My Journey in Denmark: Intro Camp

On Sunday, I came home from what can only be described as the best week of my life. The Rotary Intro Camp was a blast! I had so much fun and I made so many new friends that I already miss, even though we've only been apart for two days.. For those of you on Facebook, you may have already seen the millions of photos from that week. For those of you not on Facebook, I've got plenty of pictures here for you. Our days were pretty routine at the camp. Breakfast at 8, Danish class from 9 until 12, lunch, class again from 1 to 4, then we had some free time, dinner at 6, and then they usually had some sort of entertainment for us in the evening. Our classes looked something like this: (You'll find me in the top left)

The food looked something like this:

Okay fine, just my food looked like this...

Our free time consisted of pool, foosball, dance parties, and sitting around the couch singing and trading pins for our Rotary blazers.

The surprise entertainment included a cheesey Danish film, a live band performance by the Striving Vines, a bonfire with brød on a stick, soccer, and on the last night we had a dance.

On Wednesday, we took a trip to Viborg and got to walk around the town. We were suppose to have a tour through the cathedral, but it was locked when we got there, but it was still a gorgeous little town to explore. Then the buses took us to this hilltop with the most beautiful view! We had scones and tea here, and then returned to the school for more Danish lessons.

Friday we went to Århus to visit the Art Museum and do some shopping. I bought some clothes and then most of us went out and bought a bunch of chocolate, because they were only feeding us healthy food at the camp, and we were in need of some sweets! The art museum was actually really cool, and their most famous piece, "The Boy", is pictured here, along with the mirror room, and me by the museum.

During the classes we learned a few more basic phrases, the past, present perfect, present, and future tenses, and a ton of new vocabulary. We also learned a new Danish song everyday. Our teacher would show us a popular Danish music video and then we would get the lyrics and he would help us translate it all. It was a fun way of learning some new words, and at the end of the week, everyone was singing these Danish songs :)
On the last day of the camp, each class put on a little entertainment piece, and then the teachers all performed a few of the songs we had learned. Then we had a dance and everyone was preparing to say goodbye in the morning. It was the most exciting week, and I found it so amazing that there were so many different people from all over the world, all blending together and connecting so well! I became really good friends with many of the Spanish speaking students, (they all thought it was really cool that I was almost fluent in Spanish), and with the Brazilians, because they always start the fun! My blazer is now full of pins of all kinds, and my wrists are crowded with bracelets and ribbons from all over as well! The Brazilians had the most people by far, so of course I have a ton of Brazilian pins and scarves and bracelets now.
As much as I miss the Intro camp, it's nice to be back with my host family, and to go back to school. I missed my classmates, and plus I get more sleep here than I did at the camp. I'll leave you with a few more pictures from my amazing week:

Pictured here is Missy (from my district in MN), Gustavo (My host brother from my 2nd host family is in Brazil right now living with Gustavo's family), Ayume (from Brazil), and me.