The Austrian Alps

Hejj!

I recently got back from a week in the Austrian Alps, one of the best weeks of my life. I hope I will never forget it. 

I was with my host family and around 25 or 26 others, in such a cute little ski town called St. Anton, downhill skiing all week long. It was the most amazing experience I think I've ever had, I have honestly never seen or experienced anything quite like the Alps.

We got there Friday evening after a full almost 9 hours of driving. I made it through one full playlist, a couple extra songs, and two and a half movies (Tammy is such a weird movie...) and finally pulled into Austria around 6 in the evening. 

We drove through Germany, and let me just say, it is so cool when you drive across the German -Austrian border, because you go from small hills, to the Alps surrounding you on either side with snow covered trees as well. 

I was introduced to a drink known as a radler at dinner, which is a mix of beer and sprite. It's really tasty. At the risk of bending the law *a liiiitle smidgen* when I get back, I'd love to introduce ya'll folk to that ;-) 

When the other exchange student Claire and I finally got back to our room after dinner, we were ready to wind down and get ready for the next day full of skiing. So we turned on the TV and realized first of all, everything is dubbed in German. We don't understand German. And shortly after that what should have been a normal procedure took a turn for the more interesting as well. I suppose that if we can't get our entertainment from the TV, we might actually find it in simply trying to work the shower? It made for a very *extra emphasis* interesting experience. Turns out turning on the shower from the outside is a bad idea, especially when you can't decipher the difference between your boiling hot and ice cold water, with jets shooting directly out of it. I wonder how long the floor took to dry...

The next day my host dad spent half of our day trying to teach me how to downhill ski, since I've never downhill skied before, and after lunch he went up to the *real* mountain and I stayed down and practiced some more. 

I went to ski school for the next four days which was not particularly what I was expecting it to be, though actually everything I was expecting it to be. Let me paint the picture: 

1. I'm only five feet and seventeen years old, I'm pretty short. This week however, I was the tallest one there for once in my life, because the ski school kids I was with were no older than 8 years old (possibly younger). 
2. Not only are these kids much younger than I am, they are much more European than I am. Which means they came from mostly German Switzerland, Austria, or Germany. Which thus entails they are not old enough to know English, and speak only German. 

So here I am, five feet and yet still tall, 17 years old, and speaking only Danish and English, avec un peu de Français (with a little bit of French). It was quite the four days I had there. 

My first day I had to jump off the ski lift, because I got off too late, and then had to climb under the bar as well because my pole got stuck without enough time before we had to get off. I wiped out the next three days my fair amount of times, although you can't really call falling in fresh powdered snow very painful, and more times than not me falling resulted in my losing a ski (or both) as well. 

I met a man who really enjoys skiing in the Seattle area on my third day, and he really went for it and impressed me when I found out he even knew what Crystal Mountain, Snoqualmie pass, and Stevens pass are. Kudos to you and your geography skills, foreign man. 

After four days of ski school I finally joined the group of the 26 some others, which started after being so nicely picked up by my host dad after ski school with one last run down the mountain, and over to St. Christoffer where the whole group held an "after ski." Sweet, sweet graduation.

My second day (or first full day) skiing with the whole group was super fun, and I ordered a burger and fries for lunch just to make up for four straight days of kids menu spaghetti. I was pretty sure I was done with the kids menu when I was 10. I suppose not. That afternoon was gong great, I was skiing pretty well if I do say so myself, when I totally and completely bit it going down a pretty steep hill with its fair amount of jumps. I'm not sure how, I believe I just started picking up speed and had no idea what to do with it. So naturally I fall, and the next thing I know I go from sliding on my side to sliding over a jump, flying through the air a little bit, and landing on my back, only to slide a little more. I wish I had it on video. 

And thus began our last day skiing, Friday. It started out great, we took a couple lifts and skied our way over to the other side of the mountain, took a gondola up to the peak, and stopped for a small break. While the adults were still enjoying their break, Claire, me, and two other girls on the trip with us decided to go to the fun park. We took a small detour after we saw there were many people there already, and ended up skiing down the wrong hill. We saw the only lift going back up was not the one we wanted to take, seeing as how it took us farther up the mountain. So we decided to find our own trail going to our designated chair lift. Turns out the trail we took going down was really an off pist area (off trail), which then lead to a story that really, is just a little crazy. 

I decided that I didn't want to ski down an off pist, I'd probably not make it out of the Alps if I did that. So I took off my skis with the intention of sliding down on my butt. I had my poles in one hand, and skis in the other. I start sliding, though after only a couple feet I was gaining way too much speed, with really no where to put it. So I put one foot out to try to stop myself. Wrong idea, I gained more speed. All of sudden both polls are out of my hands, one ski is sliding down the mountain, the other left behind me. I hit a jump again, flying over to my stomach, sliding down the mountain with uncontrollable speed, snow in places where there really shouldn't be snow, and I finally slow down next to my missing ski, after screaming to myself a couple times "you will survive this Grace," with a couple extra profanities slipped in there as well. 

By the time we made it to the chair left we originally intended to take, I had successfully (and a little unconventionally) off pisted (I suppose that depends on your definition of successfully), and we then broke for lunch. 

The last three hours of the day went by way too fast, and the next thing I know we're all breaking before we ski down the mountain for some hot cocoa. I also tried an Austrian food that I cannot spell nor pronounce (that seems to be the norm this year...) anyway, it tasted not quite like what it looked like.... I thought it would taste more like chocolate.

And then our slightly more kid friendly rendition of Wednesday nights after ski ended. I put my headphones in, blasted my music, and have not ever skied faster than I did my last round down the mountain. Of course my version of bombing down the hill is a little bit different from the others seeing as how they all had to pause for me to catch up every now and then (and I may have fallen once as well). When I got back down, I had to go back up once more before the lifts closed. The sun was close to setting, we were the only ones left on the mountain, and it was still warm out from the day while the snow was still cold... it was fantastic.

I really hope that this week was not my last time skiing, because it is so, so fun. Saturday afternoon we drove back, and stopped in Hamburg, Germany for two hours before we had to pick up my host mom who had been in India for two weeks. And then, we returned home.

In about a month I will be going to Istanbul, Turkey for a week with my class for our class trip, so I'm super excited about that, and will definitely have a blog when I return. 

I will definitely be returning to the Alps in the near future, they are just absolutely stunning. For now though, that wraps up my most wonderful ski week in Austria. 

Vi ses! :-)

And then I was halfway there

On August 9th at midnight, I watched my countdown on my iPod, which I had been so vicariously watching throughout the last couple months, turn to "0 days until Denmark."

I had been rotating from clock to countdown, watching the minutes as the date was yet to turn. I anxiously watched in anticipation as the clock continued to turn. At 9 I closed my computer, saving my "first night questions" document that I was yet to use in two days when the day finally came that I arrived in Denmark. At 10 I turned off the TV, the last time I'd turn off my own TV in my own living room for a year. I was halfway through a series I was so determined to finish two weeks earlier when I stupidly started it, yet to travel to a foreign country. 

10 o'clock slowly turned to 11, and I started messaging my friends on facebook. And slowly but surly, the clock creeped to the last 10 minutes of August 8th. I watched as 10 minutes slowly became five, and five slowly turned to 11:59. I laid on my bed with the white fluffy blanket that I couldn't take to Denmark with me, with my phone in one hand, and my iPod countdown in the other. I slowly waited, waited until my countdown "Days until Denmark" turned from not 1, but 0. And surly enough, the day came. 

I woke up and went about my routine, the only thing being, that all of my clothes were packed tight in two purple suitcases in the living room downstairs. I graciously gave my mom half my serving of eggs with ham, cheese, and onions (which I came to regret later that month when I had scrambled egg withdrawals), and then got up to shower. I put my hair in a bun, got out my outfit that I had set out, the only outfit that could ever go good with a navy blue blazer with multicolored pins, and then set my backpack in front of me. I shoved a bag of kit kats, a bag of goldfish, and a tray of oreos in my bag. 

And later I was off to the airport. 

And to my own shock, that day was already six months, half a year, two and half families, and many many memories ago. Whatever happened to me telling myself as I was gaining altitude in the plane on my way to Amsterdam "Your year is just getting started, you still have a whole year ahead of you! You have plenty of time." 

When I think about my first six months, what I can really think is that I'm living the life I had back home, here in Denmark. To me, that is the best way to describe it. It is not easy, nor is it strenuously hard. I have many great memories with the many special people I met, and yet I have times as well that I remember, sometimes more than I'd like to admit, where I would feel incredibly unproductive. Going from being a straight A student, to not even being able to participate in class even when you know that you could have something productive to say is frustrating. Knowing what you go home to, not home in your home country, but home in your host country, creates a balance between the days that leave you in an unproductive rut, and the days that you make you think that you're more at home in your host country than you are in your home country. In the end, this balance is what matters the most. 

Many people think exchange is "the life," is "super easy," or otherwise "a relaxing year." Granted, I definitely don't have the same stress as I did back home with my school work. When I say you leave things behind back home, if I were talking about myself, I'd say I left large amounts of school work back home. When you drop 6 hours of studying, you tend to relax a little bit more.

However there are hidden intricacies of exchange that people don't see from the outside. Many people view not being able to do school work because it is in a different language as easy. People are jealous that we have the excuse to essentially exempt us from doing our school work. I was jealous of myself last year that I simply had to wait a year to have that excuse. Now that I'm here, I'd say thats one of the intricacies of exchange. It is not fun not being able to do work. Sitting in class and not being able to do anything because you cant understand the language your teacher is speaking in gets really tedious after a while.

Switching families three times, or in some students cases four or five, is not fun. Settling in, getting to know a whole family, and then suddenly three months later having to drop everything and forget the previous family isn't always ideal. Make new relations, make new inside jokes, and create new homes. What happens if all you had before was special to you though?

In the end however, some of the more negative intricacies do help create a new perspective on yourself. After not being able to do much for the last six months, I can't help but remember when my school work was one of the paramounts in my life, and it has changed my perspective on what I think about the U.S school system. I don't want to say I like it more than the Danish system, nor vice-versa, I think they're both good school systems. However I have gained a new appreciation for what I came from- the U.S system, and have come to realize that the U.S system is not as corrupt as everyone likes to say.

Although I'm not particularly fond of having to drop everything three times to become one with three different families, I'm glad that I get to have three different families abroad, along with my one family back in the U.S. I'm not fond of the moment that I have to leave, however I quite enjoy having an abundance of things that are acutely special to me as they are as well to the families, things that others can't quite specifically relate to.

Exchange is not a trip, it is not simply "an adventure." It is taking what you have back home, leaving some of it behind, and applying the rest to a different culture, to a different language, and to three different families and their own way of life. And in doing so, you end up with some of the most special relationships with some of the most special people.

Six months ago I watched as the sun set in my own familiar surroundings, and watched Seattle get smaller and smaller, until I could see it no longer, and wouldn't for a year. I watched the sun rise again only six hours later, mid flight, which was a false friend because it was still dark outside at home. I landed in a city completely foreign to me, one I had only seen on google images. When I finally found myself sitting down to dinner in a kitchen foreign to me as well, with people who were strangers to me, yet were family together, is when I finally realized what is happening, and I will remember this forever. The only thing I could think was, and I quote "What have I gotten myself into."

The rain continued to pour outside and a year stretched on in front of me with no end.

That night, I never could have imagined that in what feels like such short time, I'd already be writing about six months in Denmark. I never could have imagined that I'd find such a family in some of the most unexpected places, and I never could have imagined that in a foreign country, it could become such a home to me, where my life leads as normal as it does back home, with some of the most extraordinary memories.  In the last six months that I've been away from the U.S, I've surly left a lot behind, however I feel as though I've gained much to remember and hold with me in return.  

So there you have it- six months abroad in a nutshell.

Vi ses! :-)

PAUSE- I'm a lazy travel blogger

*Here lies a semi lazy blogger, who has not written since Christmas. I recognize that, I am indeed alive, my fingers are not broken- I have just chosen not to blog. Stay tuned and please check back in about three weeks when I have an actual blog, that does not resemble a public service announcement, that is not an excuse for my ultimate procrastination (and lack of activity).* 

In the meantime, please enjoy my favorite quote that happens to be rather relevant. 

"Procrastinators know how to get 8 hours worth of work done in 30 minutes, and 30 minutes worth of work done in 8 hours." 

This has been a PSA by an incredibly lazy travel blogger

À bientôt. 

Glædelig jul og godt nytår!

Hello, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!

Or as they would say it in Danish, Glædelig Jul og Godt Nytår!

Okay, so for starters, Danes like to say they love Christmas. And I believe them. In some aspects. To clarify though, they love Christmas in the way of celebrations. I wouldn't say they go all out with the decorations and the Santa spirit.

They have what are called "julefrokosts." It is essentially translated to "Christmas lunch" though they can be held invariably throughout the day and can vary in traditions of celebrations. It is called Christmas lunch, though has almost no relevance to actual lunch.

What is it? Well, it varies. Sometimes it is a lot of people playing what they call "pakkeleg" and drinking Christmas schnapps. Sometimes, if you attend a kid friendly version of a julefrokost, it is just people playing pakkeleg. Well there is also always eating involved as well, from roast beef, to hvidkål or rødkål (white or red cabbage), to LOTS of different fish types. They have "sild" which is Danish for herring (actually not too bad), and "lachs" which is Danish for salmon. I even tried smoked eel. It was served on top of rye bread (rye bread in Denmark? No way), and there were scrambled eggs put on top of the eel. I thought it looked good as it was going around the table, and when it got to me someone told me it was called "eel" in English. At which point I hesitantly took a small piece from the large platter and politely took a small bite, all while discreetly thinking that it definitely looked a lot more appetizing before I knew what it was. That small and polite bite later led to less subtle and less polite bites however as I devoured my piece of that eel. It was delicious.

They also have a traditional food called risalamande. It is rice pudding with cherry sauce on top. The tradition in it being, you put one single almond in the pudding bowl. Whoever finds it in their portion of the risalamande gets a prize. I haven't found the almond but boy have I eaten my fair share of this fantastic food. Denmark also has a Christmas food called "æbleskiver" which is essentially just so out of this world incredibly delicious, I just.... can I just have some right now?

*Further clarification- pakkeleg is a game I will for 100% certainty be bringing home with me (along with risalamande and æbleskiver). It is where you have a dice, and everyone has a toy that they bought. You put all the toys in the middle of the table, and each time someone rolls a 6 on the dice they get a present. Once all the presents are gone someone starts a timer and if you roll a 6 on the dice again you can start stealing peoples presents. Once the time is done you have what you end up with; some are lucky and end up with lots of presents, and some are unlucky, like me for example, and end up with nothing. Well, there goes 50 kroner. But its really fun so either way...

So in the form of celebration - Danes love Christmas. However, they do not set up their Christmas tree until the 22nd or 23rd of December, do not hang Christmas lights, and from what I have observed, feel very decorative when they put tiny "nissemænd" (elves) in the windows of their homes and call it good. They DO, however, have traditional Christmas countdown shows, and your Christmas is NOT complete if you do not have your Christmas calendar countdown, which is essentially an opportunity to eat a piece of chocolate every day for the 24 days leading up to Christmas. Luckily for everyone else, and arguably lucky for me, due to my procrastination to buy a gift for a pakkeleg, someone received (almost) all 24 pieces of chocolate from my Christmas calendar. Woops. (Not sorry that I saved all the twix bars, those are my weakness and I will be as stingy as I please.)

The 23rd I had my host mom's brother's daughter over to bake American Christmas cookies with me, and her niece with us as well. We baked snickerdoodles and chocolate chip cookies (Danes have never eaten snickerdoodles and this actually happens to be an inside joke with my first host family). That was very fun and if I do say so myself, tasty. My host family liked it as well, thus meaning we have two out of three host families that like quesadillas, snickerdoodles, and compliments of their Christmas presents as well, cheezits!

The 24th (yesterday) my host family had 15 people over for a celebration. Danes open their Christmas presents on the 24th as well, and later dance around the Christmas tree while holding hands in a circle. If this does not scream "traditional white people Christmas movie" to you, than I don't know what would. So there we were, 15 of all us family members (my host moms side of the family) singing Danish Christmas carols (I silently sang the "la la la's" because I didn't know the words), holding hands and dancing around the Christmas tree. Although I must stop your visualization there because there was no room around the tree, so we ended up dancing around the white dining room table, and *almost* going up the stairs. From my vantage point, it looked quite complicated...it was fun though.

The 25th (today) my host family had 20 people over for a celebration. It was the 15 that were there for the 24th, plus a couple extra. To be perfectly honest, I actually always kind of thought that if I had a party consisting of 8 or more people it was a really large party. Not anymore. I later skyped my parents in which we opened each others gifts over webcam, and talked.

The 26th (tomorrow) my host family is going to their summer house which has a name that I cannot spell nor pronounce. I believe it goes something like: Lillemøller. Not that it was an important detail per se, I just thought I'd enlighten you. New Years Eve and New Years day we are back at the summer house with ANOTHER CELEBRATION.

January was supposed to be very calm, but then I went and filled every weekend in my calendar with something else to do.

*First weekend: birthday/Goodbye parties*
*Second weekend: making Christmas cookies* (I know the timing is a little off).
*Third weekend: friend comes from Belgium*
*Fourth weekend: going to Copenhagen*

Time is going WAY too fast. It honestly scares me how fast time is going by. Was it not JUST New Years of 2014? Did I not JUST get picked up at the airport by my host dad?!

Anyway...

Vi ses!

Thanksgivings, bag packings, etc...

Hellooooo,

Since I have last written, I have attended three thanksgiving dinners (and I'm not even in the United States...), successfully spent my months Rotary allowance on (almost) nothing but coffee, and tried to figure out how it could actually be possible that I have seemingly less clothes than what I initially packed for Denmark.

And, as an extra bonus for me, I have also dreamt in Danish. It essentially works the same as dreaming in your native language, only its 100% cooler when you wake up and realize you just dreamt in a foreign language.

I actually woke up that morning thinking "darn. It was in English again." And then I realized "Wait. Wait nope. That was in Danish. I just dreamt in Danish." I was happy.

I attended three thanksgiving dinners which is significantly more than I ever attend in the U.S, one of them being one that I actually made for my host family. It was a little bit lacking in all of the traditional foods such as turkey (that costs like an arm and leg and a couple extra kroner, so no way was I buying that), so I just settled for green bean casserole, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie. With the green bean casserole I obviously had to substitute the American "Campbells mushroom soup," and the mashed potatoes were severely lacking gravy, seeing as how I didn't have any turkey. However in the end, I'd say that what was an incredibly foreign interpretation of thanksgiving turned out pretty good. The pumpkin pie was a success as well, according to my youngest host brother. It now has popular demand. He looks up at me after taking his first bite of pumpkin pie (*ever*) and goes "Grace. FANTASTIC." He wants it for his birthday. As well as I would presume quesadillas...cheezits...he likes American food. My host mom told me she never knew "cake" (there again with the "kage") made out of pumpkin would taste so good, and my host sister ate it first thing when she came home from school the next day.

And then, three days later, I made the final touch to my (rather horrid) packing job, and switched host families.

113 days, two overly stuffed suitcases, one backpack, a travel bag, a box, some gummi støvlers, and a Christmas calendar (?) later, I begin part two of my exchange. I am increasingly concerned at how I will ever get all the things I have accumulated here in Denmark back to the U.S. Especially if I've accumulated all this after only three months...let alone the other eight.

*Mom, I still don't know how to pack. You'd probably be appalled.*

For those who may recall the much awaited post that came in April entitled "I HAVE A HOST FAMILY" I have been in fairly often communication with my first host family since than. I spent the better half of my child psychology class period last year talking with my host sister when we weren't technically supposed to have electronics out (whoops, did I say that out loud...?), and the occasional email from one of my host parents. So you could say I knew them fairly well once I got there, and after almost eight months of communication with them, you could say I know them pretty well now.

I have thanked them already, however at the risk of sounding overly thankful (if they read my blog) I just want to say again how grateful I am to them for taking me in, especially when all they knew about me at first was essentially on an essay I had written before I turned my application in to Rotary. I will always remember how much fun I had with them, and as my days go by with my new family I find myself remembering all that was special with my previous, and I know I have a growing appreciation for all they did. I like to think that three and a half months ago when I arrived in Denmark, I entered a house, and later left what I now call a home.

My new host family is very sweet as well. I have two host brothers, one who is 18, and another one who is 21 and studying in Copenhagen. (Eller, København.) OH, and get this. They speak a different dialect of Danish. It is called Sønderjysk. It is a mix of Danish AND German, seeing as how Southern Denmark is close to Germany. And the best part? It is hard for some native Danish speakers to understand. Let alone foreigners. Who are now learning regular Danish and a dialect. I now have a new appreciation for the word impossible. Skål.

Vi ses.

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! :-)