Lovely Life

I’m now living with my 3rd host family. How has time gone by this fast? How can I already be at my last host family? How is already the end of MARCH??
I'm pretty sure I don't have a single free day for the next few months. I've got so many things that I want to still, so luckily I still have 3 VERY LONG months ahead of me (yes, 3 months is a long time. I won't let you tell me otherwise). But let's get back on track.. I'm moved in with my third host family! I have once again been very lucky and landed with an amazing family. I have a 19 year old sister, Louise, who was in Brazil last year as an exchange student, a 16 year old brother Jannik, and an 11 year old sister Line, plus mother Susanne and father Flemming. We live out in the country in a small town called Rolfsted. I no longer live a 2 minute walk away from the school.. Instead, I get to take a 25 minute bus ride to school every morning. There is only 2 buses from Rolfsted to Ringe in the morning, and only 2 buses from Ringe to Rolfsted after school. There is no train in this town, and buses do not run in the evening, nor on weekends. My traveling is a bit limited now, but Susanne and Flemming are used to driving their kids around, and tehy have been very kind about helping me figure out how to get places. I also still have two lovely host families in Ringe that are always welcoming me to come over if I have to stay in town before my guitar lessons or volleyball, or if I just feel like coming over for some tea :) My new little sister, Line, is also taking guitar lessons at the moment, and we're learning a lot of the same songs, so it's fun to play a bit and practice with her. Louise goes to a different gymnasium than I do, so I don't ever see her at school or in Ringe, and Jannik just got a moped, so we don't see too much of him anymore...
But from moving to this family, I have realized how much stuff I have acquired. I came with two suitcases and a cary-on, and now

So somehow I'm going to have to find a way to get rid of a lot of this. Maybe a big yard sale? I'm not quite sure where all of this stuff came from, but there is no way I can fit it in my 2 suitcases. But I have plenty of time to figure that out!
Completely switching the topic, the weather has been gorgeous outside!! We've had weather in the 50s for the past few weeks, and plenty of sunshine! I'm hoping it will stay like this from now on because sun just puts everyone in a good mood :) Also, my first host family now has little lambs running around their farm, and they might possibly be the cutest things I've ever seen. So it really feels like spring right now!
This weekend we have our last Rotary Get Together before Euro Tour, and then the next weekend I leave for Rome with my class! I'm extremely excited for this "field trip" with my class. Not only because it's Rome, but more so because I absolutely love my class. It's hard for me to even put into words how amazing my class is, and I am so thankful that I get to spend every day (Monday-Friday) with them. They are all just so much fun to be around and they're creative, and talented, and funny, and I love them all! Even if I didn't have to go to school each day, I would go just to be with them. That's how amazing they are. They make me actually want to go to school. So basically, our class trip to Rome will be epic, and I promise to spend an entire blog telling you about it once we get back.
But at the moment, we have a break from class and the sun is shining, so I'm going outside to enjoy my time with my classmates!







All for now,
Heidi

Berlin!

Berlin was amazing. What a beautiful city with oh-so-much history! We arrived there Friday night after driving for 6 hours. After drinking tea and having a little cake, we set up our beds and slept. The next day we got up a bit earlier than my liking for a vacation, but we had things to do, places to see, and may pictures to take! We started our day by waiting about an hour in line to get into the Pergamon Museum. This museum is actually a combination of three separate museums: the Collection of Classical Antiquities, the Museum of the Ancient Near East and the Museum of Islamic Art. This is the most visited museum in all of Germany and it also has some of the oldest reconstructed monumental buildings in the world! We spent a good bit of time here, then walked through some small shops on the street, and just took in the aroma of gorgeous Berlin. On Sunday, we went to the Berlin Cathedral. Like most of the churches we went to, this one was bombed in WWII and severely damaged, but rebuilt.
I had taken about 50 pictures of the cathedral from the outside the day before, so it was really neat to actually go in and get the full tour. We were joined by Anette’s brother, Carsten, and his 8 year old daughter Beatriz. We walked all the way to the top of the dome and then we were able to walk around the outside of it where we could see out over all of Berlin. It was gorgeous! From here, we took the metro and met up with Carsten’s 15 year old daughter Anne, and then we all made our way to the Berlin Wall! Basically just a cement wall with inspirational paintings, but it was one my favorite places we went. It’s weird to be walking along the wall where so much history took place.

The next day we went to Checkpoint Charlie, the most-known crossing point from East to West Berlin. In the museum we read stories about all of the creative and crazy ways people used to cross over the wall. Everything from underground tunnels, to hot air balloons were used. Then we went to Alexanderplatz, which is basically like a big town square, and we shopped around in the big mall there (still nothing compared to Mall of America).
Our last full day in Germany, we went to the West side of Berlin, which was much more modernized. We went to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, which was partially destroyed in WWII,and the newer additions of it which are nicknamed the “lipstick and powder box” because of their shapes. The “powder” building was my favorite. Both of the newer additions were made of concrete with 21,292 stained glass windows covering the entire outsides. It was so pretty inside! Then we walked to the Nike outlet store, and then over to the Ka De We (Kaufhaus des Westens) mall. They had an entire floor level with just edible goods; a chocolate section, a cheese sections, a pasta section, and even a small American food section :) If the Jif peanut butter there didn’t cost 14 Euros, I would have bought it all. We didn’t spend too much time here, though, because it was all department stores and things were very expensive..


That night we went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner (delicious) and the next day we packed up and drove home.
We weren’t home long, though, before we took the train over to København for the rest of winter break! There we celebrated Anette’s birthday, went to a parliament meeting at the Christiansborg Palace, and I FINALLY got to see the Little Mermaid! (She was on a vacation in China..)

So there ya go! That was wonderful winter break with the family!
I’ll try to get a few more updates in here soon!
-Heidi

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

A Little Bit of Everything

So on Thursday, it was my half birthday. As a joke, I wrote it on the family calendar, however, my family thought it was a great idea to celebrate it! Usually this wouldn't be celebrated, or barely even mentioned, but since I won't be able to celebrate my real birthday in Denmark, my half birthday was good enough! I made macaroni and cheese for dinner, and then we celebrated. We made half of a lagkage (layer cake), we put Danish flags up all over the house, we sang, and I even got a few presents :) My class also sang Happy (half) Birthday to me at school, and I brought in flødeboller for everyone to eat. It was a terrific half birthday, and I'm very glad that I got to experience (half of) a Danish birthday.

Thursday was also my first guitar lesson! Okay, technically it was my third.. but it was the first one I actually got to go to. January 6th was suppose to be my first lesson; so I biked up to the Music School, cluelessly walked around for 15 minutes, finally decided to call my teacher only to find out he was sick and classes were cancelled. The second lesson I was suppose to have was on January 13th, and for some reason I completely spaced it out, and consequently missed that lesson. So last Thursday at 5 o'clock, I biked up to the Music school with my guitar, walked up the stairs (now knowing where I was to go), met my teacher Niels, and was then told my class didn't start until 6:30.... So I biked home, relaxed for a bit and then biked back to the Music School. Finally I got to have my guitar lesson, and it went really well! At first I was worried that it would be a little difficult for me to learn how to play guitar in Danish, and that maybe I wouldn't understand everything Niels was teaching me, but it was no problem at all! I feel like these will be really fun lessons, and I'm excited to learn more. I'm now practicing my new song for next weeks lesson!

I sometimes surprise myself with how much Danish I know. I've been here for almost 6 months already (eek!) but with so many English speakers here, people say that it's hard to actually learn Danish. And that is true, but I remember when I was first learning Danish, my classmates would teach me new words and phrases in Danish everyday. And when we were all hanging out and they were chatting away in Danish, I wouldn't let me speak to me in English the whole time because I really, really wanted to learn Danish! My classmates have been a huge help with my Danish, along with my families, but I still feel like I've learned the most from other exchange students. It's so easy to talk to them, and that's probably because we feel most comfortable with each other, and we can understand each other even when we say or pronounce things completely wrong. But for example, with the other exchange students at my school, we only speak Danish together because there isn't any other language that we all know well enough to communicate in. And when we're all together, we can just sit and talk for hours with each other in Danish, and it's such a great feeling! If we don't know a word, we either attempt to describe it using other words we know (and lots of hand motions), or we just make something up.. I still feel like it's easier to understand Danish than to speak it, but when I'm speaking it at home, at school, with friends and with other exchange students, I know it's only getting better!

This weekend I was in Copenhagen visiting our Uncle and his two daughters, Anne and Beatriz. It's Beatriz's Birthday on Wednesday so we celebrated that while we were there. I also took a walk along the beach with Anette and Torben, and it was just gorgeous outside. Blue skies, not too cold, WINDMILLS galore; I loved it.
Our last day there, Anette, Torben, Stig, Lise and I took a little trip into the city and walked around so I could see a little bit more Copenhagen culture. We went to the Round Tower, a 17th century tower that you can walk to the top of, but instead of stairs, there's a round ramp that leads all the way up. At the very top you can look out and see Copenhagen's beautiful skyline, and this is actually Europe's oldest functioning astronomy observatory! It was another beautiful day outside, so the view from the top of the tower was great. And as we were at the top, it was noon, so all of the church bells around us started ringing :) Then on the way down, we decided to run down the 210 meter long ramp, which was also quite fun! After the Round Tower, we got some kabobs and falafels for lunch, used an underground bathroom, and then drove back to our wonderful island of Fyn!

Now all of a sudden it's Monday again! The weeks are just flying by way too fast.
All the best,
-Heidi

An Update

Yes yes, I know. I'm a horrible blogger. But I'm just too busy having fun and living the good ol' Danish life! Instead of writing too much, I'll give you a few pictures to update you on what I've been up to for the past few weeks! You can always check out my picture share website for more pictures HERE :)




1) Got my name on the mailbox! I'm officially a member of the Birkenfeldt household.










This here is my new host family! They're great :) Stig (11), me, Anette, Torben, and Lise (13)














2) Christmas/ Jul!
Christmas in Denmark is very exciting! In early December we all sat around the tabe and picked out which decorations we wanted in our room, and then we went around and decorated the rest of the house. Most of the decorations are homemade. We also made these candle holders that we set around the house. We also made a ton of Christmas candy and treats. Then on the 24th, after decorating the tree, setting the table decorations, and lighting all of the candles, we ate our dinner. This consisted of turkey, peeled and boiled potatoes, caramel potatoes, red cabbage, and ris ala made for dessert. It's a tradition to put one whole almond in the dessert, and whoever finds it gets a present! There were accidentally 2 whole almonds, though, so Lise and I both found one, and both got little presents :) After eating, we lit the candles on the tree ( I thought this was a dangerous idea but none of them seemed too worried about it) and then we held hands and sang songs as we danced around the Christmas tree! The last song we sing is "Nu er det Jul igen" which means "now it is Christmas again" and we run around the entire house singing this song. It's quite exciting! Then we opened presents, drank coffee/tea and ate the treats we had baked, and sat around and talked for the rest of the evening! Stig completely forgot about waiting until the next day to open his presents, so he didn't get to try out the American way of holding Christmas, but maybe next year, he said! All in all, it was an absolutely wonderful Christmas :)


3) SWEDEN! I finally got to travel outside of Denmark. Not that I want to leave this fantastic country, but a little traveling is always fun! I was in Copenhagen with some exchange students and we decided to take the train on over to Sweden for the day and get some lunch there! So we went some place very Swedish to eat.. Ikea :)






4) 2011- It's going to be a great year! New Years Eve was celebrated at my friend Frederikke's house. It was 6 of us girls, and we decided to have a fancy new years eve party with nice dresses, and elegant food (which was extremely delicious) as we watched the Queen give her New Years Eve speech on TV. New Years in Denmark is celebrated just about the same as we do it in the US; they get together with friends and family, they set off fireworks, they have noise makers and confetti. But it was a great night and it was very fun to come into the new year in Denmark!

I'll attempt to post a few more updates in the next couple of days, but I can't promise anything because it is actually a busy week for me. We've got 2 new exchange students coming to our school tomorrow, I've got volleyball, guitar lessons, and my half birthday to celebrate (since I don't get to spend my actual birthday in Denmark) and on Friday I'm heading to Copenhagen for the weekend! But I'll do my best to keep you all posted :)
Happy (very late) New Years!
-Heidi

December

So I've now moved in with my second host family, (I've actually been living with them for almost a month now) and I love them just as much as my first family! I finally have a sister, Lise, something I've begged my parents for my entire life, and my younger brother Stig is hilarious. They were originally supposed to be my first family, but they were switched to my second because they live closer to the school so it's easier for me to bike there in the winter with all of the snow. Speaking of, we have a ton of snow in Denmark now! They rarely have a white Christmas (I think they told me this was the third time in the past 40 years they've had a snow for Christmas) so this is something special! We've got about a half meter of snow covering the ground, but since it's so windy here, there's huge drifts that are over a meter high. Usually when they get snow here, it disappears after a few days, but there's been snow here since the end of November. Christmas time here is adorable, though, and with all of the snow, it's even better! Unfortunately, Denmark is completely flat, so there's no place to go downhill skiing or snowboarding. But I have been out cross country skiing several times and the scenery is gorgeous!
I've been on winter break since last Friday, and the other 3 exchange students at my gymnasium and I were asked to give some sort of presentation on the last day. So we put together a little Christmas film! We shared it with the whole school at our Christmas assembly, and it was really fun! We also danced around the Christmas tree at school (a Danish Christmas tradition) and we sang songs and had a hyggelig time! You can watch the video at the bottom :)
Tomorrow is Christmas here, though! They celebrate Christmas the evening of the 24th, so it'll be interesting to wake up on the 25th and already have opened all of my presents. But Stig is going to wait until the 25th to open his presents; he says he wants to try it the "American style". We'll see if he can actually wait that long :)
One more little update, I get to start taking guitar lessons after New Years! I'm so excited for this, and Rotary has even offered to pay for my lessons. How amazing :) I love Rotary, and I love my year here in Denmark! Congrats to all of the students back home who just found out which country they'll be going to next year! It honestly will be the most amazing year of your life.



Glædelig Jul! Merry Christmas!
-Heidi