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
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
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