nearly finished

Ahhh! Frantic-ness is setting in as my time in Denmark dwindles! I have tons of stuff to do, and now that I'm leaving everyone wants to stop over or have me meet them somewhere... even people I hadn't much to do with before! I've seen most of my classmates for the last time, there are a few of my best friends that will be stopping over tomorrow to say goodbye and eat a final chocolate chip cookie. hmmm... Sometimes I think that is the reason that they like me!

The weather has been beautiful! It's been in the 70s and 80s- Perfect weather!! I think I'm going to melt when I make it home. I leave Saturday morning from Middelfart to Copenhagen with my host parents. My plane leaves at 12:20 but I have to get to the airport 3 hours early. Eew!

Having trouble packing. I just have way too much stuff. It's physically impossible for all the things I want to bring back to fit in two bags... and not weigh over 50 lbs. ! urgh!

I'm going on vacation to northern Jylland this week, so don't expect any long needed updates! I'll finish the post for the Baltic sea cruise later!

ACT, Family, and Baltic Cruise

I've been putting off writing this because I know this post will be under a ton of scrutiny since my parents, brother, and grandparents were along for part of the ride.... but here it is.

After Eurotour I had two days to prepare myself to take the ACT before it was upon me. I'm not sure how I did. Pretty sure I failed the Science part. I panicked and skipped around all over the place... The day after I finished that my parents and brother arrived in Denmark and came to Middelfart by train from Copenhagen. It was weird to see them again... almost nothing had changed in ten months! I actually think that they might not have recognized me when I first came up to them though, it was really funny, one of those double take things.

For four nights they stayed in an apartment owned by my first host family while showed them where I lived.

Day #1: Arrival, settle into the apartment, and had a really nice dinner with my first host family... or rather Gitte, my first host mom. Bo, my first host dad, was out sailing with his buddies... or rather drinking beer with his buddies, hee hee! Nikolai and Isabella ate dinner and then took off. Still it was really nice.

Day #2: I let the family sleep in a bit before taking them by bike to my Gymansium (or Highschool). There weren't very many people around since it was exams so I just gave them a quick tour around before going to the Lillebælt Skole (grades K-9) where I had promised to give a speech to a class about Wyoming. It was very strange to have my parents and brother listening while I talked about home, because unlike the Danish kids they would know if I was saying something wrong or making things up... It was neat to go to this school because I've made four speechs before this and so everyone knew me and some even recognized my family from pictures I'd shown during my presentation! After I finished with the class I took everyone to 'downtown' Middelfart.We ate lunch here and looked around a bit before starting on a bike ride. We ended up riding for several hours looking at the Danish country. I took them through the forest along the beach and ended with a trip to a castel that had been remade into a hotel. That night we all ate dinner at my current family's house.

Day #3 We woke a bit early and piled into two different cars with my current host family. Okay, I'll call this family the J family since they have two different last names Jørgensen and Jenson. Anyway, girls were in one car and boys were in the other. From here we set out to the west coast of Jylland (Jutland). The first thing we visited was Himmelbjerget the tallest point in Denmark. It's name means heaven mountain, but really it is more of a hill. We climed to the top and took lost of pictures before getting in the cars to drive to a 'wind farm'. It was alot of windmills, or wind power generators or whatever you want to call them in one place that were actually a bit out of date. It was neat to be so close that we could here the gears working.

We carried on a bit before finding a picnic area to stop and eat lunch in. As in usual Danish fashion, the J family had packed up a lunch for us so we didn't need to eat fast food. Almost all Danes pack lunches from home when they go out. After lunch we drove on to the west coast. It wasn't very good weather-- very windy and rather cold-- but it was pretty. We drove down the coast for quite awhile before reaching Esbjerg. Here we stopped to walk around and look at the strange statues of four or five GIANT white men that were sitting and staring at the ocean. Eventually we began to drive back to Middelfart.

We were almost there when we became stuck in a huge traffic jam because someone had an accident on the bridge. I cant remember how long we were stuck but I believe that it was about two hours. Normally something like this would just be annoying, but it was a bit more since we became quite late for dinner at my second host family's house. They had also invited my Rotary counselor and her husband. Once all the mess on the bridge was cleaned up we made it to dinner and had a 'huggaligt' evening. I really like my second host family when I don't have to live with them-- seven kilometers out of Middelfart in the middle of a depressing winter.

Day #4 We hung out around town and ate lunch before taking a bus to 'Rock under Broen' a huge concert in Middelfart! It was really packed, the music was so loud that the sound interfered with cellphone service, and there were drunk middleaged people everywhere!! I saw some of my friends around and stayed with Trine and Tanja for part of the time. I was also with Penny... or rather she came to sit with me where the J family and their friends, and my family, were all sitting. It was pretty fun but I didn't know any of the music and the longer the concert went on the dirtier it got. I think it was quite an experience for my parents, if not something they'd want to do again.

Day #5 Copenhagen! We took a train in to Copenhagen, found our hotel and dropped off our luggage before exploring the city. I met up with Pokchat, the exchange student from Tailand that lives in Copenhagen and we went to lunch with her... or that was the plan. Things became a bit confused and somehow we ended up at the end of the walking street, starving, and Pokchat apparently had to leave and disappeared down a metro tunnel. We ended up eating at a hotdog stand then turning back around the walking street and going back to the hotel to wait for my grandparents to arrive.

When they finally arrived and got settled in we went out for dinner together to catch up.

Day #6 Went to the walking street for breakfast before catching cabs to the place we were suppose to meet up with the Amsterdam, our cruise ship.


Ok, I'll finish this post later. It'll take quite awhile to do the whole cruise. Besides, most everyone who reads this will probably have heard all about everything from my parents!

more pictures

Brussels, Belgium















Amsterdam, Netherlands

Eurotour pictures

Venice!

Monte Carlo, Monnaco



Paris!

Back from Eurotour!

Hey! I'm back from my trip around Europe on a bus with 41 exchange students! It was awesome! I can't write about everything that happened, it would take way too long, but I'll give a brief summary and later some pictures!

We started off going to Berlin where I saw the remains of the wall and lots of historically signigicant buildings that I cant remember... It was interesting seeing the difference between what was East and West Berlin. the East side has a major communistic design thing going on with the buildings and alot more spray paint. We spent one night here.

Next stop, Prauge! The Czech Republic was a very different experience for me. The people are a great deal poorer; We even saw yards with chickens in them! It was a very beautiful landscape, though. We stopped at a concentration camp on our way to the city. It was quite sombering to see the conditions the people were kept in and the mass graves spanning across the front 'lawn' of the prison. We arrived that night in Prauge and went touring the city the next day. Prauge itself first appeared a charming city but as soon as you look past the beautiful architecture and HSBs you will see prostitutes, drug dealers, and poverty. There were guys walking around the main square asking everyone if they wanted Marijuana or Coke, and there were large front windows into clubs that had nearly naked girls dancing in them. The second night of our stay we went to see a play at the Black Light Theater. It was cool the first 20 minutes but went on for over 2 hours and had almost no speaking and a very hard to follow plot line. Left the Next morning for Austria.

I think Austria had the most beautiful landscape of all the places we went to. As we traveled through the mountains there were several old castel ruins perched on cliffs that just added to the character. Once we reached Vienna we went to our hostel for the night. The next morning we went touring the city. Vienna was one of my favorite places. It, too had an over ubundance of HSBs that were very pleasing to the eyes. We visited the royal gardens which were more like the royal forests and had alot of the day to ourselves. That night we went to a concert that had classical viennen music with operah and dancing. Great experience but I have to say that German is not a good language to sing in. We left the next morning for Lido di Jesilo.

Italy is incredibly flat. I'd never heard that before but the part we were in was. we stayed in Lido for 3 nights. the first night the Rotary 'babysitters' let us go out to a club together. Woohoo! the next day we had to ourselves for shopping and hanging out at the beach. The day after we went to Venice! In Venice I went on a gondola ride and explored the city which seemed to be a faux city made only for trapping tourists. I'm not certain that the shop keepers were even Italian! That night the second Danish Rotary bus caught up with us and we were alowed to go to the club together. It was pretty great but not that exciting since I was friends with only 2 or 3 people from that entire bus. We left the next morning for San Remo.

On our way to San Remo we stopped in Verona. I was able to see 'Julilette's Balconey' and the statue. I really liked Verona and wished that we had more time to look around. San Remo was a very pretty city situated on a rocky coast and the beginning of mountains. we only stayed for one night before beginning our trip to Avignon.

On the way to Avignon we went to Monte Carlo, Monacco and through some gorgeous mountainous italian scenery. It was really unbelievable that there were so many skyscrapers and buildings crammed along the coastline in the mountains! We stayed in Avignon 2 nights. The first night was spent doing massive loads of laundary. The next day we went to visit the largest known spring in the world, which required a long walk in the woods. We also took a mini tour of Avignon, which is a calm, tranquil place compared to the rest of the cities we've been in. Next morning we began the trip to Paris.

After far too long of a bus ride we made it to Paris where we spent three nights. On the night of our arrival we went to the Latin Quarter and ate Greek food... in Paris...I've decided it was because French food is icky. The next morning we went on a tour and saw the Eiffel tower, the Louvre (and the Mona Lisa), the triumphal arches (old and new), and a large number of other HSBs that I have forgetten in the excitement. You can only see so many parliment houses and castles before they all look the same. We also went on a boat tour.

The second day we were able to go around on our own. My day consisted of 3 hours collective hours of getting lost in the Metro and seeing Notre Dame. There was a little shopping time in between but not much.

We left the next day to go to Brussels, Belgium. We only had the night of our arrival to look around the city. I saw the old square and the peeing kid statue that is so famous. Bought chocolate and ate a belgium waffel with strawberries and chocolate. Yum!

The next day was spent in Amsterdam, Holland. I never immagined that there was so much pot pariffinalia in the entire world, much less in one place. Other than that there were lots of tulips and wooden shoes. We had a cannal tour of the city but it was really boring and everyone was really tired.

The next morning we made our way back to Denmark and said our goodbyes.

The entire tour was really great for the exchange students to get to know eachother. I have a ton of new Australian friends, and I wont have another chance to see the other exchange students that shared the year with me so it was a very sad day. Anyway, that way Eurotour!

Scotland pictures!

Loch Lamond

Loch Lamond

Myself and Kathrine

Inside Glasgow Cathedral

The Necropolis, at the top of the hill. 200 year old cemetary with industry in the back ground.

Tanja!

Movie night, night out, and more Chinese food....

Thursday night I organized a movie night with my Danish friends and Mariliis. I invited most of the girls in my class and a few outside, but in the end it was Tanja, Trine, Lotte, and Kathrine from my class, Tine from the 3rd year, and Mariliis. I made everyone meatloaf for dinner, Tanja came over early and helped make the salad, and Mariliis helped me with rice, since I'd never made it before. Thankfully dinner was good, and though the Danish people thought it was really strange they seemed to like it! After dinner we dug into junk food (chips, popcorn, my homemade chocolate chip cookies, Swedish cider, and soda) and watched Flightplan and Red Dragon before all the Danes went home. Mariliis was the only one to stay the night, though I invited them all.

Once everyone left Mariliis and I watched How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days before going to sleep, the next morning I made us pancakes and we continued the movie marathon until about 4 p.m. It was really fun!

Saturday night I went out in town with Mariliis for a bit. She'd been to a birthday party since 7 but I didn't come until about Midnight, mostly we just hung out in a club called Nice. By about 2 Mari was getting pretty tired so we wandered about and tried to find people I knew so she could abandon me with out feeling guilty. First we found Kathrine but she was in a particularly bad mood with me for some reason and I didn't hang around long. After we walked back down the street we ran into to guys from my class that I'm particularly good friends with. After Mariliis was picked up they took me with them to Buddy Holly where we met up with some girls from the class next to mine and had a great time. I didn't get home until about 4:30... My host sister was already up getting ready for her job at the bakery, so we had to laugh at that a bit!

Monday we had free from school, so the Middelfart Exchangers (Mariliis, Penny and myself) decided to meet up at our favorite hang out spot... The City Burger... Which also serves Chinese food. haha, maybe we should be a bit worried about that fact... Anyway, we had a 'hugali' (nice, cozy) time catching up with Penny who had been in Copenhagen all vacation.

EASTER IN DENMARK! okay, it wasn't too exciting. They gave me a big chocolate rabbit and we had dinner over at Hanne's (host mom) sister's house. They do dye eggs around this time of year, but my family didn't because we were too busy.