Last Monday

So this is just a short short update for you all.
I'm heading to Berlin on Friday for winter break! I'll be staying there with my host family in their uncle's apartment down there. According to Lise, it's an amazing apartment! Plus it's in Berlin... so I'm VERY excited for this :) I'll be there until Wednesday, and then on Thursday we're going to København again until Saturday.
Also, my Danish classes in Svendborg are now done. Monday was our last day, and it was a lot of fun! Last Monday we took the reading, writing, and listening part of our Danish test, and then this Monday we took the speaking part of it where we had to talk about one of 3 books that we've read. I aced the reading, writing, and listening part, and we find out how we did on the speaking part later. We'll be getting a letter in the mail about the whole test. It's a legit test here, so if we come back to Denmark to study, we can have this paper to show how far we've gone with these classes! We made a big lunch together and we took about a million pictures. We all got little Lego men from our teacher, and she told us we could speak Danish with them so we don't forget what we've learned. We also gave her a thank you gift; We put photos from the past 6 months into a photo album and then we each wrote a little thank you letter to her and put those in the album as well! I'll still be able to see these exchange students again, because they all live pretty nearby, but I'm really going to miss my Mondays with them. I loved being able to go to Svendborg every Monday and talk Danish with all of these exchange students and learn Danish! Mondays usually aren't my friend, but I actually didn't mind them when I went to Svendborg! Now I have to go to actual school every Monday. It's gonna be rough, but all of my Danish classmates are excited that I get to come to school 5 days a week with them now. I'm also excited about seeing them more, but not about the 5-days-of-school-in-a-row part...
Well, I'm off to bed now. I've got a lot to do before I leave for Berlin!

Thanks for the amazing 6 months with you all!
All for now
-Heidi

The Little Things

I got out of school at 10 am today (I only had one class), and I came home and felt like writing a new blog post. So just a warning, this is going to be very random. But I have a busy weekend ahead of me so I figured I'd fit in a blog post before I left.
Not too much has happened since I last wrote.
Okay I take that back.
A LOT has happened since I last wrote. It's a crazy and exciting life I lead over here in Denmark, and it's something fun and new everyday! Nothing big has happened, but just in my everyday life I find so much joy in all of the small things that happen. Let me just give you a few examples:

Last Sunday I went to the Nytårskur in Ringe (to be honest I really have no idea what it was, but Rotary invited me to come along, so I went). There was a little opening ceremony for this Nytårskur, where several elderly Danes dressed up in old fashioned military uniforms and shot off canons and guns to celebrate whatever it was that we were celebrating! (I think it was a town gathering and events fair type of deal). These old men, however, just made my day! Usually when a military act is performed, it's very formal and everyone moves in unison, but that was not the case here. The men all moved and at their own pace, some of them were struggling a bit to load their guns, not all of the guns would go off when were fired, and they wouldlook at each other for help. But they were all so cheerful and flamboyant, that it didn't matter! They were just these adorable old men, and I may have taken a lot of pictures of them..

THEN! On Monday after my Danish class in Svendborg, me and the other exchange students were walking around the town, and we saw a ton of people gathered around with news cameras. Being optimistic we thought it might be the Queen or the Prince. No such luck. But it was two social democrats from Denmark and they were handing out apples and talking to the press. So we decided to chat with them and take pictures like all of the other paparazzi. Even though they weren't big celebrities, us exchange students still were excited meeting them!

My last story happened just yesterday. Lise and I were sitting in my room, when we heard a little bell ringing. It was the ice cream truck! I got really excited because it's been years since I've seen an ice truck. So being a typical exchange student, I whipped out my camera and stood outside the door until he drove by so I could get a picture of a Danish ice cream truck! But as he drove by, he saw me standing outside, and I think he thought I wanted to buy ice cream, so he started backing up into our driveway! Lise and I were just giggling because we didn't really know what to do. So then Anette came outside and explained to him that I was an exchange student and simply wanted a picture of his truck. He was very kind and said I could take as many pictures as I'd like, but he told Anette that he couldn't talk with me because he didn't speak English. I quickly relieved his worries and told him I was fully capable of speaking Danish! He was quite impressed, and I was satisfied with my ice cream truck photos :)

Well I have to catch the train soon. I'm going to Vejle for the weekend to celebrate and exchange student's birthday.
Hope everyone is enjoying the snow back home!
All for now,
-Heidi