Week #7 in Denmark

This week I joined many other Danish people and began riding my bike to school. It can be quite tiring and cold, but overall, not too bad. The distance to school is almost 3km, and takes me around 15 minutes. I rode my bike to school most days, but the days that I went to gym I was able to catch the bus, as it would be too difficult to ride my bike carrying my bag with all of my things for school and gym in it. It was a bit of a quiet week in the house with less people, while Natalie was in Iceland on a school trip.

On Monday evening at the Rotary Meeting, the members all sang Happy Birthday to me. First the Danish version, then the English version. This was so nice and totally unexpected!

I got home from school at a good time on Tuesday; I am really enjoying that we finish school most days here at 1.35! So I decided to take the dog, Vilje for a walk and explore the neighbourhood a little.

          


















Wednesday evening, I went swimming with my host brother Claes. He coaches the swimmers, so while he does this, I swim laps.

On Thursday, my class had a test during the first lesson, so because I don't have to do any tests, I got a sleep in and only had to arrive at school at 9.25am. We only had 2 lessons that day, so I was able to leave school at 12, and go to gym.

Thursday night we went to the Viborg Sportsmester (Viborg Sportsmaster Awards). This was held at the local hall/ presentation centre, Tinghallen. The title of 'sportsmaster' is awarded to citizens of Viborg that have achieved something special in their area of sport in the past year. My host brother Nis, was being recognised as a sportsmaster for his achievements in swimming, both in the Danish competitions and World competitions.

Friday was another great day at school, with only 2 classes, 9.25-12. Friday afternoon, after a family afternoon tea of Danish pastries/cakes and tea, my host father and brothers went off to the Danish Open Swimming Competition for the weekend, and my host mother Eva, and I went to Århus.

Århus is the second biggest city in Denmark (the first is the capital, Copenhagen), there is a big university there, so a lot of young people move there to attend university (which is free in Denmark!). My host sister Cecilie, lives in an apartment there, while she is at uni. So we went to stay with her for the weekend while we saw the city.

The street across from Cecilie's Apartment, you can see the ocean at the end

That night Eva and I went to the cinema. After sitting in the foyer and enjoying a hot chocolate, we went in and saw the movie Lincoln. The cinema was quite small, with only around 20 seats and a much smaller screen than the cinemas in Australia, but the chairs reclined which was great. The movie was in English, but they had added Danish subtitles.

       




















Later that night after the movie, Eva went and picked up Natalie from the train station, coming back from her trip to Iceland. We saw the amazing photos she had taken of geysers, volcanoes, glaciers and so much more! She even brought me back an 'Iceland' pin to put on my Rotary blazer.

The next day we went shopping in Århus. There are so many shops! Most of the shops are on the side of small roads and on the sides of pedestrian streets, but some are in large mall areas.

Shopping Streets- with Cecilie (left) & Natalie (right)      

Shopping Mall

We went into a shop that makes Danish chocolate. The shop smelt amazing, and because it was their birthday they were giving away free samples. There is a special Danish confectionary called 'Flødeboller' which translates to cream ball. They are balls of a soft creamy marshmallow mix, with a biscuit/marzipan base, coated in chocolate. They come in all different flavours and sizes. They taste absolutely amazing. We tried white chocolate and passionfruit flavoured ones in the shop, which is probably my favourite flavour so far from all of the ones I have tried.

Flødeboller Tower in the shop

Inside of the white chocolate-passionfruit flødeboller

After a long day of shopping, we went back to the apartment for some lunch and tea, before setting off to visit the Danish Royal Family's Holiday House, Marselisborg Palace. While they are not staying there, people are allowed to walk around the gardens and palace, however when they are staying there the entire surrounding area is closed off and there are guards. The guards stand around the grounds as well as in these red post things, like where I am standing in the photo below. The palace and the gardens were absolutely beautiful. The gardens actually reminded me of a movie that I watched as a child, 'The Secret Garden'. I am still getting used to walking around and any patch of water being frozen! Small ponds, lakes and even puddles are all frozen. The shallower ones, like the small dam in the photo below, are frozen completely solid.

  

       

     


















On Saturday night we had pizza for dinner and Eva, Cecilie, Natalie and I watched a movie. Then on Sunday morning we drove back to Viborg. I baked some ANZAC biscuits. Without real Golden Syrup I was worried that they wouldn't work out, but after adding a little extra butter, they turned out quite well! For afternoon tea we all sat down and had them with some tea and coffee. Nis had returned from the swimming competition with 5 gold medals, in both the Danish and International Competition!

That afternoon I went with my host father Arly, to drive Nis the 1.5 hours back to his Hojskole (like a boarding school). Nis was very excited as he is going on a school trip to Japan on Monday! It was a nice drive, getting to see some more of the Danish countryside.