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 :)

Molly

Molly, our Golden Retriever, is probably one of the things I am going to miss the most. It's weird, but she's just ALWAYS there and always happy to see me. Some of her habits include:

-Morning and afternoon walks
-She eats grass
-She whimpers and twitches in her sleep
-Whenever we sit down to eat, she has to go outside
-She never barks, but scratches at the door when she wants to come in
-If you are home alone she sits outside your door and watches you
-If you are patting her and then stop she will stare at you and shove her head into your lap until you start again
-She malts like crazy

And many more. Here is a taste of her life.

The preceding image serves as a warning that this post is going to be an absolute MONSTER. Since the last time I properly wrote ( didn't just add a link to a video ) I have been on soooo many adventures. So here we go.

I think it must have been the 14th of July when it all began. A one and a half hour drive to a place called Marielyst in Nykobing Falster, the summerhouse area in the southernmost island of Denmark. Caroline's best friend Frida and her family were down there and we had been invited to stay for a night. It isn't actually a summerhouse either - well it is but that's not how they tend to use it. Frida's Dad is an actor and most years he performs in something called a "Review" - a series of skits and scenes that sort of summarize the years' political, sporting , and cultural achievements/failures in a hilarious, piss-taking sarcastic way typical of the Danes. The 'Review' is performed every Tuesday-Saturday from June until August I think, so Frida's Dad Henrik actually LIVES in the summer house for two/three months.

The house was right next to a fabulous beach which we walked along to get ice cream. There were waves and sand and wind and it was a lot like a beach at home, really. Marielyst is also kind of like The Mount of Denmark. In the summer time all the 'buffies' and Jersey shore types arrive in their fancy cars, drink like fish, cause absolute havoc and disappear with the sun in late August some time. Weird thing is, they are nocturnal. During the day it's all German tourists, then at night time the party begins. Or at least so I heard.

We only stayed one night there, but Simon ( host brother ) and Vigo ( Frida's little brother ) insisted on going for a run as Simon was really keen on staying in top form for when soccer started back. An hour and a half later, they still weren't back. That was a stressful morning. Anyway, they came back eventually and we went to see Møns Klint - a chalk cliff about an hours drive away. We had to walk down four hundred steps to get to the bottom. We stood in awe, then walked back UP four hundred steps again.... Unfortunately at this stage my camera was buried deep in my bag so I got NO photos but I took a peice of chalk with me, and the lovely google image can supply an image to go with:

The same day, we continued to drive on to Sønderjylland where some family friends were borrowing a relatives house whilst they were away. To get there I think we drove through almost every major island Denmark has...  Sønderjylland is a region in the Southern part of Jutland next to the German border, and it is rather different from the rest of Denmark in a variety of ways. It actually used to belong to the Germans, so parts of the German culture have crept their way in to the area. They also have a very special accent down there - a mixture of German and Danish sort of. The other thing about it is that they speak VERY slowly. This leads a lot of Danes to think they are slow in the head, but they aren't, just more relaxed. I can also see how it would be good to live there as an exchange student - everyone talks so slowly that it is easier to understand the language in a weird kind of way! It is a part of the country rich with history too - some of which we saw when we went on a bike ride around. Canons, an old port etc. There was a museum but it was hideously expensive and apparently underwhelming so we skipped that and got ice cream instead!

We stayed there for two nights, then drove on to Berlin. I saw drove on like a casual thing but it actually took about 6-7 hours. There were road works on the highway so we had to drive via Hamburg. One thing about German motorways - there is no speed limit. It freaked me out. I swear everyone in Germany has either a Porsche or an Audi that they drive at like, 300km an hour. Now I wont say too much about Berlin, as most of it is said in the video. I will, however add some pictures.

It is a strange feeling to see places that you have seen it history films. Places where you have seen Hitler giving a speech on an old black and white tape, where you have seen Nazi soldiers marching in old movies. It's weird and kind of unreal. In the second photo we are standing by a large chunk of the wall that had been preserved. At one stage, I walked past a photo which showed three dead bodies which had been strung up to the wall. The photo was displayed in front of the exact same part of the wall where those bodies had been. It was a really grounding thing to see. 

Another interesting thing about Berlin is that despite the wall coming down, there is still a separation between West and East, however it's much more atmospheric. It was much like when I was in Vietnam a few years ago. The state of division no longer exists in an official sense, but a division of a certain kind cannot be broken - it is retained by the people, the ambience, the buildings, even the smell of places sometimes. Especially in a place like Berlin where the separation existed for so long, it is a little as if people forgot how to be unified as a whole city again. It's definitely not a negative thing, just quirky. It was also boiling hot and I do not understand a word of German.

SO. It took us TEN hours to get home this time because the traffic was so thick. Awesome. Also - on the way there we stopped off at the border shop. It is technically in Germany but everyone who shops there is Danish. It is MEGA cheap and you can get bulk loads of fizzy drink, chocolate, lollies and stuff for SUPER cheap prices. We were glad we did it on the way there rather than we way back. That way we had sugary snacks for the car ride (yum) and didn't drag our journey out longer than it already was.

We got home at around eight, had dinner, slept, then got into the car the next morning and went to the summer house in Nykobing Sjælland. Yesssss.

Days and days of this. Perfectly blue sky, sun, beach, and nothing but free time. Only problem being we spotted a fair few nasty jellyfish in the water sometimes. The beach by the summerhouse is a rock beach - different to what I'm used to at home. The benefit of it was that you don't get sand in your bikini, towel, hair, food, sunscreen etc. etc. and in that sense it was LOVELY to have a rock beach.

Next stop: Bornholm. Again. If you read my blog all the time then you will have read a post in April about this place. I went for a mini-stay with AFS when it was FREEZING cold over there. In summer it is a totally different place! We stayed in a summerhouse there with some family friends and their kids. It was such a nice week - a good balance of good and bad weather, relaxing yet no too relaxing so it gets boring, and entertaining all at the same time.


We did most of the same stuff I did during that week, and a few more things in addition. We went to a glass blowing place where I helped Cecilie ( one of the family friends' kids ) to make a name plate for her hamster out of little bits of glass. We stuck them onto a big piece of glass which was then heated over night so they all melted together and it looked fabulous! I also jumped off a cliff and zip-lined over a lake. That was really really fun! There is a video, but it is incompatible with my computer for some reason. Will try get it up somewhere - it does exist!

I kind of thought about it afterwards as a metaphor for my exchange. Like, you walk up a big hill and get to the top of a cliff. You are scared, but you have come all this way and you have to jump now. That's what it felt like leaving home. The jump is scary, because you don't want to fall, but then you feel that the ropes have got you and you start to take in everything around you and you get a whole new view from the one you had at the top of the cliff. Then, BOOM, you land in the water with a shock. You are back where you started but you have seen and done something new and you have a new found courage. Cheesy I know but whatever.

We drove straight over the bridge from Sweden and I was immediately dropped off to AFS summer camp - I didn't get a chance to come home before. It was a fun and enlightening weekend. There were over 150 new students who had just arrived, plus the ones who came in winter. It was so interesting to see everyone going through the exact same thing we all did at the beginning - the weird combination of excitement, nervousness, sadness anticipation. Like every emotion at once. It was also the first time I had seen everyone from the winter intake since the first camp ( pretty much ). Seeing how much everyone has adapted and developed was interesting. Some definitely more than others - everyone has had totally different experiences and it has really impacted how we approached/will approach the year.

School starts again next week. I am looking forward to a bit of routine again but I know I will regret saying it in three weeks and wish I had holidays again! My Danish has improved leaps and bounds over the holidays I think, so I am excited at the prospect of seeing how much more school work I can do. After camp I have a whole new set of goals to fulfil so let's see what the remaining months will bring!

:)

Berlin

Click here  to see a video Caroline (best host sister ever) made of our trip to Berlin! :)