Holiday Break

When I go a really long time without bloging Its always for one of two reasons. The first; there hasn't really been much happening, or the second; I've been doing a LOT and have a lot to talk about and not enough motivation to sit down and try to sum up 3 eventful weeks of my life. This time it's the second one. I've been putting it off as long as I could. It's evening on the last day of break so I need to at least start..

Christmas came!!...and has now passed which seems pretty weird to me. Christmas wasn't extreamly differn't then it is in the US. But it was on the 24th insted of the 25th. And It doesn't start until evening. We had a nice big traditionel danish christmas dinner with duck and goose. It was a lot of food! after eating we held hands and made a circel around the christmas tree and we danced around it singing really long danish hyms. Then we exchanged gifts after. AND...Santa comes!! At least in my host family. haha. One of them dresses up as Santa Clause every year. That was fun.

We were 13 people I think. My host mom's sister and her family came from Jutland. So they stayed at our house the next couple days after christmas. When the 25th rolled around christmas was over. We spent the next couple of days watching a whole lot of movies. On the 26th we went to see Avatar in 3D! It was crazy! It was the most futuristic movie I've ever seen. I felt like I was there. lol. I really didn't know they could make computer stuff so real looking. The next day I went to Copenhagen with Anne, my host sister, and we saw Les Miserables in danish! It was a christmas gift from my grandparents and my brothers and sister. It was a really good gift. I've wanted to see that show for a long time :) It was a little hard to understand the danish becuase they were always singing so it was a good thing a knew the story.

Another great christmas gift I got sent was a really nice web cam! Thats right. I've gone all this time without skype! I used it for the first time a few days after Christmas. My family was haveing a party at home so I got to talk to a lot of people. It was weird being able to see them. Then a few days before New Years I skyped again with my cousins and family. They were up north for New Years. I'd say it's very close to my favorit trip of the year so it was weird not being there. But they were at a resturant when we skyped so it was really cool. They just set me at the head of the table so I could see and here everyone. It was like being there....except I couldn't eat the food :( haha. Heres a picture from their end...

...I need to be careful with that skype thing. They say too much contact with home isn't a good thing, so I've been calling home about once a month. But It's just so easy now!...

Ok. Two days after Christmas two americans came. My older host brother, Anders, was an exchange student in Kansas so it was his host brother and friend who came to see Anders. They stayed here the first couple days. One of those days Mor took them out to be touristy and see some stuff. I went too because it was some places I had'nt seen yet either. We went to the biggest church in Denmark were a bunch of dead royal danish people are. Then we went to a vikings museum and saw some really old ships. It was cool.

They are still here in Denamark but they've been gone with Anders sense New Years. I think they're coming back at some point...

Anyways...New Years! I had a good time. We had a party here. Some family and Mor and Fars friends came and Simon and I had quite few people over too. And it grew the latter it got! Firework are HUGE here. We may think we have a lot of firework in the US on new years but you're wrong! It honestly sounded like a war outside, 24/7 the three days around New Years. And EVERYONE is outside after midnight lighting them off. You couldn't find a place in the sky that wasn't full of explosives. I couldn't belive it. We had some that you throw and they take off into the sky and explode! Everyone was wearing goggles....

Then on the 2nd I went to a going away party for Kate, one of the exchange student from Australia. She came 6 months before me and It's just so weird to think she's gone home now. Because I can remeber at the arrival she was one of the kids who were half way through their exchange year. And we were all so interested in them. I couldn't even imagine being half way through my exchange, speaking another language, being used to living here...but now, with what feels like a second, they have all gone home, and I'M half way through my exchange year. It seems impossible-- but, it's not, and the time is still moving. One year is sooo short when it's singeld out with a real start and finish and doesn't just blend into the next. The past 5 months have been like a day dream. I feel like I made it all up, except I have pictures to prove that it did all happen. Everyone has been saying the second half goes by way faster than the first and I just can't understand that. How could it possibly go any faster then te first half! It hasn't even felt like TIME. it's just been......stuff. I'm so glad that i'm here for the year and I didn't choose to do something shorter. I've been way higher up and way lower down in the past 5 months then I allow you to see from this blog and I've learned so much. This year is like a pause in my real life, more then I realized it would be when I decided to do this. It's improving me, and helping me, and giving me so many expieriences. I'm so lucky to be doing this. Not just becuase I get to live in Europe for a year and be away from home and high school, but becuase of what I'm getting out of it. Doing this is far from easy, but I still can't WAIT to struggle through the next half of this weird situation. And I don't have to wait either. I couldn't if I wanted to...

Christmas Stories

Hey! I just posted the one bellow this a second ago but I forgot something that I really wanted to put in my blog. Earlier this week our english teacher gave us an assingnment to write a story about christmas in 55 words or less. (thats not very much) The next day he gave us each a copy of every storie we had come up with (we were in groups) And we read them all and discussed them all together....hahaha. It was the best time I've ever had in english class. Some of them were soooo funny.....

The Curious Red Light:

A little red light in the snow lit up the dark forrest. A hunter called Carl got frightent and ran as fast as he could through the forrest, though he couldn't escape the red light. Carl grabed his gun and shot at the red light. The next morning Rudolf was missing :( THE END (there is a picture. I wish I could put that on too...lol)

About Christmas:

It was a christmas morning. The snow was falling down. The children run out and play in the snow. A man saw the two children and through a snowball right at boys head. His head was belding, but the man walked away. An ambulance came out of the blue. Who called the ambulan?
THE END

Search of the Christmas Spirit:

Thomas walk down the street. But suddently nine goblins and one big midget tump down from the big tree. The big midget gave Thomas a lollipop. Then alll the goblins hug Thomas, but the big midget kick Thomas right in the balls and say Merry Christmas :) THE END


haha! That last one was my favorit. OK thats all. Just pretend this was part of the last post. Bye :D

The snow is here

I've been so teired of this cold wet rainy danish weather , and for the first time in my life, I really really wanted snow....a lot of snow. And last night we got it! It snowed like crazy! REAL snow, and it stuck and it's still here. It was soo nice....But then I had to get on my bike and ride all the way into town to the station for school :( My bikes not really cut out for...well, anything. I got outside this mornning, (still dark and windy and blazing snow) hopped on my bike and got half way out of my naborhood when the break jammed and my back tire wouldn't go around anymore. So I walked it to Fakta, (a grocery store) locked it and walked the rest of the way. As I was walking I was surprised to see how many people were still doing the same thing. Regardless of the weather, everyone was still out just dealing with it. Danes are really earth friendly, aware, healthy people. haha. Seriously, you would never see people out in that kind of weather in Michigan. Even if we got people to ride bikes or walk more, the second that crap weather came they would be back in their cars. Not the Danes. They're hard core.
Walking is a lot slower then biking so I was sure I had missed my train. But nope! When I got to the station there was a crazy amount of people waiting to get on it. The rails were icey so the train haddent been running and the 3 that come before mine were cancled. So when the train finally came it was packed! I was laughing to myself in Køge, the first stop, but no one really gets off at the first few stops and there were just as many people waiting at those ones. By the time we were to the stop before mine it was just redicualous. We were litterly squished angenst each other. You couldn't not let people in when the door open so we just squished more. People were missing there stops becuase it was impossible to move out of the way. I wanted to take a picture (haha) but I was to squished to get my hand in my pocket...hmm fun times.

I think that this year is the earliest I've ever been in the Christmas spirit. It's almost imposible not to be when it's Decemeber in Denmark! There's christmas music playing everywhere, I pass 3 gaint christmas trees on the way to school, and everyone is just so...peppy. Plus all the christmas parties and food traditions around now. They have this little Christmas cookie called a peppernut. It's really just a gingerbread cookie the size of a penut but they are really good, and they're everywhere! We had a Christmas party thing for the Musical last night and we had a peppernut eating contest. haha. My team won! Then today in school the classroom door flew open and a bunch of kids with santa hats and beards came running in screeming christmas songs and chucking hand fulls of peppernuts at us and at the walls and ceiling and then they were gone again in well under 20 seconds....that was crazy...It makes me feel bad for any Danish exchange student living in the US or something. I don't think anyone has more christmas spirit. Tomorrow I'm just going to school for a few hours for a Christmas party then I'm on break! Yay. I'll wait to update again until after Christmas Day...unless something crazy awesome happens first.

Merry Christmas! (again)

December means Christmas!

So when I started thinking today about what my next post would be about I noticed that a lot of little things can happen in 10 days. I think i should start writing stuff down even before I blog, because now that I'm sitting here I know I'm gonna forget some things...

Lets start with Thanksgiving. Obviously mine was a little bit differn't this year. To tell the truth I actually went through the whole school day and much of the evening without it even crossing my mind! It wasn't until Mor got home around 5pm that I realized. she came in the door with a "Happy Thanksgiving!" and I was like ,whaauhooo. Good thing there's a 6 hour time differnece, cuz I was calling home! Thanksgiving is always at my house so I got to talk to everyone. That was really nice:) I called right as people started showing up so I could always here "Hi"s and voices I knew in the backround.

Danes don't celibrate Thanksgiving of corse. So the people here dont have anything stoping them from celibrating christmas as soon as possible. They have a thing here called Christmas lunches. people have them with differnt "groups" in and around christmas. You do them with your families, class, and any sport or club your in, and adults do them with work. They start having them in November and some of them are even after Chritmas (we have a family one on Dec. 29 I think) The day after Thanksgiving, they did the tree lighting in Køge. It was pouring down rain and it was supposed to be at 5 but I think Santa was tired of waiting up in the cherry picker in the freezing rain so it was 12 minutes early...many complaints for that..tsk tsk. (?) An old lady came up to me and started babling about how they should have waited for her to come out of the store. haha.

Town Square the next day. The tree is in the middle.

That night I went to a party with some of the kids from my class and I got a free haircut! There was a girl there who was in beauty school and I agreed to let her cut it. Considering the circumstances (passed midnight at a danish party) It turned out pretty great, and it was free :) and haircuts are expensive here. Then on Saturday I went to Rasmus's house with Simon. We ate dinner there and had a christmas-ish party. It's wierd being in the Christmas spirit so early...

Last weekend I went with Mor and Far to get a Christmas tree. 2 actually (one for inside and one for outside). Christmas trees are differnt here. They're a lot more....whimpy. They're all short and bare, not like the ones we get! I was the one who cut it down, and as I was doing it I started thinking about when I was little, and how my brothers and sister and I would all take turns cutting it a little bit. It seemed to take forever, and when it finally started to fall we would run out of the way. Then all of a sudden I had cut through the whole thing and I stopped it from falling over with one arm...Then we put it in the trunk. haha.

In the USA people go crazy with christmas lights outside thier houses. Here, that pretty rare. But they go decoration crazy on the inside! Last weekend Mor pulled out a a bunch of huge boxes all filled with christmas decorations and now they've been pucked out all over the house. Not that it looks bad. Just very christmasy :) Like I said, it's a little early for me. haha.

Ok. I've got 2 funny stories for you. I'm not sure If they were "you had to be there" type stories but I'm gonna write them down anyway so I have them for me.

#1 I made dinner last night. And after a few weeks of not messing anything up it had to end somewhere. I made black beans and rice as a side for chicken. I missed it and wanted some so I found a recepy on line and made it. But I used some wierd asain rice we had and followed the instructions for white rice. (I'm dumb) They were way over-cooked and then when I mixed it in with the beans and stuff it was just...not the way it was supposed to look. So anyway, when people went to take some it came out in huge solid clumps. Mor asked Far to give her some,...He took one clump, put it on the plate the looked in the bowl and said "Would you like one rice or two rice?" I thought that was soooo funny. But now that I right it it sounds kinda dumb. Maybe you had to be there.

#2 I was walking through the down town area in Solrød to the train station after school today and as I was doing so, a cha-cha line of maybe 60 people came marching out of an office buliding and onto the street. They were all dressed like pirates and they had pirate flags and swords and stuff. I don't know if it was becuase it was Friday or if it was some kinda of weird Christmas party but...ya. They did a big loop around the christmas tree in the town square and I was aproching, ready to pass them, as they came around the other side. But then all of a sudden the lady in the front with a bongo just fell to the ground. And I think she maybe fainted becuase she wasn't really moving very much. As I walked by the fun kinda stopped they all kinda ran into each other and looked toward the front like...what the heck? I was alone and I STILL couldn't help but just bursting out laughing after I had passed by and the whole event regesterd in my head.

So ya, that was that. I'm sure I'm forgetting something but I think this is good enough :)

hohoho! Merry Christmas!

P.S. This cat likes to hang out outside our school. We let him inside on Wednesday! He likes hugs :) haha

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.

"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!

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 :)