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.