Here I am, still alive and well in Denmark.
Last Monday I changed host families =O.I was a bit nervous and sad to leave my wonderful first host family, but my current host family are also really sweet and have made me feel at home. My new host family consists of my host mum and dad (Helle and Hans Erik) and my 19 year old host sister, Signe. Oh, yeah and we have a cat =)
I am living not that far from my last host family- in fact, I am still living on Tåsinge but I am closer to the bridge that connects the island to Svendborg, so I am able to ride to school.
And how is that going? Well, it is okay... On the first day that I rode to school however, it was not so good. I am using my host sister's bike and the seat was a little too high for me at first (my feet were literally 30cm above the ground) so it took me like 10 minutes (okay slight exaggeration, but it was really difficult) to get on my bike. Which meant I kept trying to avoid stopping at traffic lights (by slowing down if I saw it was red, in hope that it would turn green by the time I reached it) because it was not fun at all when the light was red because I would stop and then when it turned green again, go through the long, ungraceful process of clambering and jumping back onto my bike (by the time I could get on the light would most likely be red again anyway.) I am pretty sure I fell off my bike about 6 times on the first day... FAIL! It is okay now though, because I made sure we put the seat down before I rode again and now I just have to get used to riding a bike every day. But, having said all this- I don't mind riding to school as it only takes about 20 minutes and gives me time to wake up in the morning.
Last time I wrote was before the Gala fest/ Rotary G2G weekend and I promised I would write a little about that. Well, what an amazing weekend! The Gala was a heap of fun, I went to befores with Claire and some of her classmates and then we arrived early to see the third years dance the traditional Danish dance, the Lancier (which we had been learning in P.E.)
That night, I slept at Claire's, as we both had to get up early to drive to Odense for the Rotary Get-Together. It was worth getting up early to catch up with all the other newbies, and to meet a few of the oldies! The rest of my weekend was spent taking exercise classes (a subtle hint from whoever organised the G2G, I think), chilling and just generally having a great time with the other exchangies. On the Saturday night we had an exchange student Gala, which was so much fun! And after dancing the night away you think we would be totally knackered right? Wrong. That evening (...okay early hours of the morning) was spent talking, laughing, having sleeping bag races and being locked in a sleeping bag for 40 minutes =P (Thanks guys!) When I finally arrived back at my host families house I was soooo tired from having a combined total 3 hours of sleep on Friday and Saturday (although, the 14+ hours on Sunday made up for that.)
Another highlight of the month was going to Aarhus to see the Queen on her birthday. Generally for the Queen's birthday the entire Royal family makes an appearance on the balcony of the palace in Copenhagen, however this year it was at Aarhus. So, Racheal, Donald and I went to Aarhus with our Australian flags to see if we could see Princess Mary. Unfortunately this year she didn't appear on the balcony (we think it was because the Christening of the twins was a few days before), but even so we had a great time and managed to meet up with some of the exchange students in Aarhus afterwards. That weekend Racheal spent with me and my host family. It was great to catch up! On the Sunday my host parents took us to Valdimirs Slot, which is the Castle on Tåsinge and we took a tour of the grounds, the rooms (including the one where the Queen stays sometimes) and a museum of all types of stuffed animals and stuff (we were surprised to see a stuffed Giraffe head...)
The Easter weekend was another highlight of this past month. On Good Friday we had family over (all of Pia and Søren's ‘kids’ and their kids) and celebrated. For the little ones this meant fire cooked sausages and marshmallows (okay...so not just the little ones) and an Easter egg hunt in the back yard. Later on we had a 'hygge' Danish lunch of røgbrod with different types of fish and pork (it is a tradition to eat pork on Good Friday here.)
The next day, Ellie (my friend from language class) came over and we made ANZAC biscuits and hot cross buns which we ate the next day to commemorate ANZAC day and to celebrate Easter, Aussie style (they don't have hot cross buns here!) Ellie also invited me to Odense the next weekend to join her and her Danish friends to hang in the park and have some dinner. Where we also has a lot of fun, I met her classmates and Ellie and I both used the excuse “It’s okay, we are no weird-just Australian.”
School is still going well. I have worked with one of my class mates on a drama play which we performed last Thursday (I didn't have to say anything though, so it wasn't too hard... One weekend we had a sleepover at her house to work on it a bit...okay and watch movies too =P It was really great!
My classmates now speak more Danish too me, which is good. Also my host family speaks to me in Danish so I hope I am getting better. Danish is so hard!! I have started to do some more work at school and my Danish teacher gave me my own little assignment to do in Danish which I have handed in and am waiting to get back. My Spanish teacher has also asked me to write a bit about immigration in Danish, so that should be challenging...wish me luck! I sat a maths test the other day too, which I actually understood =D
Wow! Really long Post...I'm Sorry! SO much has been happening- if you made it to the end of this, Congrats!
I'm not going to promise to write soon, because I probably won’t =P
Until next time
hav det rigtig godt (best wishes)
Jacquie
P.S- I wrote this yesterday, but I didn’t post it because it was unedited and now I’m going to add a bit more...
Today I went with my new host family to the house of Hans Christian Anderson, in Odense. It was really cool! The house which he lived in/ where it is thought that he was born was really sweet and it has been furnished and turned into a museum. I learnt a lot of interesting things and I thought t is pretty awesome to know that I was standing in the house which may have inspired some of my favourite fairytales. Okay, I’m done! I promise =P
Later everyone!
xox
