Friday, June 4, 2010

Swimming like a French frog in a Danish pool?

Lately Troels and I have had a lot of discussions about cultural differences between all of the various places where we have lived, and them fitting our personalities. For me, after so many years spent in the US, the feeling of being a foreigner had slowly faded away, and I was comfortable there, I have to admit.

Then we moved to Denmark. I know that this wouldn't be all smooth sailing since I was again going to face a culture I knew little about, and expected to find myself in cultural "faux-pas" again...but not always where I thought I was going to make mistakes! Take going to the pool for example. Fairly simple business right? Or so you would think :)

Danish people seem to love things being done a certain way, and going to the pool is no exception. From how you should change, when to take off what, when to wash what, j'en passe et des meilleurs....and me, poor little unorganized French frog that I am, I ended up quite stressed out the first time I had to go to the pool for Tinymus' first Swimmix class!!

Excusez-moi while I make a fool of myself out there :) Thankfully, my new friend Pia, who lived in France for a few years, is with me every time and walk with me through all of it. Pfewwwwwwwwwwwww that isn't so bad after all, thanks Pia:)

Pia is married to a French man, Didier, and has a gorgeous little girl named Clothilde. We met during one of our trips to France, and have been hanging out ever since, including going to baby swimming classes.




Olivia and Clothilde are best pals now, and we have fun fun playdates together....maybe even more fun for the mamans than for the girls :)

I wonder how Olivia is going to grow-up in the midst of all these cultures. Is she going to feel more French? More Danish? Or more of wherever-it-is-we-are-living? Or just a plain mess of it all? Surely her idea of what her "roots" are is going to be very different from what Troels and I both experienced growing up since we were both raised mainly knowing one culture.

I guess we will find out soon enough. In the meantime, our little Olivia seems to be "swimming" quite perfectly -both in the pool of cultures we are giving her and the actual Swimmix pool :) Go go go Tinymus, go go go little frog!





2 comments:

Soaz said...

hey you know what....
J'adooooooore les cuisses de grenouille!!!!! (frog's legs) and knowing I 'll be able to kiss Olivia's soon makes me feel sooooo happy (and hungry)

Audrey said...

hehehe she can't wait for some patate kisses too and you know it :)