The Danes' arrival

A big day for Vincent - and, indirectly, for us - arrived on the last Thursday in September when some 30 Danish exchange students from Roskilde Little School - a K-10 private school - outside of Copenhagen - arrived. You might recall that Vincent first ran away from home when we said that - because of his grades - we would not host a Dane (presumably his host from the summer). But - as it turns out - much more than Vincent had imagined at the time of running away - and more than we wished - Vincent got to see plenty of them. Vincent had been depressed when he first came back from Denmark and said he wanted to move there. He had stayed in touch with some of the Danes - including Tim, his former host; and Kristine, a woman he was courting - by e-mail and instant messaging. We had been through this Dane pick up twice before - when we hosted Simon and then Jon in the previous falls - and so back we went to witness it one more time - this time without taking a Dane home. Also there were our friends Jon and Libby and their son Nathan, who was hosting a Dane again - and one of Vincent's favorite teachers, Carrie, an English teacher, who you might recall had sponsored all of his explosion of 11th grade extracurricular activities (Danish exchange program, 10-Minute Plays, KY United Nations Association), with her daughter, Molly (Carrie and Molly are pictured above at the airport). You might recall seeing lots of pictures of Molly and her brother in the Danish trip blog, still at:

Below is the coterie of soon-to-be host students and families and other Danish exchange program hangers-on - awaiting the Danes' arrival.



Here is the first wave of Danes - boys, in this case (below) - arriving. Notice all of the black. After Vincent came back, all through the summer heat, Vincent wanted to wear nothing but black. I believe the person on the left hugging is Lars, one of the Roskilde School teachers.

On the left with the jacket on her shoulder is Kristine, the aspiring fashion designer who Vincent ended up spending a lot of time with in October (including - unbeknowst to us at the time - unsupervised at our house at least once).

Below is a closer-up picture of Kristine (unfortunately with red eye).

And again - below.

Here is Tim, who ended up coming over to our house (and I believe having dinner, un-planned-ly) once. Vincent spent half his time in June staying at Tim's father's house, and the other half of the time staying at Tim's mother's house. We had sent one gift for the host family, and so we sent a similar gift back with Tim to give to the parent without a gift (his mother). One of Vincent's better friends in Louisville split his time between parents' houses, but this doesn't seem to be the norm in Denmark or with Vincent's classmates here. Instead of with us, Tim ended up staying with a friend of Vincent (now a better friend) whom we like and her sister and their family, in a bungalow in Germantown, not too too far from my old neighborhood. Tim apparently spent a lot of time with Vincent's friend Sharon's younger sister (Sam), and Vincent has spent a lot of time over at their house subsequently. Although he got a lot on our nerves, Simon and Tim didn't look totally different from each other (and both were self-confident - although Simon didn't end up being that nice to Vincent).

Here's Vincent and Tim talking with another parent in the foreground from my old neighborhood, who I'd met in Phoenix Hill Neighborhood Association activities. Carrie had taken several students to take the ACT in Hamburg, Germany (and also her family), and Edie had stayed flown out to Denmark to help keep an eye on the remaining kids. It turns out funds from the Brown Parent Teacher Student Association, which I had helped fund-raise for, had helped pay for this.

I don't recognize the person on the far left, but below are Tim, Sharon's sister Sam, and Vincent as luggage arrives at the airport.

Here (below) is the mob of Brown and Roskilde students and families awaiting luggage. As you might expect, a decent number of the Danes were blondes, although Tim and Kristine (like Jon) were not. Every year there's one or two adoptive Danes who are Asian or African. This year Sonya (apparently originally from South Asia---India) was friends with Vincent and borrowed one of his sweatshirts for a couple of days.

Bizarrely - after Jefferson County Public Schools students' de facto Ike aftermath fall break - they had another scheduled one - three days off plus the weekend makes a five-day weekend - the first week of October. The Danes always arrive just before this five-day weekend and spend the long weekend getting to know the host families and the environs (and hanging out a lot with each too). Friday I stopped by the St. James Court Art Show after work, called Vincent because I thought he was in the vicinity hanging out with the Danes and others - and then as he started to talk I saw him in front of me in the middle of Central Park (see Walkathon blog entries). Sunday there is always a late afternoon picnic for host families, exchange students, and so on. This year it was on the grounds of Jewish Community Center, which we had considered joining and where there'd been two end of the year church youth group picnics. Louisville has a prominent Jewish community, and the town is one of two major U.S. cities with a Jewish Democrat for mayor and a Jewish Democrat for Congressperson (the other is Las Vegas). A number of Jewish institutions are located on the east side not too too far from where we live in St. Matthews (although our immediate area is a Catholic enclave). I'm sure like other Jewish institutions the community center was originally more in town - like the religious structure near my old apartment which I believe is an old synagogue. We arrived at the picnic late (and we didn't stay - just hung out for a while and then left Vincent) and Vincent was quickly in his element. Below he's talking with Edie again.

I got to hear a different perspective from Nathan's mother Libby. Already we knew that Vincent was/is failing a bunch of his classes and we're starting to realize that his graduation may be in jeopardy. But Libby - whose son faces some social skills difficulties associated with very mild form of autism (aspberger's)- watched the two of them and talked here about how her son - somewhat disorganized like Vincent but - in 11th grade - now more compliant with some organizational skills - was getting As and Bs but wondered somewhat aimlessly at an event like this - unable to sustain conversations, not popular with his Danes spending lots of time away from home and not with him. Without any prompting from us, Libby said she'd trade her son's decent grades any day for Vincent's social skills, popularity, and self-confident comfort. She's also one of those many parents who loves having Vincent over and thinks he's a great kid (which he certainly can be - though we've seen more sides of him). But it was interesting to hear a parent talk about how they wish their kid could be more like Vincent, even if that meant the kid failing some classes. Below Vincent is in the background talking with friends. Eventually Vincent was out away from under the picnic awning, partly playing kickball. I can't remember where we ended up picking him up or whether he eventually got a ride home. It continued to be a challenge trying a little to keep track of where Vincent might be, trying to get him home (not to mention do any school work), and trying to get him home at a decent time. I'm not sure Libby would have liked this part so much.

-- Perry