I hope you’re ready for a kick-ass metaphor, because I’m about to deliver.
Despite it being a Swedish company, living in Denmark has been a bit like how I imagine living in IKEA would be. I think IKEA is great. I loved it when my parents would pile me and my siblings into a car on a Sunday and take us on a trip to buy a bookcase. It was super fun to test out the furniture, and hilarious whenever anyone tried to pronounce the name of literally anything. That excitement never really left me, and when I go without my family, as a real life adult (kind of) it is still a day trip that I enjoy. Everything has a name I can’t pronounce, the meatballs are yummy, and there’s cool stuff. You see where I am going with this? Pretty sure a couple of IKEA trips have even felt like they lasted six months. But I am getting ready to leave IKEA now: packing all my metaphorical candles into my metaphorical big blue bag.
Despite the tedious metaphor, I’m genuinely really sad about leaving. I always knew that I didn’t have very long, but I didn’t expect to feel so at home here.
When I first came to Denmark, I was so confused by the language. My neighbour (who is from Sweden), once told me that the Norwegian and Swedish languages sound like dancing fairies, but the Danes sound like they are talking with a big potato stuffed in their mouth. I don’t think there could be a more accurate description of what happens when you listen to a person from Denmark. But at least the Norwegians, Swedes and Danes can still loosely understand each other, which is something I definitely couldn’t manage when I first arrived. In Danish the J makes the Y sound, the Y makes the OOH sound, the V makes the W sound, the R makes the RUGH sound, the H is silent half the time, a ton of the letters (C, Q, W, X, Z) are basically never used, sometimes they run words together or only pronounce half of the word (because why not), and on top of that there’s the whole confusing mess that is Æ, Ø, and Å. But, I have taken some classes, and now I know enough Danish to tell a shopkeeper that I don’t want a receipt, or to ask for directions, or to order a takeaway. I don’t feel uncomfortable when someone talks to me in Danish anymore, although I’ll admit that a lot of my confidence came from learning that if you pronounce the first half of the word a bit weirdly, and then just give up and vaguely mumble the second half of the word, then you’re probably pretty close. I feel like I’ve cracked it. It still sounds like everyone’s talking with potatoes in their mouth, but those potatoes are slightly smaller.
But it’s not just the language that I’ve got more comfortable with. I don’t accidentally walk in the bike lanes anymore (believe me you will die). I call hanging out with my friends Hygge. When someone is particularly showy, I have started to scowl at them along with the Danes who have been brought up to follow Janteloven (the Law of Jante), which is the idea that you aren’t better than anyone else and shouldn’t show off. I’ve even started to feel a strange kind of love for Queen Margrethe II – and I can name more Danish royals than I care to admit.
The real moment of realization that I had begun to blend in (at least as much as a tiny dark haired girl can blend into Scandinavia) came a month ago. Since 1994, the Danish Emergency Management Agency (DEMA) has tested the national siren warning system on the first Wednesday of May. Because, of course Denmark has a national siren warning system. The annual test, is not only to make sure the system works, it’s also intended to make sure the public become familiar with the sound and learn what to do if there is actually some kind of major incident in the future. The kind of major incidents they’re concerned about? Major fires, terrorist attacks or perhaps either Sweden or Germany getting too big for their boots. But what surprised me most was how unsurprised I was by the whole thing. It seemed perfectly normal to me that a perfectly peaceful country would have a complicated siren system that they test regularly. That’s when I knew the Danes had changed me – for better or for worse.
So when it comes to packing up my things and leaving, I will be genuinely sad. I feel like I’m leaving my home. Sure, I am returning to another home, a home that I have had for much longer, but that doesn’t mean I feel less like I also belong here – at least slightly. Leaving a home that is only a bit of a home is still much more sad than I expected it to be.
Hopefully I’ll be able to come back to visit at some point in the future. I’ve had some of the most fun times of my life (so far) here, and I will probably always think of Denmark with a smile. It’s been a pretty great “kinda home”.
In the mean time I’ll just have to incorporate a few Danish aspects into my life back in England, and maybe take a few nostalgic trips to IKEA.
Stay safe.
Sarah Middlemiss 