The beautiful oddity that Denmark is.

Hello everybody! okay, I have made way more observations since my last post, so I'm just going to write them down in a list to make it easier

      Observations

• They have little carts that they drag around the store like a wagon
• All of the adults wear knee length jean shorts
• Their strollers are like the old fashion baby carriages that you would imagine old British nannies pushing around, and its adorable
• Clogs are worn for work shoes, which confuses me a lot, but oh well
• The U.S.A is talked about a lot on the news, and at school
• There are lots of random laws about weird things, like how high you can climb on a ladder. if you climb higher than a certain height, you have to pay a fine
• They gasp a lot, but not when something surprising happens. they just gasp, and I always feel I like I am saying something shocking. It surprises me every time
• It's normal here to be pantsless, in the house, or even out on your porch( I was a walking home, and our neighbor was out on the porch having a smoke, without pants on)
• Having diamond studs glued to your teeth is popular
• They have ketchup flavored Pringles
• They have weird phrases like ''du store kinesisk'' which translates to you big Chinese. It means you are fantastic or something.... haha I don't understand
• European Bathroom stalls are glorious. Seriously, American bathroom stalls must be terrifying to Europeans.
• Danish ice cream doesn't melt and drip the way American ice cream does
• Danish pastries are the greatest thing on earth
• Many of their buildings are from the 1800's or older, and are very symbolic of their history and its great
• They drink water out of the bathroom sinks at School
• They have colorful buildings, and lots of brick  buildings
• They love their flag. The flag is everywhere. When it is someone's Birthday
• We call our teachers by their first name

Well now that that is all out of the way, I'll tell you about my week. School started Monday, as you know, and I am actaully very glas, because I've realized, that being busy, is a very good thing on exchange. I am attending Høng Gymnasiumn, the smallest Gymnasium in Denmark. There are 200 students I think. I like it a lot. My classes include Social sciences, Math, Danish, German, English,

biology and Danish grammar. Grammar class is definetly the worst. But Danish and English are great. I don't have all the classes that my class mates do, so I walk around town and go to the bakery in my free time and get Romkugler, this amazing ball of mashed up Pastry. Its pretty amazing. And so are Flødbollers, this chocolate covered marshmallow, but calling it marshmallow doesn't do it justice. I'll post pictures of them. So this week, I tried public transportation by myself for the first time, and the bus driver unfortunately didn't speak English, and didn't understand my Danish, so he skipped my stop, and my Host mom had to chase the bus down. The next day I tried it again, but with my host brother this time. Unfortunately, the bus was VERY full, and so I had to stand up, and I fell on four people, one of them including the bus driver, because I was standing in the front. And then everyone heard me speaking English, so now everyone in Høng knows me as the clumsy American who can't keep her balance. Oh well. I actually think its pretty funny. I have a great group of friends at school, which is a huge relief, because Í think the scariest part of going to a new school, is having to make all of you new friends, and being the only one who doesn't speak Danish (Yet), the task is a little daunting. This week, my Host mom and I went to Kalundborg, a city on the bay about 15 minutes north of Høng, and the city is Beautiful. It's a mixture of these very old beautiful traditional Danish buildings (I'll show them in the pictures) and modern buildings. And the downtown area where all the shops are, have cobblestone streets, and cars can't go down them, so shoppers are able to walk all over. We got some softice ( soft ice cream) covered in chocolate bits. The shop keeper was this weird 25 year old Danish guy, who overheard me and my Host mom talking in English, and he was kind of bragging to us, or trying to impress us with the fact that he could speak many different languages.
Him- ''I can speak 5 different languages.''
Me-''oh really? what languages''
Him-'' Uhh German, Danish, English, Arabic, and uhh Swedish. I know more, but ehh, I mean like, 5 is enough. Like, there is more, but 5 is a like a-a-a bit to eh show you how much I can speak''

Me and my host mom were laughing about it. We also went to Slagese, a city 15 minutes South of Høng, and there are so many amazing shops, and once I am good enough at public transport, My  host mom said I can go there myself´( so in other words never because I'm terrible at the public transport lol)

So Home life : Its pretty great. The House I live in is actually a historical house protected by the government. We live in 3\4's of the house, but the oldest part is from the 1650's, we can't live in that because its so old. But it is this beautiful farm house that I'll post pictures of later. Hans Christian Anderson (He's a very famous Dane, he wrote the little mermaid) actually stayed here for a night. I don't know if you have read or seen pride and prejudice, but sometimes I feel like I'm living in a house from that era. It's amazing. There was also A LOT of vikings in this area, like in the town I live in. It's because my town is in between the ocean, and the fourth largest lake in Denmark.(Lake Tissø). Anyways, my Host Dad , Gregers,is a farmer, and right now it's Harvesting time, so he often doesn't come inside till 2:30 A.M because they have to harvest before the bad weather comes in( it already has, its raining right now) But my Host dad is very funny and nice, and sounds Australian. He's also very sneaky, like today at breakfast, I was practicing reading something in Danish, and he took a video of me. It was quite funny. Oh and right now there are workers on the Farm, building the tallest  windmills in Denmark. My Family has a crazy black lab puppy, named molly. They call her lille bandit, because she loves to eat our socks and nibble on our fingers. she also jumps up a lot and we have to say nej,(no) a lot, so my mom said we should just name her Nej. My Host mom, Bodil, she's Hilarious. There is this one woman who works at a gas station,  and she gives horrible service and is not very nice, and we always call her a hex ( witch). She is teaching me a lot of Danish, actually all of my family is. I help my Bodil make dinner, which is fun. Bodil is a very good cook, even though she can never actually say the word cook, without it sounding like other things(I always tease her about it). We eat a lot of vegetables and meat and cake. Last night we had the most amazing Spare ribs. They were pretty great. And then we watched a Jackie Chan movie, Rush Hour. Its been a pretty Great week. I'm Excited to see what's coming up in the near future. It is not letting me poet pictures on here, so until I do, I will post the pictures on Facebook

Observations

Hello, second day in Denmark today. I went to school for the first time and met my class. I was terrified at first, it was all in Danish, and I didn't know anybody, and let me just say, EVERYONE in Denmark looks perfect. It's a little scary haha. And I can't pronounce an Danish names haha. But we took a tour of the school, and it's spread out around town, and this boy introduced himself to me, and told me he was an exchange student last year to Delaware, so he totally understood how terrifying school can be. And then I met my future host sister, she is also in my class, and she just got back from exchange in Australia, so she has an accent haha. So first day of school wasn't too bad. School here is very different though.  You are put with a class of people that you will be with for two years. Also my school is a boarding school kind of, and many of the students live here. Classes are different here everyday, every week. I get a new schedule every week. And the classes start and different times. So sometimes school will start at 8:00 and go till 12:00, and the next day it will start at 10:00 and go till 2:00. Or I can have class for an hour, and then no classes for the next two hours, then have class again. Its kind of like a college schedule. Another big difference, is here, it's legal to smoke, at my age, so there are lots of students smoking in the court yard at school, which I thought was odd haha. Other observations: they eat a lot of strawberries in Denmark, I have them every meal. They really do wear a lot of black here. And everyone speaks English. Most of he buildings here are brick cottages. They have miniature deer, they eat very healthy, and everything is really neat and organized. And the water here tastes a little salty, but not bad. The roads are tiny, but that's probably because I live in the country. Oh I haven't told you about my family yet. They are amazing. They are all very kind, and the are teaching me Danish. My host dad is a farmer, and he works really late right now, because it is harvesting time. My mom worked at a bank but she is taking leave right now and getting a new job. My brother Johannes, he's great. He is going to teach me how to fish, and how to get around on the public transportation. unfortunately, tomorrow I have to ride the bus by myself for the first time, and the bus driver doesn't speak any English. So that should be fun. If any of you know me, you know I have no sense of direction. To give you an idea, recently, me and a friend tried getting to olive garden in lake Oswego, and I told google maps to take us to the one in Texas instead.  oh one last weird thing that happened, I was just watching T.V with my host mom, and let me just say, Danish television is MUCH different from American TV. They don't censor nearly as much out. For example, I'm pretty sure I a colonoscopy go down. it was that bend and cough procedure. It was odd. Another weird thing, I have seen three men driving shirtless today. I don't understand why, but if that's what makes them happy. Also, this very muscular shirtless man walked down the street while I waiting for my mom to pick me up after school, and he just sat down next to me, even thought there were other benches, and had a smoke. and then left after 5 minutes. Oh one last thing, I took a 5 hour nap after school today. Life as an exchange student. Still jetlagged. So that's that. I Promise to post pictures on the next blog post

Last Day in the USA

Well tomorrow is the day when this whole grand adventure begins(If I survive all my layovers), and I can hardly contain my excitement. I have no idea where all my time went, it seems like just yesterday I was choosing a country to go to. Exchange snuck up on me. I have a serious case of Wanderlust, and I have to thank Rotary for giving me the opportunity to live another life across the world, for an entire year. I am constantly amazed at just how lucky I am. I get to be a part of new families, make friends from all over the world, and see what really is out there, beyond the U.S. I'm excited to live outside my comfort zone and have a an adventure. My first day of school is on Monday, and I arrive Sunday night in Copenhagen. So that's going to be interesting. Yay Jet lag! I will try to post on the blog every week, but I can pretty much guarantee that's not gonna happen. But I promise to try my best haha. Well, I guess this is it. See you in a year America!