Odense and Copenhagen

It's only been 2 days since my last blog and I already have much more to write about! The life of an exchange student is not a dull one. On Monday, I slept in until about 11:20 and I thought I was going to be the last one awake and I was all worried that I had missed breakfast and possibly lunch, but when I came downstairs, my mom told me that Soren was still sleeping. So I felt better, and was glad to hear that Soren enjoys his sleep as much as I do. Susanne got out some cereal for me and what looked like milk... So I poured a bowl of corn flakes (that's about the only type of cereal they have, and I miss Malt-O-Meal already) and poured the "milk" on top, but it turned out to be more like a really thick cream that had a bit of a sour taste to it. Similar to condensed milk, but I wasn't really sure if they covered their cereal with it, or if it was a substitute for milk, so I struggled for a bit. But I ate it all, and it was pretty good! Then Soren came downstairs and poured himself some cereal, but he took out the milk and just ate it normally, so I'm not really sure what or why I put this other substance on my cereal... Oh well! After breakfast, Soren took me to the school we will be attending and luckily it was open so he was able to show me around and he told me a bit about how their school day works. I will get into more of the school subject once I actually start. We then went and picked up my host brother, Aske, from my 2nd host family (Aske leaves for his exchange to Brazil tomorrow) and the three of us drove to the town of Odense, which is the largest city on the island of Fyn. We walked through the downtown area and did some sight-seeing, but my favorite part of our trip was when they let me order our lunch. It was my first time testing my Danish, and after repeating to Soren and Aske what I was supposed to say about 10 times, I asked the lady in the hot dog wagon for three hotdogs. It must not have been that bad, because about 30 seconds later we each got our hotdogs! The Danish hot dog is a bit different, though, but much more delicious. The actual sausage is a bit longer than the bun, and then 3 sauces are put on, mustard, ketchup, and remoulade. Then it is topped with fresh onions, crispy fred onions, and pickles! It's pretty messy to eat, but very good! I also tried licorice sticks. Apparently licorice is the big candy in Denmark and they love it. I'm not too fond of it. These sticks were literally small parts from licorice roots and you just sucked on them and you got the taste of the licorice. We spent the majority of the day in Odense and then drove back to Ringe. For dinner that night we had chicken, corn on the cob, and a small "salad" containing tomato, avocado, and a special cheese made with wildebeest milk. It was all very tasty!
Today, Susanne and Neils worked all day, so Soren and I took the train to Copenhagen. It took about an hour and a half to get there, but it was pretty cool to take the train, especially since we go through an underwater tunnel to get to the island that Copenhagen is on. Once we were there, we met up with two of Soren's friends that were exchange students in Australia with him 2 years ago. Caroline was from Norway, and Jonas was from Copenhagen. We went into the amusement park called
Tivoli, which is in the center of the city and has a lot of really neat old-fashioned buildings and rides. Soren bought me a pin there to put on my Rotary blazer :) After the park we walked through the main street, which is one of the longest shopping streets in the world! There was a lot of cool buildings there, but what I really liked about it was that there weren't any skyscrapers because they didn't want to cover up any of the old, historical buildings in the city. It was a really pretty place and there were bike everywhere! I loved it. We said goodbye to Caroline and Jonas and got back on the train to Odense, where we would take another train back to Ringe. However, the train to Odense was delayed about 40 minutes and once we got on, there were no seats, so Soren and I started a trend and sat on the floor in the aisles! About halfway through the ride, the train stopped because a man on the train was having breathing problems. They completely shut down the train and all of the lights turned off for about 5 minutes while they started it back up. Then we continued on to Odense. Once we got there, we bought our tickets to Ringe but the screens that tell when and where the trains will be were all turned off and we found out that the trains were done for the night... sweet... Soren said we could just take the bus back, but the bus that went straight to Ringe had left about 5 minutes before we got to the station, so we took the bus that took about 3 times as long to get to our town because of all of the stops it made. Soren and I had some great bonding time as we were traveling, though, and we're becoming really good pals!
Tomorrow we don't have anything planned, which is good because my feet are quite tired from all of the walking. For dinner tomorrow night I'm making Sloppy Joes! This should be interesting considering I've never made them before... But Soren said he would help me.
Wish me luck!!
-Heidi