The end

In the last few weeks, I have been too busy making the most of the short amount of time I have left, and therefore this blog has sort of taken a backseat. I could write a whole lot about all the things I've done, but I really can't be bothered. You can hear about it when I come back, which isn't far away! 

I do, however, want to say a quick thank you to everyone who has been involved in my life up until this moment, and to all the people who have contributed to making this year pretty damn unforgettable. 

I am standing on the brink of a new horizon, one filled with opportunities and possibilities. A year ago, I stood in almost the same place; on the edge a cliff with an overweight suitcase, eyes brimming with tears, and a heart filled with hope. I left my entire world behind to deal with the real world. I was not in the slightest prepared for what this year would grow to be, nor the significance it would end up having to pretty much everything. It has not just been a year in my life, but a lifetime in one year – an eternity that has gone by in the blink of an eye. 

Whilst I a looking forward to coming home to fulfil new hopes and dreams and seize new opportunities, I am sad to be leaving. This place has given me so much knowledge, insight, and allowed me to develop a real sense of myself and the world as a whole that I didn't have before.

I know it will be hard to adjust to a world which was once so familiar to me, which will be be so alien and strange upon my return, but life is full of challenges.

See you all soon.

STORM HITS DK

On the 28th of October there was a storm. It hit multiple places in Europe, and Denmark was once of them. It was the worst storm in 60 years. Here is a video (not by me) of what it was (sort of) like:

It was nuts. Trees fell across the train lines, so the trains all stopped. Signs had been put up the weekend before for the various candidates for the local elections, so they were flying all over the place. It was impossible to ride a bike: if the wind was against you you just went backwards. Windows were smashed, bits of trampoline went flying everywhere, it was INSANE. I was extremely lucky and managed to catch THE last train home from school, and was inside before the worst hit but boy oh boy, it was nasty.

Sadly, one person died, but fortunately he was the only one. He was also a bit dumb: went down to the harbour to take a video of the waves without putting on any protective gear and got hit in the head by a roof-tile.

Our house was fine, apart from our rubbish bin, which lay out in the middle of the road when I got home - but that was easily fixed! Apart from Molly missing out on her afternoon walk and Simon's soccer getting cancelled it didn't affect us at all. Lucky we are :)

Italy

In the last holidays (our week-long autumn break) I went with my host family to Italy. I figured out that Italy is the sixth country I have been to this year - crazy!

The reason for the trip was this: Mormor and Morfar (my host grandparents) had their wedding anniversary. I think it was their 45th, but let's forget specifics. It was a big number anyway. So, they decided to rent a giant house in Tuscany for six weeks to celebrate. Throughout the time they were there, they had different people come to visit and come the October holidays, it was our turn. Pretty much all Danes go overseas in the autumn break  in search of some place warm, and fair enough because this country is really depressing at this time of year - rain, rain, wind, cold, rain. Let's just say despite the ridiculously early hour of the morning we arrived at the airport, it was not at all deserted. However, Copenhagen airport is expertly organized so we got through the kilometre long queue in no time at all! The same cannot (unfortunately) be said for Milano airport, where we had to wait an hour and a half for our rental car - but hey, in Italy, time is a non-existent concept, so when in Rome...

We were extremely lucky to have the company of not only MM and MF but also Eleonora and Hans-Christian (HC). HC is my host mum's brother, and Eleonora is his girlfriend, who just happened to be Italian! She was an absolute sweetie and such a great ambassador for her country. She showed us all kinds of Italian food, events, and taught us so much about the culture she grew up in. She was so passionate about it - and we were all so grateful for her marvellous company.

I made a little video compilation of the week. Click here to watch it!

So that was Italy. Unfortunately, Mormor and Morfar got sick at the end of the week so the ending was a little bitter-sweet. When I woke up the Monday morning after we got back, I was also sick. Bugger. But after a week in bed I was well enough to take on the world again, and exciting things began to happen again....

To be continued....

Last week of term one, there was a music concert at school. I have a list of things I want to do in Denmark, and one of them was perform in front of a crowd, so I saw it as a sign...

I got an email the week before from the music teacher which was sent out to the whole school, asking after performers. I replied, signing myself up....

I borrowed a guitar from a friend and began practising. After two days I had practised so much I had to wrap my fingers up in plasters...

Day of the concert, I woke up nervous. I spent the whole day at school nervous. I nearly cried during my sound-check because I was seriously so nervous.

I don't really understand WHY. I have been in a ton of musicals, and of course I get nerves, but I never get so nervous that my stomach hurts, I can't swallow, I feel sick and I shed tears 30 minutes before I even go on-stage.

People say nerves are good, because it means you care about the performance you are going to give, so I guess I really cared a lot. My host family, friends, and classmates were all there to see and support me, so I was kind of feeling the pressure in spite of their good intentions.

I went up, did it, and it sounded good. I felt so unbelievably good about it afterwards I cannot even begin to describe!

Here is a link which may or may not lead you to a video of me singing, I am not entirely sure how reliable it is :

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10202181647210878

It is time to publish a whole lot of posts I started and never really finished. SO.

EIFFEL TOWER?

SACRE COUER?

 

NOTRE DAME?

LOUVRE?


YES. I was in Paris. With these beautiful people: 3.A

I will try not to get into too much detail, because I honestly think Paris is such a wonderful place that I could go on about if forever and ever.

We were there from the 17th of September to the 22nd of September, which was a Tuesday night through to a Sunday night. We didn't just go because we all suddenly felt like it at the same time, it was a school trip and was SUPPOSED to be learning orientated and full of activities and research, but most of the time we just ended up sightseeing.

Our hotel was so typically Parisian. A tall, thin building wedged in-between two other tall thin buildings, resulting in us having to walk up five sets of steps to get up to our room. There was a bakery across the road where we bought our breakfasts (the gypsies on the corner eyed up our croissants with hungry eyes every morning; poverty: one of the not so good things about Paris). and a metro station a minutes walk away, giving us pretty much full access to everywhere in Paris. Our teacher recommended that we didn't use the metro so much, because it was easy to just walk everywhere in Paris, but after the first day nobody was walking anywhere if the metro was a possibility. We  followed our French teacher around on a walking tour of the city from 9AM to 6PM pretty much non-stop, and didn't get lunch until three by which point everyone was STARVING.

On that first day, we saw most of the big stuff but didn't go inside, just walked past. Which, in my opinion, was a bit dumb. It meant we had to go back in our own time to actually SEE things properly. Centre Pompidou, Notre Dame, Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, Jardin des Tuileries, the list goes on. All of this in one day. It was a bit much to proccess, I assure you.

Day 2 began with a boat tour along the Seine. It was a little chilly, but what the hey! Surprisingly, the boat tour really helped me to orientate myself around Paris. I like to think I inherited my mum's talent of "following my nose" and ending up in the right place. By the end of the trip I was almost able to walk or take the metro without consulting my gigantic touristy map, but just to be safe I kept using it, because there's nothing worse than being lost in a foreign city.

I have been to Paris before, two years ago and saw most of Paris then, but there were still some things I missed, and I managed to fill in the blanks this time, starting with La Grande Arche de la Defense. This was a modern area, which we went out and did some research on. 

I am not a good photographer, photo courtesy of google <3

My little group of four were very lucky and managed to find a very nice lady willing to be interviewed, so within the first ten minutes of being there we were done for the day and spent the rest of the time looking around in the gigantic shopping centre next door.

I am proud to say I bought nothing besides food the entire trip, plus a gift for my host sisters birthday. Being thrifty.

Next thing I ticked off was Napoleans Tomb with these two losers:

Joking, love you guys. It was near to closing time so we had to rush through a bit, but as far as all of Napoleon's monuments to himself and his achievements go, this was pretty monumental.
I also had one day that I will forever remember as the best day ever. I walked/metroed around Paris by myself for most of the day seeing art, art and more art. I ate good food, wasn't stressed out by anyone else's demands. Wandering dreamily through the elegant galleries of the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay and Musee de l'Orangerie I was disappointed by the Mona Lisa again (as I expected), but stood in front of Monet's water lilies for what seemed like hours, lost in the world of impressionism. I also had a little peek into the Centre Pompidou, the biggest modern art museum in Paris. It was intriguing. Plus, to end the day, I went all the way up to Monmartre to a Dali exhibition and took photos of myself in a photobooth, just like Amelie.

I love Paris, and I will live there one day, no matter what.

Bisous xx

Being New at Old Things

Recently, I have started up some of my old hobbies. Ballet, guitar, singing, etc. I don't know why it took me this long to get back in to doing things I love doing so much. I guess I didn't realise how much I missed them until I started doing them again!

In saying so, that doesn't mean it's easy to just start again straight off the bat. You can't just not dance ballet for eight months, start again and expect everything to go hunky dory. That's just ridiculous. The day after my first class, my calf muscles ached and I walked up and down stairs at snail pace. Not to mention that during the actual  class I struggled to keep up - it's a new syllabus, a different style of ballet, another teacher than the one I have had since I was five, aaaand the list goes on. It wasn't easy, and it still isn't to be honest. It takes some time to get used to things: both physically and mentally.

Yes, now you see where I am going with this.

It's a metaphor for what it was like arriving here because that, too, was sort of like starting something old again. I have lived in foreign countries before, I've been away from home before, I've learned languages and met new people but that doesn't mean I was in the least prepared for anything I have experienced here.

I expected a lot of myself at the beginning, and when I couldn't meet my own expectations I got really frustrated. I wanted to learn Danish so badly, and it seemed so immensely inconvenient to me that my brain wouldn't just be a sponge and soak everything up instantly. I wanted to fit in and make friends so much, but the language barrier makes this a rather difficult task. I really expected myself to be a chameleon, to just adapt and blend in to my surroundings instantly. The fact that I stuck out like a sore thumb a lot of the time bugged me, and I felt like I was letting myself down.

A lot of the exchange students who have just arrived here with the summer intake remind me so much of myself in that sense that they are so desperate to adapt, but it seems impossible to all of them. The thing I have learned is that adapting takes time, a lot of time. When you first arrive here, you want to adapt straight away, but what you don't realize is that that would take all the fun out of it. That IS the essence of the experience of an exchange, the process of getting accustomed to something totally new. Let's say I decide one day I want to be a professional trapeze artist or something. If I could get up on a trapeze and be perfect at it straight away, that takes away the specialness of accomplishing the small goals that you make for yourself along the way. Why would you want to take that out of the equation?

Also, returning home will be like a magnification of starting ballet again. It's not going to be easy. Having to adjust to my old lifestyle is going to be a total shock, and it will take some time, especially after having experienced something so different. What will make it easier for me now is that I know it takes time, I know that I wont instantly revert back to my old self within an instant. I may never return to being my old self. The thought of that once freaked me out, then I was okay with it, and now I think it is a good thing. A really good thing. What is the point of living if you are going to be exactly the same person your whole life?

I'm not even sure what I'm trying to express to you all here, but I guess the essence of it is that just because something is old doesn't mean it can't be made new again.

:)

Lately

Now time for another big catch up! Here we go....

School has well and truly begun now. My life is back to the early mornings, day spent hunched over a desk, and evenings filled with homework. The days seem to go by in a flash! It is scary to think that now I have pretty much three months left here... Time seriously flies. It's scary.

School started on Wednesday two weeks ago, but on the Tuesday beforehand all the new first graders  (we call them putte) at the gymnasium had a day with he school to themselves. It is apparently a tradition that the third and second graders stand outside the main entrance to the school and throw water and bird food at them when they leave school at the end of their first day, so we did that on Tuesday. I must admit it was a pretty pathetic effort, not many people showed up because the weather was lousy PLUS the putte got let out early, so we were caught off guard. 

Afterwards, everyone went to Lunden. Oh Lunden. The drama you have caused. Lunden is a classic example of Danish youth culture. It is a piece of grass about two minutes walk from the school that is right outside a supermarket. On Friday afternoons (and sometimes Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday too) most of the students from our gymnasium flock over to it. We buy cases of cold beer or cider and sit on the grass soaking up the sunshine for a few hours before we go home. It sounds nice, I know. However, some students recently have taken Lunden a bit too far... It began with drinking games: some of which involve running in circles in combination with drinking, some which involve hitting an upright beer bottle with a shoe. Too complicated to explain. In short, a small group of students were considerably sloshed, went in to the supermarket and did some things that got us into some serious trouble. 

Peeing in the changing rooms. Throwing up in the staff bathrooms. Opening a jar of hair gel, using it, then putting it back again. The list goes on, you get my point. So, obviously the school is coming down hard on Lunden right now. Luckily, Autumn has just begun so the weather no longer really permits it to be a good time. I have a feeling this week may be the last week in Lunden, for me anyway. Friday afternoon drinks are not really my thing...

3.A (my class) at Lunden

After the first week of school I took off to a place called Kalundborg. 

The red cross on the left is Kalundborg, and the red cross on the right in where I live. There was a music festival on on Kalundborg, and my host dad's dad lives there, so I was invited up for the weekend to go the festival and go for a horse trek! My host grandfather has five children, the oldest of which is Thomas (my host Dad) and the youngest of which is Liv. She is seventeen, but my host aunty. Cool! She has just come back form an exchange to Englang, so we had a lot to talk about. I spent the weekend with her listening to all the bands and meeting all her friends. The music was great! My favourite was this guy called Rasmus Seebach, but I also really liked another guy, Mads Langer. I'd heard some of their music before, so I guess it helped being able to sing along. There was also this really weird act on the last night that was this weird techno music and crazy costumes and then all of a sudden there was a dude playing bagpipes...

So that was that. Seriously weird combination. On the Sunday, we went horseriding. Liv has her own her, her dad has one, and her mum has one! I rode a delightful Icelandic horse whose name I can unfortunately not remember. I think it was Sunny. He was very sweet anyhow :) In spite of the rain we set out for an hour long ride which involved some moments of trotting pretty fast. I'm not exactly a professional horse-rider so I had sore legs the day after... The last time I rode a horse was when I was twelve I think. Dad had given me a four hour trek with him as a Christmas present, and I got given the most EVIL horse in existence. It sort of scared me off. But it was nice to try something different - you can certainly not horse ride in the city anyway.

The following Friday night I went to Tivoli with my host family. Tivoli is this huge theme park right by the central station. Every Friday throughout the summer the put on concerts, and last week was Mads Langer, the guy whose music I quite likes at the Kalundborg festival. It was my immediate host family + mormor, morfar, mormor's brother, his wife, and their daughter. We went out for dinner beforehand and then milled around before the concert started. There was a ridiculous amount of people. You almost couldn't see anything through the sea of sardines, and the music quality was pretty bad too, but Mads Langer was there, and we heard him (again)!

The next day, I went in to Copenhagen with Molly from New Zealand (an exchange student, not to be confused with Molly my dog) to see the Gay Pride Parade. Words cannot express the madness.

This guy was pretty normal. There was one dude I saw who was completely naked. Like, no clothes AT ALL. I considered taking a photo with him, but then when I thought about having to show it to people I realized it might not be such a good idea... Not everyone would appreciate his nudeness. Copenhagen was so vibrant and full of life, it was insane. I must say it was a bit overwhelming - all the costumes, music, alcohol and madness - but it was certainly an entertaining day.

Last night, I went to a friend's 18th Birthday. There is another one next weekend, plus a school party the weekend after that, and then off to Paris for a school trip the week after that, So I guess you could say things are getting a bit busy!

Another update coming soon. Over and out :)