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!

........

Hello. I just thought I'd give an update again while I have time. Last weekend was pretty full as well. On friday night we had a Gymnasium party at my school, Solrød, and the theme was black and white. There are 3 AFS exchange students who go to Solrød and Lenart from germany, got two more in so there were 5 of us foreigners. We hung out with friends from my class and they had fun meeting all these exchange students. We had a really fun time and I went to an after party for my class after that. It was nice being together with all of them outside of school. We don't do that very often. I'm going to miss patrys at the gymnasium. They are WAY better than high school dances.

On friday I went with Zenia to a birthday party for somone in her class. Zenia's danish and she was in Michigan on exchnage a few years ago. It's really cool to have met someone who lived in my state! We hung out last weekend too. It's always fun :)

Today is Wednesday and I wasn't in school. I was at another school instead, in a city called Høje Taastrop, close to Copenhagen. About a week ago an english teacher from the business school over there, called me and asked if I could come in and talk to the students about the USA. And I said, ya. I went in this morning and stayed till lunch. I gave two presentaions and answered a bunch of their questions. I did it in English (becuase it was and english class) but then they wanted to here my danish when they found out I could speak it so the questiond were kind of a mix. It's become so hard to speak well and give good explanations in English that it's not even funny. The only reason I was nervous was becuase I had to give the presentation in english! It seems like it should be the other way around.ahaha. Anyways, It was a really good experience. And wants a got started it went pretty smoothly...I think. Every time there was a break I went down to the teachers lounge with the teacher I was with and we talked to other teachers and drank cofee. haha. They treated me like a guest speaker or something. I mean, I was...but I'm the same age as the students, so It was kinda funny. It's was a good, and fun thing to do. And I like standing up there in front of the class...Maybe I'll want to be a teacher now...(?) haha. I went and got a hair cut after I was back in Køge. It's pretty short, but not buzzed again. I don't like having a lot of hair, and It's actually pretty hot today, so I'm preparing my head for summer :)

In a few hours I'm going to the first day of modual 5 language school. I had my modual 4 test last week and passed, so I'm now on the last modual. If I pass the next test, (in June) it will mean a lot, and maybe help me towards collage. And if I ever wanted to live in Denamrk again,..to study maybe... (?).. It would make comming back 10 times easier. But in general, I just want to be able to say I passed!

Here's a bad picture of Køge Station I took last weekend. You can't really see much, but I'm there every day , so there you go :)

seeya...

Picking up the Pace

I was pretty busy last weekend! It started on friday, which was the queens 70th birthday. I didn't have real school that day. It was an exam day (not an importiant one) for math. I went in from 9 to 11 and then went straight to Copenhagen. I met Bow on the train. I couldn't get anyone else to come beacuse they were all still in school! But every year on the queens birthday she comes out on her belcony and waves to all the people who wave danish flags and cheer. I didn't want to miss that. But when we got into Copenhagen there was a big news screen on the street showing an overview of where the queen lives. There were soooo many people. We could see that the crowed went out and all the way down the street. If we walked over there we wouldn't have been able to see anything. So we stayed where we were knowing that in an hour she would be comming through in her carriage and walk into the city hall right behind us. So we ate Burger King while we waited :) Then all the guests started comming into the building. We watched and saw Prince Frederik and Princess Mary go in and then the queen herself. But right before that happend there was a guy that fell off his horse right in front of us. The ambulance came and everything. That was a pretty eventfull trip.



Fred and Mary

The queen, in the blue

I orginally didn't have plans for friday night, but ended up going to hang out with some new friends:) That was fun. But then I was up "early" Saturday morning to go to Næstved. I met Andy on the train but sadly we arn't the best at planning stuff, becuase there was no one to meet us at the station when we got off. They were all still in bed! Kelsi from New Zealand said she would come down in like, an hour and a half. So Andy and I just walked around and hung out in the library. When Kelsi came we went to see a movie. I thought it would be fun to see "Kick Ass" but we saw "Lovley Bones" instead, which was also pretty good.

Hilary came after that and the 4 of us desided to head back to Køge, to my house. My host parents were in Germany last weekend and they said I could have a little party if I wanted. We went food shopping when we got to Køge. We made tacos and drank red wine with it. haha. It was so funny. Just the 4 of us making dinner and eating it by candel light, drinking our cheep wine. Very "grown up"





Simon was having some friends over that night too, so we just all hung out till really late and everyone slept on the floor at out house :) The next morning The 4 of us walked back to the stataion. Hilary and Kelsi went back to Næstved, and Andy and I went the other way...We were going to the beach! something we had planed for a while with the Køge exchangies. It was NOT warm. But we had a fun time acting like it was summer. haha. Jason and I went swimming! Trying to make up for never going "winter bathing" when I said so many times that I was going to. there is a video and Facebook if you have me as a "friend". Besides that we just layed around eating chips and taking pictures. I got a realllllly good one. (the one at the bottom)

So, like I said it was a packed weekend. And I'm completley booked for this next weekend too! And I'm staring to fill up these next 2 months with a bunch of stuff as well. I bunch of things I tell myself I need to do. I can feel that the best part of this year is gonna be these last few months :) So look forward to some good posts...

"The Fame"

Hello. I'm back! I've been soooo busy sence my last blog post. It would have litteraly been impossible to write again before now. The musical that I'm in, and have mentioned a few times, just ended last night. It was called, "The Fame", and no, not FAME like the movie, but it has a similar story line. It was written by our director and one of the other people in charge, and It's about a danish "high school" full of rich kids who spend money and party all the time. Then a bunch of stuff goes wrong and theres a bunch of fighting, drama, and sad people and loooove. I played "Jones". He's friends with another kid, Jack, and has a love interest, Zoe. Our story was kind of of the side. There was a lot going on in this musical! Now that it's all over, It's cool to think I did a play in another language, and a had a pretty good sized part :) It was a lot of fun, but a LOT of work the last few weeks. I can't remeber the last time I was home for dinner. It's crazy. Our Easter break was 2 weeks ago and we had rehersal almost EVERY day. Even easter Sunday! I don't even really feel like Easter even happend here with all thats been going on, and I had a birthday too! Most days we were there working on it for 10 hours! But there was one day were it didn't start until 4pm :) So I went to Copenhagen with some of the Køge exchange students. Bow, Nut, and Jason. It was so nice to actually get out and do something during break. I got up kinda early and took the train into Copenhagen to meet the others. We didn't have any plans. We just walked around A LOT trying to get better at finding our way around, and just had a really fun time. We had Thai (?) food for lunch that day. That was amazing!!! I havn't had food with any kind of "kick" for a long time. mmmm. I want more. There's a big walking street in Copenhagen with all kinds of stores. We all saw people we knew there. I didn't realize how popular it was to shop there for people that live all the way down in Køge, but it is. It's crazy how often you see people you know in Denmark. They are everywere. It's kinda funny.









It was a really nice sunny day, and spring is finally real spring. I'm really gonna miss the freedom I have to just do stuff like that when I get home. You can't just take the train into the city were I live. And Copenhagen is so beautiful. I'll never get used to how cool it is. Whenever I go there, no matter how many times it's been, I can't help but think about how lucky I am :)


So after that little trip it was back to Tapperiet (were we put on our musical) were everyone involved lived for the next 4 or 5 day, going home only to sleep, and wake up again. Even though it made me really tired and there were some days were I didn't want to be there, all and all It was really fun. I have a fun time with all the people there. And we spent so much time together!

Our only day off was Saturday, and that was not a restfull day for me, but it was very fun :) That was the day Anne and I had our family birthday party. My host mom made a huge danish layer cake and we had really good dinner too. And I got a bunch of giftes :) that day went to fast, then it was back to "The Fame" for the last day of break.

When school started again last Monday I would go straight from school to musical. It was the same on Tuesday, then on Wednesday we opened :) We were all soo tired by that point but we pretended to have energy. haha. Then came Thursday, my really birthday!!! I turned 17. when I got to the theater they took out a huge cake and all sang the danish happy birthday song. It was really nice, and the cake was awesome!

The show went really well that night. And my host parents came that night too. And a bunch of my awesome exchange student friends, who hade secretly bought me some birthday presents that day we were in Copenhagen. I met them after and they gave them to me. I had I great birthday. It was very unique, and extreamly differn't then any birthday I've had before. But also really weird. I'm a twin, so I've never had a birthday all to my slef. It was so weird having a cake and a day and all that, just for me. I actully think a prefer sharing my birthday. It's so much more fun to be able enjoy it with someone and just say, ya, it's OUR birthday. I don't know. Anyways, I'm 17 now. "16 years old" was by far the fastest thing I've ever experienced. hah.

Friday was the last performance. It went well. Simon and Anders (my host brothers) came that night. After the show we cleaned up a little, then started our after party, which was not until midnight, so we were up late/early! The place where we put on "the Fame" has a cafe with a bar. And everything was free!! We were all extremley tired but it was really fun anyways of corse.

Most of us just slept there. We had to come a 10:00am this morning anyways to finish cleaning up the place. We were done with that around 12:00. then it was just kinda strange...after 2 weeks of doing nothing but "The Fame", and at least one week sences our last day off, it was over. We went OUTSIDE into the SUN, and just sat around eating icecream and saying goodbye. It was reallly sunny and almost warm!

Now I'm sitting at home....with free time. So as soon as I'm done with this I'm gonna go lay down and watch one of those movies I got for my birthday :)mmmm. and eat some real food that people make in a house:) mmmm. goodbye!

P.S. - a very normal thing to come across in Denmark , or in Køge at least. lock you bikes! or people will throw them in the river!

Uhmm...

Hello. Sorry it's been so long. I used to be so motivated to blog and share all the things I'm doing and how I'm feeling and stuff, but now It always feels like a chore. I just havn't had any big insperation for a while. I don't ONLY wan't to talk about what I've been up to. I normally like to let you know how I'm doing too, and how I feel and opinions I have about things. This blog isn't just for people at home. It's r future exchange students and I've been having a hard time comming up with good stuff to write. I read a really good blog last year when I was getting ready to come over here and I couldn't get enough of it. So I feel bad going more than half a month not writing but I just havn't been having the feeling of, "this next post is gonna be good"

I've been in Denmark for 7 months 2 weeks and 3 days and I have 3 months 1 week and 1 day left. I knew that off the top of my head. I can't stop thinking about time. How slow tha days go, but how fast the weeks go, and how I have no idea how long a month should feel, and what I was doing this time last year, and what I'll be doing this time next year. My brain is always in another place and I can't get it to stay HERE. I don't have that much more time so I know I need to stop thinking about everything and just be here but thats really hard. I think about comming home like it's happening tomorrow or next week or somthing. I've still got a bunch of time here.

(......I just re-read that last paragraph. I think you should to. It's a perfect ilustration showing how much I have no idea what I'm talking about. I write: "I don't have that much time left." and then the next sentence, "I've still got a bunch of time here" I honestly didn't do that on purpose. I was just writing down my thoughts. Thats what they look like on paper....)

I'm more than ready for some warmer wether. It's been so cold still every morning. the snow as been taking forever to melt and It's finally almost all gone :) But it's still just bellow or just above freezing every day. It's making me sick! Literally, I stayed home from school today. I've got a lot of stuff I want to do in these next few months but this wether makes it hard. I cant wait for warm!

I'm gonna write a list of things to look forward to. Not all of it is planed but, jsut stuff I want to do before It's ALL OVER.

- Anne/Joe, Family Birthday Party (April 3rd)
- My musical! (April 7-9) we have a performance on my birthday!
- My birthday! (April 8th)
- long bike ride to some place far away
- sleep on the beach
- have a party
- take a farry to Oslo (Norway) spend the day there and then come back.
- spend more time in Copenhagen :)
- Pass all my exams!!! :/

hmmm. This post didn't really get anywhere in particular....

Winter Break in Sweden

I'm back! and it's March...that was, once again, really fast.

In the 7 months that I've been over here, I've now been lucky enough to go to Sweden 2 times :) The first time was in the fall, and I got to go white water rafting, and this time I got to go skiing (down hill and cross-country) and see winter better than I've ever seen it before. It was a nice trip, And Sweden is a nice place. I thought it was beautiful in the fall but now I would have to say that winter has got to be Sweden's best season. After months of almost no sun, I got to take in DAYS of blue skies. It was really nice, but far from warm. Which is a good thing. Otherwise the snow wouldn't have looked so nice. I fell once skiing, but thats becuase i wasn't looking where I was going. I was looking around me :D

(Yes, I took all those. I just edited some of them)

We stayed at my host dad's sister's house. It took about 9 hours to drive up there from Køge (about half way up in Sweden) but we left a day latter than planned becuase of a snow storm.

My host family has a lot of family in Sweden. When my host dad's sister moved there, she got married and had 4 daughters. So, they have never lived in Denmark. They are all grown and 3 of them have teenage kids (át least 3 each) So thats a lot of Swedish people to visit. It's was weird hearing all that Swidish and being able to understand so much of it. Swidish and Danish a very close (especially written.) There was a lot I couldn't understand but there was so much was similar. When ever we went into a store, we would speak danish to the workers. They would just speak Swidish back and that actually worked! It was cool.

Anyways, I'm keeping this short. It was really nice trip :) When I got home I went to Næstved and had a reallllyyy fun time with some exchange student friends. I came home Saturday morning and Andy came over. We went to a lame musium in Køge and we watched some good movies. He left Sunday and then break was over :( ...But schools fun too.