Weekend in Skagen

On Friday I joined all the other exchange students from district 1440 (northern Jutland) for a weekend in Skagen. The best part was that I successfully arrived in Skagen without any travel problems. Yay! Saturday morning we visited the northernmost point in Denmark, Grenen. Grenen is also where the Kattegat (Baltic Sea) and the Skagerrak (North Sea) meet. Like every tourist that has visited Grenen, I had my picture taken standing with one leg in each sea. Then we walked down the beach to one of Skagen's lighthouses. Vejret var smuk! (The weather was beautiful!) We walked up to the top of the lighthouse where all of Skagen as well as Grenen were visible. It looked just like the pictures that I had seen on the Internet several months previous. For anyone who decides to visit Denmark this is a must see destination. After we stopped for lunch, we visited Tilsandede Kirke. Only a part of the church remained. The other part was buried underneath the constantly moving sand dunes of north Jylland (Jutland). The next stop was the Råbjerg Mile which is about a square kilometer of sand dunes. It looked very out of place with the surrounding seas and green landscape. We played on the dunes for a while before returning to Skagen to see the Skagen museum. The museum was very cool. It had all the famous, original paintings created by the painters of Skagen. I met up with Ina, a friend introduced to me at Julie's going away party, at the museum. It was fantastic to see her, and we walked around the museum while she explained the famous paintings. Next we walked through the downtown of Skagen. I got a guided tour, since I was with Ina. It was such a pretty town. After we enjoyed a soft ice (the most amazing ice cream ever) we went down to the Skagen harbor. There was a very nice cafe there, and the Rotarians treated all 30 exchange students to any non-alcoholic drink we wanted. I got to visit with Ina for about another hour before she had to go to work. Sunday was the last day in Skagen, but I look forward to visiting again.

Vil du sige det igen langsomt?

I had my first full, uninterrupted week of school since the beginning of the school year. I went to my first handball practice on Tuesday. The coach and all the girls and the playing on the team are very nice and willing to help me learn the rules of handball. Handball is somewhat similar to basketball, so I wasn't absolutely terrible :) I hope that I will learn to play quickly though. On Wednesday, I accompanied Esther and some of her friends from her 2m class for Esther's Danish makeover. She is know looking very Danish with some new clothes and a hair cut. On Thursday I got out of school at 12:05 P.M. YES!! I went exploring on my bicycle around Hjørring. Luckily there are many signs in Denmark, since there were several times I had no idea where I was. My little adventure once again reminded me of the importance of a good map (cough* cough* Mom and Dad) :) I did make it home safely and soundly. But the best part of the week was on Friday. My gymnasium had this school event known as "Fredag (Friday) Cafe." I sat with my class and we just talked and enjoyed each other's company. They also taught me a few Danish card games. It was very hyggeligt (cozy (a very important Danish word)).

Danish is getting easier everyday. I am understanding more and more of everyday conversation. I can also carry on small and basic conversations with my host family and school friends. It is so great that I am getting so much help with my Danish. Even though I have to ask my classmates to repeat things to me many times slowly, they are always happy to help me. My family has been a huge help in my education. My dad Lars spent five hours of his time over a few days helping me read a short story I was assigned in Danish class. I am enjoying every moment of my time here. I love Denmark!

IntroCamp

Sunday morning I finished packing and boarded the train from Hjørring to Randers with Esther and Hunter. For whatever reason traveling to and around Denmark is not my forte. As Esther put it "things started to go south the moment I sat down next to Alex Fallon." When Esther, Sophia, another exchange student, and I were attempting to get off the train at Randers we were boxed in by the man with the food cart. Since we were unable to get off the train, we had to go all theway to Århus. We ended up having to buy another ticket to travel to Bjerringbro, the location of IntroCamp. As if that wasn't exciting enough, we misunderstood how the train route to Bjerringbro worked. At one of the stops, Langa, we thought the train had turned around and was returning to Århus, which it wasn't.It actually was going out backwards in a different direction. We decided that we should just get off the train, so we didn't end up back in Århus. Once the train had headed on its merry way to Bjerringbro without us aboard, we figured out our mistake. Luckily we had only gotten off one stop to early, sowe were less than 5 miles away from Bjerringbro. We called Martin, someone in charge at IntroCamp, and explained that we had arrived, but we needed to be picked up in Ulstrup. He s that someone was on their way to get us. Awesome! We sat down and waited. However two hours later there had been no sign of Martin. I finally got a call from him asking where we were. "Well we're still sitting in Ulstrup waiting for someone to pick us up." "Oh, um, I'll call you back." He never did, but he magically appeared 20 minutes later.

IntroCamp kept us busy with all the things that Rotary had scheduled. We would have Danish lessons in the morning, lunch and then Danish lessons until dinner. After dinner we would have various activities we could participate in such as soccer, hockey, and other games. However, the best part of IntroCamp was going on day trips. On Wednesday, we went to Viborg, a city a little south of Bjerringbro. We were supposed to visit the Viborg Cathedral, but it was closed, so we just walked around downtown Viborg. I had salad pizza for the first time ever. It's exactly what it sounds like, a salad on top of a pizza. One of my friends Emily had the biggest kebab i have ever seen in my life. That night, we had an Danish rock band, the Striving Vines perform for us. Their music was quite good. Thursday night we had a bonfire. All of us gathered together to swap pins and take pictures. We also cooked bread over the fire, a Danish campfire tradition. It was tasty, especially when filled with jam, but it also took 15 minutes since one couldn't light it on fire. The following day we went to Århus. It was an interesting museum. It was very different from any art museum I have ever seen before. After spending a few hours in the museum, we went to downtown Århus and walked around looking in the shops. On Sunday we all said our goodbyes and returned to our homes in Denmark.