danish life

Sorry about the lack of updating, I tend to forget and get lazy about things, and this is one of them. Ive been here for about a month and a half…wow, but back to a while ago, I started school on august 17th, I found out Danish gymnasiums are quite different from American high schools. First off, you don’t change class rooms, or classmates, you stay with the same kids all 3 years, after picking a certain string of classes you want. You only have three classes a day each an hour and a half long, on Wednesday I have four and the gymnasium in general is much more relaxed, there is a lot less teacher and adult influence in the school atmosphere. The first day I rode my bike to school, and had no clue where to go, so I asked a girl, and she actually ended up to be in my class, so that worked out nicely :) we had an assembly, another exchange student from Italy and I were introduced in front of the whole school, so that was nice, oh and the kids were told not to speak English to us…that didn’t help the language barrier. The kids are a lot more shy than I’m used to, they will rarely come up to me and say hi, I’ll have to start most of the conversations, so it’s hard. The first week of school was pretty hard, but I had intro camp the next week so I had something to look forward to, the downside, I missed my school sports day and my first gymnasium party, which are totally different from school dances back home. Intro camp was amazing, that’s all I can say, from the moment I walked into the train compartment, and there were kids blasting music and dancing, I knew it would be crazy :) There were 160 kids from all over, living at an efterschool for a week, in bjerringbro, on jutland. The first night we were just able to hang out, meet everyone, go in the pool, funtimes. The next morning we got up early, breakfast by 8, class by 9, we had 6 hours of classes most days, and some days we had only 3 hours, and went to Viborg, and another we had none and went to Århus. I learned a lot the first couple of days, with the help of coffee, now, its more I need to memorize and repeat in order to improve my Danish skills. Oh my roommate was maddy from Canada, pretty sweeeet. But yea, classes were fun but long, and after awhile I couldn’t concentrate so I ended up drawing flags, but I learned plenty. During breaks and free time we just hung out, kids brought their gutairs and I swear I have never been with so many kids with musical talent, I wish I could sing or play and instrument well, but yea, we’d just hang out, jam, lay around, and they set up activities for us, one night I did theatre stuff, next I went to choir with Kayla. They also had a “surprise entertainment” which turned out to be bowling…I just wowed people with my talent, other than the organized activities, each night someone blasted music and had a party. I loved it. Viborg was really pretty and so was Århus, I hung around with Morgan and Kayla, in Århus we went to a modern art museum which was really cool and odd, we walked around, got food, fast food which like everything else in denmark was relatively expensive. Oh on the way back from Viborg, we went to see a lake, which was gorgeus, and surrounded by an electric fence which was quite shocking ;) The whole week was so much fun, meeting amazing people, some that I know I’ll stay close with long after I return home; I wish I could live with exchange students. The week finished up with a small talent show, I did a song with Franco hahaha, and a dance, which was alright. We went home the next morning, not cool, but I had a get together the next week in Vordingborg, so I wasn’t that sad. School went by fast, I was sick for two days, everyone got sick after intro camp, I had language school on wednesday, just me and a kid from Ringsted, Sebastain, then friday I left for Vordingborg, met a couple austrailian oldies on the train there, and got to see the Goose Tower, then just went back to the building where we were staying and hung out. I stayed mainly with Kayla and Alex, oh and Karla too. The next day was to windy, so we couldn’t go sailing, so instead we decided to walk up and down over 1000 stairs *no exaggeration* to see Møns Klint, which wa actually gorgeous, it was chalk cliffs, from the stone age, absolutely beautiful. On the way down, the guide say to pick any flowers or take a leaf off a tree was against the law…oh danes. After an exhausting walk up from the beach, we headed back, I fell asleep with Kayla in the back of the car. We stopped at pretty church on the way back, and were told the seats were made uncomfortable to make sure no one fell asleep during mass. We had a nice dinner when we got back, then a Danish lady who went to Ecuador for a year came to teach us salsa dancing, the south americans were so much better, but I have never seen a dane dance like that, I tried and failed to salsa, so I ended up going outside and singing RENT with Kayla, Alex and Karla. After, a couple Brits came with a piano and guitar and we had a nice sing-along, where of course I made a fool of myself, but hey, I’m an exchange student. We had to go home the next morning, wouldn’t see them all until Halloween get together in Holbæk…cant wait for that. School was boring, but I talk to more people each day, I just wish I knew more Danish, had language class with Barbara and Sebastian. On Tuesday I went with my counselor out to dinner, with some Americans who came through another rotary program, but for adult and its for about 5 weeks I think. It was held at a small cottage, there was a store that was set up like an old general store, and there were only two rooms for dinning, it seemed so European, I had herring for the first time in Denmark, and eggs and bacon for dinner? Now knowing the Danes and their long dinners, I wasnt surprised when we started at 6 and got home around 10.45 due to the presence of a piano in the room, and a book full of Danish songs and drinking songs, it was a lot of fun to be able to speak to other Americans, and see what their view of the danes were, they all thought it was very brave of me to be here for a year, but hey, who wouldn’t want to do something like this. It so happened that my host parents friend’s had a party on Saturday in Holbæk, so on the weekend I went up to see Kayla who lives about 20 minutes outside, it was so cool to see her, and it turned out it was her host sister, Camilla’s 18th birthday party too, so it was a lot of fun :) yeap, that’s my life up to this point in a nut shell.