4 Whole Months, 117 Days

So now I have been in Denmark for 4 months. 117 days.
That is a long time. 
But it really is a strange feeling, while it feels like a long time since I have been in Australia, my time here has raced by at an unnaturally fast pace. It certainly doesn't feel like it has been 4 months, but the calendar reminds me with a shock every time I see that we are now halfway through May. I am not complaining though, because at almost the same rate as time ticks by, I am ticking things off my mental to-do list, seeing and experiencing so many different things.

Arriving in Denmark, 4 months ago!

The Denmark that I am in now, seems completely different from when I first arrived. The most obvious being that the seasons have changed, the snow has melted and with its disappearance, life has been revealed underneath. It is not just the plants that come alive as the weather warms, the people do too. As soon as the sun emerges from behind the many clouds, the people emerge from indoors with smiles on their faces to make the most of the warmth, before it disappears again.

But there are other reasons that it feels different. For one, I have gotten used to life here, I no longer fear getting lost while walking somewhere in town.
I know a lot more people now, I have friends at school, and often see friendly faces that I know around town and say 'hej' (hello).
I know how the busses work, how school works, and I think my face no longer looks as confused all the time.

One main difference is probably the fact that I can now mostly understand what is going on around me. I can actually understand what the check-out-person in the shop or the bus driver is telling me, and even better I can respond in Danish, instead of just looking confused and saying 'umm I speak English'. I no longer go about my days no knowing what the people around me are saying, which is much better! Having a conversation with someone in Danish or understanding something is a great feeling.
I am also living with a different host family now than when I first arrived, so I am seeing another side to life in Denmark.

I can now participate in class sometimes. My class mates find it quite entertaining to hear me read Danish when we are doing group work. On Monday I did the same work as the whole class in geography, making a poster about Oil Production, in Danish.

On Tuesday evening I had my test at language school, which I passed. This means that after Summer I will start in level 2 of Danish and I am no longer in the 'beginner' class.

Wednesday was a busy day for me. In the first lesson at school I gave a presentation to another class about myself and Australia. My counsellor's daughter Katrine's class are learning about Australia in English, so she thought it would be good if I could come and tell them a bit. It went really well and the class was very interested, asking a lot of questions and wanting to chat about Australia with me. I have gotten quite used to giving presentations about this now, it is a good thing that I enjoy it! On Wednesday evening I went to give another presentation at the meeting of the Viborg Youth Social-Democratics Organisation, a group that my first host brother Claes is a part of. I spoke about the Australian government, politics, social systems and culture (some information I will admit I had to research a little). They enjoyed this, and liked being able to compare the Australia systems to the Danish systems, which are actually quite similar.

Thursday was my last day of school before my summer holidays begin! I will start back at school in mid-August, after almost a 3 month holiday which is crazy!

Now I am about to leave for my Euro Bus Tour, around Europe with 50 other Rotary Exchange Students in Denmark. I cannot even put my excitement for this into words. We will be travelling around Europe for 3 weeks, visiting 8 different countries and a number of exciting cities, including Prague, Venice and Paris! We will be travelling clockwise through Europe visiting the cities as shown on the map below.

A Weekend in Sweden- En Weekend i Sverige

Coming from a country as big as Australia, going to another country for the weekend sounds crazy, but in Europe its easy and normal. So last weekend after Casper's confirmation, my host family and I spent the weekend in Sweden.

We got up early Friday morning and began the 7 hour drive. We drove to the other side of Denmark, and up to the top of the island of 'Sjelland', where we caught a ferry at Helsingborg, across from Denmark to Sweden. The ferry ride only took around 20 minutes; it seemed like we were only crossing a small river, from one side you could easily see the other side. But it was actually crossing an international border, so there was a duty free shop on the ferry. Then we continued our drive North, into Sweden. 

 

Even though they are so close, Sweden is quite different to Denmark. The forests look different, with so many rocks (Denmark has basically no rocks) and different trees. In Sweden most of the houses are made of wood and painted red or black, where as in Denmark most are stone or brick. The languages have similarities and a lot of the time Danish people can understand and read some Swedish, but Swedish has a few more crazy letters ö, ä, ü & å, that seem to be in a lot of town names as I noticed from the road signs.

The place we stayed at is a 'summer house', set in the forest, owned by family friends. It is tradition that every year at this time, 3 families, including my host family, go and stay for the weekend. There is the house, 2 old barns (one they use for storage) and a bathroom. 

 

We spent the weekend mostly relaxing, going for walks in the forest, playing soccer, sitting by the fire, chatting, reading, drawing and other things like that. As well as Casper and myself, there were 2 boys around 14, 1 boy around 12, 1 girl 15, 1 girl 13 and 1 girl 9. 

 

On Friday evening after dinner, we went for a drive in the forest to see what animals we could see. We saw a moose! It was a young moose, so it didn't have huge antlers, but it still had a massive oversized head and long lanky legs. We stopped the car and watched it for a little while. It was difficult to take a photo of, because it blended in with the forest very well. I couldn't believe that I was actually looking at a moose! As well as the moose, we saw some geese and storks. 

Looked a bit like this

On Saturday afternoon, we made what they call 'Sno Brød' on the campfire, which translates to 'Twist Bread' and is a type of damper or bread that you cook on a stick, on a campfire.

 

For most of the weekend we spoke Danish, so it was a bit of a challenge and a little tiring, but it was a great weekend. It was so nice to meet the two other families; the weekend was very fun and hyggeligt. We drove home after dinner on Saturday night.

My Busy Life in Denmark- Week 15 & 16

On Friday 3rd May, in the afternoon after our last class, I went to a cafe in town with some girls from my class. We ate lunch there, chatted and relaxed, before returning to school for the Friday Cafe. It was the last Friday cafe for the school term, and because the weather was so warm, it was held outside. It was so nice sitting outside in the sun for the afternoon with my class. For the first time since being in Denmark, it was comfortable to sit without a jacket on, with just a t-shirt. It was around 18 degrees, which normally if I were in Australia I would think was cold. But I must have grown used to the cold because I found it warm, like the Danish people do.

On Friday night we drove to the town of Rebild (one hour north), for Mormor and Morfar's birthday dinner. Their birthday is on the same day, so they celebrate it together, this year with a family dinner at their house, with around 20 family members. We had a delicious dinner, and I met so many new people, including Caroline (my 15 year old 'host cousin'), who I talked with for a lot of the evening.
The next day, on Saturday, we went to the confirmation of a family friend, August. In Denmark most children are confirmed when they turn 14, it is very uncommon for them to not be confirmed. His confirmation was held in the Viborg Domkirke (the Viborg Cathedral). The ceremony in church began at 10, after this, we went to a restaurant/cafe called 'Madam Sund's' (translates to Madam Healthy). We all at lunch together, and spent the afternoon eating, playing games of softball, chatting and relaxing together. The day ended after hot dogs at 8pm. Throughout the afternoon there were songs, speeches and funny games played. At one stage, they sat August on a chair in the middle of the room and gave him a number of funny challenges, most about becoming a young man: first he had to tie a tie, drink a shot of vodka (they had replaced with water), eat a hot dog covered in mustard and the funniest of all: un-do a bra that his dad had put on over his clothes (which he could only do when he got to walk around and un-do it from the back).

 

On Sunday I baked Lamingtons ready for my Rotary Presentation the following evening. I felt a bit proud, after making a total of 50 Lamingtons. It was a bit funny making such a large mixture with 450g butter, 6 cups of flour, 11 eggs, but they turned out well.

 

It was a spontaneous decision, but when one of my friends from my class, Charlotte T, messaged me saying she had tickets to the One Direction concert and asked me if I wanted to go with her, I couldn't say no! So on Sunday evening, we went to the completely sold out One Direction concert in Herning. When we got there, there were thousands of people standing outside lining up to get in. The show was great, it was funny to be at a concert in another country, I am used to hearing the artists talk about Australia, but they were of course talking about Denmark, mostly about Danish pastries, lego, how much they love Denmark and how great Danish fans are. At one stage they had a tweet on the screen that was from a fan from Australia, so they talked about Australia for a bit which was pretty funny for me to hear! The Danish fans had organised for the whole crowd to hold up signs of hearts with the Danish flags in them during one song. Charlotte had made us both flags, so at the right time we held them up. It was pretty cool to see the entire crowd hold them up, there was a sea full of thousands of Danish flag hearts; the band thought that was great. I had a great night at the concert with Charlotte.

 

 

Monday night was my Rotary Presentation. There were around 35 members of the Rotary Club in attendance (which is a lot more than usual), plus my first, second and fourth host families. We started off the evening by singing the Australian National Anthem together, Advance Australia Fair. I led the song, but had the music playing and lyrics on the projector, so everyone stood and sang along. I spoke for around 45 minutes, telling about myself, my home country Australia, being an exchange student, what I am doing in Denmark and what I am going to do in the future. I did the first part of my presentation in Danish, the introduction about myself, introducing the national anthem and telling about my family, but after that I continued in English. They were very impressed by my Danish. I spoke a bit about my Rotary Club in Australia and played a round of the traditional old Australian game '2-Up' that is always played in my Rotary Club in Australia; my host brother Casper won the round so I gave him a little koala as a prize. They had a lot of questions to ask me which I was glad to answer. After I was finished talking, we ate the Lamingtons with tea and coffee. Everyone really enjoyed the Lamingtons and they have asked for the recipe, which I will translate into Danish for them with Danish measurements. We finished off by singing 'Waltzing Matilda' together, which they all knew. I really enjoyed giving the presentation and from the great number of compliments and good feedback I received, I think that the Rotary Club enjoyed it also.

  

On Tuesday after school, I went with some of the other exchange students from my school, Charlotte M (Honduras), Pinar (Turkey) and Cameron (Australia), we went to a little cafe to eat ice cream and iced tea. I decided on mango flavoured bubble iced tea and watermelon and white chocolate flavoured ice cream. It was all very delicious. Afterwards Charlotte, Cameron and I went to the gym together. This was good, because we burnt off the ice cream we had just ate! That afternoon, I also rode my bike to language school, which was around 9km, but was picked up by Mette afterwards!

 

On Wednesday, I caught the bus to the city of Aalborg (1.5 hour bus trip North). Rotary had planned a meet up of the exchange students in the district, to see the university, so I met with them at the bus station and we all went to the university together. We spent the day walking around the university (in the pouring rain), hearing about how the university works and the possibilities of becoming an international student there. It was great getting to catch up with the other exchange students, as we were the same group of people that will be on Eurotour together starting next week, and it was the first time I had met a lot of them. In the afternoon we all went and ate dinner together at a restaurant in the city, before going to catch the train home.

 

Thursday was my host brother Casper's confirmation. The day began with the church ceremony at the local church in Hald Ege, where I sat with my host grandparents. After this, we went to a hotel/restaurant called Niels Buggers Hotel. It was so pretty, a very old building surrounded by forest, with many gardens and little areas to sit outside. We ate delicious food, sat and chatted, listened to speeches including a skype call from Casper's sister Ditte who is in USA on exchange at the moment. I was seated at a table with my host cousin Caroline, two of my future host siblings of my fourth host family and some other cousins and family friends that are around the same age, so we had a good time chatting. Later in the day, we had the laptop sitting at the table, so we were chatting with Ditte also, which was nice.

  

 

Finally, after an unusually long winter, it is spring in Denmark. The weather ranges from 8 degrees some days to the occasional day of 20 degrees, but hopefully as we get more into summer there will be more 20+degree days. The trees are finally growing leaves again and flowers are springing up everywhere. It is quite beautiful, the new leaves on the trees being such a pale bright green, so many yellow daffodils, tulips of all different colours as well as a number of different other flowers and plants that are coming alive. Everything looks so fresh and green at the moment.

 

Copenhagen & The Long Weekend (26-28 April)

On Friday, 26th April, it was a public holiday in Denmark, called 'St. Bededag' which is 'Great Prayer Day', so we didn't go to school. For breakfast we ate a type of bun flavoured with cardamom, called 'lune hveder' (literally translates to warm buns), which is traditionally eaten on this day.

For my birthday, my first host family had bought me tickets to the ballet in Copenhagen, so because it was a day off school, we went earlier and spent the day sightseeing in Copenhagen. It took around 3 hours to drive to Copenhagen (across the whole of Denmark to the other side). We went across the bridges that join the islands of Denmark, including one that is 6.8km long. It was an overcast and very cold day, being around only 5 degrees.

Copenhagen is a very beautiful city. While walking, almost everywhere you look you can see an important historical building or something special to the royal family. Danish was probably the minority language that you can hear people in the city speaking. The most common is English, because of the large number of tourists, but so many other languages can also be heard.
We began by seeing the statue of The Little Mermaid- 'Den Lille Havfrue'. The story of the little mermaid was actually written by a Danish author, Hans Christian Anderson. There were a lot of people there, all lining up to climb down across the rocks and get their photo taken with the statue. The little mermaid is quite little, not bigger than life-size, sitting on the top of her rock with no clothes on. She doesn't have the mermaid tail that we see in movies, it is more like legs with fins on them.

Next we went to Amalienborg, the palace of the current Danish royal family. The different parts of the palace are build around a large square that has a statue of a previous king on his horse in the middle. The flag was flying above Princess Mary & Crown Prince Frederik's house, which means that they are home; but we didn't get to see them. There were guards marching around, with their uniforms on and tall furry black hats made of bear skin, carrying big guns and swords. We saw the changing of the guard, where new guards come out and swap with the previous guards, all in a big marching procession. Before this, the police were going around making sure all of the public moved out of the way and made room for the guards, there were a lot of people there to watch. 

After this, we went to have lunch in Amalienborg Have (the gardens/park across the road from the palace) where we could see the Danish Opera House. This was a freezing lunch, we tried to keep warm under blankets but it was still very cold.

The next place that we visited was Rosenborg Castle, a royal castle that was built in 1606, it was originally used as a summer house for the royal family, but they have lived there a few times throughout history. All of the rooms are decorated and preserved as they have been for many years, with tapestries from the 1700s hanging on the walls, furniture over 400 years old, very detailed ceilings and luxurious decorations. Throughout the rooms, many different royal artefacts and possessions are displayed. It was absolutely incredible to see, to walk through such beautiful rooms, knowing that Kings and Queens have lived there.

  

 

 

In the basement of the castle, the Danish Crown Jewels are displayed. We saw glass cabinets filled with priceless jewels and crowns that have been worn by the Danish Royal family for centuries.

 

We walked through the shopping streets of the city, which are the biggest in Denmark. Most shops were closed, because it was a public holiday though. I saw the church that Princess Mary and Frederik were married in, as well as another large palace, Christiansborg.

 

We went and had a tea and coffee at Nyhavn. The street of different coloured houses lines a canal which has many old fashioned yachts and ships in it. The street is bustling with people and restaurants.

 

After dinner at an Italian restaurant, we went to the ballet. The place were it was being performed was a very old theatre that is decorated very elaborately. We took our seats, then sat and waited for the performance to begin. But then we all had to stand again, at first I didn't know why, then the Queen of Denmark, Dronning Margrethe, came out on her private balcony and sat to watch the ballet. Throughout almost the whole performance she watched with a smile on her face. The performance of Romeo and Juliet was amazing. The dancers jumped and twirled across the stage, dressed in such detailed costumes, making gravity-defying movements that left the audience in awe, all in the most graceful manner.

  

On Sunday I went for a ride on the family's horse, Ronja. She is still being trained, so is a little cheeky and still has a bit to learn about being ridden, but it was nice riding.