Getting Colder In Denmark

Hi, sorry I haven't posted in so long. Everyday is a busy day as an exchange student. I'm not sure why that is but I feel like exchange students are constantly feeling three things: hungry, tired, and confused. Even though those three feelings we are always having fun. My past two weeks have been a lot of fun. I was able to hang out with some exchange friends and some Danish classmates over the weekends and I had great times. Last weekend my host parents ended up spending a weekend in Rome due to my host Moms job and so I stayed with my host Grandparents, which was very nice actually! Usually older people don't speak good English in Denmark but for some reason my host Grandparents on my host Dad's side are very very good at it. We had traditional danish meals. They usually consist of a meat, potatoes, and some kind of veggie (carrots, tomatoes, or cucumbers are common). We also went to a Viking Museum in a town called Roskilde. It was very nice and super interesting. There were boat remains from ages ago that were actually used by the Vikings and a lot of cool life-sized models of boats that we got to check out. After the museum, we went to the most beautiful cathedral. It was up on top of a hill, but sadly they were having a service so we didn't get to see inside.

School has been a lot of fun. I am able to participate in most of my classes and a lot of my teachers give me specific assignments that focus on the US and Denmark, so that is very appreciated. I am looking forward to taking the class trip that I will take with my class in March! We will be going to Manchester, England. I think that will be a lot of fun. This weekend I also have plans to go enjoy a weekend with my host Mom on the opposite side of Denmark. We are going to Denmark's biggest island thats called Jutland. We will be visiting my host Grandmother on Friday and then spending Saturday and Sunday in a town called Aalborg shopping and seeing some of my host Mom's old friends. I think it will be a very good time and if I am lucky one of my exchange friends that lives near Aalborg will come and go shopping with us. I am definitely looking forward to the weekend. Today I will go to Language School in about 20 minutes and we will probably study vocabulary and grammar. I am learning some Danish definitely and at this point I can understand simple Danish. So at least that is a start. I am looking forward to everything that Denmark will bring me. I miss everyone back home, but I love my life here. Hope everyone is well. Knus (like hugs in Danish).

A quick hello.

Hello my loved ones, right now I am sitting in school. One might think it's odd that I'm on the computer but actually its very normal over here in Denmark. EVERYONE brings their computers to school and the teachers expect the students too and base some of the lessons around them. I would be paying attention but I am in the class that the school counselor told me "was pointless to take", I am in Danish, but as our english classes back home, they aren't learning basic Danish of course but analyzing complex text and things of the sort. This is all very difficult given that my Danish is still at a very low level. I am proud to say though that I am picking it up. My host family is really really great and we always practice and speak in Danish. I am picking up a lot of regular day phrases such as "How was your day?", "Good night", "Please pass the..", even if it is not much it's definitely stuff that I will need to know to because fluent in Danish like I hope. I have been having language school after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays too which is very fun. We have a big group of exchange students from the area all together in one class and we are always joking around and having a good time, while of course studying a ton of Danish. I will definitely try hard to know as much Danish as possible before I come home because it is really important to me that as well as completely giving myself to the Danish culture, I learn the language. I have been enjoying myself in Denmark a lot and I have more or less moved on from missing Intro-Camp and gotten used to the regular life in Hillerod again. I do miss my friends from camp a lot still though but we have been able to keep in touch and I even get to see some of them in Copenhagen this weekend. Well I should probably keep it short, so I hope to hear from all of you soon! Much love.

Intro Camp!

Wow! I have been so busy recently. So I am very sorry to all my fans (haha) for not posting for a week or so. I went to the party at my school and it was very fun. All my classmates were very friendly and the party was fun, a lot of dancing. It was different because there was beer being served there, at a school event, so strange! Over all I had a very good time though. After the party I had a few difficulties because I was told to take the train home but I didn't know it wasn't running because of track maintenance so I ended up waiting there for two hours and then eventually calling my host family and taking a bus home, so it all worked out in the end. The next day I had a block party in my neighborhood and I had one of my exchange student friends named Alicia come over and we made mac and cheese for it together as an American dish. Yum! It was great to taste some American comfort food. We then when and spent the night at her house, by Copenhagen, and in the morning got on the bus to go to Intro Camp. Intro camp was a camp where we studied Danish and met all the new Rotary exchange students from all over Denmark. We were 150 exchange students in total and we were from all over the world, from Brazil to USA. It was so amazing being able to meet and stay with all these people who were going through exactly through what I am going through. We stayed in something like a boarding school and we each had a dorm with a roommate or two. My roommate ended up being one of my closest friends by the end of the week. Her name is Carmen and she is from Ithica, New York, we got along very very well and I loved rooming with her. I also made a ton of other friends from all over (theres some pictures on my Facebook). We studied six hours of Danish a day and did a ton of fun other things like played pool, swam, cards, a talent show, a live band, and a dance. It was such a great experience and it really was one of the best weeks of my life! We also went into the city of Aarhus one of the days, which is the second biggest city in Denmark, and went to an incredible museum and downtown to shop! I had a truly amazing time. I was a little sad to be leaving but I am happy to be back in my home in Denmark and back with my host family. I had regular school today which went ok, I was still pretty exhausted from Intro Camp because I got back yesterday and it was a long week of studying, fun, and waking up early. I will from now on just keep trying to get into a very normal routine and make friends at school, I have made some, but no close ones yet. I think it is definitely a lot easier to make friends with other exchange students but I definitely wanna have good danish friends too. I love to Danish culture and I am looking forward to truly becoming a Dane. A month has gone by now and it doesn't really seem like it. In some ways it seems like its been forever but in most it feels like it was just yesterday that I got here. Well now I will go run, I have been trying to keep in good shape and eat right, its working pretty well too! Sorry it took so long to post! Hope everyone is good. Much love from Denmark.