Boarding School. (Timeline: 1952 to 1958)

OK, this story doesn't have any horses, though there are a couple of donkeys :-)

First, the back story: When I was six, my dad, who was a policeman, left us after throwing my mom down two flights of stairs. My mother got custody of us kids. My mom would go to work early, so we'd get ourselves ready and off to school, which was only a few blocks away. We usually each went our own way, though I was only six and still in first grade. After school we'd walk over to the after-school place. I don't know what the American equivalent would be, but I'd guess it would be somewhat like kindergarten, but for older kids whose parents worked. I think it was a government-run facility. It had a fenced-in playground with swings and teeter-totters etc. and several large play rooms with toys and books. And adult supervision of course. Fairly loosely run; they didn't have roll call or anything. You'd show up after school, and either walk home or get picked up by a parent.

I guess I'd better mention . . . Even though we were technically left to ourselves in the morning to get ready for school, we had "Niller", Fru (Mrs.) Nielsen, who lived in the apartment next to us. There were 2 apartments per floor in each stairwell, and Fru Nielsen, who was a widow lady living by herself, had been our babysitter, more-or-less, since we were tiny. She was only a knock on the door or on the wall away, and she had keys and would sometimes peek in to make sure all was in order.

One day my brother didn't show up at the after-school place. We didn't walk there together; we got out from school at different times, and we didn't hang around together, so I didn't even realize he was missing until my mom came to pick us up. We didn't know for DAYS what had happened to my brother; as you can imagine, my mother was FRANTIC!!! We finally found out that my dad had picked my brother up outside the school and taken him to his place. Since my mother had custody of us, it was technically a kidnapping, but my dad, who had connections, never got in trouble for it, and it took about 6 months before we got my brother back.

Anywho, a few years later my mother decided to get us out of town for a while. Partly to get us away from my dad, who she was afraid of, and partly to give us an adventure; a memory to treasure. She located a boarding school that wintered in Spain, so at the beginning of fifth grade for me and seventh grade for my brother, we went off to the country. The first couple of months we were at a 'herresæde'; I guess it would be a country estate. A large house with extensive grounds. For us city kids it was an adventure all it's own. Fields, cows, trees, lots of fresh air, and an apple orchard; all within play/exploring distance. It wasn't cheap; my mom worked 2 full time jobs to pay for it, something we kids knew, but didn't think about.

The teachers at the school were not very good; looking back I am surprised the school wasn't closed down for incompetence, but we were treated OK, though I suppose we weren't supervised adequately; we were running around pretty wildly.

A couple of months into the school year the entire school packed up; lock, stock, and kids and adults, into several buses. Beds as well as luggage tied to the top of the buses, and off we went. Through Shælland; ferry to Fyn, then driving through Jylland and down to Tyskland (Germany), Frankrig (France), and Spanien (Spain). I don't remember everything about the trip, which took three days, but a few things stuck. In France, some of the public restrooms didn't have toilets with seats etc, but only foot pads and a hole in the ground. You were expected to squat to do your business! Another memory from France; we stopped on a hill outside Paris and could see the Eiffel tower in the distance.

Once we arrived in Llinas Del Valles (not sure of the correct spelling), we were all unpacked into a large house. The girls had the 3rd floor, which had several bedrooms; the boys had the second floor, where they were in a large room. To begin with, we didn't have enough beds for everyone, so we'd share, two to a bed, head to toe. Later we had more beds shipped in, so we'd each have our own beds. I think the buses went back for the rest of the stuff. Poor planning, but an 11 year old doesn't care about that!

Llinas was a small place; only a village I suppose, and our house was the biggest in the area. We were a bit north of Barcelona. There were mountains all around; a river with bamboo growing wild at the bank, and lots of sheep everywhere. I particularly remember a lot of tile; mostly in pastel greens & blues and white. There were tiles in the rooms; floors and walls, there were tiles in the other buildings; there were tiles in the ruin of a small round tower close by; down by the river. Tiles everywhere! From what we understood, the tower had been wrecked during the Spanish civil war, and it was open, so we'd go explore it too. There was a swimming pool close by too; open to the public. No life guard though.

Like it had been back home, we weren't very well supervised. Classes were pretty much hit-and-miss and didn't keep us from exploring the neighborhood. We weren't starved, but the food supply was pretty sparse; we seemed to always be hungry. I remember a couple of instances where we would 'appropriate' some sugar and butter and a frying pan from the kitchen and take off up to the mountain where we would build a fire and make caramel from our booty.

It was COLD in Spain! Not as cold as in Denmark, but that huge house was not adequately heated, so we were cold much of the time. One time the boys actually built a FIRE on the tile floor in the boys' dorm!

Being starved for horse company I soon found a couple of donkeys. One was tethered at the roadside close by to graze. I'd go see him and pet him pretty often, and once in a while I was able to mooch a bread crust or other goody for him. The other was being driven around town by a young Spaniard. I soon made friends with him, and he'd let me ride in the cart. He took care of a flock of sheep; would herd them out to graze in the morning and back into the stable at night. Sheep STINK!!! At least those sheep did! The fun riding around in the donkey cart came to a screeching halt one day, when the guy decided to try to feel me up. He didn't insist when I didn't like him touching me, but I still decided that I'd better not hang around with him any more, so after that I only had the grazing donkey as a friend. That, too, came to an end; the donkey BIT me in the leg. HARD!!! It barely broke skin, but it must have done some damage; to this day I do not have any feeling in that area on my leg.

Oh well; there were so many other adventures. Sometimes I would go swimming in the pool. Not too many others would; it was after all WINTER, but even when the puddles in the streets would be frozen over it wouldn't stop me. Heck, after all I AM from Viking stock! As long as you keep moving, the cold water would be bearable, and indeed quite enjoyable, but I was often alone. One time I found the lower jawbone of an animal in the shallows of the river, which really wasn't much of a river; more of a large stream, really. My guess is that the jawbone was from a goat or a sheep, but I never was sure.

One of the two jobs my mom had at the time was in a factory that made cookies and waffles. When they first fired up the big ovens, the first batch was often not quite up to standards, so the workers were allowed to bring them home. My mom would sometimes send big packages of these cookies and waffles to the school, but they would mostly disappear before they found their way to us kids {sigh}. She would also send 'care packages' directly to my brother and myself.

We didn't have much money available, so our shopping was pretty limited, but I remember some absolutely delicious licorice sticks. Americans have NO IDEA about REAL LICORICE!!!!! I miss it a lot; haven't had any good licorice since the last care package from my mom; a dozen or so years ago. However, the chocolate in Spain was AWFUL! Yuck! Tasted like it had soap in it.

We, of course, didn't speak Spanish, and none of the Spaniards spoke Danish, but we didn't seem to have much trouble communicating with the locals anyway. There was one young man in the village who spoke English, which helped a little. Not much to me; this was supposed to be my first year of learning English. We called him "Englænderen" (The Englishman), though of course he wasn't really. One of our 'teachers' was either Spanish or married to a Spaniard; I am not sure which, but she was the only one who spoke adequate Spanish. Her name was something Lopez something De Rey something. Mile long name! One would think that the school would set up a class in Spanish for us kids, having the teacher available and all. But NOOOO.... No such luck!

A lot of us went to Midnight Mass on Christmas. My very first experience with a Catholic church! It was very interesting; yet another adventure. Other than that, I don't remember much about that Christmas.

We were able to take day-trips to Barcelona. A bus ride of a bit over an hour would get us there; I went twice. I even got to see a real bull fight! Didn't like it much. The horses were beautiful, but I HATED it when the bulls tried to gore the horses. The horses were well padded, but still; it was awful. And I cried buckets when they killed the bull! I left after the first kill; couldn't take it! But I got to see some of the fabulous sights in Barcelona.

Some time after Christmas my mom came down and joined the staff for the rest of our stay. That was even better! She joined us on the second trip to Barcelona; the one with the bull fight. We brought home several souvenirs. One that I specifically remember was a leather wine 'bottle'. It was a typical souvenir, with a painting of a Barcelona sight on the side. We also had plenty of chance to taste the local wine. Red wine, sorta sour. Didn't like it much.

I spent my 12th birthday in Spain. Don't remember much about it. Soon after that, the latter part of March, we headed back home, again in buses. One of the kids, Caesar, had broken his leg a short while before. He had the entire back seat of 'my' bus to himself, so he could keep the leg elevated on the seat. I can't remember his real name; we called him Caesar because his haircut looked like that of Julius Caesar.

When we got home, my brother and I never went back to the country home of the school. My mom, by now QUITE aware of the sad lack of proper education, pulled us out and put us back in public school for the rest of the school year. Different school this time; dunno why, but all new kids. It was a struggle to catch up to the rest of the class! I managed to not be put back at the end of the year, but my brother, who didn't really like to dig into the books, had to repeat his grade, so after that he was only one grade ahead of me rather than the two.

Actually, I was never all that good at STUDYING, but I liked to LEARN, and I soaked up everything easily. So much so that the following year I managed to get WAAAYYY ahead of my class, especially in math; along with Physics my favorite subject. I got to be VERY good at "X plus Y divided by Z" {grin}

My memory of the time in Spain is a positive one; I thought it was a WONDERFUL experience, but my brother seems to have been in a totally different place; he remembers it as something awful, and he has never forgiven our mother for it. I totally can't get my mind around his attitude!