Life since May in Denmark...A short novel =P

Well hello again everyone!
It's getting longer and longer between every post- sorry about that! But here I am ready to tell you everything (ok, well not everything because I will be sitting and typing for the rest of my exchange if I do that!) But seriously, a lot has happened since-so I will catch you all up a bit.

EURO TOUR
Last time I wrote, in the beginning of May- I was getting pretty excited about Euro Tour and I have to say that it definitely surpassed my expectations. Euro Tour was one of the most fantastic trips I have been fortunate enough to take =)

On the 14th of May, 60 excited young exchangees from all over the world gathered on one bus which would take us from Denmark and onto Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Lido di Jesolo (Italy) , Venice, Verona, Monaco, Avignon, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Arnhem and then home again to Denmark. Yes, we visited all these cities in just over two weeks =O.

My favourite city on Euro Tour was Prague, having never been there before (nor ever having the real desire to go) I didn't know what to expect. But Prague is a truly beautiful city, and the day we spent there was definitely a highlight of the trip. Whilst in Prague, Ellie (Brisbane,) Maggie (Canada) and I went on a Segway tour and saw most of this gorgeous city. Segwaying around Prague was so much fun, even if my Segway didn't go so fast and I crashed into Ellie once... (Whatever the others say, I still maintain that my Segway was broken.) After Segwaying we went to a beautiful restaurant where we had a nice traditional Czech lunch which I think only cost us like $14! That night in Prague we took advantage of the cheap shopping and went to the huge shopping mall and shopping streets.

In the remainder of the trip there would be even more awesome days, nights and tonnes of hilarious adventures and I think it is safe to say- we all became great friends! It was sad to say goodbye to the Oldies, who would leave us soon after the trip to go back home but us newbies were thrilled to have another half year together!

SUMMER HOLIDAYS

When we arrived back from Euro tour it was exam time for our classmates (meaning no school for us) this then led onto summer holidays- So, I haven't been to school since the 13th of May and I guess I am kind of looking forward to going back next week...

In my summer holidays I have had the opportunity to travel a bit around Denmark and also Scandinavia. I have visited (and have had visits from) several other exchange students around Denmark and just last month I had a visit from Mum, Dad and Emily =)

It was good to see them here in Denmark and good that we got to travel a bit. After spending a week in Svendborg we took to København for a few days seeing the sights such as The Palace, Tivoli and the Little Mermaid Statue. We also got to catch up with Evelyn and her family who were travelling through København at the same time. =)

Then we moved onto Norway to Oslo and then Nordfjordeid to visit Kine. Norway was absolutly stunning and despite the freezing weather we had a ball. On our way back through København, Mum, Dad and I went to Sweden for a visit whilst Emily went to Germany to see her host family.

After a few more days in Svendborg it was time for everyone to go home. Thanks for the visit guys!


RANDOM OTHER STUFF

Yes, I am still with the same host family, and loving it still! Toward the start of the holidays I went to many graduation events and parties as Signe was finishing her final exams and then graduating. I absolutely love the strong graduation traditions here. I think it is wicked how everyone who graduates goes around wearing their graduation hat (signed by all their friends and with their final exam mark on it) for about a week. Then they have a big truck for each class that takes the student on a round trip, through the streets, honking the horn and celebrating and stopping at every class members house. It is really cool!

I have become more comfortable with my host family now, they are all sweet people and are supportive of my Danish. I will be sad to leave here in a few weeks.

Now that language classes are pretty much over, I have been to many more Rotary events/meetings. These have been good and I have got to know the club a bit better. I think next week we are having a BBQ, so I hope the weather clears up because it has been pouring with rain for the last three days... The weather in Denmark changes so fast... first it's sunny and you are getting a nice tan, and then the next day there is a storm... I'll never understand that!

Danish is going a lot better, although I got a bit out of practice when the family was here... hopefully when I go back to school I can understand something =P We'll see!

Okay, well I didn't get to write everything I wanted- Too much to say! But there is a little bit of my life in Denmark.

Signing out now...
Lots of Love
Jacquie

Mange, mange Adventures in the land of Danmark =)

Well hello everyone!
  
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

Two months away from home...

Hey again,

So, the two month mark has been and gone. This is going to sound really lame and cliche but it is so true, time really does fly when you are having fun.

I think pretty much the next day after I wrote last time I got really sick with the flu which kept me in bed for 4 days. This, so far has been the only low point of my exchange. Being sick really makes you miss home... However, I am better now and I couldn't be happier with my life here in Denmark.

I have had a busy couple of weekends. Two weeks ago I went to Vordingborg (which is a small town on the south of Zealand [the same island which holds Copenhagen]) to visit my awesome roomie from Intro-camp, Racheal. We had a heap of fun together! As well as visiting her, I also got to catch up with some of the other exchange students from intro-camp because on the sunday I crashed their district get-together and met some of the danish outbounds for next year as well.

Last thursday I went to a concert for the danish band "rumous said fire." They were really good and it was a fantastic show! We were in the front row which was awesome.

On the weekend I went shopping in Odense (the town where I take language classes) for the day and slept over at Claire's (my Alaskan oldie) house, whilst she slept over on Friday night at mine, to keep me company while my host parents and sister were out for the night.

I just read my other post to see what I told you last time and I realised that I haven't mentioned the weekend which I spent with some friends of my host family. While my host family were away one weekend I stayed with their friends Else and Søren. On the Saturday they took me to Germany :)

Just across the Danish border in Germany there is this little town which is basically Denmark; there are a few big department stores which sell everything (lollies, cosmetics, soft drink, alcohol, chips etc) for really cheap and in bulk. I think it is because taxes are really high in Denmark. It is quite strange because a lot of the products are made in Denmark and the 'exported' to Germany and then they sell them in bulk un-taxed to Danish people. Most of the people coming to these stores are Danish and the prices are in Danish as well as Euro... if not for the "Welcome to Deutchland" sign, you would think you were still in Denmark. But it was really cool that we could just pop over to Germany for a few hours! I also got to try Currywurst (some of the local 'cusine.')

On the same day we also went to Kolding. Kolding is a little town in Jutland (which is another of Denmarks big islands.) In Kolding we visited Koldinghus or Kolding castle, which was an old castle from the 16th Century where several members of the olden royal family have lived at times. Unfortunatly it was destroyed my fire (twice,) so it is just ruins in some places, but has been restored or still stands in other places. It is a really, really beautiful castle and the movie that we saw whilst we were there gave us an insight to its rich history and the history of the Royal family in Denmark.

So, as you can see, my weekends have been fairly full-on for a while now... but what about during the week? School is getting a lot better as I have started to become more comfortable with my class. Next week I have to bring cake to class, (we have this rule that if your phone goes off in class, then you have to bring cake the next lesson...) so I think I will make lamigtons or something else Australian.
On Friday we have Galafest, which is like the ball back in Australia. I am so excited for this! I'm sure you will hear about it soon...(or maybe not so soon, but I will probably write something about it!)

The weather has been getting better. Today and yesterday was cold and cloudy but the last week before that has been warm and sunny. It is funny how your perception of cold changes, being in Europe. Saturday was warm and sunny but was still only 7 degrees, it did feel a lot warmer than the Australian winter though...must be the sun!

Well, if you made it throught all this- congratulations! Sorry that my entry is kind of all over the place today...I kept remembering things and writing them in ;)

Miss you all!

Hej Hej
Jacquie

one month in and still loving it...

Hej everyone!

Well, as of  last Thursday (Torsdag) I have officially been in Denmark for a month. Pretty crazy huh?

Sooo much has happened, starting way back in January just after I wrote my last post. On the 30th of January the 54 awesome rotary exchange students in Denmark all travelled to Bjerringbro (In north Jutland) for a week of meeting new people, danish lessons, watching handball and a danish film, dancing, bowling ,shopping, a little bit of sightseeing and endless games of marfia. During the camp we took two trips out of the boarding school in which we were staying- to Viborg where we saw this beautiful cathedral and to aarhus where we visited this art museum, went shopping and discovered Baresso coffee (which is so good!) The food at the camp was amazing and even Danish lessons were fun! We learnt mostly basic stuff- i.e "Jeg hedder Jacquie og Jeg kommer fra australien..." and numbers, colours, etc. but also a bit of grammer which I think will be useful.

I could go on for pages to say just how much fun I had and how great all the other exchange students are, I could even go into huge amounts of detail on all the funny stories from intro camp, but I get the feeling that they are mostly 'you had to be there' moments.

But now...I am back (actually I have been back for a while, I just haven't blogged in a while...is that a word, blogged?) and it was back to school. School is slowly getting easier, there will be days when I still cannot understand a word of what is going on, and there will be some days where I understand quite a lot (of course this is usually due to the fact that I have studied the material before, and not my amazing Danish skills.)

At the moment I am taking language classes in Odense (40mins north of Svendborg) with some of the other exchange students from camp, twice a week after school...I hope this helps! My biggest worry at the moment is the language. On one hand it is great that everyone speaks such fantastic english, on the other hand I am not picking up the language as fast as I would like to.

As for getting to know Svendborg... I think I can say that I know my way around. It is not a big town so if you walk around lost it will only be for a minute and having spent quite a bit of time there after school I know where I am going.

The weather...It is freezing cold! Seriously. On Friday it was -10 degrees! But on the plus, it snowed last week so it is all beautiful and white here. This also gave me the opportunity to try making snow ice-cream with my oldie Claire, who comes from Alaska and has been here 7 months. It tasted amazing! Pity we dont get snow in Australia.

I am still getting along really well with my host family. The other night we went to the movies to see 'the tourist' and then on Sunday we went along to watch Camilla in another show-jumping competition =).
Yesterday I also helped a bit around the farm, feeding the cows and horses and stuff! It is a totally different lifestyle here...but I love it! I also went with my host mum to her horse carriage riding lesson and had a go at riding the horse and cart!

The food here is also reaaally good. My host mum is a really good cook! On Monday we made 'Roulade' which is a Danish dessert made from sponge and jam. Apart from a few things- like danish Rugbrød (a dark rye bread which Danish people have for lunch (we make Smørrebrød which is where we put things like fish, salad, meat, egg ect, on it) I don't think the food is too different. The other day I also made dinner for my host family so they could try some real aussie food- made some lamb and potato salad and of course a pavlova!

Okay, so this has been a really long post. Hope it makes up for the month without anything. Winter break has just started so I am sure I will heave heaps more stories to tell later!

Farvel
Jacquie xox

One week in =)

Hej Everyone,

Welcome to my blog! I don't know how consistent I will be in writing, but we'll see.

This year I am staying in the beautiful town of Svendborg, which is in the south of Denmark on the island Fyn. Svendborg is a small town but I like it here. I have already walked around the city centre a few times but I am still getting used to the streets and town

At the moment (to be more precise) I am staying on a small island just near Svendborg called Tåsinge. My first host family are very sweet and as well as my host Mum and Dad I have a host sister who is 17 named Camilla. We are living on a sort of farm, with a few cows and chickens and some horses. My host sister is into riding and show jumping!

My fist day of school at Svendborg Gymnasium on Wednesday was so scary! But really exciting too! I don't even know where to begin...School in Denmark is so different than in Aus... For example, tomorrow my morning class is cancelled, so we don't go. Also the students all use their laptops, I really don't know how I would pass my exams in Denmark with all the distractions of facebook and email during school, but I guess it is something that you get used to. Oh yeah, and the main difference...all the lessons are in Danish!! So, at the moment there is a bit of a language barrier. The students all speak perfect English though, but I hope to learn Danish so that I can talk to them in their own language.

School has got better every day and my class is really nice! Today I didn't go to school because I joined a Danish class with the other exchange students. I couldn't really understand much because the other students have been here almost 6 months so their Danish is good already. They are all really nice though!

This weekend I went to Frederica and watched Camilla in a show jumping competition. It was really cool! I also went to the birthday party of her 2 year old niece.

I cannot wait to tell you all about my other experiences here! I am sure there will be so many more! If you are finding this boring at all...sorry =( but you don't have to read!

I'm not really sure how to end a blog...so I will just say, bye everyone!
xox