Scouts ahoy!!!

After a quick trip by Jennifer and myself to double check where the metro was in comparison to the hostel (we didn't want to do that at 4am before the plane!!) we stumbled across a gold mine! Ok, not really a gold mine, but an unexpected challenge filler, which is always a bonus! On our way into the hostel we had noticed there was a scout hut nextdoor, and knowing it's the summer holidays thought we'd have no chance of bumping into any of them. We posed the below photo "please share my Danish pastry with me"


Well little did we know they could share our Danish pastry! As I said, we were walking past on our way to find the metro, I noticed the gate was open, looked up at the door and it was open with a warm glowing light flowing. We looked a little closer and there was the silhouette of a man in a necker in the distance. Jumping with glee and making girly excited noises we walked through the gate and into the hut. The man greeted us as we explained who we were. He said they were rovers packing for their camp to Sweden. He was a bit busy so handed us over to Ana who is "good at English and talking to new people". We had a chat about scouting in Denmark, guiding in England and our stampede. They got us a leaflet about all the activity options (in Danish - we might not understand it but proof we met them!) and we said we'd just nip back to the hostel to get some badges. Everyone else was reading or relaxing in the room and a bit surprised by our bursting in so soon after we left. We grabbed our badges and ran back down to the hut. Amy had time to put a hoody and necker on over her pyjamas... only just! We then engulfed the scout hut and apologised for quadrupelling in numbers. There was then lots of excited jibber-jabbering between English and Danish and we were shown their twinning link with Barking and Dagenham and their various swaps, including an English rugby shirt.


This whole unplanned meeting reminded me just what guiding and scouting is, a 'brotherhood' (sorry for sounding corny). Its very rare that you can walk into a hut of strangers and just because you are wearing a necker you are accepted as a long lost cousin. People joke about dodgey dib dib dob handshakes - but at the end of the day wearing a necker shows you are part of a large large family and you automatically have something in common and a new friend, before you've even spoken. Just a bunch of welcoming like minded people, identified by a symbol.

Gem xx