A Day in the Life of a Danish Exchange Student

I almost have almost settled into a routine in my new home. I go to gymnasium monday through friday, sit in my Danish classes and comprehend about 20% of the lesson, then have two hours of Danish lessons during my last two classes. The classes here are awesome! I have four to six classes a day depending on whether classes are cancelled. I also have all my classes with the same people, which is great, since I will get to know them very well. When classes are cancelled or we have a free period, we go down to the city or to McDonald's for an hour and just hang out and talk.

On Friday I went to my first Danish party. The student council at the gymnasium throws a party for the first year students, but they invited us to attend. Esther, another American exchange student, and I were offered free beer, soda and pizza for attending the party. The party was unlike anything I have ever seen before. By about 9:00 P.M. about four people came up to Esther and I and informed us that they had been afraid to come up and speak to us in English earlier, but now they were feeling slightly tipsy, so they didn't care. hahaha it was great! The best part, however, was when we went up to the school gym and danced Lanciers (the dance we learned the first week of school). Lanciers was a success even though some of the dancers won't remember dancing or falling in the middle of the dance.

Lars, Thomas, and I drove up to Rubjerg today. From the top of the Rubjerg, I could see Hjorring, which is about 20 kilometers away, in the distance. It was also super windy at the top of the mountain, but Thomas and I enjoyed creating situations consisting of what would happen if you flew a kite up here? or what if you had an opened parachute strapped to your back? When we got home, Thomas made us homemade pizza with pepperoni, pinapple, and corn. Delicious! I also had a rootbeer that Mette bought for me at Super Best. It was ok, but IBC Rootbeer is much better (hint hint mom and dad) hahaha Later that evening I went with Lars and Mette to the beaches in Løkken. The sand here was also very fine and great to walk in barefoot. Mette and I walked around in the North Sea, which is about as warm as Lake Tahoe. Well, tomorrow I depart for language school in Bjerringbro, for a fun filled week of Danish lessons, and meeting all of the exchange students in Denmark. So as they say in Denmark vi ses (see you).

Forstår du hvad jeg siger?

Weekend! Yes! After three days of confusing Danish classes, many questions about whether or not I understood anything and dancing lessons, it's awesome to have a break. Just like all other Danes my age I celebrated with a 25 kilometer bike ride on Friday evening with my Danish mom, Mette. The countryside was beautiful! On top of one of the small hills, we could see all the way to the sea! It was so relaxing cycling around the backroads of Northern Jutland. Apart from the occasionally mooing cows and passing cars, it was just Mette and I talking and enjoying the sunny weather.

On Saturday, Lars, Mette and I drove to Nibe for a Rotary orientation. All the exchange students from district 1440 were present. The first half of the meeting was extremely uninspiring. Basically it was another Rotarian explaining the 4 D's (no drinking, driving, dating, drugs) to us. I am so glad he did since I wasn't sure if I could remember all of them from the five previous Rotary orientations. However, after lunch all the exchange students were sent downstairs to socialize and swap pins. It was so much fun! I got see some of the exchange students that I had met in the airport as well as meet other exchange students in my district. The sunset was amazing tonight! From the backyard we could see the beautiful gold, pink, and blue colors flooding the western skyline. Lars and I rushed to the Hjorringbjerg (Hjorring "mountains") to see if we could catch the sun dipping below the horzion. We just missed it. We hiked around in the towering Hjorring mountains, and I climbed up to the top of the tower. It was hard to see the city at such a high altitude, but I managed to snap a few pictures.

On Sunday, I met my third host family. They are very nice. I have a sister, Simone, who was an exchange student to Iowa last year and currently in the first year of gymnasium. I am very excited to get to know them. She is also part of handball club and has invited me to one of their practices when I return from language school in Bjerringbro. Well I have to prepare myself for another busy week at Hjorring Gymnasium, so tah tah for now!

First Day of School

The day started with a welcome assembly in the Festel (similar to a small gym). The rektor (principal) of the school, Elizabeth Austin, welcomed us back to school. At least I think she did, but I don't really know since the entire speech was in Danish. Hanne Bolt, an English teacher at the school, introduced the exchange students to the entire student body. After the assembly, Esther, Hunter and I wandered around the school sporting a deer in the headlights look. It was confusing to be in a new school, but even more confusing to be in a new school in a foreign country. Luckily, two girls from my class, which is 2y, invited me to join them in the katine (cafeteria, not a bar). They introduced me to the rest of 2y. Since we had a free period right after the assembly, I sat with my class and listened to them speak Danish to each other. I understood about 20% of the conversation. One of the girls, Ida, occasionally spoke to me in English. After a 20 minute break between the second and third classes, I went to my first class, Chemistry.

The only thing I understood in that class was the teacher introducing herself to me. The rest of the class, not so much. I think we were observing the sulfur in solid, liquid and gas form. At the end of class, my teacher Kigga, handed out textbooks and periodic tables in Danish. Our homework involved reading about 12 pages of the textbook. Kigga knew that I had a very limited Danish vocabulary, so she suggested that I just look at the pictures in the book and hopefully I would understand what was happening.

Since I had no foreign language, and my PE class was cancelled, I had another free period. However, I had no clue what to do with that hour. Ida and Cisca (classmates) suggested I just go with them to their German class. Their teacher was very nice and let me stay in the class, and study my Danish.

A 25 minute lunch period began right after German class. I sat with Esther and Louise, one of Julie's friends that I met at her party. Her English is extremely good, and it was a nice break for Esther and I to have a conversation with her in English.

The fifth class of the day was math. At the beginning of the class, Hanne Bolt, came into the class and had me introduce myself to everyone. I gave a very short speech half in Danish and half in English about where I was from and what my hobbies were. Hanne also explained to my classmates that they needed to speak Danish to me slowly and in short, simple sentences. Once she left, my math teacher, Trine, acted upon Hanne's advice and began her to lecture slowly in Danish. My classmates thought it was hilarious, but at least I could semi-understand what was happening. However, when she assigned a few warmup problems, I was once again lost in a sea of confusion. She knew that I spoke very little Danish, so she asked me in English if I had ever seen this kind of math before. I did recognize some of it, but most of it was Greek to me.

Instead of attending my last class, I participated in Lanciers, which are five dances taught to the first year gymnasium students. These dances are common at the four Thule parties the gymnasium has each year. Even though Esther, Hunter and I are not first year students, we did not know the dances, so we had to learn them with the new students. The dances are very formal, but hopefully not to complicated. The dance teachers paired us off and then grouped four pairs together. We learned the first dance. After we practiced it a few times, most of the students including myself seemed to get it. I say most because one of the boys I had to dance with had no idea what he was doing even after an hour of practice.

Even though it was a confusing first day, I am looking forward to the rest of the school year. Everybody is very nice even if they are afraid to speak English with me. Also, I'm sure at some point, I will even understand my classes.

Back to Hjørring

The night we returned from the sommerhus, Mette, Lars, Julie and I drove to the beaches in Lonstrup to see the sunset. The sand was amazing! Soft and white, nothing like Nevada's beaches. We walked down the beach past a German bunker built in World War II. It read "Zimmer Frei" which means free room in German. hahaha We also saw Marup kirke (church), which the sea is fast approaching. It was built some kilometers from the sea, but now it is only 12 meters away. We also saw the Rubjerg lighthouse in the distance.

The following day was my first Danish lesson taught by Jens (Yens) Peter (Peter). I had the class with the other Hjorring exchange students, Esther from Valentine, Nebraska, and Hunter from Niagara Falls, Canada. Mostly the lesson consisted of Jens helped us with the pronunciation of the glottal stop in Danish. Hvordan ga'r det? (How goes it?) After dinner, I met one of Julie's gymnasium (high school) friends, Laura. I also learned how to played kongspil (king game directly translated) together with Mette, Lars, Julie, Laura and Thomas.

In kongspil, you have two teams. Each team has to knock down the opponents five blocks by throwing six sticks equally divided between each team member. When one team knocks down one of the blocks, the opposing team must throw the block out into the playing field. Once the block is set upright, the opposing team must knock down the block before they can go after the remaining blocks. Once all five blocks have been knocked down, then the team can attempt to knock over the king block, which is placed in the middle of the field. The team that knocks over the king wins.

After several games of kongspil, I watched Fried Green Tomatoes with Mette, Laura, and Julie. It was a excellent movie. Then Laura, Julie and I watched Anaconda, which wasn't a particularly good movie. The huge snake definitely looked fake, and ate more people in three days then a snake would ever eat in its lifetime.

On Saturday, I experienced a Danish Christmas Eve dinner with my family and I think Mette's or maybe Lars sister and her two children. The Danes really know how to celebrate Christmas with excellent food. We had flaeskesteg (roast pork) with hot rodkal (red cabbage), sweet potatoes, regular potatoes with brown sauce, and for dessert we had risengrod (sweet rice porridge). It is a Danish tradition to put one whole almond in the risengrod, and whoever finds it wins Christmas. After we finished eating, we played a traditional Danish Christmas game. There is a pile of presents placed in the middle of the table. Then, everyone around the table rolls a dice. If you get a six you get to take a present for yourself, and once all the presents are gone, the real "fun" begins. In the next round that lasts about 12 minutes, everyone rolls the dice, but this time if you roll a one you take a present from one person and give it to another. If you roll a six, you get to take a present from someone and keep it for yourself. There are no teams in this game, so if you lose all your presents that's too bad. Apparently this game makes children cry at Christmas, but I'm not sure why.

On Sunday morning, we had brunch with Mette's dad and his girlfriend, Lars mother, and Mette's sister and her husband. Danish brunch is delicious! We had fresh eggs and sausage and some other fattening foods. Julie had her going away party later in the day. I was introduced to about 30 students from the gymnasium, whose names I forgot about 3 minutes after I met them. I also met many family friends whose names also escape me. This was the first party in my life that I had to leave to take a nap due to exhaustion. Now I am beginning to experience the language fatigue that was explained in Rotary orientations. Even though I can only understand about 20% of the conversations, it is always so exciting for me when I know what people are talking about. The speaking is going to take a while though. I'm sure once I can remember that the correct response to have a goodnight's sleep is not "your welcome" I'll be on the right track.

Sommerhus i Sønderjylland (summer house in Southern Jutland)

The day after I arrived, my family and I drove about 4 hours to the summer house in Southern Jutland (mainland Denmark) that they had rented for a week. Before arriving at the summer house, we drove into Germany to a border shop and stocked up on soda and candy since it's cheaper in Germany. The summer house was very hyggeligt (cozy), and it looked out onto a fjord. We walked down to the marina in the evening after dinner. It was a very enjoyable walk with my family especially with Thomas, my brother, and Julie, my sister, who are very funny. Just reference my facebook pictures.

The next day we drove to Grasten Slot (Castle) where the Danish royal family was vacationing. We hoped that we would get to see the royal family. Unfortunately we didn't, but we did get to see the changing of the guard on the castle grounds though. After lunch as the summer house, we drove to Sonderburg. The royal ship that had transported the royal family to their summer house was docked at Sonderberg. After touring the walking street, we strolled down to the Sonderborg Slot (castle) to watch the ring riding (bottom picture). I also ate a hamburger for the first time with a fork and knife at a cafe near the castle. Later that evening I experienced my first game of Pictionary in Danish. Basically, when it was my turn to draw a picture for my teammates to guess, my family just told me to draw whatever word I could understand on the card.

On the last day at the summer house, we drove to Flensborg, Germany. I had now spent the last three of my four days in Denmark in Germany. We walked down to the marina and the walking street for several hours looking in the shops. We had lunch at a cafe on the walking street. Ordering was now even more confusing, since it was in another language I didn't know. My family told me that I could just learn German along with my Danish.

Airport Trouble

I said goodbye to my parents and Camilla Friday morning and boarded the 7:40 A.M. flight to Denver with Mara Chapman, another exchange student on her way to Denmark. Unfortunately, when we reached Denver, we discovered that our flight to Chicago was delayed three hours, so Mara and I ate lunch and waited and waited. Then the flight board informed us that the flight was now fours hours late and coming at 4:20 P.M. Ugh! We finally boarded the flight to Chicago, but for whatever reason mother nature did not want us to meet our connection in Chicago, so it started torrentially raining on the tarmac. Yay! We had to wait another half hour to take off. Now Mara and I really started to worried that we would not make our Copenhagen flight.

After we reached Chicago, we ran to our SAS connection, but due to a train arriving late at Terminal 5 and the slow security check, Mara and I were ten minutes too late to make our 10:05 flight. The agents working at the airline gate sent us to the SAS counter to see if anyone could help us at 10:30 at night. While we were in line, Mara's dad was able to reschedule our tickets for a 3:00 P.M. flight to Frankfort, Germany. We collected our luggage from SAS, and proceeded to drag our heavy suitcases to Terminal 1. We walked around a nearly deserted airport at 11 at night searching for an United Airlines employee forever! Luckily we finally did find an employee, who gave us a voucher to the Ramada Inn, and directed us to the hotel shuttles that ran 24 hours a day. Mara and I dragged our suitcases out to the shuttles only to discover that there was no shuttle to the Ramada Inn. We lugged our suitcases back to the terminal, and asked the agent on duty what we should do now. She called the hotel, and imagine that, the shuttle had stopped running an hour ago. She put us up in the Hilton for the night, which was the best thing that had happened all day.

We flew out of Chicago at 3:00 P.M. after spending about 30 minutes at the check-in while the Lufthanse agents figured out if they were going to let us on the plane, since we only had a piece of paper with locator numbers and no boarding passes. The agent also told me that the airline could only check my bags until Copenhagen, and then I would have to figure out how to get my bags to Aalborg, Denmark, my final destination. The agents did finally get us on the flight. We arrived in Frankfort at 6:40 A.M. Mara and I parted ways since she had a direct flight to Bilund in the A terminal, her final destination. I had to fly to Copenhagen departing from the B terminal. It took me a while to get to the B Terminal to gate B12, where my Kobenhavn flight was scheduled to depart. The signs in Frankfort airport are not helpful at all. One of the signs told me that i needed to go to the right to get to gate B12. Unfortunately there was a 20 minute wait to get through the passport check where a grumpy German policemen told me that this only went to the C gates and that i was supposed to go left. I ended up at another passport check were another unhappy German employee directed me to the correct passport area. Then I had to go through security before I could get to the gate. When I finally arrived at the gate, I asked the lady working at the desk for my boarding pass. She shooed me away and told me come back later. I met up with about 10 other exchange students on their way to Denmark, and we swapped stories of our traveling woes. I did finally get my boarding pass from the snarky desk attendant, but she told me that they had overbooked the flight, so I was on standby. After the non -standby passengers plane had boarded, it was just another exchange student and I waiting for seats. Then another grumpy German supervisor told us that he had one seat left on the plane. Thankfully the other exchange student let me have the flight.

I arrived in Copenhagen around 11:00 A.M. I walked to my connecting flight leaving at 12:15 P.M for Aalborg. When I asked the nice, Danish desk attendant to print my boarding pass, she informed me that I was not on the flight list. She sent me back through to the re-ticketing area to see if someone could assist me. An employee working at the re-ticketing area informed me that when my flight was rescheduled the travel company did not book my flight all the way through to Aalborg. I did however have a reservation to fly from Aalborg to Copenhagen June 7th, 2010. What?! I ended up having to buy another ticket that cost me about $200. Luckily the next flight was at 1:05 P.M., and my luggage would be on the plane! I also met more exchange students on their way to Aalborg near the gate my flight was supposed to fly out of. However the switched the flight to another gate, and by the time I had realized it, I was too late to make my flight. I had to go back to the re-ticketing area to get another ticket for the later flight to Aalborg at 4:55 P.M. I finally made it to Aalborg 50 hours after leaving Reno and 24 hours later then expected.