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.