Wednesday, February 29, 2012

February went too fast!



 Hej,
So again it has been awhile since my last blog post and my only excuse for that is February was gone before I knew it!

Now to make this fast I'll just give the event and quick details about it!

Newbie, Newbie, Newbie! So in case you aren't familiar with the Rotary lingo this means there is a new kid who is also sponsored my rotary club in Denmark, so he is my newbie and I get to just help him with any questions and introduce him to the world of Denmark. He is a 16 year old boy from Australia.

I went to a hockey game with Jette, Mie, Jonas, Alicia and another family from Gamborg and ti was fun for my first hockey game!



North Jutland: I was invited to go to a summer house in Skallerup Klit in North Jutland with Alicia and her host family for 4 days. It was a nice 4 days that included finally having snow!!!, swimming lots at the indoor pool, relaxing, and even a quick swim in the literally freezing cold water. Overall it was a good weekend!

FREEZING water!

Finally snow!

Where we spent our time

Play in Fredericia: For one of my 24 days presents for Christmas I received a ticket to a play called Changes, which was written by 2 American guys and translated to Danish. It was a good play, what I could understand of it, which was a pretty decent amount! I at first thought they were Danish guys who had written it, so when I heard them talking in American accents to a reporter, I said to Mie: "Wait, they're speaking in English!!", then she explained that they were American.

I also wrote a large paper called an SRO for school in about half Danish, half english. It combines two subjects, which were English and geography for me. it was definitely not easy, but I hope I did well!

That weekend I did a 24 hour walkathon with Alicia, Simran (India), and Lily (Alaska) to raise money for FDF (a scouts organization my host dad is part of). We all walked pretty much constantly for the first 6 hours, then started taking breaks 2 at a time just for eating. During the night we walked alone for 1-2 hours at a time. It was much harder than I thought it would be and in the end I walked 42 kilometers and raised around 3,500 kr! It was a good experience, but I was SO tired after!


The night I finished the walk I went to a Superbowl party at my friend Lulu's house (from New York) with Alicia and Isabel (California). We ate good Superbowl food, but I fell asleep during it since it started at 12:30 in the night and I was functioning on little sleep.

The next day I left for Oslo, Norway with my host dad. He was going up for work and Imogene (from my home district) is on exchange near Oslo. Imogene showed me Oslo and I got to see her town. We enjoyed some shopping and seeing the sights in Oslo and it was actually not too cold, which was nice! I got to eat dinner at the Opera house with Imogene, someone from her Rotary and his wife and daughter since they were going there that night for the opera. it was very good food and so nice of them to invite me along! Overall it was a really nice trip and I am glad I got the chance to see Oslo! My host dad and I took the ferry there and back (and dad it will make you happy- I went outside on the way back!) I also tried brun ost (brown cheese), which I learned tastes really good, but most Danes can't like it.
View from Oslo opera house

brun ost
Norwegian police officer

Opera house food


Wall in Opera house

Sunrise on the ferry back to Denmark

On the ferry









That Friday I had a sleepover with Alicia and Nora (from Austria) at my house and that was fun. Alicia and I went for 2 walks that weekend since it was nice weather and the snow was going to melt soon. We enjoyed sliding on the ice and taking pictures.
Walk 1

Playing in broken ice

Walk 2

Tree climbing


Snow angel



I made Valentine's Day cookies for my class to bring a little fesitivity to Denmark since there were no decorations anywhere and they all seemed to enjoy them throughly!



Spanish meal: My Spanish class got together at my Spanish teacher's house to make some Spanish food. It was a good nice and the food was all delicious. It was kinda weird going to a teacher's house with the whole class and the teacher offering everyone beer and wine for with dinner.




I went to Odense with Katharina (Germany), Nora, and Alicia for a little shopping trip which was nice for something to do after school.

Friday the 17th of February it was the start of Winter vacation, so I went to Odense again to sleep at an exchange student from Turkey's house with Alicia, Lulu, and Lily. We went out for a bit and overall had a nice "hyggeligt" night!
Some late night pizza


On Monday the 20th Mie and I took the train up to her familiy's summer house in North Jutland, near where I was with Alicia before. It was in the town Lønstrup. We spent Monday just relaxing. Tuesday we went for a nice long walk and I got to meet Jette's sister and brother in law. Then we went to my host-grandma's house for dinner. She was so sweet and gave me a nice little cup that was her mother's as a birthday present to me.We also went to Børglum Kloster  where Ludvig og Julemanden was filmed which was the show we watched around Christmas and it was cool to see the locations they used in the show!


Church from Ludvig og Julemanden





Wedenesday I was woken up by my family singing Happy Birthday to me in Danish and let me tell you that song goes on for awhile, but it was really nice! Then we spent the day at the Aquarium looking at all the fish who live in this area, which was interesting to learn about! Then we went to the Falk station, which is the fire/ambulance/emergency center because Jette's brother in law works there. We got a tour and then got to go up in the big ladder that went up 30 meters (90 feet) up in the air. it was pretty cool, but unfortunately the weather was pretty bad on my birthday; all rainy and windy, which in Denmark means you have been bad haha. Then we had pesto pasta for dinner with Frikadeller (danish meatballs) and watched Far til Fire (an old Danish movie) and I understood the whole thing!

My new seal friend

klumpfisk

up in the ladder

Birthday dinner


Thursday we visited a viking museum and climbed up a sand dune. The viking museum was interesting; it's just crazy to think that those things have been there so long! We then visited Aalborg to see one of their friend's daughter and her boyfriend.
Up on sand dune

Viking graves from 2000 years ago

The summer house


Friday we drove home. It was a nice week of fresh baked break by Jette, relaxing, sight seeing, and reading! Then I went out with Mie that night for awhile with some of her friends, which was fun!

That Saturday we drove back up to Jutland for Brian's sister's 12.5 year wedding anniversary party. That is a common thing to celebrate in Denmark and they celebrate with half a arch of flower's on the door made by neighbors and friends and family and eat breakfast with the family. We went for the party , which was maybe around 40 people and was fun! we ate good food and people had made up little songs, speeches, and skits. At one point a fairly well known Danish singer, Jacob Sveistrup came out to sing a few songs to us since Brian's sister loves him. After all the women ran over to get photos and  signatures, so I went too. When it was my turn, Brian's sister, Winnie, said "She's an exchange student from California and has no idea who you are, but we told her you are famous!", which he laughed at.
It was a fun party!
Jakob og mig

Here's one of his songs so you can hear that is pretty famous from  few years ago:


Sunday I went to Alicia's and caught up over our breaks and just relax!

This past Tuesday we had all my families over and my two counselor's families over for cake for my birthday. It was nice to see everyone again since it had been awhile! and the cake all tasted delicious! It was a nice evening!

So now the weather has changed a lot and it is around 40-50 degrees every day and I actually walked outside on Tuesday when it was around 55 degrees and said "Wow it's warm today, I could almost have shorts on", which shows just how much my perception of weather has changed.
The snow is all gone now and I think it was the perfect amount of time with snow for me, which is good!

School is going good and I have just been so busy and the next few weeks will be really busy also, what with the last gymnasium party, my birthday party with friends, my trip to Ireland with School and moving!

Farvel for nu!
Nina