Hi everyone!
So I spent last weekend in NZ with the kiwis. Here are some photos from the trip:

We did pretty much all there is to do in Odense... Not gonna lie it's a pretty small town, and in my opinion, the Hamilton of Denmark. My journey started off terribly: I nearly missed the train the arrival board changed the platform at the last minute. Then, after running to the platform, I discovered that the carriage on which I had booked a seat was not connected to the train. What kind of person forgets to attach an entire carriage? Actually, it was two. So, almost in tears I asked a man in a fluro jacket what I was supposed to do, and he told me to just squeeze in where I could fit. And I fit right between the toilet and the rubbish bin. Best seats! Woo! And, like a true traveller I put my bag on the floor, sat on it and tried to have a little nap. I was tired, and the weekend hadn't even begun.... Welcome to my life.

When I arrived at the station, the others were already there. Will lives in Odense and was having us stay at his place for the weekend. Phoebe and Libby live in other parts of Denmark, and we were missing Molly because she was changing host families over the weekend. We decided to all get together to catch up on how things have been for us Kiwis in the first month and a bit. Some of Will's friends from school came over and cooked dinner for us. Score! We went out to a few bars and pubs that night (see photo above). Everyone was smoking, and it smelled horrible. Today, I worse the jumper I am wearing in that picture and it still stinks, even after I sprayed it with an excessive amount of lovely smelling perfume (thanks Trish!). We got home at four in the morning. All I wanted was SLEEP.

The next morning, we rose late and did some site-seeing around Odense. It;s main attraction is Hans Christian Andersen's childhood home, which is the yellow house in the photos above. It was very cute and little. Did you know his Dad was a shoe-maker? Cool huh? We also saw the Cathedral, the shops, and that was pretty much it. As I said, Hamilton of Denmark.

Will's host family were so lovely and kind, and took very good care of us over the weekend. His host sister Mathilde (who is only eight) gave up her room for us to sleep in! Consequently, we hung out with her a lot. She was adorable! His two host brothers (twins, eleven) were very shy but also very sweet. His host parents were fantastic :) They made us the nicest pizza I have ever eaten EVER on saturday night. Actually there is one pizza I can think of that tops it, but they were SO GOOD. His host mum was an au pair in the US when she was younger, so it was really nice talking to her about being an adolescent in a foreign country.

Asides from that, what else is going on in my life? Hmm... Well I have joined Fitness World, because I do not want to fulfill the AFS stereotype and get fat. So that's exciting. I also saw a ballet tonight at the Royal Theatre. It was beautiful. The theatre more-so than the ballet, in my opinion. It was like being in phantom of the opera, there was a giant chandelier and the ceiling made me think I was in the Sistine Chapel. Four galleries, red velvet and gold everywhere ahhhhhhh, amazing! The ballet was very modern, three short and very contrasting pieces from an american dance company . The first was just bizarre and the music reminded me of nightmares I had as a kid. The second one was all men, no music. Like, they danced for thirty minutes in total silence. The last one was a typical white tutu pretty floaty lalalala ballet, but I really think the Royal New Zealand Ballet has spoiled me, because I wasn't all that impressed. But it was beautiful!

This Friday we have our next school party, the theme is rock. I got my costume al sorted today and am ready to go! The school is doing an experiment and breath testing us at the door, if anyone comes back positive they cant get in. It will be an interesting evening, but I hope it works :) I am also off to Vienna in Austria the week after next for a trip with my class. We got our travel hoodies the other day! 2A i Wien, yes man! I am really looking forward to the trip, it will be nice to do something different yet stil educational for a few days, and learn more about people and cultures and all that jazz. So now I am going to sleep because I have to wake up in six hours. Oh lordy. Will post pictures of the theatre tomorrow sometime.

a weekend in Malmo

today (sunday) we arrived home from a girls' weekend in Sweden. just a casual weekend shopping in another country. no biggie. malmo is about an hours drive away from Copenhagen via bridge.  it's quite a new bridge, it was only opened in 2013. unfortunately  my camera died during the trip and i didn't get any photos of the bridge myself but google images will do fine. acually google images will do better as the weather is much nicer in these photos than any of mine

if you look at the picture on top, you will see that the bridge actually ends in the middle of the ocean. no, this is not chitty chitty bang bang and we did not have a car that flew or sailed, but there was a tunnel that went underwater.

so we arrived on friday at around midday and hit the shops. our hotel was in the centre of the city so we had easy access to just about everything. there was a river we had to cross to get from the hotel to 

the main shopping street, and an ice-skating rink on the other side too. 

the river started off frozen as in this picture, but it actually warmed up a bit and was pretty much melted by the end of the weekend. we spent most of our time here: 

the main shopping street ran between two long, tall blocks of old buildings. it was a walking street a lot like strøget in Copenhagen. no cars allowed. shoppers only. sounds good to me!

caroline had made a deal with stine that if she didn't spend any money on clothes for ALL of january, she could have 1000 danish kroner to spend in malmo. and mormor gave her 500. so she had a lot of fun:

some of that stuff is mine actually. but everything i bought was on sale. i am a thrifty shopper! we ate at a lovely fondue restaurant last night. unfortunately, we were all pretty full from our late lunch so we didn't eat huge amounts, but it was very lovely. rather than have only cheese fondue, there was a hot pot of water with a bit of oil in it that you cooked your meat it. then we had about 8 or so different sauces that you dipped the meat into. it came with bread and a salad bar too :) one of the sauces was banana. really weird. both stine and i mistook it for cheese sauce and it was promptly put onto the windowsill next to our table to make sure no one else made the same mistake.

because all of friday and saturday were spent shopping, we had to cram in all the touristy stuff quickly this morning after we checked out of the hotel. obviously we have our priorities well sorted. we drove to an old industrial area come modern apartment hotspot, which i think was built on reclaimed land on the very edge of the waterline. it reminded me a lot of wynard quarter. a group of architects are slwoly converting the area from an industrial ghost town into a funky and environmentally friendly living space for young families. it is apparently very nice in the summer time. 

 

people jump off this bridge into the water below. even the thought of doing that on a day like today could give you hypothermia. in the background you can see the bridge! a little foggy but definitely there. 

the area is all centred around the turning torso, the building above. a bit like the leaning tower of pizza's yuonger sister with plastic surgery. 

they definitely speak a very different language in Sweden. it sounded to me like the nordic sounds that are common to all of scandinavia with a bit of an italian lilt to it. i definitely find danish easier to understand, so i guess thats a good sign! 

back to school again tomorrow, and i have a busy week ahead of me. however i am away next weekend too, going to Odense to spend the weekend with some fellow kiwis, so i will have another lengthy report next week. 

so because technology is the absolute worst invention of all time, google somehow managed to make my old blog http://megidanmark.blogspot.co.nz/ invisible on my account. so it still exists. but apparently i don't own it anymore. whatever let's just start all over again. thanks google, we've really gotten off to a GREAT start.

so last week i went around taking photos of some of the simple things i hadn't taken photos of yet, like the train station, the street, my host family, etc. i tactfully omitted a picture of my room because at the moment it is a strange combination of sparse yet messy. hard to explain, but a trip to ikea next week will solve the problem of sparsity anyway. 

my new best friend molly

the kitchen. of course.

comfy comfy

there's another two inches now

sunesvej

so, what has happened since the last time i wrote... lots. i am really terrible at this whole keeping everyone up to date thing. last last weekend was copenhagen fashion week (that's where i was going out to after i finished writing last time). i went with a few girls from my class and it was really good fun! they were handing out free champagne and candy everywhere. it was sweet as, literally. oh my gosh i have the worst sense of humour. anyway, in illum, a big expensive department store i found this funny looking manikin with an arm the length of a leg. it had fallen down inside the sweater haha. and also a photo of some make up, just so you get the vibe of fashiony stuff and stuff.

asides from that, i got my first danish assignment back and i got a ten! which is good as! the equivalent of an excellence minus i guess. it was in maths, so not exactly testing my language ability too harshly but hey, it's a start! i had quite a lot of assignments actually... there work load for students here is rather large and i must say i am glad it doesn't matter too much for me. although it was the end of the term so teachers were making sure we weren't slacking off i guess.

now it is winter break, and i have just returned home from my family's summer house in Yderby. yes. a summer house. in the winter. it was quite lovely actually, in spite of the cold. we had a fire blazing for the entire four days. at one point, caroline, simon and i actually got so hot (from doing pilates workouts) that we went outside and rolled in the snow. good idea at the time, afterwards, not so much. the house was on a spit and we went for a walk with molly to the end to see where the two opposing currents meet eachother. because it is in the north of zealand, and right next to the ferry to jutland, some people have actually swum across to the mainland. we found a stone with people's times carved into it.

sorry about the change of blog, but seriously, blame google not me. happy valentines day! <3on friday, caroline, stine, mormor and i are heading off to malmø in sweden for a girls shopping weekend, while the boys are skiing in autria. i am really looking forward to a bit of retail therapy, especially considering i now have a bank account, and got drama scholarship which means another 2000 kroner for me yippee!