Moving to Denmark: Culture Shock Experience at a Danish Swimming Pool
If I had to describe myself, I’d say that I’m as American as one could be. I LOVE baseball, peanut butter and saying hello to everyone I see. Okay, so the last one may be more of a midwestern thing, but I think most Americans do that. After traveling to Europe quite a few times over the past 20 years, I wouldn’t call myself an expert on Europeans, but I probably have a better grasp of them than many Americans. Heck, I married a European and now live in Europe, but in my mind, that means diddly squat! That being said, I’d like to tell you about my first experience at a Danish swimming pool with my children.
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Table of Contents
Having No Clue What to Expect at a Danish Swimming Pool
I’ve been to swimming places before in Europe…mostly in Germany, but I have been to them. I can tell you, though, that I have never had the same experience as I did the other day going to Viborg. To be honest, I know that it is just me who was uncomfortable. I can’t speak for my two young sons, because I was a bit uncomfortable asking them if they were uncomfortable. I figured I would just watch them and see what they did. They are better at adapting to their surroundings than I am. Heck, it has been days, and I’m still a bit perplexed. I feel like I need a slap in the face or something! 🙂 Geez!
Realizing that I’m the Odd Ball in this Situation
I know that the other people I came into contact with were NOT uncomfortable. Lord, I wished they would have been! I felt almost the same as I did one time in Italy when I went to use the toilet and there was just a hole in the floor. Umm…I don’t think so!
Come on, Kelly!! You are from the Midwest!! How many cornfields have you peed in? I rest my case! Still, I wasn’t in nature. I was in downtown Milan. Now, I was in a large, Danish town with normal people, who paid to enter this swimming hall. Again, everyone was comfortable, except for me.
Getting Out of My Comfort Zone in Denmark
Okay, okay. I’ll talk. After paying the entrance fee, I was guided to a hallway that led to the lockers. I had no idea what any of the signs said, but I saw the stick figure of a woman on one of them; I entered that one! Picture this! Right away, you are in the locker room. There are lockers along the wall you are facing as well as the left and right, but the front, middle part has a dark grey floor with benches.
Read all about my comparisons of Danish and International Schools in Denmark. Which one was best for our children?
Right away, the old ladies (well, that’s what they were) started to talk to me in Danish and point to the floor. I had no idea what they were saying, so I told them in English that I didn’t speak Danish. They gave me a lecture (Probably not meant to be, but I felt that I was being “schooled”) about taking off your shoes on the dark grey tiles. Damn!! (Pardon my French!) I just walked in the door! They said, “it is best to learn the children what to do.” Now, if I was really feeling fistey(probably spelled that wrong), I could have corrected saggy boob lady on her English and walked away.
Moving out of Pure Shock and Fear
Instead, I was trying to be a good girl, led my children to the benches, removed their shoes and walked to the other section of the locker room, away from those women. I mumbled about the room being very hostile when my kids wanted to know why we were going “over there”, which was the next section of the locker room, filled with lockers and another dark grey tiled section.
Luckily, they don’t pay much attention to me or know what hostile means! 🙂 For the record, the talkative, saggy boob lady was fully naked. I did not make eye contact, nor did I make really any other contact. I think I was staring at my children, who seemed to have been hit by a train with the looks on their faces. Sure…it is funny when you catch mom out of the shower, but with this lady, I think it was full fear in their eyes! Poor babes!! 🙂
Practically Running out of the Changing Room
I get the boys into their swim clothes and me too for that matter. I took two towels for them and my phone so that I could take pictures. We walked further into the locker room which turned into the bathroom/shower room. Those parts of the locker room were empty. Keep that in mind for later. I had no warning; I had no notice!
Luckily, I figured out how to turn on the water and got us all under the water for our “shower” before heading through the doors to the pool. Now, I don’t know about you, but when it says to “shower” before you enter the pool, I normally just run under the shower briefly. I don’t really take a shower unless I need to. I actually just came from my house where I took a shower, and put on no deodorant or makeup, so I didn’t feel the need to take a shower. Same goes for my kids.
Different Swimming Sections within the Danish Swimming Pool in Viborg
When we got out to the big pool area. We saw right away that there was a large section for lap swimmers, which was not us, but it did have a large slide, which was cool. Maybe some other day.
We headed to the side, where we could tell it was shallower and had some floaty things. As you can see in the background, the lifeguard is trying to tell me that taking pictures in forbidden! What the hell!! You can walk around the locker room with your saggy boobs out, but I can’t take an innocent picture of my children in the pool?
What kind of place is this! I played the foreigner card and said in English that I didn’t speak Danish. Now I know I’m a little s&%t. (I want you to get the impression that I’m a good mom, who doesn’t swear, but my mom told me it isn’t nice to lie! I’ll try to be good! Count to ten and all that!)
The little guy thought that this pool was a bit too deep for him, so we headed over to the shallowest of the pools, which had a cool, raining umbrella and lots of toys. We had a nice, long time here playing with the toys and laughing. A couple of other mothers came by with their babies, but I didn’t feel in the chatty mood. I wanted to spend time with my dudes! (This picture was done in secret. Shhh! Don’t tell!)
Be Aware of the School Kids
There was also another section on the far edge of the pool, that, from what I could make out from the lady working the front desk, was “taken”. She said that someone was already in the “warm water”. I took that to mean the hot tub, but I wouldn’t take my kids in a hot tub anyway. The only other area that I could see was a room that was closed off with doors. I think that this is where they held classes.
Back to the Danger Zone at the Danish Swimming Pool
Okay…back to that awkward moment of writing. How do I begin to explain what happened when we got to the locker room again!? Oh, Lord! Give me strength! When we opened the door to go back into the locker room, we were in a small room that allowed for the people in the locker room to have privacy from those in the pool. I was not prepared for what awaited me on the other side of the actual locker room door. OMG!
Let the Mental Freakout Continue
Again, forgive me for being American and thinking that some body parts should be covered. At the YMCA where I used to live, there are showers, but we have curtains so that you don’t have it all out there for the rest of the locker room to see. Also, we have FAMILY locker rooms, where mothers can take their young sons and not have to worry about them seeing ALL THAT! Any who, lighten up, Kelly. You are living like a European now, so start acting like it.
One way to become more Danish is celebrating Danish holidays like Sankt Hans Aften, a fun Danish summer tradition.
When I opened the door, we were again in the shower room. There, in the shower, was one of the moms who had her baby in the pool with us. I tried to focus my sons’ attention on the baby and not on the large display of woman that was in front of us. The baby was so sweet, sitting in a little bath tub next to the mother, who seemed to be taking her time with her shower.
AAAAAHHHHH!!
More Obstacles for the Foreigner at the Danish Swimming Pool
I am not sure if I ran from the shower room to our lockers, because it is all a blur now, but I would believe it if you told me that I did. Apparently, there was a short wall, blocking the shower section from the way out to the pool, but that didn’t block my view. Lord, have mercy!
But on the “dry” side of this wall were baskets where people had their towels, shampoo, etc. for the showers. I must have missed the memo. It does make sense though, that you would want to get cleaned up and take off your suit so that you didn’t track water back to the lockers. I came to this conclusion after undressing myself and my children at the lockers.
Not thinking about it, I didn’t take any soap or shampoo with me. Perhaps, I figured that we would just go home after that, and we could get cleaned there. It isn’t a big deal, but I bet I stuck out like a sore thumb by doing it ALL WRONG. Whatever!
Getting Braver When Changing at the Locker
On the way to our locker, I noticed the other mother and baby who were in the pool with us (not the one from the shower) plus the mother’s mother, and all three were blocking our locker a bit. I managed to say in Danish that our locker was in between them, so they moved a bit.
All of their stuff being all over the place made things difficult, since I had to dress myself and two little boys in very limited space. With the crushing sense of immediacy, I suddenly felt no fear when whipping my suit off in front of the 4 strange women next to my locker and my children. Heck, my nudity wouldn’t even faze my kids at this point. They seemed frozen, as if they had no idea how to dress themselves. Poor little dudes.
Finding Changing Rooms at the Danish Swimming Pool
At this time, I realized that in this section of the locker room, they had the dark grey tiles and benches for putting on the shoes, but on the other side were two changing rooms. That would’ve been nice to know about before. I guess I didn’t feel like looking around at stuff when I was in there. Getting the heck out of there was more of how I felt, I think! 🙂
Read all about the best places to visit in Denmark for families HERE!
Where is the Swimsuit Dryer?
I took our suits and did a brief search for the machine that dries the suits. No luck! I even went as far as to ask a naked woman if such a machine existed. Nope! Again, she had no concerns about talking to a stranger when she was trying to dry her hair. Crazy! I threw the towels and suits into the wet bag I had brought with us, and then I put that bag into the larger, diaper-style bag I used to store most everything.
Getting the Heck out of the Danish Swimming Pool
Then, I had the boys carry their coats out of the locker room, since there wasn’t much room to put them on. I was a bit flustered and annoyed anyway. The mother to the baby said, “have a nice day” as I mumbled my dissatisfaction about the crazy country of Denmark and their 1940s locker room. Haha!
I could be on a Snickers commercial. You know the one with Marcia Brady?!! “Marcia, you’d better eat a Snickers! You get cranky when you’re hungry!” hahaha
I told the lady, “you too” to her “have a nice day” comment, and the boys and I got our shoes on in the hall.
Needing a Cultural Lesson on Danish Swimming Pools from my Danish Husband
When my husband got home that night and I explained the day to him, he mentioned how brave he thought I was for going at it alone. He thought that this should’ve been something we could do together.
Maybe I need to wait for him for more things! 🙂 It is hard to make an independent woman sit around and wait, but I think that when it comes to areas of massive culture shock, I think it might be best to have my husband around, if nothing other than to have a shoulder to cry on! 🙂 Haha!
Checking out the Town of Viborg, Denmark
Because I needed to take my mind of what I just experienced, I walked from the swim hall into the town with my two guys. We mostly just walked around the old part of town, which had pedestrian streets without cars.
They tried to smile and eat at the same time, which seemed to be one of life’s great mysteries. This is what I got:
Overall Thoughts of our Adventure in Viborg
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Kelly
Hi! I'm Kelly, an American mom and wife to a Dane. After deciding to move to rural Denmark in 2016, I decided to share the highs and lows of expat life in Denmark with lots of fun family experiences and trips in Denmark to make it all a bit more interesting! :) Welcome to My New Danish Life!
19 Comments
John
Kelly, I’m a Canadian born in ’75, living in Denmark now 10+ years. I would say on the west coast of Canada it was most common to shower with your shorts on, but a good 25% of men, usually older or college athlete types would shower nude. Same with changing in the open or under a towel.
I didn’t find it that strange in Denmark at first. Then I went to a coed sauna, nude! Coed nude sweating, showering, cold plunge. Actually really liberating and relaxing after you get used to it.
Another surprise was how many men, women and children swim naked. Nude winter bathing, just a brief dip is very common and frankly amazing once you get used to the physical shock of the cold and psychological shock of seeing your kid’s school-playmates’ mom strip naked and plunge into the icy water.
In the summer, I’d say in the mornings before 10am most days 25-50% (less on busy weekends) of swimmers are naked in the water where we live in Humlebaek. And casually standing around on the doc dressing/undressing while chatting, not in a panic to wrap up in a towel. This has become my habit too, I’m even of the minority that will grab a skinny dip to cool off midday if it’s not too busy at the dock. the Danes call it bathing for a reason, it’s to cool down and get clean, mush easier without a swimsuit int he way. But all summer long most kinds under 5-8+ are naked playing at the beach and in the water all day.
I believe all this gives kids and adults a health attitude towards their bodies. One of our older daughters (21) will happily swim nude or topless with her closest girlfriends, or suntan topless in the yard. My youngest boy (18) is unphazed my his family’s Danish style attitude to nudity, but would rather keep his shorts on. Our oldest daughter (23) seems to have kept a bit more of the Canadian intact, she says she wouldn’t enjoy nude swimming under any circumstances, but agrees womens change rooms/shower are not an issue.
I wish more places could expereience the freedom and body confidence that comes with the Danish way of life. How has your family adapted now, are you still living in Denmark?
Kelly M
Midwestern American here.
Thankfully I never experienced any embarrassment or awkwardness over nudity in the presence of other females because my mom used to take me and my two sisters swimming at a YWCA when we were very little girls. The showers in the women’s locker room were all out in the open like schools have, and we always showered after swimming.
I’m gratefull that I was exposed to (Female) nudity in that setting at that age. My elementary school had showers in the girls locker room, and all girls were required to shower after all gym classes starting in the fifth grade. The boys didn’t have to shower until the seventh grade in junior high, which made some of the girls pretty unhappy at the time. We were told that the reason why was that girls start puberty earlier than boys. The boys also weren’t shown a sex education video until the sixth grade, whereas we were shown one in the fifth grade. The boys complained about that part.
All students had to shower after gym class from junior high through all of high school.
I remember that in the fifth grade some of the girls seemed very nervous the first few days that we showered after gym class.
I graduated in 1994 and I assume that I’m older than you. Maybe you weren’t required to shower in gym class in school? That may have made it more awkward for you as an adult? Have you grown more used to it with time in Denmark?
Kelly
Wow. No, we were not required to shower after PE, and if we had swimming, we showered in our suits afterwards. I graduated in 96, so you are not much older. That is very interested to hear of your experience. I think it would have made things easier for me in Denmark, if I had that experience. Things are easier now. Thankfully! 😉
Tora Jeberg
You probably know this by now, but the rule about no photos at the pool, is to protect you and your kids from being photographed by strangers. I can’t remember if we were allowed to take photos before the internet came along. The pool is supposed to be a safe space, where you don’t have to worry about your children ending up on some pedophiles website 🙂
Kelly
It is a good rule. I see that now! 😉
Jean Philip Ricard
I am a bit older that you, and i was an excahange student in the USA in 1981. A couple of years later we had a visit from my American “mother” host family here in Denmark. It was in the summer and I was driving her and my mother around the countryside and our guest where sitting in the right front seat with my mother in the back seat, we where going along the coast road, all of a sudden my American mother is putting her hand up in front of my eyes. I quickly had to remove it since I was driving the car. At the same time she said to my mother in the back with a trembling voice: “Did you see that, that woman was topples walking on the side of the road?” My mother answered, well we are going along the beach so that is quite normal in Denmark. Our guest was truely chocked and wanted to shield me, but luckily we didn’t have a road accident.
All in alli think that when you think about it we all comes into this world nude an it is nothing to be ashamed of. We all have more or less the same body parts and we all have the same red blood in our wains.
JT
I just came here from your TikTok. I was an exchange student in the US in ’12/’13 in Chico, California. Growing up in Denmark I had been a pro swimmer, so when I went to the US, I joined the varsity swim team. The first day in the changing rooms, I had the exact opposite, but way to similar expirience. In Denmark we always strip down completely and wash ourselves with soap under the showers, always. So I, naturally, did the exact same thing. It wasn’t until 2 minutes later, in the showers, that I noticed everyone was wearing their swimsuit and the guys outside of the showers were changing under a towel – here I had been completely nude for several minutes and everyone was starring at me – the horror……..
One of them, who did not know me (this was still just me 2nd or 3rd day since arriving) but knew I was an exchange student, asked me if that is how we do it in europe. I said yes, we are requirred to shower with soap before entering the pool for hygiene reasons. No one replied until one guy said: “I have never seen someone who’s uncircumcized before, what do you do with it?”
And that was how I learned to change under a towel.
Kelly
Oh no! This is awesome! Yep! We Americans are easily shocked! LOL Thanks so much for sharing your experience. I wish I could be as carefree as a Dane most days, but I still need more practice! 🙂 Thanks for finding me here and on TikTok! 🙂
-Kelly
Katja
Hi! What an interesting post and really a shock to me as a dane actually.
I must say that it really baffles me that “natural” nudity can be so intimidating on people coming from other countries, when “artificial” and highly edited nudity in movies, music videos, tv shows, instagram etc on the other hand is not shocking to people? I cannot explain how wrong I think that is. It makes people (boys and girls) grow up with body shame and completely twisted body images that no one can live up to. The more real unedited natural female (and male) bodies your boys get to see, the better they will think of their own bodies and their future partners’ bodies as well I suppose. I have a really hard time understanding what it is you (and lots of other people of course) want to hide from them? Why is it dangerous for them (or you) to see other naked women?
I don’t hope you take this the wrong way – I do not mean to be rude. I am just really really curious, because I just cannot figure out why that would be. A cultural difference of course, but why do you think it is like this in the US? It would be very interesting to know.
Wish you a great day!
Kelly
I don’t think we have anything to hide. It is just how we are. Nudity in film and in the media is also something that we are NOT really comfortable with. It might seem that way to foreigners who learn about the American culture via movies and media. I am sure it wouldn’t have been so bad if I had girls, but I was /am really uncomfortable with having my boys watch women take showers, especially strangers. There are many reasons for this, but that’s all I’m going to say about it. I appreciate the idea you have with body image, and I’m glad my boys are comfortable showering in school with their friends. I take the good with the bad and learn to adjust! 😉 Thanks for being so open on your understanding. It is comforting to know that people try to understand our (foreigners)feelings even if they don’t agree with them! 😊Thanks for reading!
søren
I’m an oldtimer at 64, I’m sitting ant think that it is funny that you think that younger danes are “free” about their bodies, they aren’t. In that respect, it is a good thing you wasn’t here back in the 70ties, you’d die of shame.
On another note, I DO understand your uncomforablesness about nudity (it is a matter of personal way you are raised) but think of this:
The way YOU feel about nudity is transfered to your children, SO if you want them to have a mre “natural” nontaboo relation with their (or for that matter anybody’s) body, you HAVE to try to curb your uneasyness, or let your husband take them.
Kelly
Hi there! Yes…I am glad I have boys. My husband took over the swimming pool visits, and since they have been showering after PE in school for a few years, they are pros with nudity. LOL Luckily for me, they don’t see my uneasiness nor have to be around me naked. Winner winner chicken dinner for me! 😉
Michael
Wonderful little experience. It’s small things like that we as Danes doesn’t notice ourselves but I can see how weird and uncomfortable a situation like that might seem at first glance. Kudos to you and the boys for just jumping head in first and getting a new fun experience. All the best to you, the boys and your husband. Cheers
Kelly
Thanks so much for your words and thanks for reading!
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