summer?...kinda

The people in Michigan might think they've got weird weather, but It's not even close to as weird and random as it is over here in Denmark. I dont want to talk to much about somthing as boring as weather, but I thought I should let you know that within the past couple of weeks we've finally had some nice hot summer days!!!....and some winter/fall/spring days too, but at least "summer" is in the mix now :) I've finally gotten some color, and we've had days and nights with open windows. And people are wearing shorts! The first hot day of the year was one of our last days of school. I went to the beach with some friends right after class and went swimming!



It wasn't nearly as cold has it was in April! haha. But they hadn't re-built the dock yet and and there was smelly sea-weed stuff that haddn't been taken away yet that went out to about 20m. So I had to crawl/ walk/ swing my way out there.

Last weekend really got me in the summer mood too. We had a family BBQ out in my host dad's sister garden and it was nice and hot that day :) We spent the whole day grilling and playing yard games and drinking coffe with cake (very danish) It might have been the last time I see some of the family too, which is kinda weird to think about. I don't have pictures of that day...

The last school day has now come and gone (over a week ago) and I'm free! Don't be too jelouse. If you can remember, I started about 3 weeks before you guys over in the US. And I still have all my exams to take, and 8 hours of language school every week. But still, it's very weird that it's all over. Im not comming back to that school again next year and I'll never have another school hour with my class. We don't even all come to exams at the same time! It krept up, which is kinda nice becuase I have vacation now, but kinda sad too. I few days ago I had a meeting at the school with the principal and my counselor, and the 2 other exchange students who went to the school. Just kinda a goodbye thing, and we each got some papers documenting that we went there and what classes we had and stuff. So,..thats over with!

This is inside Solrød Gymnasium ("Sun Red High School", haha) my school....that I no longer go to :/

Since Tuesday I've been working in day care, just for something to do haha. It's at the same school as my 10klasse was and the same school Simon goes to now. All the kids I'm working with are 5 or 6 and it's been a pretty interesting excperience. I kinda forgot that I haven't been around kids that ago since..well....I was that age!!! I don't know any little kids and I havn't gone to school with them since 5th grade. haha. (we never saw them in 10 klasse) I don't even see little kids. they're always at home, with their parents, or in school. So it was so weird to me the first day. Seeing the things the find funny or exciting, like stiking their head in and out from around a corner for 5 minutes. haha. It's fun to just watch them with each other too. I would have loved to go to kindergarden/grade school in Denmark. They have so much more freedom! I remember when I used to have resess and the teachers and lunch mom's would ALWAYS be yelling after kids telling them to stop. Here, you don't really stop them unless they're about to kill each other. I was a little confussed at the start. But it seems like we're just there to help them if they get hurt or yell at them if they're hurting someone else. It's their choice if they want to jump off the top of the playground. If they get hurt, we help them out and they learn not to do it again. haha. They have sooo much fun. There are a lot of kids there, and not that many adults but it doesn't seem like it's not enough adults. The kids seem to take care of themsleves more than they generally do in the US, or from what I've seen at least. If the 5 year old spills something at lunch, 4 of them get up, grab paper towel and help clean it up. They're soo much fun to watch!! They other day me and one other adult took about 10 over to another place for lunch (there are over 100 of them all together!) It was just a little walk from the school and they got to go over by a little pond to eat. When they were done eating we set them free and watched them help each other up onto the roof of some shed type thing.haha. Then one of them started chasing a couple of ducks and all the other kids joined in. They ran pretty far away...but then they came back!... FREEDOM is the key. haha

Simons last school day was a week after mine (on thursday) He graduated from 9klasse which is a big deal here becuase in Denamrk you go to the same school all the way up till you're 15-16 (9 klasse is like 10th grade) Some kids top going to school there (kinda like stopping after high school) you could still get a job and stuff. But most kids go on to something else. Simons going to Oregon next year as and exchange student, then to Gymnasium for 3 years like Anne and Anders. Anyway, on the last school day they drees up in weird costumes and run around the school throwing candy. Then they go to the park and drink A LOT and hit eachother with all kinds of weird smelly food.

This is Simon after comming home from his last school day. hah

Anne had her last school day too and she's done with Gymnasium now! But there hasn't been too much celebrating yet, A little bit, but they're not done with exams until the end of June, right when I'm leaving. Thats when all the big party stuff and traditions happen. I'll write about that when It comes.

I've still got 1 day left with all the little kids on Monday and we're going on a feild trip! that'll be fun. (I actually don't know where yet) Also, my first exam is on Tuesday, but it's not a big deal beacuse it's just a written math exam. The ones I'm really nervous for are the oral exams. but once again, I'll talk about those when they come. I'm keeping pretty bussy and the plans just keep rolling in :)....It's scary how "home" I feel here. I didn't think it was possible after just 10 months to feel like I'm home in a completley differn't country. I know I've said I feel home here before but I feel almost like I must have been lying then, when I compair it to how I feel now. I almost want it to stop getting better. It makes it to hard to think about leaving. Thinking about comming home makes me soooooooo happy, but thats completely differn't then thinking about leaving. ...but when I think about this whole "problem" I have, I realise what I nice delema it is to be in; To have two places were you feel at home,.. to have amazing experiences and people you love and in multiple places across the world. It's pretty nice. And life must go on at some point. I'm gonna enjoy what I have here for as long as I have it.

10 months down, and 1 to go.

P.S

My favorit Coca-Cola ad in the WORLD!!! haha. I've seen it in a lot of places here. Now that I've been away for such a long time this seems soooo American to me and makes me laugh every time I see it.

Thats all for now :)

6 weeks left...

Last week I had only 3 days of school, from Monday to Wednesday. And we weren't even in school on Wednesday! We were in Copenhagen with our Danish teacher and it was horibble weather :/ very very cold rain. A perfect day to walk around in Copenhagen :D haha. It's a good thing the 2 longest stops were indoors. We went to Denmarks National Museum and the Workers Museum. They were both pretty boring but there was some interesting stuff. And it made for good memories walking around in the freezing cold :)





So I had a long weekend which I sadley didn't take very good advatage of. Thats kinda hard to do when it's raining every day. But on Friday the forcast was better :) So my host parents took Bow and I to see Møns Klint. It's a klif on the Island of Møn which is south from Sjælland (Zealand) where I live. It took quite a while to get down there, but we took the nice way so there was a lot of danish countryside to look at. Møns Klint was huge. These pictures dont do it justice. It's not something I excpected to see in Denmark. haha. We had to go up sooo many stairs when we came up from the beach. The trees there are really cool too. haha. There is a 5km race there on June 13 and I'm gonna do it! It's advertised as the hardest 5k in Denmark. Which is good. I need more motivation to get back in shap for cross country which starts right when I get back. There's one in Køge sooner that I might do too.

Anyways, we made a few little stops on the way home too. One of them was an old church (all churches in Denmark are old) with paintings all over the ceiling of bible stories. Denmark used to be Catholic, but they switched to Protestant a long long time ago. When they did, they panited over all these drawings with white, but in the 1800's the white paint was removed in these church to show all these old drawings. It was pretty cool to see.

After that , we headed back with nice views out the window :) It had been a while sence I had been out of Køge and Copenhagen. It was nice to get back out in the danish nature again.

Now, as of yesterday I have only 6 weeks left in this country!!! I've really been having a hard time excepting and understanding that. So yesterday, while it rained and rained, I made a calendar to hang on my wall so I would really be able to see how much time there was. Then, I filled it in with all of my plans for the next 6 weeks. Which was a really good idea becuase now I can see were I'm not doing stuff and fill it in with stuff I've always wanted to do before I leave. My goal is to never again have a boring day in Denmark. I'm working on finalizing a lot of stuff right now and there is a lot that is fully planed already:) I've written EVERYTHING on there. Even telling myslef when I have to study or go running! It's so weird to be able to look at the calendar now and have such a clear idea of what I'm gonna be doing with this short amount of time I have left. Its scary. I've been here so long. This IS the end. School is over in 4 days! (and it's gonna be hot on friday!) I'm so glad I made the calendar, becuase I really feel like I understand it ALL now! Any other exchange students reading this should do the same thing. I've had many little sperts of motivation throughout this year, but I know this one I have now is NOT going away until I do.

School is almost over!

Whatsss up?? I actually just had to look through the pictures on my camara in order to remember what I've been doing latley. haha. Nothing to out of the ordinary has happend latley. Bow (from thiland) turned 17 last week so I went to her house and we ate thi food and giant icecream cones. It was really good :)

May 1st is a big day in Denmark. My summary of it : "All young people in the country go to Copenhagen and sit in a big park eating, drinking, and listening to live music and political speaches all day long. " I went, and had a really fun time. There were SOO many people. Almost everyone I know (from denmark) was there. I went a group with a friend from my class but we all lost each other eventually! haha. there are so many people that the cell phone lines stop working so you can't call or write to anyone. But it's ok. you just find another group you know and sit down. haha. Sadley I have no pictures of that day. my camara was missing at the time (but i have in now!)

Zenia started teaching me some guitar last week! I can already kinda play "wonder wall". I want to get better and learn more songs before I go home. I've been playing around with our piano a lot too this year so It will be cool to come home and say I can play some piano and guitar when I couldn't play either at all when I left. and Anne has a guitar so I can practice on that :)

Last week was our LAST normal school week!!! Tomorrow startes our first "flex week." 2 weeks were we try to make up for all of the canceld classes throughout the year. But it's not normal school becuase each day only makes up for 1 or 2 subjects. I don't have that many full days ( 8-3pm) and there are some days were I don't have to go in at all!! At the end of those 2 weeks, on May 21st, we have our last school day!!! Which is sooo great, but there is a catch: My last exam isn't until June 22nd. Over here, all the exams are takin after "normal schooling" is over. But even though I will be studying, It's not gonna be anything close to all the time, so I'm gonna be having a lot of free time....too much free time, I'm thinking. So I'm going to work at my old school with the little kids! If you can remeber, at the begining of the year I went to 10klasse at the "Elementary" school. Not really elementry school, it's the school kids go in all the way up until they choose to go to gymnasium or some other higher education. But they have little kids there and I'm going to help with...some...camp/daycare...something. I don't know much about it yet but my host mom's been helping me set it up. She said Yoki (one of there old exchange students) did it and had a really fun time. so I hope it will be fun :)

After a few warm days it' been strangley cold latley. Some people are saying it's becuase of the ash from the volcano in Iceland :( I hope not. I want real beach weather by the end of May!