Keri Bloomfield

“Hygge is about an atmosphere and an experience, rather than about things. It is about being with the people we love. A feeling of home. A feeling that we are safe, that we are shielded from the world and allow ourselves to let our guard down.” – Meik Wiking, author of The Little Book of Hygge

1 Introduction

I walked naked across the changing room pretending it was the most natural thing in the world. It wasn’t, of course: in 36 years, my New Zealand birthday suit had never been seen in public. I was completely out of my depth and hadn’t even made it to the swimming pool yet.

As I reached the showers, I froze like a deer in the headlights. I was aware my own headlights were on full-beam too, though I didn’t look down to check. In front of me lay a sea of bums and boobs. A communal shower full of women evidently more liberated with their bodies than me, were scrubbing their underarms and groins with remarkable vigour. Meanwhile my own DNA from another land recoiled in horror. I’m the first to admit that growing up on a remote South Pacific island has left me, paradoxically, a little sheltered in my views to nudity.

My significant other – ‘The Dane’ as I liked to refer to him, partly because it was easier to pronounce than his Danish name – had told me I’d need a shower before swimming. An innocuous suggestion I’d dismissed until I was staring straight down an aisle of bare-skinned butts of every shape, with mine about to join them. I was every inch a stunned prude.

We have the same logic in New Zealand, of course: one should be clean before swimming. But our execution of this theory is worlds apart. Showers in New Zealand have curtains and are rarely communal. Always, there are individual changing cubicles available for those who’ve not yet mastered yanking off a wet swimsuit beneath an oversized towel before pulling their undies up over damp legs. Showering is also, in most cases, done in togs (swimsuit to the rest of the world). Groins are not heartily scrubbed in public.

Staring at my showering companions I was thankful of having a minute social circle in Denmark. The odds were in my favour that I was unlikely to run into someone I knew while starkers.

Those 20 minutes became the longest of my Danish life. To reach the showers, I first had to navigate a terrifying one-way maze in a bare-arsed state. My shoes came off first (and to be fair, that bit was quite easy) before I found a locker to hover in front of while calculating my escape through the overwhelming nakedness around me. Women were blow drying their hair au naturel while making casual chit chat. A swimming attendant circled, wearing a bright red and yellow shirt and shorts combo (grossly overdressed given the environment). She patrolled the changing rooms ensuring everyone was appropriately cleaning themselves – I watched in horror as she sent another woman back for not washing her hair. After many moments of indecision, I had no choice but to drop my pants and stuff them in my locker. Clutching my swimsuit and towel hard, I strode disrobed towards the showers. If there was an illustration to sum up my vulnerability and awkwardness in this new land among Danes, this was it. Standing without a stitch on, 18,000km from New Zealand, in a room full of equally bare-arsed women, I knew I was different to the Danes. Even if they weren’t giving my four white cheeks a second glance.

If you’ve lived with anyone from another culture, you’ll understand. Square pegs don’t fit in round holes.

When I first moved to Denmark, the differences were jarring. It was easy to make sweeping statements about another culture based on the most noticeable behaviours. Part fiction, part fact, it was some[1]thing both locals and foreigners liked to play. Locals do this… foreigners do that… locals are crazy because they do this… foreigners are crazy because they do that… It’s an easy habit to slip into. After all, bad eggs float to the surface and are the ones you notice first. They’re also the ones that make the best stories.

I used to have a life in New Zealand. An ordinary life, speaking my mother tongue, English; surrounded by friends and family; and a career. A life that was easy to navigate, and one where I wasn’t a foreigner.

But then a sliding doors moment happened. A split-second decision to look right instead of left one night at a crowded bar in my home[1]town of Wellington. That was all it took to begin my journey towards life in Denmark. A similar scenario to the one that lured Tasmanian Mary just a few years earlier from Australia to Denmark, where she became Princess Mary.

After one of the world’s longest flights (17.5 hours plus another eight for good measure) I arrived in Denmark in 2016 with a four-month[1]old baby, two suitcases and no friends. You can liken the feeling to being placed in a tumble dryer with the lights out: you’ll go around and around, occasionally hitting the wall with no idea really where you are. Geographically or mentally.

To make sense of my new life, I began sharing some of the cultural challenges. Most of these ramblings were shared in my Bilingual Backpack Baby blog and gave me purpose in my new life. It also led to other opportunities, including writing for the Danish newspaper, The International. This book is the story of what happened in between those cultural learnings.

In an attempt to not create an undue number of awkward encounters in my life, some names have been changed and my portrayal of some characters are a combination of various people that have crossed my path. I have also purposefully chosen to keep my family in the background throughout the book to ensure awk[1]ward moments around the family dinner table are minimised. Lastly, to help you navigate any unknown Danish or New Zealand words and phrases, you can find a glossary at the back of the book. I hope it entertains.

One, Meeting The Dane

I saw his pizza first.

It lured me in with its crispy crust, as all thought of my friends waiting for me to return with the next round of drinks flew out of my head.

Unable to find a seat in the popular Malthouse brewery, he’d been standing at the bar with a beer in one hand and a pizza perched in front of him. Approaching from behind, I’d done my best impersonation of a salmon swimming upstream as I tried to push my way through the crowd towards the bar in the hope of ordering another round. On either side of us, the after-work crowd was in high spirits, becoming louder and drunker by the minute.

“Are you going to eat all of that?” I asked, barely registering what he looked like as I waited for my drinks, my eyes fixed on the remaining slices of pizza that lay on a trendy longhandled wooden platter. I stared so hard I noticed the dusting of flour under the pizza that stopped it sticking. A clear sign of hunger, I thought.

It was a warm February night in Wellington, the kind that makes you wonder why you would want to live anywhere else in the world. While the summer holiday season had now ended and the school year had begun the great weather still lingered. It was a perfect social storm, enticing the nearby office workers to the buzz of Courtenay Place, with its never – ending selection of bars, restaurants and clubs. It was the sort of night that doesn’t happen too often, but when it does, you can almost see the magic in the air. The universe had aligned to create a warm evening with full wine glasses, laughter filling the bars, and no one in a rush to go home.

Shit, that pizza looks good. Dripping with cheese and fresh herbs, it spoke directly to the cavernous pit in my stomach that was in survival mode searching for food. Presumably, it was the reason my heart skipped a beat while I waited for Pizzaman to reply to my question.

“Help yourself,” he said, shrugging his shoulders in bemused bewilderment. I couldn’t quite place the accent. German perhaps? Or was it Dutch? Interesting, I thought, as I ate his pizza, the cheesy goodness sliding down with minimal effort to my waiting stomach. Pizzaman looked at me with a hint of justified confusion on his face.

I guess wherever he came from he wasn’t used to strangers talking to him, let alone eating his food.

“Where are you from?” I asked, going in with the big question, but then not waiting for his answer (patience has never been my thing). I followed up swiftly with, “Germany? Are you from Germany?” as the alcohol fearlessly encouraged my line of questioning.

“No,” came the sharp, one-word answer.

Hmmm, I thought, Pizzaman will need a bit more warming up if this conversation is going anywhere. Always up for a challenge, I cheekily picked up the wooden platter holding what remained of his pizza and offered him a piece.

A smile, possibly a grimace, moved over his face as he replied, “Denmark”. An image of pastries and a pint-sized mermaid statue immediately jumped into my head. “Ahhhh, Denmark. Been there, done that,” I said (with the naivety of a child). “Good pastries. Not sure about the brown bread and herring thing, though. Anyway, come and meet my friends so we can swap travel stories.” I pointed at my group of friends sitting on the other side of the bar. Without giving him a chance to answer, I took his pizza paddle, manoeuvring it through the crowd to the table where the rest of my group had been gathered since our arrival five hours earlier.

I’d travelled around Europe in my 20s and remembered how magical it was when a local embraced us, buying us a drink and sharing a few stories for no other reason than just because they could. These were the unscripted, magical moments of travelling. I assumed, as a solo traveller, Pizzaman would enjoy the same opportunity.

My friends graciously welcomed my catch into the group like they always did.

“Again, Keri?” Lisa chortled as she stifled a howl of amusement, referring to my reputation of connecting with strangers.

I smiled. “Just another friend we haven’t met yet,” I replied. The habit had started a few years earlier at the many industry networking drinks I’d had to attend. Events where you’re supposed to talk like it was the 1990s with only a watch (if you wore one) to busy yourself with as you tried to break into one of the huddled groups of strangers around you. You wait for a lull in their conversation to introduce yourself, but often end up like an awkward 13-year-old at their first school disco waiting to be asked for a dance.

My goal at these events was to make it a game to talk to strangers. I’d gone slightly off script with Pizzaman, but nevertheless the intention, aside from the pizza, had been the same: connecting with people I might not otherwise have met. The wine also helped.

An ingrained part of my DNA, along with my connector personality, resulted in a horrifying combination for those who hadn’t been brought up to say ‘Hello’ to strangers on the street.

Shuffling over, my friends made room for Pizzaman to join the table. They were big fans of Borgen, the popular Danish political drama television series, and eagerly listened to his travel stories in the hope of learning more about life in Denmark.

“You cycled over the Remutakas?” Lisa asked, referring to the mountain range just north of the city. “Why would you do that? You know you can take your bike on the train, right?”

“That wasn’t the point,” Pizzaman replied. “I wanted to experience the country, not just look at it.”

Pizzaman, as we discovered, had been working in China for the last two years as an automation engineer, expatriated by a Danish pharmaceutical company to build an insulin plant. Travelling through New Zealand on his bike was his reward after completing the contract.

“I started in Christchurch and worked my way up the east coast before heading over to Kaiteriteri and then back to Picton. Some campers in Kaiteriteri recommended this place,” he said, waving his hand to reference the moderately upmarket pub we were in.

As the beer continued, Pizzaman became more comfortable deciphering the New Zealand accent and slang, as well as the New Zealand strangers. His stories began to flow.

Slowly, I realised I was becoming a bit more interested in Pizzaman than his pizza. But I also knew it was his last night in New Zealand before beginning the journey back to Denmark. He was booked on the painfully early sparrow’s fart flight at 6am the next day. I didn’t expect to set eyes on him again. This was a night to file in the good time, not a long time box of life experiences. So, when I said goodbye to him later that evening outside The Malthouse, with the now very late and quite drunk crowd circling around us, I wasn’t planning on seeing him again. He was flying out in just a few hours, and besides I’d eaten half his pizza and was no longer hungry, which seemed all that mattered.

“Have a safe trip back to Denmark,” I offered. “Thanks,” came his short and razor-sharp answer again – a style of communication that, unbeknown to me, I was about to become much more familiar with.

Late the next morning, when he should have been somewhere over the Pacific Ocean with his phone turned off, I sent Pizzaman a text message. Within seconds a reply landed back in my inbox:

It was good to meet you too. Do you want to have coffee this afternoon?

I froze. I was confused. He should have been on the plane. Back then, international flights only left Wellington early in the morning, and by 7am his plane should have departed. It didn’t make sense why was he asking me for a coffee. My phone beeped again as if he’d anticipated my confusion.

I had a problem with my ticket. Wasn’t allowed on the flight. Now leaving Sunday.

Shoot. So much for a pizza with no strings attached. I’d attracted a Dane.

The Clairvoyant

Five years before asking Pizzaman if I could share his dinner, I’d sat in my car on a quiet rural road outside a clairvoyant’s house. Her house was less than 500m from the main state highway, but it may as well have been a world away. Sporadically placed weatherboard homes lined the road – most of them in need of a new coat of paint. Other than the overgrown gardens tumbling from one property to the next, there was little sign of life anywhere on the road.

Arriving early, I parked next to an out-of-control hydrangea bush and did my best to fill time before my 10.30am appointment. I began cleaning out my parking money container. Fluffing around, I started sorting receipts from the coins that had congregated in the console, when my mind wandered to a mantra I’d parroted to myself over the years: my twenties are for myself. The phrase began to repeat itself in my head.

With a university degree, six years’ work experience in New Zealand and another two in London, I’d been making progress on both the career ladder and the ladder of life – without the restraints of having to compromise with any significant other in my life. It was the upside of having been single for most of my 20s.

But as I sat, aged 29, in my car outside that clairvoyant’s house, I began to wonder if I’d taken a detour from achieving what I wanted most: a house, children and a soul mate. Wouldn’t hurt to get a second opinion, I thought as I walked down the narrow and uneven garden path towards a small porch.

As she opened the door, I considered whether I needed to introduce myself to a clairvoyant.