Talking About Denmark

In the living room of our retirement home, I met with some of the old folks and talked about Denmark. I told them about the places Wally and I visited and then showed a Ric Steves video.

I obtained a package of Ric Steves programs on Europe by donating to the Dallas PBS channel. Ric compressed Denmark into two 30 minute DVDs, one on Copenhagen, where Wally and I spent a week, and the second on Denmark outside Copenhagen, where Wally and I spent another week driving around the countryside.

After the program several of our senior citizens came up to me in the dining room, and, stepping back from their walkers, told me how much they enjoyed the program. I’m glad they were pleased. Poor dears, most of them never traveled further than the casino just over the border in Oklahoma.

I felt I failed to adequately describe this pleasant little nation, its big farms with green fields and pretty villages with flower boxes beneath every window and tall stone churches unchanged since the 12th Century.

My talk expanded on some of the places pictured in the Ric Steves DVD. I saw the Viking ships in Roskilde, walked the streets of the folk museum in Arhus, and looked in wonder at the stubble of hairs on the face of the 5,000 year old bogman. I told about my encounter with Japanese tourists in the cathedral in Odense. I described the two tiny rooms where Hans Christian Andersen was born and as a young teenager escaped his family’s poverty by going to Copenhagen, where patrons sponsored his schooling and travels.

But how could I convey what it was really like to be there, to breathe the clean air, to feast my eyes on flowers everywhere, geraniums like a red blanket thrown over the railing of a balcony, to be met with smiles by friendly people?

Wherever I’ve traveled, what I remember best is not the grand “sights” but the people. Remember the palace guard who wanted to learn Japanese so that he could greet Japanese tourists in their own language? “Denmark is a small country, and I want to help my country any way I can.”

Perhaps my talks give me friends only a vague idea of what it is like in other countries. But I hope these Texans will begin to realize that the world is full of wonderful people who live very good lives – and maybe not everything is better in the U.S.