didn’t feel like it, but the walk back to the house sure did. That’s odd; the walk on the beach was in sand and against the wind and it seemed almost effortless, but walking back I was on a sidewalk and with the wind at my back, and I grew tired. Whatever; I made it.

So I sat and flipped through the offerings of the Danish/German television and once again found there is nothing good on TV here either. I began to review and plan for tomorrow, what would be my first actual day on the Fulbright job. I am eager to get started. Oddly enough I feel I have been away from academics for too long already, and it has been but a week. I find it odd that I feel so overwhelmed at times in my position at NSU: so many instant decisions to be made, so many small fires to be put out, and so many issues that need handled, and I say to myself, “I need a break,” but when I get that break I begin to miss the pace of the action at NSU. I miss the classroom and students. I love to teach and find it challenging beyond anything else I have ever done. I once took a summer off, thinking then I needed a break. I was bored out of my head by the third week. I thought surely I would lapse into coma if the Fall semester did not arrive soon. I made it, but that was the longest summer of my life, and I swore I would never do that again. And I have not. This week away from a classroom has reminded me once again why I do what I do.

Les Hannah, day 8, part 1

This morning I slept in – one more time. But I really could not tell because of the time difference. I was awake by 6am local time, which was only 11pm at home. I lay in bed for what seemed only a few more minutes, but I guess I dozed back off because when I looked to the clock it was a little past 8. In no panic because it was Sunday I deliberately arose and stumbled about the house, still trying to find my bearings I suppose. After all, though this is my house for the next two months it is still a strange house to me.

I came into the sun room and sat for a while, just sat. No television, no radio. It had rained more during the night; that was obvious from the little puddles on the patio and throughout the yard, but also because it woke me up a few times during the night as the drops drove hard into the roof.

As I sat in the sun room looking out over the back yard I noticed the oddest looking bird. It was about the size of a chicken, maybe just a bit larger, but looked like a pea hen, except it was grey. It had the head of a pea hen and walked as such. I watched it for several minutes as it strutted about the yard before flying off into the trees. I watched it land on a branch about fifteen feet off the ground. Not once did I think to try to get a photograph; I shall have to do so the next time I see the creature.

So following the bird watching, I lazed about the house for a while longer, finally getting up the gumption to attempt a shower in the wasser closet.  Of course everything was in the Danish language, so figuring out which way was what was a bit of a challenge. This shower has three jets that shoot water straight out (with quite the force I might add) and one shower head that I was familiar with, one very similar to the hand held adjustable one at home.

The forward shooting jets certainly felt good – well, when I was actually showering. My initial experience with them was a bit of a shock, temperature –wise. You see, when I first turned the water on the forward shooting jets were active; I assume left so by whomever was here before me. And the water was cold. I think my heart nearly stopped as three distinct streams of very cold water hit me dead on. Damn that was cold. But since my heart did not literally stop I played around with the controls for a few more moments and finally figured it out.

To balance my polar bear experience I adjusted the water to hot. I like hot showers any way as they relax my muscles. The hot water lasted only a few minutes, and I found myself in a very hurried state to finish shampooing my hair before my heart did literally stop this time.

Les Hannah, day 7, part final

A bit later in the afternoon they took me to a local small grocery store where I was able to use the Euros I still had from the Paris episode to purchase a few things to get me started at the house where I would be living.

They then took me to the house, but on the way they took me by the school just to show me where it was and what it looked like. The house was about six-and-a-half kilometers from the school and a bit isolated. It is the last house on a dead end road, and a bit rural. It appears also that it was only a few hundred yards, damn it – meters, from the beach. It was a small summer house that is usually rented out to visitors and tourists for weekends and holidays. I will be living here for the next two months, so I guess some of the usual vacationers to this spot are out of luck for a while. I settled in as I could in the two hours I had before someone was to come get me for a dinner with the deputy director and director. So I set about getting things situated.

It took every minute of the two hours to get my bags unpacked and things put away to the point of me being comfortable with them. Right on time the deputy director arrived at the house to take me to dinner. The conversation on the way to the city centre and the restaurant was of the inquisitive nature: how are you, what do you think so far, are you nervous.

We went to a restaurant and disco (I am not kidding – disco) in the city centre. And lucky us, there was an event going on called pub crawling. In America we call it bar hopping, but our hopping is nothing at all like this crawling. This is an organized event, hosted by the local university to welcome new students and sponsored by the local pubs, restaurants, and discos. Disco is still very big here. Anyway, organized groups of students, looked like about twenty per group, followed a leader whom I was told is an upper division student, probably a senior to use our system’s terminology. The leader was carrying a sign with a number on it; all students in that group followed their leader from one spot to the next. The groups spent about a half hour at each place before moving on to the next and after a certain time they are free to go back to the one of their choice. It just so happened that where we were for dinner appeared to be one of the most popular places – and one of the loudest.

In spite of the loudest disco in the city, we were able to achieve some conversation. The accompanying meal was also very good. I had a pan fried fish of some sort; I cannot remember nor even pronounce the name.

Following the meal and incidental disco Maj took me back to my house. She would also pick me up Monday morning and get me to the school on what would be my first day on the Danish job.

Les Hannah, day 7, part 1

I slept in. Again. Guess the jet lag was catching up with me. I had been travelling hard to this point, pushing myself so I could relax some before beginning my Danish teaching assignment, and with the exception of the troubles in Paris I had travelled well so far.

By the time I got up and got around, showered, dressed, partook of the breakfast offered by the hotel it was almost time to walk back to the station to meet those who would be my escort for the day, and ultimately taking me to my house. I walked back to the station with my bags in tow.

I did not have to wait long before Ulla and her husband Erik arrived. After the “Greetings” and the “Welcome to Denmarks” and the “Glad to see yous” I got in their car and was given a few hours tour of the area. They took me to see some of the many wind turbines in the area. They took me to a beach, which according to Erik is one of the longest continuous beaches in the world. They took me to see the harbor at Esbjerg. We also went to the city centre area, just a ways from where I had been the day before, and they purchased some Danish sandwiches, what they call open sandwiches, only one slice of bread – no bread on top.

We then went to their house for conversation and lunch. The sandwiches were good. Erik was genuinely interested in American Indian culture. I got the sense from him that it is a true interest, and not one of those touristy sorts of interest. He was full of questions, and I tried to answer them all. Ulla too had lots of questions; she even had some questions about general American Literature – not Native. I believe she said it was her nephew who was studying American Literature at a university a bit farther north of Esbjerg and he was writing a report on Catcher in the Rye. It has been years since I read Catcher and now I was being asked questions about it. Ulla even phoned her nephew and handed the phone to me. Wow, I started work immediately. He had plenty of questions, and I tried to answer them the best I could, but my knowledge of Catch in the Rye was more like Catcher in the Rust because it had been so long. I helped where I could and did no damage where I could not.

Les Hannah, day 6, part final

One more change of trains in Fredericia, from the two car tram-looking thing into another of similar construction. What I found a bit ironic on both of these final small trains was the strict no smoking policy within the cars. At each stop, which lasted only a few moments, people would step off the train and puff away. What makes that ironic is that both of these trains were leaking diesel emissions into the cars, at least where I was seated. The secondhand smoke was likely much less damaging to the lungs that were the diesel fumes.

Well, it didn’t kill me, and I made it to Esbjerg. I was a day early, well 14 hours, which was just fine with me. I had kind of planned it that way. I made it to a hotel just about four blocks from the station; this time I walked and dragged my baggage. Checked into the hotel and relaxed some. I used the hotel’s courtesy computer to send an email to the people at the handelsskole who would be my host s for the next two months telling them that I would meet them at the train station tomorrow morning around 11am. That would give me time to sleep in some, get something to eat and even look around a bit.

Once I settled into the room, I took a walk. The hotel where I stayed was only a few blocks from the city centre, so I headed in that direction. It was late afternoon, approaching early dinner time, and though I was not overly hungry I thought if I found a place that looked promising I would go ahead and eat. Well, I walked around the city centre for quite a while and did come across a place that looked interesting. The signs out front claimed the place had the best burgers in Denmark; though the signs were in Danish it was close enough to German that I could decode it and understand that I might be in for a treat. So I gave it a try, and they were not kidding. I do not know about the best burger in Denmark, as I had to this point tried no other Danish burgers, but this one was really good.

Now full on Danish burger and fries I walked about the centre a while longer before heading back to the hotel and settling in for the evening. My room was small, smaller than my office at NSU. But that was fine with me; it had a bed.

Les Hannah, day 6, part 1

I slept well that night. Even slept late, for me.  After all, I was in no hurry to begin the next morning. One more leg of the journey to my destination in Denmark, one more train ride and I would be in Esbjerg. I took my time in getting up and ready; perhaps I took too much time. Housekeeping walked in on me as I was getting into the shower again. Begging pardon, she exited hurriedly. I had my shower and finished packing then left.

Calling for another taxi to take me back to the station it was nearly noon by the time I got my ticket. My train was in an hour, so time for something to eat. I had two slices of kabob pizza from an Italian restaurant in Germany owned by a man who looked and sounded like he was Pakistani. Whatever the ethnic combination there the pizza was good.

Making my way to the platform where my train would be I stood patiently awaiting the transport. It had arrived a bit early, and I was unaware of that. I thought it was a different train and stood outside waiting for it to leave and mine to arrive. Not once did I think to check the train’s number, well not until it got closer to the time and I started to realize that something was off. When I check the number I had one of those “Oh crap” moments and hurriedly boarded the train. And none too soon; I had not even stowed my luggage when the train began to roll.

The final leg of the journey, under way. It as not long before the train crossed into Denmark, only about two hours. Maybe just a bit longer. I had to change trains in the Danish city of Padborg. I went from a longer and faster regional train to a two car, slower train, a train that looked more like an airport tram than a mass-transporter of human cargo.  I didn’t care what it looked like, just so long as it got me to where I was going.