October 31–November 6, 2007, Number 166
Beautiful Fall colors and a lake at the farm where we went hunting in Soro, Denmark. (Click on photos for larger images)
Plateau of Normality
As with every great experience or stage of life, there comes a time when things begin to feel normal again. To say that my life right now, in Denmark, is falling into normalness would be inaccurate. I am still having a great time with all the new events but I am experiencing a plateau in the craziness of life as compared to when I first arrived. I imagine that this period of seeming normality will be erased when the end of my Danish adventure approaches and the beginning of my next adventure draws near. This brings me to the question: what is it about the firsts and the lasts in life that are so much more exciting than the normal times that seem to dominate our lives?
There is something special about the firsts in life. First love, first time out of the country, first day of school, first car, first child, and so on. These first and last experiences hold something special in their grasp. However, the lasts in life seem to produce a notable, but different, flavor of emotion. An emotion that generates memories just as vivid as the firsts but still distinctive, for example, the last day of school, last day of vacation, or even the last time you saw someone. All of these are naturally special and unique. I guess our daily challenge between the firsts and the lasts is to make the most out of the normal times in life. Normalness that comes from living everyday, whether as a college student, a spouse, or an employee. So in effort to combat the ever-advancing threat of normalness, I have found great value in making sure to add adventurous outings to break up the routine of my daily life. This article in fact is helping me make sure my life doesn't stay normal. I don't think many people would enjoy reading about my thought process for what clothes to wear today, or the rows and rows of bushes I pass on my ride to school. I don't even really care. I am just as intrigued about adventure as everyone else. That's why I am so driven to keep excitement in my life, not just so I have some ammunition for an interesting article, but so that I can cram my head with great memories of a lifetime filled with new adventures.
This weeks adventure: Danish bird hunting excursion. Being from the Upper Peninsula, I am familiar with the great outdoors and the beautiful wildlife that goes with it. So when I was offered an opportunity to tag along (I was unable to actually do any hunting due to Danish hunting policies) on a bird hunt, with the extended family of my host family, I was eager to accept. We traveled for about an hour southwest from Copenhagen to a town called Sorø. Here we met up with a total of fifteen hunters and six dogs at the owner of the land's home. This was more of a high-class hunting club and was a little different than the couple buddies and an afternoon I was used to. We started with a proper Danish breakfast that included tea, coffee, and buns with cheese and jam. After our morning smorgasbord, kindly provided by some of the hunters' wives, we set out to the properly managed wildlife paradise of about eighty acres. I may be exaggerating on its neatness, but it was pretty well taken care of. There were proper lanes for all the hunters to walk along, as well as feeding trails used by the owner to feed the local wildlife population. The land was meticulously covered by the supporting cast of Springer Spaniels, and Black Labs. In the end, the harvest was plentiful. After the hunt, it was comical to stand around and watch the men tease each other over missed shots, or other happenings of the day. I found myself chuckling at some points just because everyone else was laughing, even though everything was spoken in Danish and I didn't understand. When we returned back to the owner's house, we were met with a three-course meal that would suffice for a king, or a cast of successful and hungry hunters. It included smorrebrod, which are open-faced sandwiches of dark bread topped with pickled fish, eggs, and onions. The main course consisted of piping hot meat, potatoes, and carrots. The meal was finished off with a round of cheese, crackers, and Danish chocolate. It was a very enjoyable experience and it was fun to share hunting stories with the English-speaking hunters of the group.
To update on the project work being done, we successfully presented our up-to-date results to the supervisors of the group. They keep smiling and telling us we are right on track, so that's definitely a highlight. Now our group has agreed to strategically schedule the next couple of supervisor meetings to allow for some time to go on a study abroad expedition or two. Knowing that when we return it's nose to the grindstone time, to finish up the work started the first half of the semester.
During this little rendezvous from schoolwork, my fiancé is making the trip over the big pond and were starting our Tour De Europe that will take us from Copenhagen, to Paris, to Barcelona, to Rome, and Back to Copenhagen over twelve days. So my next couple of articles will be from the road. I am sure there will be some beautiful pictures and stories to come.
On a different note, its election time in Denmark, and it's an interesting time for sure. I have mentioned before that Denmark is a monarchy, and they have a queen but her supporting cast is democratically elected. A new Prime Minister is up for grabs, but in a way that is a little different from the US traditions. In the US, the president is elected every four years, at the same time of the year, and hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on campaigning. However in Denmark, The Prime Minister must be voted for every four years, or anytime before that. That means the current Prime Minister can call for an election anytime during his four-year reign. The crazy thing is that this year's election campaign length is only three weeks, and the top runners will spend only about two million dollars in their attempts to get elected. There are about ten different parties with candidates running for the Prime Minister spot. The Prime minister will represent one party, and the rest of the spots that make up the supporting cast of the prime minister will be made up of the rest of the parties that received votes. The more votes a specific party receives, the more power in the supporting cast that party has. This is different than the US where very small parties are not officially represented in our Congress.
As I mentioned earlier in this article, normalness creeps into everyone's life in some way or another. After thinking about it, I have decided that there are two types of people in this world when it comes to adventure, those who choose to live a life filled with it, and those who choose to sit back and read about it. I am thankful that I have the opportunity and ability to live each day as an adventure and am attempting to do just that. I hope that, in some way, you are too.
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Adventuring in Denmark
- Michigan Technological University
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