Changing Host Families & The First Week With My New Host Family

On Saturday I moved in with my second host family. Throughout my stay in Denmark, I will have 4 host families, living with each family for 3 months.

Flags welcoming me to my new host family's house

I had finished packing on Friday, so was able to just get up, have breakfast and go on Saturday morning. I don't know how I have managed to collect so much stuff over only 3 months; I had quite a few bags along with my suitcase. 

Natalie drove me to my new host family's house, which is around 7km from Viborg in a suburb called 'Hald Ege', she stayed for a little to help me get my things into my new room, then left.

My new room...

  

  

My new host family is Kim (host father) and Mette (host mother), with their 14 year old son Casper; they also have a 17 year old daughter Ditte who is in Oregon, USA, on exchange at the moment, so I am staying in her room. 
Kim works as a project manager in an IT business, and is a member of my Rotary Club.
Mette has her own business, which performs 'Cranio-Sacral Therapy; a type of natural therapy that uses massage and other similar techniques to fix a number of different problems.
Casper attends the junior school, which is still on 'lock-out' at the moment, so he hasn't been going to school. He also goes to rifle shooting practice once a week, plays basketball, plays the guitar and enjoys playing computer games.
Also part of the family, is their sweet little dog Cherie, who is a 'cotton dog'; the breed is called Coton de Tulear- a type of dog that doesn't shed fur and is ok for people with allergies. 

Cherie

First, I unpacked, then sat down and talked with my new host parents, Kim and Mette. After this, we went grocery shopping together, where we talked about what foods I like and what foods they like, and found out that we have a lot of common interests for foods. Then, after lunch we went for a bike ride around Hald Ege so that I could see the neighbourhood, which is very scenic and surrounded by forests. The forest here, called Hald Ege Skov, is the oldest in Denmark, with many of the trees being over 300 years old. At the moment, there are no leaves on the trees, but it is spring so soon everything will turn green and alive again. I got to meet their horse, Ronja (ron-yah), and the 3 horses that belong to their neighbour. The 4 horses, which are all Icelandic Horses, live in fields behind the house, which I can see from my bedroom window. 

After a tour of the garden, where I was told about a little squirrel that sometimes comes and eats from the bird feeder, and watching Cherie play in the sun for a little, we went inside, sat down and had some tea and cake (that I had gotten to pick out from the bakery as a welcoming afternoon tea). I helped to cook dinner that night, where we had chicken with a tomato sauce, pasta and salad. Later, we all sat in the lounge room, watching some tv, chatting and drinking tea. It was very 'hyggeligt'. 

On Sunday, we had breakfast together, before Kim and Casper left to attend a practice session for Casper's confirmation which is in a few weeks. Mette and I decided to spend some time with Ronja. We had planned to have a ride, but as it was a bit windy and the yard is still new to her (she was kept in another field and stable in another part of Hald Ege previously), she was very nervous. So we just spent some time with her to get her used to it instead. In the afternoon, after Kim and Casper had returned, we went to visit Farmor and Far far (Kim's parents- my host grandparents), who live about 50 minutes from Viborg in a town called Terndrup. We ate a delicious afternoon tea together, of freshly baked breads, jams, pastries, other snacks, tea and coffee. Later that afternoon, I met with two girls that live nearby and go to the same school as me, so that they could tell me how to catch the busses from here.

On Monday afternoon I decided to go for a run. There are many different trails along the side of the fields, through the forest and along a bike path that runs where an old railway used to, through the forest. I will admit, it can seem a little eery sometimes without any leaves on the trees, but it was such a beautiful place to run! At one stage, I saw two deer walking through, then later there was a deer in the middle of the trail ahead of me; when it saw me it froze, before running off through the trees. Kim and I went to the Rotary meeting later, which was at a company in Viborg that makes trade displays; they served dinner and then biscuits, tea and coffee later during the presentation.

        

On Tuesday after school I had an interview with the local newspaper, the 'Viborg Stifts Folkeblad' and had photos taken, as they are going to write an article about me and being a Rotary exchange student. Later that afternoon, Mette and I spent some more time with Ronja, then went for a walk through the forest (which Mette does every day). Each evening, at around 9pm, the family sits together in the lounge room, drinking a cup of tea, sometimes having some dessert or fruit, while we talk and sometimes watch some TV. It is a very relaxing and nice way to end the day.

Ronja & I

Wednesday was Casper's 14th Birthday, so we woke him up bright and early at 6am, carrying flags to his room and singing the Danish Happy Birthday, then I led us in singing the English version of Happy Birthday also which Casper enjoyed. Then we skyped with Ditte (in USA), it was great to get the chance to 'meet' her through Skype. We are both really looking forward to meeting each other when she comes back to Denmark in July! After this, we had a birthday breakfast, complete with the Danish flag decorations; then it was off to school and work. I ride my bike to the bus stop, which doesn't take more than 3 minutes. I park it at the bus stop and take the bus into Viborg, where I can either take another bus to school, or walk.
That night, I helped Mette make the food for the birthday dinner. We had a meal of Casper's choice, lasagne! Which I was very excited for, because until then I hadn't eaten lasagne since I was in Australia. I made the salad and Mette made the lasagne. I also got to make the birthday cake, which was a Danish 'lagkage' (layered cake- very common for birthday cakes in Denmark). Mette talked me through each step, but I put together the cake and decorated it myself. You can make lagkage in whatever way you want, using different toppings and fillings. The one I made had 3 layers, first on the bottom a layer of sponge cake, topped with strawberry jam, a type of custard creme and bananas, the next layer of sponge cake was on top of that, with the same fillings of jam, custard creme and bananas, then the top layer of sponge cake, on top of the whole cake I put whipped cream, strawberries and chocolate, piping the cream in a pattern around the edges of the cake. On top of the cake was also candles spelling out 'Tillykke' ('congratulations' in Danish- this is what is said instead of Happy Birthday), and some Danish flags (which are always used as decorations on birthdays here). The cake tasted great, and everyone loved how I had decorated it.

 

Farmor & Farfar (Kim's parents- my host grandparents) came to the birthday dinner, along with a cousin, Kristian. Farmor and Farfar were very interested in hearing about Australia, as they had travelled there before. We spent a lot of the evening talking about Australia, Denmark and so many other things. They were also very impressed with my Danish; most of the night we were speaking Danish because they do not speak very much English.


Thursday, 25th April, was ANZAC Day in Australia. So to commemorate this day in some way from Denmark, I decided to bake ANZAC biscuits for my host family. I only had a short day of school, finishing at 12, so got home early and had plenty of time to bake them together with Casper. We ate some after dinner with tea, while sitting in together in the loungeroom. My host family really enjoyed them!

Also on Thursday, the local newspaper published an article about me. I thought that the article would be small, maybe 1/4 of a page, so I was very surprised to open up to a huge article that covered 2 pages! The article is titled 'Jayana Nyder Det Kølige Danske Vejr'- 'Jayana Enjoys the Cold Danish Weather'. The article then goes on to talk about how I am enjoying Denmark, the cold weather, what I am doing here in Denmark, how I have been getting used to the Danish life and also my opinions on things like the Danish food. The article is all written in Danish of course, and it is funny to see some things that I said in English, quoted in the article in Danish; so sometimes the translation isn't exact. I was very pleased to be able to read the article myself, I only had to ask Mette what a few words were and phrases meant.

Now I am all settled in with my new host family. I am really looking forward to the next 3 months living here. We have a busy 3 weeks ahead of us, with 2 confirmations to attend, a birthday dinner, 2 presentations I will give, a weekend away in Sweden and also my language school will start again next week (finally, after over a month the lock-out has ended!). We will be very busy, but it is great to see so many things and a lot of fun! Then I will embark on my Euro Tour, and my exciting summer holidays will begin!

Rainbow Panoramas & Lamingtons- Week #12 & #13

On Tuesday afternoon I visited the Art Museum, ARoS, in Århus with the president of my host Rotary Club, Ole. He has been strongly involved in the museum and its creation, so was very happy to show me all that it has to offer.

The museum is filled with artwork not only from Denmark, but from all around the world; including modern, traditional and everything in between. Some of the art work was quite extravagant, such as a giant statue (5m tall and weighing 500kg) of a boy crouching down, which is called 'Boy'. It is actually created by an Australian artist, looking so life like even with the detail of wrinkles and veins under the skin. Or a piece by an artist called 'Kapoor', which is a white room that has a cannon pointed at one corner, shooting red plasticine/clay every half hour. There was an entire white room, designed by the artist Yves Klein, which had very simple pieces of art carefully positioned, all of them painted a very vibrant blue colour. Most of the other artwork in the museum was a combination of traditional with beautiful paintings of the Danish landscape, many creative pieces of modern art and entire rooms that were designed as a piece of art.

  

What I found to be the most impressive piece of artwork in the museum, was located on top of the building. It is called 'Your Rainbow Panorama' and is a walkway/loop that sits on top of the building. You enter it through stairs from below, then walk around through the loop. The walls of the walkway are all see-through, and coloured to match the colour spectrum of a rainbow. So as you walk around, you can see an incredible birds eye, panoramic view of the city of Århus, in different colours. I'm not sure if it was just a feeling, or actually a planned effect, but it felt substantially warmer while walking in the yellow and orange section than it was walking in the blue and purple section. The views from the Rainbow Panorama were breath-taking and walking through the rainbow was such a great feeling.

 

At the end of the afternoon, after seeing all their was to see. We finished the day with a hot chocolate and coffee, with a delicious slice of fruit tart, from the cafe in the museum. Ole even gave me a book about the museum.

On Wednesday evening, we had a special kind of Rotary meeting, called a 'Fireplace Meeting', which means that the members of the club divide into small groups and have meetings in the house of various members, to discuss the future of the club. We ate delicious food, while they spoke about different places the club could visit, events and fundraisers, as well as many other things.  It was great to hear about some of the things that will be happening.

This week, my class (along with most other second year classes), have been working on an assignment called the AT. Once each term, they do a big assignment that combines 2 subjects, where they spend every lesson in one week working on it. This term was combining English and Psychology, so I was able to do the task and write it in English. Usually they complete the assignment in groups of 3 or 4, but because I was doing mine in English while the others wrote in Danish, I could work by myself. The topic was 'disasters', so I chose to write mine about Titanic.

On Friday night, my school hosted a party. Before the party I went to a girl from my class, Anna's room in the dorms (my school also has dorms where people can live on campus) along with a few other girls from my class, Anne, Kristina and Emilie H. Overall, I had a fun night with my classmates

  

On the weekend, Natalie and I decided to make the Australian cake/slice, Lamingtons. As Natalie was an exchange student in Australia a few years ago, she remembered them, so was happy getting the chance to make them again. Of course, the process of coating the pieces of cake in chocolate and coconut got a bit messy, with chocolate all over our hands. But I was very happy with the end product! We served the Lamingtons for dessert; I placed little Australian Flag toothpicks in them for decoration and explained the history of them to my host family, about how they originate from the same part of Australia that I am from. They tasted delicious, and my host family really enjoyed them.

                   

On Thursday afternoon, I visited the office of Christian, a Rotarian from the club, who is actually part of my 4th host family. He works in a company called Interreg, who organise the funding for projects in the EU (European Union), in the North Sea Region, including Denmark, Northern Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, England, Scotland and Norway. It was interesting to hear about the EU, and to meet the people in his office that come from so many different countries.

On Friday, I had no classes at school, so I was able to spend the day packing, ready to move in with my second host family on Saturday!

Week/Uge #11

At the moment in Denmark, there is a thing called a 'Lockout' happening. This is kind of like a strike, by one of the teaching unions (over an issue where the government and the union cannot come to an agreement). So in all of the junior schools (preschool-year 9), the teachers are not coming to school and therefore there is no school on. This also affects my language school, because the language teachers are members of the same union, so I have no been able to go to language school, which is quite disappointing. The school that I attend, which is called a gymnasium (like a senior school), is not affected. This is happening all over Denmark and no one knows when the issue will be resolved and the schools will open again. Next week will be the second week that this has been happening for.

On Tuesday night, I cooked a traditional Australian meal for dinner for my host family. I made an Australian Meat pie, complete with a pastry gum leaf on top. It is a special thing that my dad always does when making pies, putting a pastry decoration on top in the shape of something different every time. To go with the pie I made mashed potato, honey carrots, roast zucchini and mushy peas. The meal turned out quite well, and I served it the Australian way, as a complete meal on the plate, rather than the Danish way of serving yourself from dishes in the middle of the table.

  

On Wednesday night, I went to watch a locally produced musical in Viborg, with my counsellor Alice and her friend, plus her daughter Katrine and her friend Debbie, who both go to the same school as me. The musical was called 'Our House' and was advertised as a 'London love-story'. Katrine was very impressed when I read the program about the musical in Danish and understood pretty much everything that was on it. It was performed in the 'Viborg Teater' (Viborg Theatre), which is a very beautifully decorated, over 100 year old building in the centre of the Viborg town. The building has high round ceilings that are covered in paintings, and seating that is over 3 levels, with a ground level and 2 balcony levels. The entire musical, including all of the songs were in Danish. A lot of the time it was a little difficult to keep up with what was being said or sung, but because it was a musical, I could still figure out what was happening. I thought that the musical was very good and a lot of fun to watch.

  

On Thursday afternoon I went to Natalie's ballet class with her, to watch. It was great to have the opportunity to watch the dancers and see what going to dance classes in Denmark is like.

Friday was Arly's birthday, so we all got up nice and early to sing Happy Birthday to him. Then I left early to attend the breakfast meeting at 7am, of the Viborg Morning Rotary Club. After eating breakfast together, I spoke to the members about myself, Australia and being an exchange student. I started my presentation by speaking for a minute or so in Danish, introducing myself; they were quite impressed by this. At the end, I answered questions and presented them with a banner from my sponsor club, the Caboolture Rotary Club. It was great to meet more people, including my future host mother, Heidi, from my third host family. As a gift for speaking to them, the club presented me with some delicious Danish sweets, including almonds coated in white chocolate and licorice powder, mint chocolate toffees and salty licorice (which I will have to try again before I can pass judgement on).

We did have plans for Saturday, to watch my host brother's school musical and have a birthday dinner for Arly with the grandparents, but most of my host family has come down with the flu, so the plans were cancelled and we spent the day relaxing instead.

On Sunday morning I went to breakfast at my next host family's house, with my current host mother Eva, my next host family and my counsellor Alice. The breakfast was lovely, and it was great to be able to organise and sort out the plans for the next few months and my moving in with them in 2 weeks. My next host brother, Casper gave me a quick tour of the neighbourhood, before it began hailing (just like it would normally begin raining in Australia, which was very tiny soft balls of ice, that stay solid on the ground without melting). 

On Sunday afternoon I went horse riding with a girl from my class, Julie. She lives on a farm, just outside of Viborg. We rode across wide open fields, that usually have corn growing on them in summer, but are bare at this time of year, along small roads, through the small town of Foulum and along tracks that ran between the fields. It was very cold, at one stage we were even riding while it was snowing on us. By the time we got back, my fingers, face and feet felt frozen! The horse that I rode was called Herman, and he was very tall. Despite the cold, it was a very fun afternoon, seeing the Danish countryside by horseback!

  

Påske Ferie- Easter Holidays

For the Easter Holidays- Påske Ferie, students in Denmark have one week off school.

Saturday morning my host family and I went shopping in the store Bilka, which is a big store that is like Woolworths and Big W combined, they sell pretty much everything that you need. It is something like what I imagine Wall Mart must be like. Then on Saturday night I stayed over at Charlotte M (who is an exchange student at my school from Honduras)'s house. We had dinner with her host family, including her host sister Karen who I found out also goes to the same school as us. Then we spent a lot of time just relaxing and chatting, telling about and showing photos to each other from our home countries and talking about our experiences in Denmark, and watching a movie. In Charlotte's host family's house, they have a room that has 3 walls made entirely of glass where the sun shines in, that overlooks their front garden and the surrounding fields, which are covered in snow at the moment. The room has a table, chairs and lounge chair in it and is probably one of the most relaxing rooms I have ever been in.

            


















On Sunday night Grace P (who is also a Rotary exchange student from Australia) stayed over. On Monday, Grace and I went to the city of Århus, where we did some shopping and met up with some other exchange students from Australia and USA. It was quite a cold day, so we spent most of it inside shops, only going outside quickly to go into the next shop. Although I have been there a few times already, the beauty of some of the shopping streets in the city never fails to impress me. We walked down a street that I had not seen before, that had a small river/canal running through it; there was snow on each of the edges and seagulls were sitting on the snow. We caught the train back, which was my first time catching the train in Denmark. It is quite similar to in Australia, however it is over 3 times more expensive and the trains are much cleaner. It was nice sitting in the window seat, watching snowy fields, small villages, farms and windmills fly past.

   


















It was great being on holidays having the time to sleep in and just relax, because until this week it hadn't really felt like I had had much time for that since I got here! I watched a couple of games of 'football' (soccer) on tv with my host siblings, helped cook dinner, went to gym with my host sister, passed the online test and filled out forms to upgrade to my Green Ps, showed my host family photos and told them about my life in Australia and watched a few movies with Danish subtitles with my host family, including Harry Potter.

On Thursday, my host family and I went to the beach. The beach we visited was on the west coast of Denmark (vestkysten), and further North than Viborg. The beach was called Blokhus, at a popular seaside tourist village. The sun was shining, so there were a fair few people on the beach, however it was still quite cold! There were really high sand dunes, with a long stretch of white sandy beach. The sand was quite firm, so at this particular beach cars are allowed to drive and park on the sand. There was no only 4wd's, but all types of cars; the special features that the cars have here for the snow and ice must work for sand as well. Because it is so cold, people don't really just sit around on the beach at this time of year and definitely don't swim, but it is common for people to go for walks along the beach. Seeing ice on the sand and snow in the sand dunes was quite a different sight to Australian beaches!

  

After the beach, we visited my host father's mother, in her apartment in the city of Aalborg. We drank tea and coffee, ate a type of Danish brown sugar cake, chatted (in Danish) and looked at family photo albums.

On Friday I spent the day with my Rotary counsellor Alice, her son Thomas and his girlfriend Josephine. We travelled to the seaside town of Ringkjøbing, which is south of Viborg. We visited Alice's mother who lives in an apartment in the town. While they prepared lunch, Thomas and Josephine showed me the town. The town was so pretty, with all tiny cobblestone streets, mostly old looking buildings, a harbour with many old boats and fishing houses, trees in the streets that were filled with hanging painted easter egg decorations and it was lightly snowing. After lunch, we drove to a nearby village at the beach. The village is full of holiday houses, well summer houses and has a few small shops and cafes near the beach. We visited Alice's summer house and took a walk on the beach. This beach had huge sand dunes, long stretches of soft white sand that many people were walking along. Cars are not allowed to drive on this beach, however I did see some people riding horses along the sand. There were a few big concrete structures on the beach, which are bunkers left over from World War II, when the Germans occupied Denmark and set up their defence on the coast line. After walking on the beach and through the village, we drove back and had afternoon tea with Alice's mother, before returning to Alice's house. That night we had lamb for dinner which is traditional in Denmark at Easter time.

                 

                      

Saturday afternoon, I went into a cafe in town and met up with my friend Charlotte T, from my class. We spent the afternoon drinking hot chocolate and chatting. The cafe we were in, called Morvilles, is very cosy and was quite nice to sit in.

On Sunday it was Easter, or Påske as it is said in Danish. After a bit of a sleep in, we woke up and got breakfast ready. We began breakfast by taking hard boiled eggs and painting them with special 'egg paints'. After painting your egg, which is called a 'påske æg' (easter egg), you give it to someone else, then everyone sits down and eats the egg they have been given. For breakfast we had so many different foods, including the eggs, blueberry pancakes, bread with chocolate pieces on it, fruit and pastries. At each of our places at the table there was a gift for Easter, I got one milk and one white chocolate Lindt bunny! I also gave each member of my host family chocolate, that I had wrapped in a ribbon and stuck a little Australian flag to.

  

  

After a day of just relaxing around the house, we went to have dinner with Eva's family for Easter. We went to Bedstemor and Bedstefar's (Eva's parents) house in the nearby town of Stoholm, Eva's brother and his 3 sons were also there. We had the traditional Easter dinner of lamb, then spent the night sitting and chatting. I was also shown a lot of family photos, some that date back to the 1800s, and are of relatives in the farms that we had driven past, that had been pointed out to me on the way there.

Monday was the last day of the holidays. I spent it just relaxing around the house and sitting in the sun. In the afternoon I decided to go for a run. As it was a sunny day and relatively warm at around 7 degrees, there were so many people out and about, walking, running and riding their bikes. As soon as there is a sunny day here, it is like everyone just evacuates their houses and goes for walks outside, around the town and lakes. I went part of the way around Søndersø (the Southern Lake) in the town. I sat on one of the lakeside chairs for a bit, enjoying the sun and the view. On the way back, I stopped to watch some swans, swimming near the edge of the lake. I enjoyed my Påske Ferie, but it is back to school now, for another 7 weeks. Then the summer holidays will begin, starting with Euro Tour, the trip around Europe with the other Rotary exchange students!