Week #5 in Denmark

The past week I have been getting into the routine of life in Denmark, school and language lessons.

I finished reading my very first book in Danish, which I am quite happy about, even though it was a children's book. By the end of the book, I found myself having to translate less and less words.

On Tuesday afternoon, my host brother Claes and I went for a bike ride, where he showed me all of the rules of cycling in Denmark; like staying to the right hand side of the road, when you have to give way to cars and other things like that.

On Wednesday afternoon, after a quick bike ride, whilst it was lightly snowing of course, my host mother Eva, Natalie and I went in to visit the oldest part of Viborg. The first Viborg Cathedral was built in 1130, but has since been burnt down and rebuilt a few times. We walked through the beautiful cobblestone streets, where the buildings all have plaques on them stating when they were built. It was crazy to see houses that people are still living in, that were built as long ago as 1682. Australia had not even been settled then!

Later, I went to swim some laps with Natalie, Claes and my host father Arly. The building that the local pool is in, is quite warm inside and the pool is heated, which is all completely necessary here. Although it is quite cold on the walk back with wet hair to the car afterwards.

Up until now, my only experience of Danish schools was my gymnasium, Viborg Katedralskole. So on Thursday, I went with my host sister to her school, Viborg Gymnasium; we rode our bikes to school. Her school is quite different to mine! The buildings are a lot more modern and bright, the day and lessons are structured completely different with much longer lessons and lunch breaks, the school has a bell (unlike my school) and there are many other differences too. Natalie takes different subjects to me, so it was interesting to sit in to her Maths and Chemistry lessons. At my school, I don't do maths, so it was actually good to be in a lesson that I could understand! Even though it was in Danish, the numbers and process that they use for things like integration, which I have already done in Australia is the same. Although, in decimal places instead of using a  .  they use a  ,  which can be a little confusing at first.

On Friday afternoon my school had what they call a 'cafe', this cafe was special because it was for the special Danish holiday 'Fastelavns' where people dress up and eat special Danish pastries filled with custard called Fastelavnsboller, which are delicious. So after the last class, most students went down to the cafeteria, where the windows were covered up, they had put lanterns on the ceiling and coloured lights around, set up the tables in small groups and were playing music. The committee at the school that organises the cafes, were selling toast, fastelavnsbollers, coffee and beer. It was good to get the chance to talk to and spend time with the people from my class, outside of lessons.

Friday was Natalie's 19th birthday, so in the morning we woke her up by singing the traditional Danish version of happy birthday, then having a nice breakfast. In the evening, her grandparents came over and we had a birthday dinner for her.

One Month.

It is hard to believe that it was one month ago that I arrived here in Denmark.

31 days ago I stepped onto the plane at Brisbane International, not really knowing what to expect and not having a clue what was ahead of me. In some ways it feels as if that moment was just yesterday, in other ways it feels like it was so long ago.

I have learnt a lot in a month, about the Danish language, people, customs, traditions, food and ways of life; and I still have so much left to learn. Life here is so different to what I am used to in Australia and adjusting to this is going to take a bit of time; but luckily I have the next 11 months of living here to do that in and to enjoy it!


For anyone that is interested in doing an exchange I would definitely recommend it! If you have any questions about it or would like more information, feel free to ask me!

Winter Vacation

After a very exciting, fun and tiring week, the winter vacation is over.

I had the most amazing 6 days skiing the Austrian alps. I was proud of myself for improving from falling over multiple times each day at the beginning of the week to skiing down Black runs (the most difficult level) by the end of the week. 

Ready to go off for a day of skiing with Natalie, Claes & Johan

  

A lot of the evenings, after skiing were spent playing card games or board games, which of course I had to learn in Danish. Playing the Danish version of Trivial Pursuit was certainly not very successful; firstly for the obvious reason, that it was in Danish, but even once translated the questions were mostly all about things I had never even heard of. It was fun though, getting time to relax after long days of skiing, in the warm chalet room with my host family and the other family that we travelled with, who are family friends.

On the long drive back from Austria, we stopped in a city in Germany called Flensburg, and had dinner in a very cosy and elaborately decorated Greek restaurant, before continuing the journey back to Denmark.

Fact About Snow

It takes around 1 hour for snow flakes to reach the ground from the sky.

That's why, like in the photo, although it is difficult to see, snowflakes can still be falling while the sky is blue.

Hello Austria!

On Friday night, my host family and I set off in the middle of the night, on our way to Austria. At first I couldn't sleep, but after we had crossed into Germany at around 3am, I got some sleep. We made a stop for breakfast somewhere in Germany, at a service station near a town called Würzburg. It was quite interesting to find that in Germany (and other parts of Europe I assume) you have to pay €70 which is around 90c, to use the public toilets. As you walk in and pay, you are given a ticket and as you walk out the toilet cleans itself. We drove along the Autobahn, which is actually the name given to most of the motorways in Germany. There were massive machines driving along spraying salt onto the road, to melt the snow and ice. For a lot of the way, mostly in southern Germany and once we passed Munich, which is called München to the Germans, my experience of the Autobahns was not what I expected. While there is officially no speed limit, with only advisory signs of 130km/h, we were lucky to even go 30km/h. It seemed as if half of Europe had decided to travel to Austria on the same day.

Later in the afternoon we finally crossed into Austria, to the sight of huge mountains on either side of the road. As we got further into the country, we began to head up into the Alps, driving through tunnels mostly around 3km long, that went under and through the mountains. The views of the mountains were incredible, with castle-like houses perched high up on the side of pretty much cliff faces. It is crazy to think that people first came and settled up here so far in the mountains, I have absolutely no idea how that would have even been possible. 

As we arrived to the town we are staying in, Bad Gastein, buildings and lights were scattered in a valley between two massive mountains. We drove through very skinny alley ways on the mountainside and between buildings to find our hotel. So finally, after 18 hours of driving, we arrived.

After a very long wait in multiple queues for ski hire and to get our lift passes, we were ready for our first day skiing! It is so interesting to hear people speaking so many different languages around you. I was speaking English, my host family was speaking Danish, the people in front were speaking German, the people behind us were speaking Czech and who knows what language the people either side of us were speaking.
We took the lift right to the top of the mountain called 'Stubnerkogel', which was 2.3km above sea level, which is higher up than even the highest point of Australia. The view was breathtaking. The sun was out, the sky was blue, it was around -20'C, and there were tiny particles of snow and ice in the air. It is impossible to adequately describe the beauty of this, it truly looked as if there was glitter in the air, everywhere you looked there were sparkly particles floating around. You can almost see some of the particles in this photo, but it was really difficult to capture in a photo.

I had a great day skiing, being taught by my very patient host family! Some of the runs we went down were quite steep, we even went down a red level run. Although I ended up in the snow countless times, even face planting into a pile of snow that was probably about 1m deep, it was a lot of fun. To begin with, we skiied on wide open runs above the tree line, which is what you see as the white peak of very tall mountains as it is too high up for trees to grow, then as we got lower, the runs got thinner and through forests, we skiied through trails that were lined by huge pine trees covered in snow.

Day 2 of skiing was a bit more difficult, as my muscles and shins were quite sore, it was colder, and the overcast and slightly windy weather made seeing the contours of the snow much more difficult. But still, it was a lot of fun. At the top of the main lift, there is a restaurant, that I found out sells the best hot chocolate that I have ever tasted, as well as so many different typical Austrian foods like Schnitzels and Apple Strudel, that I plan to taste at some stage during the week. I truly am having the most amazing time here in Austria, it is hard to believe that this is real life; I am so grateful to my host family for this incredible opportunity!

Intro Camp

The past week I have been in a town called Bjerringbrø, with all of the other exchange students that have arrived in Denmark this January, for an introduction camp. It was great to get to meet so many other exchange students from countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and South Africa.

Hockey! Red Team- Rød Hold!

Our days included around 6 hours of Danish lessons, as well as other activities and time to relax or talk to each other. We learnt a lot of Danish. After the past week I feel that I can understand more of the language, can gain some understanding from a piece of text, sound slightly less terrible with pronunciation and know the basis of the grammar and rules. It is going to take a lot of practice, but I finally feel like I am getting somewhere with this language! We even had the opportunity to write a post card to our host families in Danish, and to write a simple short story in Danish.

On Thursday we had the opportunity to have a day off Danish lessons and visit the second biggest city in Denmark, Århus. We began by visiting a small village called 'The Old Town', which is a collection of buildings and artefacts from all around Denmark that have been relocated to the village, all of which are 300-700 years old. The buildings are arranged in a way that replicates a 16th century Danish village, with the rooms also set up just as they would have been many years ago. I felt like I was in a fairytale or possibly the set of a movie, it was absolutely incredible to see!

After walking around the village, we were given a few hours to shop in the city centre; we felt almost frozen, so first off we went into a cafe to have a coffee and defrost! We spent the next few hours shopping. Going from the cold street into warm shops is a bit strange as there is a constant change of temperature, but it is something that you get used to. We decided to have a Kebab for lunch, which reminded me and one of the other girls of the Kebabs that we had at Schoolies, as they tasted just like the ones in Australia. We had a great afternoon shopping and I added to my growing collection of sweaters. One thing that I still find interesting and adorable is hearing toddlers and small children speaking Danish, as they walk through the shopping centre with their parents, mostly dressed in ski pants and jackets as it is so cold. 

I came home from the intro camp early today and have just re-packed my bags. Later tonight, my host family and I will begin the drive to Bad Gastein, Austria, for our skiing vacation! We will be driving through Germany, via the famous Autobahn (the highway with absolutely no speed limits!) and should arrive in Austria sometime tomorrow afternoon!

Time Flies!

The last week has flown by so fast, and has been quite tiring! It was my first full week of school here and I also began my lessons in Danish at a language school.

School is going well, I am getting to know the people in my class better and even being able to find my own way around the school without getting lost. In most classes I don't understand what the teacher is talking about as it is all in Danish, so the people in my class translate a little to give me a general idea which is good, then I just do something else on my laptop like translate or practice some Danish. In English class I don't have this problem of course, although the teacher does speak Danish to explain some things! I had my first PE lesson this week, which was a session of body weight exercises in a large gym room with music playing pretty loud through the sound system, safe to say if PE in Australia was like this I certainly wouldn't have 'forgotten my uniform' so often.

I attend Danish language lessons 2 nights a week, for 2.5 hours each. My class at the language school is really nice, there is even another exchange student from Australia that goes to my school in the class. As part of the program, we have each borrowed out a simple book in Danish that we are to translate, practice reading and learn the words from. My book is called 'En Tyv' which means 'a thief', so far it is about a little girl who wants a puppy. One of the girls in my class said that her 9 year old sister is actually reading the same book at school. That is kind of funny, especially considering the fact that I bet her 9 year old sister can read it better than I can at this stage.

Learning another language is difficult, especially Danish! But I am so glad that both the people at school and my host family are speaking English to me when I need and helping me with my Danish. We even have sticky notes with the name in Danish stuck on different things around the house and I find myself learning new words and phrases everyday. 

Yesterday (Friday) we were sitting in class, and someone looked out the window and saw that it was snowing! I was quite happy about this, much to the rest of my class' amusement as they complained about it. So after school I had to catch the bus and walk home through the snow. Using an umbrella for snow was quite a different experience!

 

Today I went to gym with my host sister Natalie. The gym here is huge and I can't wait to join in a few weeks when we get back from Winter Vacation.

This week I have an introduction camp with all of the other Rotary exchange students here in Denmark. It is planned during the same week that all of the assessment is due at school, as I don't have to do any of it, which is the best feeling! I am really looking forward to meeting so many people from different countries and spending the week with them. I am leaving the camp a couple of days early as I am going on a skiing holiday to Austria with my host family!!! I am so excited for this!