My weekend outside+ what it means to be a 'scout' in Danmark!

Hej guys!
Hvordan har du det?

How are you?
I think it's been about a week again since I last posted, and I figured that after doing something a bit out of the ordinary this weekend, now would be a good time to make an update.

This weekend, after an exhausting(men sjovt!; but fun!)week at school trying to learn more Danish, på lørdag(on saturday) my host family and I woke up bright and early and drove down to the forrest, and arrived at a scout camp!

Now, I'm not sure about your personal experience with scouting, but my own connotation with scouts, especially girl scouts, is not even close to the Danish experience I got this weekend. I myself, was actually a girlscout for a few years in elementary school, and, though I liked it, I have to say the Danish scouts kinda kickass in terms of being 'the real- deal'. What I did in scouting was mainly indoors...reading books, articles..discussing news issues...maybe going to a museum every now and again. Oh, and you got a cute little round badge to iron on your vest when you completed some kind of task. I think we went camping....once? Maybe? And we didn't even use tents or anything. I'm not saying this kind of 'scouts' is a bad thing....but, well, let's get on to the Danish version.

So, scouting in Denmark, as my host family says, is a big tradition. You start when you're a little kiddo, and quite a number of people continue scouting through adulthood. Scouts here in Denmark, or, at least the kind of scouts I saw(called 'spider') are not seperated by gender(so nice!), and are VERY outdoors-oriented.

Lots of being around the campfire, singing really silly songs(in danish, mind you. I heard one that I think translates to 'the light blue banana' in english...), building shelters, canoeing, finding stuff, biking, running....basically 'adventuring'. I think growing up in 'spider' in denmark sounds like an awesome experience. Another big plus to doing this sort of scouts, is that, though Danes have a reputation for being reserved, these kids are super cuddly and friendly with each other, and it just seems like a really good way to make super solid, close friends.

'Spider' also wear this freaking adorable blue bandana thingy around their neck, and then they have this blue canvas-y jacket thingy, that has tons of various shaped/sized badges and stuff on it.

The actual camp I went to this weekend was a once-a-year, whole-family-goes special sorta deal. It's also the camp where the kids who are moving up a level in scouts make that transition. This one was harry potter themed, actually, and we were seperated into groups by houses, obviously. I was in 'gold gryffindor' (woooottttt), and we had to complete all of these different silly, fun tasks as fast as we could. So we were running back and forth between the 'headmaster' and these stations, trying to fill up our house bottle with unnaturally blue liquid. Basically, silly, danish fun stuff.

At night we did the whole bonfire thing, and after that, the adults(I was in this category because I am not a scout, obviously) went off and took a dark walk in the woods, did a beer tasting/guessing competition(very danish, this. Have I talked about the dane's drinking habits yet? Hahahaha), some more song-singing, etc.

Needless to say, even though I am not a scout, at the end of this whole thing I was very tired.

Sorry about this post being so rambly/without pictures, but I just wanted to document this funny little nuance of Danish culture.
Vi se's till next time guys!!
-Rowen