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! :-)

Gained on exchange (besides exchange weight)

It's been about a month since I've last written a blog, but here it is! When I first applied for exchange I had to write a couple essays about what I wanted to get from exchange, and what I wanted to experience on exchange. I decided that I've been in Denmark for two months now (two months that I left the United States today actually) so I'd take this blog post to see what I've already experienced in my short two months here.

When I first heard about foreign exchange, I wanted the opportunity for self redemption. Just thinking about foreign exchange boosted my self confidence before I was even accepted, and I just knew that I wanted this opportunity. In fact, it wasn't until I was writing my essay on the back of my application for why I wanted to be an exchange student that I was actually able to place exactly why. However once I knew it, I knew it. It was more than just self redemption.

• I wanted to see how people acted half a world away from me. What is customary, what is not.
• I wanted to see how different cultures really are, even though they all felt the same. My French class had a sister school with Pen Pals in Saint-Nazaire, France. When I wrote my pen-pals, they wrote back and I sensed the same personality, similar culture, similar lifestyle. I wanted so badly to see how culture is so much different in real life than what meets the eye. 
• I'd never been the new kid in a school. How would I act. Would I act a little bit more quiet, more reserved than my normally loud and outspoken self? Would my personality change to mold with the crowd, or would I find it as easy to act myself? 
• But most importantly, I wanted to see how other families around the world are. I wanted my own perspective on that. Their traditions, their own family culture. I knew they certainly weren't the same as my family back home, no family is ever the same. But how different does it get 5000 miles away. 

Now that I am on exchange, I think by far the greatest thing that you can gain as a foreign exchange student is your own perspective. Perspective on your own life and family, and others. As you live with other families, you see the way they live, and you see how they treat each other and interact. As you watch their interactions, you remember your own interactions with your own family as well. You remember that you too have a family, you too have your own special traditions, interactions, nicknames, etc. Those are all special to you, just as this family has something that is special to them. 

You start to realize that just as you have your own memories, and traditions, so do these families. You have a new found realization that these families come from their own background, and they all remember different things. So do you, however. As you realize that these families were here long before you were with them, it solidifies the idea that you really are here for only a year. You, as the foreign exchange student, came into these families lives much later in time, and you have the potential to be left as a blip on their own radar, or to be someone that becomes one with the family. You could leave their houses as a nationality, or as a person. I could leave still being "The American they hosted," or I could leave being "Grace." Maybe you understand that, maybe you don't. I believe there's a difference. 

While I'm sitting with my host family at dinner, I can see my host mom help my younger host brother put dinner on his plate, while my host dad may tell the rest of us something funny. I enjoy when that happens, even just the little things, because every once in a while it helps me gain perspective on my own life, my own family, myself. This family was doing this months before they met me, months before I came, and still after I came. Yet I too was doing something different. It helps me remember that I have a life back home, as well as a new life here in Denmark. However the one thing that is paramount, is I remember how fortunate I am to have my two separate lives collide with three other families. 

As a foreign exchange student, you experience not one year in a life. But one incredible life in a year.

Vi ses, hej hej! :-)

My side hobby is eating.

HERE is my treasured food post. I said before in my one month post that maybe I'd get around to making a post solely dedicated to food, and oh my goodness this is it.

Food here is not very much different than what I'm used to in the United States, but at the same time it's incredibly different. For example, I eat potatoes in the United States. But the way I eat potatoes might be different.  

For starters - if I had one dollar for every type of bread object I've eaten since I got here I'd literally make Bill Gates look completely and utterly irrelevant. To set the tone- the very first night I was in Denmark I see on the counter, a cake! The cake is put on the table after dinner, and my host family begins to describe to me what the cake is made of. You there all over in the United States are probably thinking what I was thinking "I'm guessing it's made of either vanilla or chocolate or any other cake flavor for that matter?" Incorrect. It was made of rye bread. It was literally a cake made of bread. How do you make a cake of bread? I don't know. Who invented the idea of bread cake? Det ved jeg ikke. I don't really know.  Not only do they make bread cake, I eat some kind of bread- biscuits, bread rolls, big bread rolls, wheat bread rolls every morning. I eat rye bread for lunch. And sometimes for dinner there is also bread rolls. In the cafeteria at my school, you can literally get just a bread roll for maybe 8 kroner. Like a bread roll with chocolate chips, and you just simply eat it. I'm not complaining though. My friend and I joke that by the end of the year the cafeteria will probably have received in the hundreds of U.S dollars from us just on bread, and next year they will most likely see a decrease in revenue when we're gone... it's skide godt. 

Heres the even bigger plot twist - Danes put butter on their bread. Many of you reading this might be thinking "Grace, do you live in a cave? EVERYBODY puts butter on bread??" No I mean, they put butter on every slice of bread no matter the topping, no matter the bread type. You want Nutella on your bread slice? Butter it first, Nutella on top. You want cream cheese (which I've always kind of viewed as cheese butter in the first place)? Butter first, cream cheese after. Honestly though they have the best kind of cream cheese here ever, so it's all alright. I don't personally taste a difference between butter/no butter, with/without the toppings, but maybe that's just me. I mean I'm not here to change the culture, just experience it. One more thing though- they have what is called pålægschokolade. Don't try to pronounce it, it's chock full of letters that I cannot for the life of me pronounce. Anyway - it's chocolate. And you put it on top of bread. Well actually you put it on top of the butter that is really on top of the bread, because you can never forget the butter. And you eat said chocolate for breakfast? I mean hey, chocolate on any morning is a great start to the day...but chocolate for breakfast?

One morning that we weren't eating bread for breakfast we were eating cereal. Typically, cereal here is granola, or corn flakes, or oatmeal. So that sounds normal, right? Nope, incorrect. I mean the granola and corn flakes are. But how do they eat oatmeal? Some oats with hot water and maybe milk or fruit? Nope, completely incorrect. I'll walk you through the steps of eating oatmeal in Denmark. 

1. Pour oats in bowl. 
2. Pour milk over oats. 
3. Eat it.  

I'm not joking, that is precisely how you eat oatmeal here. No hot water. Just dry oats. It doesn't taste bad... it took me a while to get used to the texture especially since I didn't typically eat much oatmeal (can I even call it that) in the U.S, but now I think I like it Danish style better. 

Now you kind of get what I eat for breakfast and lunch, lets move onto aftensmad. Or dinner. So I could write a pretty big paragraph on this, but I think it's pretty straight forward. Potatoes (kartofler) and some kind of meat (kød, or pølser if it's sausage). My host family has actually adopted a nickname for me: pølsepige, which means sausage girl in Danish. I kind of love sausage. Danes call salami kartoffelpølse which, can you guess would mean potato sausage in Danish. I eat potatoes mashed sometimes - they are usually mashed with some kind of chili or meat sauce on top (I know you're probably thinking "chili on mashed potatoes?" IT'S SO. SO. GOOD. Most of the time, they're peeled and boiled and then served with some kind of REALLLYYY good gravy on top. One night my host family made a meal that they told me was traditional. Oh my gosh I just...I can never...oh, it was so good. It was hamburger meat (which they say minced meat when they say it in English...) and it was pressed into these little oval patties. On the inside these minced meat patties were filled with cream cheese, and the outside was then wrapped in bacon. You pan fry it with sautéed onions, and serve it with boiled potatoes (on the side) with béarnaise sauce on top. No words can suffice for how good it actually tastes. 

Danes call basically everything cake. If it's a pie, it's cake. If it's a cake, it's cake. Cookies are called cake. I made this thing with my host sister which was basically dough wrapped around chocolate and marshmallows. I'm not even sure what you'd call it. They call it cake. Technically "kage" which is the Danish word. My host mom made æblekage (apple cake), and can you imagine that it was really just these little tiny cookie things with apple sauce poured over it. Oh, and they have ice-cream in cubes. Vanilla ice-cream is literally in frozen cubes. I was eating this pie thing (or excuse me, kage) with my host family once on a Saturday night, and I saw these cube things just kind of sitting on a plate. I wasn't even sure what to guess they were, like were they giant sugar cubes, or some cubed whip cream? So I asked my host mom, and she responds "ice-cream." I'm thinking w-w-oah wait a second there. Say again?  

So as you can see, food is not so different. On the other hand though, food could potentially be a polar opposite in some aspects.

My food pictures essentially had nothing to do with the food I actually talked about but they're food pictures and the food was pretty good. As you can see, I quite enjoy coffee in Europe...

Hope I made you hungry, the only bummer for you is you can't very well find Danish food ;-)

Vi ses! :-)

One month in Denmark!

Hi!

Today is one month that I've been in Denmark!

I thought that I'd write about some of the differences that I've experienced in my first month in the happiest country in the world.

Denmark is very much like the United States, although there are some cultural differences. They may vary throughout each European country, but I think that in general, Europe will be very culturally similar to the U.S.A.

Here are some of the differences I've experienced.

1. Grocery stores bag themselves, and let me tell you I will not ever be cut out to have a job as a grocery store bagger. You have to keep everything that is cold with the cold, the bread and eggs on top, etc. That's really hard to do when you have a cart full of groceries coming down the grocery carousel.
2. You eat loads of rye bread. It's much, much better here though than it is in the United States. I mean I'll be the first to admit that I was terrified to eat rye bread every day of my life for the next year, and I honestly didn't know how I was going to do it. Now however, after crossing the Atlantic Ocean, navigating an airport where all signs were in Dutch (Amsterdam-Schiphol), and clearing all customs and airport security by myself, I can honestly say that the hardest thing of all that is choosing what topping to put on my rye bread. It's good stuff. 
3. When I was in the U.S I would consider "sleeping in" to be sleeping until noon. After that, I probably wouldn't get out of my pajamas at all during the day if I wasn't leaving my house. Here in Denmark, Danes consider "sleeping in" to be sleeping until nine or ten o'clock in the morning. I suppose I kind of like that because I get more of a day out of my day, and I'm usually ready to do something spontaneous by 12 or 1 in the afternoon without having to get ready. I still miss sleeping in.
4. You eat potatoes. I mean so many potatoes. In the U.S we consider maybe flour, sugar, general baking type items a staple in our cupboards. I swear rye bread and potatoes could be a staple in an average Danish home. I eat some kind of potatoes almost every night for dinner, or, if I were to be Danish "aftensmad." The potatoes though, oh my gosh they are so good. I could literally write a whole blog post on Danish food. Maybe I will later. Anyway - potatoes. Most of the time they're boiled and peeled, and have some really good kind of gravy or sauce on them. I especially love béarnaise sauce...it is so good I can never emphasize enough. My host mom put chile on top of mashed potatoes once also...oh. my. gosh. I will never ever leave this country. 
5. Biking in Denmark is like driving in the U.S. You bike everywhere. Everywhere. Everyone is so good at biking as well, I am so slow at biking, it is not a rare occurrence that people have to ring their bell to tell me to pull over so they can pass. Oh, and that's the thing. Bikes here have bells- not so little kids can ring them when they're riding bikes up and down hills in their neighborhood, but so people can tell you to pull to the side because you're way too slow. They also have bike shops specifically for the purpose of bikes, like how we have car shops in the United States. 
6. School. Is. So. Much. Different. In the United States I had six of the same subjects, every day. I had French II, journalism, geometry, English, modern world history, and biology. In second semester, journalism would have changed to a different elective. Here however, I might have natural geography, religion, and biology on Monday, and I'll have French, English and history on Tuesday, back to religion class on Wednesday with social sciences and maybe history again. You have P.E for two or three hours once every other week instead of a 55 minute P.E class once every day for a semester. The school does not call your house if you miss a class or are late, you don't have to have a parents note or call to excuse your absence or tardy from school, and you don't have to sign yourself in or out. You just simply...leave, and come back. Sometimes teachers don't even take attendance. You also have to bring your computer to school every day. Your computer sits in front of you while the teacher is talking, and you can have your phone out. I'm so used to coming from a school where teachers literally confiscate your phone until the end of the day if you have it out, and there is no way teachers would ever even dream of letting you have your laptops out because of the strict "no electronic policy." The freedom granted in Denmark is so much more than I can ever imagine having in a U.S high school.  

That is all I have for now. Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed. 

Vi ses!

Intro camp!

Hellooooo!

This past week I had my introduction/language camp for exchange! It was a week long event that had all of the Rotary Youth Exchange Students in Denmark from all districts, held in a town called Bjerringbro! It was super cool to meet people from all over Denmark, and I made some pretty cool friends. There were kids from Taiwan, Japan, Lithuania, Brazil, Mexico, Paraguay, Chile, Canada, U.S.A, and Argentina (Maybe forgetting a few countries).

I arrived Sunday afternoon with all the other exchange students, and from there we traded pins for our Rotary blazers, we talked a lot, we ate dinner, and then we danced A LOT in our "living room" area with some strobe lights, and A LOT of Brazilian music.

We had three hour Danish lessons every morning from Monday to Friday, and again in the afternoon from Monday to Wednesday. On Thursday we went to Århus and saw the art museum there, and then we were able to walk around and shop a little. I also ordered ice cream (twice) IN DANISH.

Friday afternoon was really great because our afternoon Danish lessons was talking about culture shock, and although Denmark is much like what I'm used to at home, and although the culture shock wasn't very much, it was really great to be able to talk with a whole class full of other exchange students about all the differences we've noticed and what we all think of them, or how we're adapting to them.

Saturday night there was a little "celebration" for the end of intro camp. By celebration I mean there was an entire country full of exchange students crammed into a lecture hall dancing to Brazilian music all night long. It was literally like we were clubbing, minus basically everything that goes into clubbing besides music, and people. It was a lot of fun.

We also had to perform a "show" at the end, it was all just really fun performances made up by the teachers and students. My class ended up marching into the lecture hall signing an old Danish nursery rhyme: "Min venstre, min venstre, min venstre fod er meget godt, den hopper og danser i støvler og sko. Men hvad den med højre, den højre? Den højre danser hopsasa." Which basically translates to: "My left foot, my left foot, my left food is really good, it hops and dances in boots and shoes, but what about the right? The right? The right is dancing hopsasa." I'm pretty sure hopsasa is an old Danish dance...or maybe a part of the rhyme I still don't know.

Here are some pictures from intro camp:

The "massive river of Denmark" we saw on the first night of intro camp.

A kid named Hunter and I holding up the American flag in front of the art museum, you can kind of see the rainbow bridge above us.

Also the rainbow bridge.

This is probably the biggest exhibit in the art museum in Århus, it's the rainbow bridge on the roof.

This is a view of Århus from the roof of the art museum.

This boy is one of the biggest exhibits in the art museum in Århus.

This is all Danish I translated from a story in English. 

I would have wrote more, but I'm tired because I just got back from intro camp today. 

Vi ses!

Først dag i Skole

Hello!

Idag var min først dag i Dansk skole. 

Today was my first day in Danish school. 

I got placed into a second year class, and I'm in a class line of Social Sciences - Religious studies - English. 

I will now (confusingly) describe to you what a second year vs. first year and what a class line is: There are three years in a Danish gymnasium (Gymnasium is what they call their "high schools"). You have your first year classes, which is all the kids who are in their first year at gymnasium, your second year classes which is all the kids in their second year at gymnasium, and your third years which you probably understand by now. 

Then you have your class line, which is incredibly hard to describe. In a Danish high school, it is not like in the United States. In Danish school, you pick a general class line to study (kind of like a "major" or "minor" in the U.S), and whatever you pick, that is what you study in the rest of your time in statsskole (gymnasium) and into university. When you're a first year, you will choose what class line you want to study, and in January at the half year mark you can re-decide your class line, or confirm that's what you'll be studying. Once you choose, that is what you study for the rest of the time. 

For example: you can have a class line "French, Spanish, German" or "Biology, Chemistry, Physics" or maybe some kind of biotechnology or psychology type class line as well. 

Everyone has to take two languages besides your general class line, English compulsory for everyone and after that you can choose your second language to be either Spanish, French, or German. I personally am hoping and wishing with every last fiber of my being that I can be placed in French, but I suppose in the end if I'm not the world wont end and I suppose me not taking French as a language in my exchange year doesn't mean I can't stop studying French anymore. Don't disregard the"hoping and wishing with every last fiber of my being" part though because I still am doing that regardless of what I actually write. Or "skrive" if I were to be Danish. 

This is where it get's even longer and more confusing, I'm not just taking English, Social Sciences, a language and Religious studies, there are more classes broken down into this class line such as biology (which I took last year so maybe I'll have some earthly idea of what the teacher is saying) and natural geography. I think that's it...not sure though. 

ON WITH MY DAY- So I walk into natural geography first with the foreign exchange coordinator at my school. I was told to say something about myself, so I introduced myself in Danish and figured that was enough. I ended it by awkwardly whispering "yaay," and everyone laughed. I'm guessing it's because: 

A.) I had an accent. 

B.) I spoke in wrongly pronounced Danish with an accent

C.) I was as awkward as I thought I was

D.) I'm simply foreign. 

Hoping for either A, C, or D. Natural Geography ended almost an hour early so I talked with some girls, almost walked into the boys bathroom, saw some boys walk into the girls bathroom (I hope it was that...) and then went to Social Sciences. I sat there and pretended like I knew what the teacher was talking about, and then went to lunch. I sat with a couple girls at lunch and pretended like I knew what they were talking about, and then went to biology. I again, sat there and pretended like I knew what the teacher was talking about, wrote down some (pretty good- if I do say so myself) notes, and then contemplated how I'll get 11 months worth of translated Danish notes and xerox book copies home to show my school in the United States. That was my last class of the day, thus school is over.

Other than that it was a pretty solid first day of school- I met some nice people, and that's cool. I'm going to go attempt reading something in Danish and again (lets see if you can guess what I'll say) pretend like I know what I'm doing. Shocker. 

Vi ses, hej hej! :-)

Photo update

My last blog didn't have any photos because it was my first day here and plus 11:30 at night, but here's some photos so far that I've taken in Denmark. I start school on Monday so maybe if I'm not absolutely fried from trying to pick out words I understand from a foreign language all day, I'll write a blog.

Anyway, min billeder. (Don't try to google translate that because honestly I'm not even completely confident in my ability to form a grammatically correct phrase in Danish out of even two words ;-) )

My first sight of Denmark after sitting in Amsterdam Schiphol airport for 3.5 hours, and airplanes for a grand total of almost 10 hours.

AMSTERDAM STAMPED MY PASSPORT SAY WHAAAT.

I'm not one for selfies but my host families dog Luna jumped on my lap and put her front paws on my desk making me laugh so I opened webcam to document the moment, because who doesn't love cute dogs who do even cuter things. 

Second or third night in Denmark, I can't remember. Since I'm not going to school yet, all my days are kind of running together, I even had to ask my host dad yesterday if it was Thursday. My host families house is situated right near a battlefield that's behind us left from a battle between the German's and Danes, which is in the picture.

Sunset from... I don't know Wednesday night? Probably. Like I said, my days are running together.

Called it on the rain ;-) it was torrential downpour right after I got inside from walking Luna. It rained literally harder than I've ever seen it, and coming from the Pacific Northwest that says a lot. Kudos to you if you understand what I'm referring to when I relate these cows laying down to rain.

Not often that you see an actual Dairy cow grazing. Well I mean unless they live behind your house :-D

Another sunset picture, this was last night. I know that for sure.

I just took this photo with my phone so it's not too great but it's an old church in Germany in a town called Flensburg.

And there's some pictures so far.

Vi ses, hej hej!