Saturday, February 25, 2012

Næstved - Distant Family

After IPC, I honestly did not have anywhere to go. I crashed with my mother's cousin, who had a small house in one of Denmark's historic cities. I saw plenty of it before hand. I was more or less ordered to use all the money I was given for my stay in Denmark on ticket to visit him every weekend. It was worth it though. The family is nice and welcoming. The city is not that bad a place.

My stay with him was always a period of transition. From IPC to language school. Language school to agricultural school. Agricultural school to an institution in Lolland... That I will cover later. Reflecting on his help tells me the importance of family. Without him, I would be no where and I owe him a lot. Not just for putting me up in his home for a while, but also connecting me with resources in Denmark, mentoring on Danish society.
Once in a while, he took me out sailing. It was nice, except for being cold, sea sick and bored out of my mind. But still, nice. I saw some islands few Danes actually see and I can speak from experience about the yachting culture in Denmark. I learned a little here and there and tried to meet expectations and even today he still helps me out.


It also is a period of honest criticism, the first criticism that I wasn't sheltered from by mother and couldn't run from. At the time, I was more a slob than I am now and believe me, it got on peoples' nerves. He didn't hide it though and let me know exactly what was wrong and I had to face the music. Changing yourself, your habits, doesn't happen over night though, so it wasn't changing my ways one day to the next. He kept his criticism up as long as I was under his roof and couldn't run from it and it got me part of the way in cleaning up my act. In a way, I should thank him for being hard on me in that way.

So thanks for holding up that mirror no one else ever has. It helped.

- Servus

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