School... When I last left off i said i would be starting school the next day, and that i did! It went much better than i had expected and it has continued to be good. I had been told that Danes were very had to get to know and that the didnt easily open themselves to new people. However, it wasnt quite like that! As long as i was the one to start the conversation, all of the students were very friendly and even offered to help me out for the first week or so. I am lucky to have another exchange student in my class and her name is Jamille. She is from Brazil and it is very interesting to talk with her because she speaks very little english, and obviuously very little danish! Lucky for us both though, she can understand spanish so i get to use my spanish skills to help her out and to practice my spanish. Kill two birds with one stone! But i have been in school for a total of three and a half weeks now and I am really starting to feel like this is the normal routine and like i am starting to fit in.
Introcamp = best week ever!! Introcamp was by far one of the best weeks of my life! It was great to meet all the other exchange students that are living all over Denmark and see what they are going through. The school that we stayed at had planned tons of great activities, including danish lessons, sort of almost group therapy where we all talked about what we had been through and what we like and don't like about Denmark (it was really nice actually), a day trip to Århus, a trip to a museum in Århus, a private concert by Striving Vines (Danish band), and an awesome party at the end of the week! That was just to name a few things! Also, they had us eat quite a few traditional Danish foods, including the infamous rød grøde med flød (which is near impossible for foreigners to say and therefore all the Danes make us say it!). It was terrible at the end of the week when we all had to say goodbye and part ways...
After Introcamp life pretty much went back to normal, well as normal as it can get for an exchange student! However, Monday I did not go to school because i had a horrible headache and my throat hurt something fierce! haha and to top it all off my host family doesn't use ANY painkillers! But I survived and was back to school the very next day unfortunately... i say that because Danish school is SO boring! most likely because i do not understand anything, but still. I was warned of this before, but it is worse than i ever imagined! And lunch is only 30 minutes :(
Friday I was lucky though and got to skip school to go to Copenhagen to meet up with my counselor from the US, Jessica Prewitt. Along with her husband Jason and her old host brother (i think? haha) we toured Copenhagen and saw such things as the royal jewels, the inside of a really old castle, a beautiful park/garden in the sunshine for once, a very long shopping street in Copenhagen, and the changing of the guards! All in all it was a great day and i would like to thank her once again for it all! And I even made it there and home on the trains all by myself! YES!
That following Saturday, my host family took me to their summer house on the "nicest beach in Denmark." It was sunny and warm and everything! The house is fairly old, but it is nice to have if you ever want to get away from home... even if it only is 30 minutes away (a long way to Danes). I didn't go swimming since it wasn't THAT warm, and the water was pretty cold, but we stayed there for the day. After that we went over to my host dad, Peer's, brother's house. My host brother and I went to the driving range and practiced up on our golf, which we figured wasn't quite as good as we thought, but none the less it was fun!
This week so far has been pretty good also! Elections are currently happening in Denmark and it is always on TV as you can imagine... but it is nothing like elections in the US. They have very many political parties and very many candidates for prime minister, so it is harder to choose someone to vote for. School has been pretty normal as well. Today I started Karate and it actually went great! I really liked it and I am going to continue it.
Well i think that is all for now, but i will really try to keep up on my blog more often! :) Hej Hej.
P.S. If you want to see pictures of my adventure here are the links:
Just random Denmark: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/? set=a.1713808984435.72095.1814516975&l=45679a2fd9&type=1
Introcamp: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1767572488489.74652.1814516975&l=bc6867b3c8&type=1
And the trip to Arhus: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1767726252333.74663.1814516975&l=e0ac45c3b2&type=1
