Monday, November 23, 2009

Life (almost 4 months in)

Hello. It's 4:00 now. I got home from school a little while ago and I have to leave again at 5:00 to go to my first day of level 3 language school. It's already dark out AND it's rainning so I'm not really looking forward to the bikeride over there. The level 3 class actually started last wednesday but I wasn't there becuase I went to another play rehearsal. And when I got there I was told I had been promoted :) Someone couldn't do it anymore so I actually have a real part now with lines that were already in the script. haha. They said they're gonna make sure to make it clear that I don't come from Denmark. and the performances arn't until April so I've got a lot of time to work on it. I'm there less then once a week right now (only on some wednesdays) so it's not time consumming at all yet.

Oprah was here! I think I said that a while back. She was here with Obama back when they were trying to get the Olympics in Chicago. but what I didn't know is that when she came she did a segment for her show, showing what life was like in Denmark. It was a very simplified portrayl of the way people live here, but fun to watch. We don't get Oprah on TV but they still aired it here.
(P.S I didn't take this)

I've been speaking a lot of english the last few day. On Thursday we had an AFS meeting, on Saturday I went with AFS to Copenhagen, and on Sunday we had an American over for lunch and dinner. So let's go from the start:
The meeting with AFS was nice. It had been a while sence I had seen the others (6 in the Køge area) We had pizza then 2 of the exchange students did a presentation about thier home countries. After that, the meeting was directed tword the host families. Talking about next year allready! So we got to go in the other room. We didn't really know what we should do then...but wait, I had my camara with me! so we did what all AFS exchange students do with a camara, we took pictures of us with the AFS flag :) But when that got a little boring I showed them the blvbvlvlvblllvlvb game. haha. that kept us pretty entertained.

On Saturday AFS went to Tivoli. It's a huge amusment park in Copenhagen. We went to see a show called "the crazy christmas cabaret" It was in english, and it's was really funny. The show was at 3:00 so when it was over it was dark out and Tivoli was lite up like crazy! christmas lights everywhere! It was really cool we walked around in Tivoli for a while then went to McD's :D That was deliciouse. After that we just walked around in Copenhagen and had a really fun time :)
Then on Sunday Anders's (my older host brother) friend from the US was here, He was from Chicago. He was only the 2nd American I've been around in the past 3 months. It was kinda funny. Anyway, It's Monday again and I'm back into the Danish mode. (minus writting this blog post) but I've got to go. I have 4 more hours of school :( Bye.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

"special cocktails for ladies with nuts"

Hello. weird title isn't it? Haha. I couldn't think of anything and I read that in my english textbook today. There was a page with signs from all over the world written in english. It was so we could see how much of an international language english is, and also to fix the many many mistakes. A lot of them were really funny but the funniest one by far was the one from a bar in Tokyo that said "special cocktails for ladies with nuts" I think they were trying to say there's nuts in the cocktail. hahaah. that mad me laugh sooo much, so I thought I would share it with you :D
Anyway, I don't have any big event to base this post on but of corse there's always a lot of little things going on that I don't always talk about on here. So I guesse I'll just write about.. stuff...

Last week (or the week before, i can't remember) I had my level 2 language test and I passed! The whole class passed! All 4 of us. haha. It wasn't to hard but it was a step up from the level 1 test I had a few months ago. We had to write an essay, do a listening thing, and do a reading thing. Then I had to talk about one of the three books I had read but they don't tell you which one until you get there. and then the tester just listens to a lame conversation you try to make with another student about a given subject. (we had "shopping") So I passed and will be moving on to level 3 but not right away. Like I said there are only 4 people in our class and you need at least 6 to start a new level. We had some drop outs resently so we have to wait for more people to join before we can start up again. When I got home that night after passing the test we all had icecream and danish cherry wine to celebrate! hah, That was fun.
School is good :) We had a guy come in on Tusday and speak to the whole school about enviromently friendly solutions. He was an inventor I guesse and he showed us a bunch of his ideas. One of them was a car that hooks up to other cars to make a train(? i think?) The next day we split into groups and had to come up with our own ideas. My group came up with the idea of lighting a city with the electricety from lighting....
I got home from school the other day and Far told me I had a part in the musical they're doing with the youth group thing in Køge. I was confussed. It's something I was trying to get into about a month ago but I couldn't go to the audition. But aparently they found a part for me :) So last night I road my bike over to a rehearsal in the pouring rain. It was at a really cool place. I guesse it used to be a train station a long time ago, so it's a long building with graffiti all over it, close to the beach. They do a lot of concerts there I heard. It was a small rehearsal. Just some of the leads I think. I was informed that I have a small part as a foreign exchange student! hah. It will be fun. I haven't seen the script yet but they're writting me in I think. Which is really nice, I've missed theater so much. I've gone more than 3 months without being in a show before of course, but I'm constently around theater at home. constently. It was nice even to just sit in and watch. It was moving slowly becuase they were still blocking the scene but I was happy to be there.
Then when it was over, we went to this back room and there was like, a cafe! It was so cool. And they said once a month there's an open mic thing, and they were doing it that night! There were little tables with candles everywhere, low lighting, and really good live music by people that were just sitting in the audience going up and taking turns. It was just ...cozzy. and there were people I knew! (haha, there's always people I've met before,..everywhere!). It was really nice. Made me wish a played an insterment, really bad. I'm gonna make sure a go to that thing whenever they have it from now on.

What else...We ate goose for dinner the other day. It's a danish tradision to eat goose or duck on November...(?) I can't remeber what day it was. It was good. I've never had goose before. There is a story behind it but I'm not gonna put it on here, I dont want to get it wrong. The simple reason, I've heard, Is becuase they dont like geese, so they eat them. but thats not the real reason...

So my blog has been looking pretty boring lattley becuase I havn't been taking any pictures. I looked at my camara just now to see if there was anything I could share on here but the most resent pics are from Sweden...and the ones I took of my purple big toe after dropping a drawer on it,...but I don't think you want to see those, so i'll just leave this one blank :D But i'll try to take my camara around with me more so I can have some for next time. I need to have pictures of everyday stuff too, not just big events. So watch for another one in about a week, bye!

Monday, November 2, 2009

SG 1p

That my new class :) Solrød Gymnasium, class 1p. I've been with my new class, in my new school for a week now (started with my 2nd Monday today) and I'm really happy with it. It's still new of corse but It's been really great so far and it just get's better the more used to it I get. I take the train to school now which still feels really cool, but I know it's gonna just be annoying later on. But for now I'm just reminded how lucky I am everyday. I get to ride my bike through the town square and get on the "S" train (headed tword Copenhagen). It makes me feel cool. haha.
And in the 2 weeks I had between switching from 10klasse to Solrød (with break, and farming school) my Danish improved a lot, so I started off able to understand a lot more of the lessons then I did when I left 10klasse. That was cool. I have so many differnt subjects now! Some of them are only once a week but still:

Math
Danish
English
Geography
History
Chemistry
Biology
Religion
Social Studies
Media (film)
Gym

It's a lot. I went through half a class once last week not knowing what subject it was! I think I only know 2 of our teachers names too. haha. But I've got all the kids names down, so thats good. They've been really nice so far. They've done a good job at welcoming me and making me feel "in". They all get along well with each other too which I think is really cool. It's a class of 25 and I don't feel like they're broken up into little groups like you would think. Lunch is so cool with my class. hhaha. We're free to leave or do what ever we want. The gymnasium is right in town in Solrød so kids are always going to the stores and stuff during lunch. We have speakers in all the classrooms too, so someone will always plug in their i-pod and play it really high. We've also got a really good cafateria which is open ALL the time :) and I went to a class party on Friday. It was a lot of fun, and good to see them all out of school.
Oh! and if the teacher is sick or busy or something, they don't have subs, your just free for that hour! That happend for my first time today with a lesson we have right before lunch so we had almost 2 hours off! About 7 of us just got on a train (cuz you can do that) and went to a mall type place a few stops north and had Burger King, walked around, and went back just in time for our next class... Thats so cool!
But when I'm in class we work, which is a good thing becuase that what I switched schools for. I have class from 8am to 2, 3, or 4pm which is much more time than I was in school before. And the extra time is a really good thing. I get more social interaction, and with a lot more people and I really think thats helping my Danish. Of corse it is. So the switch was a good thing.

I don't really know what else to write about Gymnasium. It's so differnt from high school. (in almost every way) So if anyone has any questions about it you can just comment and ask :)