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.
No comments:
Post a Comment