Efterårsferie

This past week we had fall break (efterårsferie) in Denmark. It’s an entire week off, and most people use this time to travel around Denmark, or around neighboring countries. Søren went to Belgium, France, Germany, and Spain to visit friends from his exchange to Australia, and I stayed in Denmark and visited all of my friends here! I was with different people every day and doing something new every day as well. I kept very busy (which I love) so my efterårsferie was simply delightful!
Here are a few of the exciting things I did over my break:

-I went to Fredericia on Jylland and met Denmark’s best guitarist (in his age group).
-Made the world’s most delicious banana chocolate cake!
-Ate pigeon. It was great.
-Carved pumpkins and cooked the pumpkin seeds.
-Had a movie night with all of the girls in my class.
-Ate Turkish candy while at a sleep over with Turkish exchange students.
-Went to Odense to the Harry Potter Festival with a few exchange students from Canada and the U.S. (unfortunately I missed the day that J.K. Rowling was there..)
-Took a train to Copenhagen with Missy and met up with our friend Manuel from Mexico.
-Got to see Nyhavn, the Opera House, and the Queen’s Palace in Copenhagen.
-Made American/Mexican/Danish burritos.
-Made a cookies.
-Met some of the oldies (exchange students that have been in Denmark for 9 months already) and spoke some Danish with them!
-Met up with more Mexican and Brazilian exchange students in Copenhagen and got to speak Spanish the whole day with them :)
-Went to Frederiksborg Castle with Susanne, my brother Jens, his girlfriend Mathilde, and Grandma Nina.
-Got a boat tour of Copenhagen.
-Ate at a running sushi bar with Jens,Mathilde, Susanne, and Henrik. (I didn’t know how much I loved sushi)
-Saw the old Viking ships that were dug up from the bottom of a canal and rebuilt.
-Went to Roskilde with Susanne and saw the outside of a beautiful famous church there; there was a concert going on inside so we couldn’t go in...
-Came home and realized I had school the next morning. Dang.

But I think all the nonstop activity got to me, because I’ve got quite the cold and my body is just exhausted. So today I’m taking a day off to recovery. Susanne and Niels have been so extremely helpful and are taking very good care of me :) Hopefully I’ll be better soon, because I’ve got more places to go and people to see, starting Friday with a Rotary get together in Hoelbæk. The day I return from that, I’ve got a class trip to Copenhagen for 3 days, and then when I get back from that, I’m going to the summerhouse in Jylland with my second host family for a few days. I really do love being busy, but I have to remember to slow down a bit and take care of myself. Plus, there is so much to see and do everyday, I need to take some time to take it all in and remember all of the amazing experiences I’m having.
The weather here is getting colder, and the days are getting shorter. Yesterday I biked to school in the dark... not fun... and the cars were covered in frost this morning, too. There was suppose to be snow last Wednesday, but it turned out to be just really cold rain. I’m pretty excited to have winter here, but I’ve been told that they don’t always have a white Christmas, which would be something new for me! I secretly hope that there is snow on Christmas, though.
As far as the language goes, I feel like I’m a bit of a pitstop right now. I’m not learning as much as I did earlier, but that’s because I know all (or most) of the basic conversation words and phrases. Now I just need to learn all of the other words. And besides my Danish classes every Monday, the only way to do this is to speak Danish and keep asking questions! So I feel like my skills are slowing down right now, but I’m still learning new words everyday, and I just have to use my Danish as much as possible to learn more.

Here is a link if you'd like to see some more photos of my exchange so far!

-Heidi