Efterårs ferie

Hello hello hello!

Det sidste uge jeg havde min efterårs ferie for min skole i Danmark (God bless). Min værtsfamilie og jeg kørte til Fanø Island, og vi havde vores efterårs ferie der på sommerhuset, på Nordsøen. Det var rigtig sjov, og jeg havde en meget dejlig tid. Det var min sidste gang på Fanø fordi jeg vil være med en andre værtsfamilie snart (jeg vil skrive om det når jeg skifte), men jeg er glad det jeg havde det sidste uge på Fanø med min familie. 

For alle mine venner som læse min blog og forstår ikke Dansk, jeg oversætte ;-) 

Okay, på Engelsk nu. 

"This last week I had my Autumn break for my school in Denmark (God bless). My host family and I drove to Fanø Island, and had our Autumn break at their summer house, on the North Sea. It was really fun, and I had a really nice time. It was my last time on Fanø Island because I will be with another host family soon (I'll write about that when I switch), however I'm really glad that I had this last week on the island." 

Last Friday afternoon I drove over to Fanø with my host family after school. Of course school had relatively little work for me to do, and the drive to Fanø was essentially just listening to music on my iPod or talking to my little host brother in the car. He's actually learning English while I'm learning Danish, and everything he says in English makes me laugh pretty hard. He is only nine, so that is why he is just now learning it. I always have a pretty fun time with him.

Anyway - back to Fanø. While the day was relatively non eventful, it wouldn't be a proper Friday without some kind of story to tell. We finally got to Fanø around 8 PM, and still had to make dinner. My host mom had lit some candles near the stove, and we put some garlic bread rolls in the oven to appetize before dinner. When they finally came out of the oven, they were put near the candles in a bread basket. I was talking to my host sister and reached over to get a bread roll, my hair alarmingly close to the fire. And well - you can predict what happens next. Someone yells out "Grace, be careful," and lo' and behold I look down and see my hair on fire. Nothing quite like igniting your hair to start out an autumn break.  

Saturday morning I met up with another exchange student whose family also has a summer home on the island, and we had a really fun time together. We walked up and down Nordby, and ate some seriously tasty crèpes.  De smagt rigtig gode. The pancake place on the island actually keeps track of all the tourists they receive, and so we had Washington and Indiana put up on their tourist map. One of the workers there has actually lived in Tacoma, Washington (about an hour and a half from where I live) before! Super cool! The other exchange student Hannah and I later continued to explore the island, and came across some old WWII bunkers from the German invasion of Denmark as well! I spent the night at her host family's summer home, lost a couple board games, went skinny dipping (you heard me right) in the North Sea, and went home on Sunday.

The rest of the week was rather relaxed, which was really nice. My host family and I went to the beach every day and looked for amber, because after a storm on Fanø you can find little pieces of amber washed up on the shore.

Thursday afternoon - time for another story - I really encountered some language/culture barrier...it was sure entertaining though. We were eating some spice-cake, and because most of the conversation was in Danish, I kind of started spacing out. I tuned back in when I heard the word "hashbrowns," because I was excited to hear anything remotely familiar.

In the United States, a hashbrown is literally just shredded pan fried potatoes. So I scream out "Mmmmmmm, hashbrowns!" My host sister immediately looks at me and asks "You've TRIED those before?!" My host brother, meanwhile, was looking at me across the table. I look around a little confused, starting to wonder what we were really talking about while I responded a hesitant "Yes?" Repeating herself, my host sister says again "Hashbrownies?" That's when I realize that they were not talking about fried potatoes, they were referring to pot brownies. And I had just moments before called out how delicious I thought they were.


Friday I went into Nordby, one of the small towns on the island. I was told Saturday by the people who work at the pancakery (is that even a word) that one of the people who work on the island is actually from Colorado, and so I was able to drag my host sister along with me. I had a pretty fun conversation with another American, and the person working the register was actually an old Rotary Youth Exchange student to Brazil. We also got to talk with her. It's pretty crazy how many exchange students (old, current, or soon to be) you can find all over. I even met a girl a couple weeks ago who was an exchange student in Port Angeles, Washington last year, only a half an hour from where I live! We talked A LOT and it was super exciting...how coincidental is it that 5000 miles away from my home, I meet someone who knows exactly what I'm talking about when I make the reference to "Puget Sound," "Poulsbo, Washington," or even better yet, knows where my old high school is. Insane!


Friday night my host family and I all played (like a billion and one) rounds of a board game. I had a lot of fun. In the two months I've been in Denmark, I don't think I've laughed any harder than I did at the things that we joked about Friday evening playing the board game. Sometimes you just really purely enjoy yourself, and that is exactly how I'd describe the time I spent with my host family Friday evening.

Thus ends my efterårs ferie, and begins many more weeks of sitting in class thinking of all the ways to fall asleep with my eyes open, and figuring out all new and unthought of ways to pass time.

Vi ses! :-)