The first week

Christian Lorentzen
5 days ago
7 min read

(Photo dump below writing)

I am writing this super sleep deprived at 4am, because I am so excited about how great the first few days at the Vrå højskole have been I can not sleep, because I can't stop thinking about how great it is going to be and how many amazing and nice people I have already met. The first few days feels like it has already been a month.

I'm in that early honeymoon phase of a relationship, like that song by Aerosmith:

Don't want to close my eyes, don't want to fall asleep

Cuz I'll miss you Vrå, and I don't want to miss a-thi ing

Arrival in Aalborg - t-minus 4 days to school start

On Wednesday the 7th of January, I left my sister's house in Arizona after a wonderful Christmas and New Years celebration.

By wonderful, I mean it was wonderful to spend time with them. I was also having major gut issues, which absolutely sucked. I got to take a three-pronged trans-atlantic flight with said gut issues which also sucked.

(I promise the story gets better, don't leave.)

I landed in Aalborg on Thursday afternoon. Danes frown upon those who take taxis, but with aforementioned stomach problems and an extra suitcase for my 6 months in Vrå, I decided to take a taxi to a very cozy Airbnb I rented in Aalborg to recover from jet lag prior to getting to the Vrå Høskole on Sunday. It was a lovely Airbnb, I never really explored Aalborg... except for walking to the canal which was nearly frozen over and reminded me of St. Petersburg or Moscow in the winter.

I got a real surprise on Friday. The international student coordinator from Vraa -- Vrå can be spelled this way too, and I will use it from now on because it's faster to type -- called me and told me that a friend named Gitte I met when I volunteered at the Stensbæk højskole 5 years ago had also enrolled at Vraa. It was a real delight to know someone who would also be attending. I called Gitte and she said she would be delighted to pick me up in her car and take me to the hojskole! Quelle surpris! Of course I said ... ja tak!

On Sunday Gitte picked me up and we drove to the hojskole. I dropped on my bags in my dorm room (photos below) and then Gitte and I drove up to Hjørring, the town where she has been living, to help her move out of her apartment there. We moved some of her stuff to her friends' houses and the rest to the dorm room. Gitte is professionally trained in knitting, sewing, and embroidery and was delighted to find out that she could get a room at the hojskole to set up all the equipment and materials she has.

I have become a bit fussier with age and need a bit more in my dorm room than a bed and a desk. Gitte kindly let me have her carpet and lazy boy. We also went to a Home Depot type store called Bauhaus, where I got a much much softer light for the bathroom, so it doesn't blind me if I have to go pee at 2 in the morning. (Side note: Danes call pee "tiss". They also use it as a light swear word. When you walk into the kitchen and forget why you walked into the kitchen, you can say "....tiss")

I got my dorm room set up and ready for the semester to begin! (Photos below)

The first two days of school

I have such an amazing dorm and such amazing dorm mates! I feel so lucky, so safe, and so happy to be with all of them. At the very beginning of this post I said the first two days feel like it's already been a month. That's in large part due to how incredibly quickly we all feel living in the same building. (And major thanks to Gitte for making the common area hygge - adding candles, and danish flags, and place mats. So that it doesn't feel like the sterile white room that it is.)

A big reason I am writing this blog at 4 am is because I do not want to forget these first two days. They have been so great and I want to document them. However because it's been a blur I've got to pull out my calendar of events to remind myself of each moment.

Every one was moved in on Sunday night. We had a dinner in the caf - very good food here. Had a welcome meeting in the auditorium. A key element of the Danish hojskoles is the Blue Song Book. It's pretty much like a church hymnal, but with non-religious songs. Songs that are about celebrations of life. Like there's sections with songs for the various seasons, togetherness, etc. Read about it if you want. In each daily gathering we sing one or two songs together from the book. It is great.

Then we did a scavenger hunt around the school. In the various studios we collected parts of a Sudoku puzzle. Upon the completion of the hunt, we had to assemble the Sudoku puzzle and solve it. It was level HARD. I was of very little help. Upon completion some of the squares corresponded with random letters that had to be unscrambled. I solved that in about 20 seconds. The unscrambled word spelled out "TOOTHBRUSH" which meant we had to bring a toothbrush back to the assembly hall to win.

Later that night one of the dorm mates graciously offered to bring his TV into the common area. We started watching How to Train a Dragon, but only got halfway through, because we all wanted to pass out.

Monday started with brunch in our dorm. During brunch our dorm "boss" went over the list of things all the dorm "parents" have to go over. Our dorm mom is Lene and she is the teacher for fabric sewing and design. She is great! She loves her job and generally just expects us to be responsible adults. End of convo.

Later that day I had to miss some of the events to go to the doctor in Aalborg regarding aforementioned stomach issues. The doctor essentially said I was dehydrated and not eating enough fiber. (I started taking fiber supplements, drinking water throughout the day, and eating way more leafy green salad than I normally do, and after two days I was better. Imagine that...drink water and eat leafy greens.) Also it seems the doctors here are less inclined to prescribe pharmeseuticals. Surprise, surprise.

Later that night after dinner, we met in the assembly hall to sing a song or two and then sign up for chores. Each person had to pick a day where they would be on duty to clean the kitchen. I hoped I would get Thursday because the photography classes are Mon and Tues, and I was thinking there may be a weekend or two I take a Friday off for a long weekend to go travel somewhere - Sorry Morten...love ya! (Morten is the art teacher, who I will have Thurs and Fri. He has kind of a bromance rivalry going on with the photo teacher.)

Tuesday is today, or rather yesterday, or rather...a month ago? No yesterday. It's now 5am on Wednesday.

Tuesday was the day we got to choose our subjects. We went to each different discipline - sewing/fashion, jewerly, knitting, art, photo, music, music production, ceramics - and listened to the teachers present their topic. What stood out to me was how engaged, happy, and knowledgeable the teachers are. I could tell that they not only enjoy their crafts personally, but also they love the community of the school and sharing their love of their craft and the school with the students. They felt like aunts and uncles more than teachers if that makes sense...

I have to also mention that during these last two days I have become nearly fluent in Danish. I still have a lot more words I need to learn, but I can pretty much fluently string together simple words to get my point across. And man, the Danish pronunciaton is hard. One of my dormmates is also a skilled linguist. She is from Japan and I shared with her a license to my lifetime subscription to Pimsleur, and within an hour she was able to say "Can you understand English" in Danish. Shout out to Pimsleur. This blog isn't monetized yet, but if I choose to monetize I'll definitly take ad spent from them. I support their product 110%.

Some of the other students I met were going to the "Goodwill" nearby to find stuff they needed. I went along mainly to hangout and meet new people. One guy I was talking to had been backpacking in SE Asia for 6 months!

I also met another classmate who is taking the same subjects as me - photo, film, and art. We hung out and discussed taking a short comedy screenplay I wrote while sitting by the beach in Newport in December and doing that as our project and then just submitting it to various film festivals.

I also made my own name tag. Our dorm mom Lene introduces all the students to the basics of sewing.

While wearing my dapper new name tag, I taught some of the Danish guys (and one girl) how to play cut-throat pool. We played with 5 people, we each had ranges of 3, which is hard to keep track of sober....definitly would need to write on a whiteboard if drinking. Then we played Jenga. Then I went to my dorm room, went to bed, couldn't sleep because I was so excited. So decided to be productive instead of just lying there and wrote this blog!

Conclusion

That is the whirlwind that was the first week (back) in Denmark, but really the whirlwind has been just the last two days. I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited about the creative projects that I'll be doing over the next 6 months.

I was so inspired that after the art class intro, I stuck around in the art studio talking with the assistant art teacher. She is also from Japan. As we were talking about a visit I took to see my sister in Japan I had a vision of orange pagodas against a blue sky. While the rest of the elever (students) went to lunch, I picked up paper, colored pencils, and pastels, and started to draw.

So for those reading this. I am happy and well and looking forward to sharing more stories, photos, and art with you. Love, Christian

Photos