Joe Cavanaugh is lucky

Hello :) I've had quite a good time this past week. Really good. Great!

Lets start with farming school; That was quite an experience....

I just want to start this whole thing by saying my danish has improved like CRAZY this past week or so. ( or at least I've noticed how much I've actually learned) I can't believe I can actually communicate and try to make converstaion with people in danish. Sure I have to ask them to repeat a lot but once they do, I understand them. I've got the small talk in the bag! (kind of) but it's just weird. I'm not used to it yet. My communicationn with other people consists of almost all danish!

Ok, anyway, farming school; It was interesting. We worked on the farm, we learned in the classrooms, and we drove tractors :) I got to hang out with the cows and sheep, and I even got to ride a horse one day! That was cool. I've never done that. We learned a lot about farming and how to take care of the animales and stuff. I had a good time. I had to get up really early everyday though. The school was in Rosklide. So I had to ride my bike to Køge station every morning ( about 15 minutes), then take the train to Rosklide station (about 25 minutes), then sit at the station and wait for the bus (about 20 minutes) then take the bus to the school (about 10-15 minutes) The sun didn't come up until after I was at the school everyday. I hadn't used the public transport that much by my self before last week and there were some messups. I ended up missing the train one morning. And I missed the bus once too and I had to walk 5k to the school 2 times! But now I think I know the transportation system quite well so thats a really good thing. I have no pictures from farming school. There was never an good time to whip out a camara...

When friday came along farming school was over and I was on my way to Sweden! WOW that was an awesome trip! I'm so lucky I got to go white water rafting AND caving in Sweden. It was sooo cool. We were only going to a southern part of Sweden so I didn't think it would look much differnt from Denmark, but ohhh it did. We took our bus across the water on a huge ferrie. It was crazy. There was a huge parking lot on the bottom and a mall type thing with stores an resturants on the other levels. When we got to Sweden the first city was quite simmilar to Denmark. But we were soon out in the nature and things were sooo differnt. I can't really say how but it was like nature I havn't seen in real life before. When you go out in the woods in Michigan (where I come from) It's like the same as it is in Denmark. But It was...bigger in Sweden. Big trees and big rocks and everything was coverd in thick green mosses and stuff. And it was always misty and wet. And there were a lot of calm little lakes and stuff. And it's fall! So that just added to how nice it all was. It was really realll reallllly cold...

I've never tried white water rafting before so I didn't know what to expect. But we had to strip down and change into our wet suits out in the woods by the river! It was sooo cold. Just try to imagine it. It was rainning, it was cold enough to see your breath, I was freezing and we were about to get into little boats and splash around in a raging river. So what happend next I wasn't expecting at all... One of the leaders took as down to the edge of the water. He was speeking danish of corse and the water and everything was making to much noise for me to understand. But than all of a sudden kids started jumping into the water! They zipped down the river into a lake a little farther down. I couldn't believe it. I thought the piont was to stay in the boat and stay as dry as we could!? But it was my turn to jump in, and I've learend to not really ask questions, so there I went :) It was soooo much fun. 100% freezing but one of the coolest things I've ever done. After that, being wet and cold didn't matter anymore. (Jumping into a ragging river in October will do that for you) We took the boats out and did the same strip of river for hours. It comes out into a lake, you get out, take your boat, walk up the trail, and get in the river again. The boats were for 2 people so we just switched parteners all the time. The was on time I was with this girl and our boat got turned around backwards! We hit a big wave thing and she fell out! I was half way out (one of my legs) and I slamed my knee agienst a big rock. That hert really bad :( We were both fine but my knee still herts kind of. Just brused though. It was an adventure! but there was more to come...That same day we changed in to dry(ish) clothes and headed over to a cave! We crawled around deep into these dark little holes ( not for clasterfobic people) but it was really cool becuase we found that a lot of them lead to bigger "rooms". I love how Europeans (from what I've seen) don't have to worry about crazy parents sueing them If they set there kids free in a cave in Sweden, or tell them to jump into a ragging river :) I really don't think that trip would have been the same if I went with Americans....

The next day we did some more white water rafting. But it was less the the first day becuase we had to hit the road. I was home by 8:00pm on Sunday and I had to make sure I was ready for my first day at Solrød Gymnasuim! I don't think my first day could have gone any better :) My class is great. They were all really nice and interested in me. We had math and I was able to do the work. I worked together with some other people and I was actually able to discuse the problems in danish. I was lost with some of it but I knew what we were doing. then we had a geogrophy type class were the teacher gave a test (just to see what we knew) becuase they were starting somthing new. I could read almost all the questions and even answer some of them. haha. It was cool. Then we had gym class were we split up into 2 groupd and had a dance off. haHAHAaa. Not something I've done in gym class before. They were all really welcoming and I even got invited to a class party on friday! yay! I can't wait for the rest of the week so I can get a real feel of what its like and let you guys know. But for now I think I've written enough. I've got language school tomorrow so I've got to study. I havn't had time all week! Bye.