Koncerter, Livet, og Andet Ting

Hej again everyone!

I finally have a little bit of time to spare, and I'm going to use it to write a post!

I don't really have anything that exciting to write about. At school we had picture day, sports day, and some more fun stuff. I think I already mentioned that the same people stay together all the time here in school? Well my class is 1. A, and they're great. I already have some really good friends, and I'm excited to spend the rest of the year with them. We have 30 students now (I think), but people keep switching in and out. Since you're with the same people for three years, it's important that you get along with the people in your class. Also, some people have changed lines. I'm in a language line, and some people have switched to and from science and social studies lines.

Here's my class! One of the girls has switched to another class, and we've also gotten two more students since this was taken.

So two nights ago I went to a concert in Tivoli with my class. It was 'Dansk Rap 25 År' (Danish Rap 25 Years), and while I don't actually like rap, I had a lot of fun! The concert featured various Danish rappers from the last 25 years. While we were at Tivoli, I ordered some ice cream in Danish! The ice cream guy was really nice, and he completely humored my awful Danish. And the ice cream was delicious, by the way. Here are some pictures:

Me with my friends Maria and Frida

Tivoli is so beautiful!

And last night, we had a party at my house for the rest of the neighborhood to meet me and the other new person in my house, Mustafa. He's not an exchange student, but he's some kind of refugee from Afghanistan. He's already been here for ten months, so his Danish is good. It means we have a very full house! Three teenagers, a nine-year-old, and two adults. His coming also meant that we split one of the rooms in half, which gave me a couch! Here's a picture of my new-and-improved room:

And about my Danish: I think it's going well! I've been here a little over a month, and people say that I'm really good, which is a good sign. I can understand a fair amount (maybe 10-15% of what I hear in school and more, 35% or so?, at home), and I can speak some. September is my self-decreed no English month, and it was going really well for a couple days, but I've been slacking the last few days. Tomorrow I'll try to go back to no English. I mostly speak only Danish at home, and at school, on my good days, I speak all Danish. My friends are great with translating and helping me with Danish, even if they apparently love my English accent and want to hear more of it. I'll be starting a Danish for Exchange Students class at the local ungdomsskole this Thursday, which I definitely think will be a help. An ungdomsskole is, translated, a youth school, and it provides free classes to the youth of the community. This is possible because Denmark has such high taxes. I've signed up for two other classes, because I figure I should take advantage of free classes while I can. My other classes, German and French, will start next week. Once they do, I'll officially be studying five languages (six if you count my English classes): Danish, Spanish, Latin, German, and French. Can you tell I love languages?

I'm also going to expand upon something that I mentioned briefly in my last post: my first AFS camping weekend with the chapter! It was so so SO much fun. Nine students from my chapter, from Chile, Mexico, Venezuela, the U.S., Spain, Guatemala, France, and Bolivia, all went. We kayaked for about half an hour to reach the camping site, which was really beautiful. We had a great night of hygge around the fire. We also went swimming at 11 at night in the lake. Well, five of us did. It was so amazing and beautiful, there were so many stars and I didn't even feel the chill. I ended up being warmed up after swimming! I slept outside on the ground with three others, which was great. I ended up being the first one awake - I woke up with the sun and went down to the dock to watch the sunrise. I waited for three hours for everyone else to wake up, then we all had breakfast on the dock. We kayaked back, and had some fun waiting for the train. I can't wait for our next AFS activity, which I think will be at an amusement park. It was such a fantastic weekend!

Right before we left

This is what exchange students do

The Nordsjælland chapter! There are three volunteers in this picture, too

Me, Mariona from Spain, and Céline from France
Notice my sunburn from just a little bit of kayaking

The beautiful sunrise!

Waiting at the train station in a tiny town

Back to civilization

So, there ya go. I hope you enjoyed the post! Next time I post I think I'll write some of my cultural observations about Denmark, because I have plenty! So talk to you soon!

Hej hej,

Rachel

Et År - Men en Dag

I have now been with my host family for three weeks. Woah. It feels like I have been here for so much longer – yet at the same time, the days have absolutely flown by. I feel completely at home here, and I’m absolutely in love with Denmark.

Honestly, it’s all still a little surreal. I haven’t woken up and thought, ‘wow, I’m on exchange, I’m in Denmark’ – because this is just my life right now. I’m just living.

I’d like to apologize for the tardiness of this post. I haven’t really had any motivation to sit down and write about all I’m doing, and I just haven’t thought much about it. Like I said, the time has flown by.

So I have lots to write about! I’ll start at my orientation in New York, which was almost a month ago (and isn’t that just insane?). I arrived in NYC on July 31^st, where I had my gateway orientation. There were six other AFSers there, all going to Denmark. I'm glad that we had a small orientation, because apparently some of them have over 150 people! We came from all over the country, even as far as Hawaii. We stayed at a nice Hilton right near the airport (JFK). I had my own room, and from it I had a great view of the airport! It was definitely cool to see planes coming in and out, knowing that I'd be on one soon.

We went to the airport the afternoon of the 1st. My bags were overweight (shhh), but luckily I got through without paying! I had one large suitcase and two carry-ons. We flew out at 5:15 P.M. on a lovely red-eye flight. We flew with Brussels Air, and the flight was great! It was my first international flight, and it wasn't nearly as bad as people made it out to be. When we had our layover in Brussels, we met some Belgian AFSers going to Brazil. The AFS volunteers with them bought us some Belgian chocolate, which was great! According to them, you can't be in Belgium without eating some of their chocolate. We looked for some waffles, too, but I guess there aren't really waffle shops in airports.

We landed in Copenhagen and met AFS volunteers in the airport. We went with them to the orientation site, which was a nearby school. Our group was one of the first ones there, and we got to go into Copenhagen for a couple hours! We were all exhausted, of course, but it was definitely cool to see a little bit of the city.

Orientation was so wonderful! It lasted three days. There are I think 208 people in Denmark this year, from all around the world. It was absolutely amazing to hear all of the different languages and to meet all of the different people! I made some great friends there, from almost every continent. We also had some learning sessions about Denmark and Danish, which were alright.

On the 5^th we finally met our host families! I said goodbye to people all morning as they left on their trains. My local chapter was picked up by volunteers, so we were some of the last to leave. We met some people involved in the chapter at a woman’s house, over cake and juice. Then our host families came!

I’m not going to go into meeting them and everything, but I’ll just say that my host family is wonderful! I think that they’re fantastic people, and I’m having an amazing time with them. The extended family, whom I’ve met briefly, also seems great. I love my family’s house, and the location is just beautiful. When I walk the dog, I can go right down by the fjord! I love my room too, and just – everything!

                                                                                                             

The last few weeks have been fairly eventful, though much of it has just been me settling in. I’ve seen some of the town, and I’ve been back to Copenhagen, to go to Tivoli! For those who don’t know, Tivoli is the second oldest amusement park in the world (the oldest is also in Denmark), and it was Walt Disney’s inspiration for Disney Land. I had a great time. Other than that, I’ve been to a surprise birthday party, a silver wedding (25^th anniversary), gone on an outing to the sommerhus in Næstved, and more!

OH and something big would be school! I’ve been in school for a couple of weeks now, and I have mixed feelings about it. I like the school, I love my class, and it seems like the Danish school system is good, but I obviously can’t understand anything. I’ve been placed in a language line. My list of classes is this: English, Danish, Danish grammar, Spanish, Latin (?), biology, nature science, math, social studies (politics), history, P.E., and drama. I’ve had all except Latin so far (hence the question mark – I don’t really know what to expect), and they seem like good classes! The only thing is that I’ve already taken an equivalent of every class except for Danish and possibly history. I know everything that I’ll be doing this year. This has pros and cons, but I’ll try to look at it in a good light. In class I mostly just doodle, attempt to read the textbook, fight off sleep, read my English book, or, if I’m feeling ambitious, try to understand what the teacher is saying. School is different here, and I’ll try to dedicate a post to that at some point; I won’t go into everything now.

My classmates are really nice! In Denmark, you stay with the same people all day, every day. We have 28 in my class, but it doesn’t really feel that big. I’ve already made friends with some people, and I’m glad! Also, since I’m in the first grade, I got to go on an introtur! This is a trip that gymnasiums organize for first graders to get to know each other more. Ours was a night of camping in Skibby, and we biked twenty kilometers there and back. It was tiring, but the trip was a lot of fun! There are one hundred forty-five people in my grade total, but I’ve only met a few outside my class. One of the other AFSers is also in my school, and I’m glad for that, because she’s so nice! It’s great to have another exchange student so close.

And using that nice segway, last weekend I had a camping trip with the AFSers in my chapter. It was amazing! There were nine of us students, and we kayaked to a camping site where we stayed the night. It was fun and beautiful and I had a wonderful time. I can’t wait to see all of them again!

So this is all I’ll write for now. I may come in later and put pictures into this post, but I won’t guarantee it. I have lots of pictures on Facebook, for those of you readers who are my friends. I have more to say, but it is 11:30 at night, and I’m exhausted! I pinkie promise that I won’t take such a long break in between blog posts next time! I’ll definitely start writing more frequently, now that I’m all settled in. My next post will probably be filling in the gaps of this post. I’ll write soon! Godnat og vi ses snart!

Rachel

Værtsfamilie!

Hej, everyone!

I have such exciting news! I got my host family! I actually found out on the eighth of this month, which was two weeks ago, but I've been really busy (sorry!). So now I'm letting you know everything! If you're excited for me, it's nothing compared to how excited I was when I got the email - I couldn't stop smiling for the rest of the day, and I miight have screamed... just a little.

SO, I don't want to say anything really specific, but I'll say that I'm going to be living with the Anderson family. I'm going to have a mom and dad, a sister who just turned fifteen, and a brother who just turned nine! I honestly don't think I could have asked for a better family. I really, really wanted siblings since I'm an only child here, and I think that their ages are just perfect. The family is really active, so I think I can expect a really busy lifestyle - which I'm completely okay with! I love being busy! This is their first time hosting, so it'll be a learning experience for all of us. I've been emailing with my host mom, and she's so nice! I really think that my family will be a good fit for me. And I'm so glad that I already have my family, because as of this morning, twenty-three AFS students going to Denmark from around the world have yet to be placed. Fingers crossed for them getting families soon!

I'll be living on the island of Sjælland (Zealand), which is where København (Copenhagen) is located. In the map below, Sjælland is the island on the right. I'm going to live on the outskirts of a town called Frederikssund. Frederikssund is a town with about fifteen thousand people, so I guess it's not big enough to be on maps, because I couldn't find a map on Google that included it. Fifteen thousand people sounds fairly large to me, but I've been told that it's actually a small town. Anyways, if you look on this map and find Frederiksberg, Frederikssund is northwest of that, right next to the Roskilde Fjord. If you want to know exactly where it is, look it up! I'm in a good location, because I'm only about 45 km from København. I really would have been happy no matter where I was placed, but Frederikssund looks like a great town!

And here's my house! The finger in the top left is pointing to my room. I think it looks perfect!

Now: school info! I will be attending the Frederikssund Gymnasium. The info page in English can be found here. If you don't know about the Danish school system and are wondering what exactly a gymnasium is, this is what I understand of how things work (I think this is correct, but sorry if it's not!) - students attend the folkeskole, which is required, until ninth or tenth grade, age fifteen or sixteen, I think. After that, I've heard some take a gap year to go abroad or something of that sort. Then they can enter the efterskole, which is a boarding school, or a gymnasium, which is a three-year university prep. There might be a technical school of some sort too, but I'm not clear on that. Also, upper-level schools typically have lines, normally language, science, and art. The line a person is in determines his or her classes; for instance, someone in a language line would take one or two languages more than someone in a science line. I think that school is optional after the folkeskole, but most students continue because the Danish government pays students to go to university, and it's free.

So yes, I've been placed in the first year of gymnasium (I'm a first grader!), which I think is good because all the students will be coming in without knowing one another. I think there's also something called an introtur for new first graders, which is when all the students go on a trip together (camping, I think) to get to know each other. So that'll be great to get to know people! I'll keep you updated on that! My host mom is figuring things out with the principal of my school, and she'll let me know more info soon. She told me that another AFSer has been placed at my school, a French girl, which I think is  great. I don't know whether she'll be in the same grade as me, as I'm younger than average to go on exchange, but I hope I'll get to know her anyways! I've also been looking at my school's website and Facebook page, and it looks like such a great school!

On a language note, I've changed my keyboard so that I can switch between English and Danish, making the usage of æ, ø, and å much easier. Before I had to insert them, but now I just press a key. The downside is that the symbols are all in different places. It took me about five minutes - literally - to find the question mark, which is where the - or _ key is on American keyboards (next to the 0). The parentheses are also shifted over, and a few other things are in weird places - the apostrophe for instance. But I'm trying (and mostly succeeding!) to get used to it so that I won't have typing issues when I type in Danish.

Okay, one last thing, promise! Since this is my host family post, I thought that this would be a good place to say this: hundreds of students coming to the U.S. next year don't have host families yet. They might end up being told they can't come to the U.S. Please, if you can, consider being a host family! You can learn about hosting here, and you can look at students without families here. I know the relief I felt when I got my host family, and I'm imagining how these hundreds of kids feel who don't yet have host families. They come from about twenty different countries around the world. I haven't been a host, but I know that hosting is such a rewarding experience. If you think you don't have 'the right kind of family' for hosting, it's not true! Host families can be nuclear families, single parents, childless couples, and everything in between! So consider hosting. Please!

Okay, so now you are informed about my host family and location! I think that I'll probably post once more before departure (less than six weeks!! It's getting closer!), but I also know that I'm going to be really busy. Time will fly by. I'm spending a week or so with one of my friends (hi Annabeth!), and besides packing my bags for a year I have to pack up my bedroom because my mom's moving while I'm away. Then I'm off to Cape Cod to see friends and family for a couple weeks before I leave. Then it's Denmark!

Vi ses!

Rachel

Opdateringer om skole, orientering, tilladelse, og dansk!

Hej!

I thought I’d update all of you on my life! It’s been about a month since I last posted (and it really doesn't seem like it’s been that long), and I’ve been busy! I’ve really had a crazy last week or so.

So, I missed about two and a half weeks of school a while back because I had the flu, so I’ve been trying to catch up with my schoolwork on top of studying for exams, which have already happened for everyone else (mine are delayed), and doing exchange things. North Carolina schools get out so early! In Massachusetts I would have school for another month! So, really, I should be out of school, but I’m stuck doing work because I got sick (great way to start my summer, huh?). As a result, I haven't had as much time to work on my Danish and other preparations as I would like.

Last Saturday, the 18th, I had my first AFS orientation! Though I already knew a lot of what they told us (I’ve done a LOT of research), it was still a lot of fun! And I loved meeting other AFSers. I talked to some currently hosted exchange students from Sweden, Norway, and Finland, who told me about Denmark and life in Scandinavia. I also met some great outgoing students going to all sorts of interesting places (Finland, Austria, Argentina, Spain, India, and more) and some returnees (from Germany, Indonesia, Turkey, Russia, France, and  possibly a couple more) who had interesting and useful insights. Overall, it was a lot of fun!

From the orientation, I drove straight to New York City! I’d never been to the city before, and it was so exciting! I had half a day in the city Sunday and the morning on Monday and then I had my visa appointment (yay!). I went to the Consulate General of Denmark in the afternoon, which I thought was really interesting. It was very secure, with thick glass windows to the people and doors that had to be buzzed open. We got there early, and a couple people in front of me weren’t there, so we got helped early. I was nervous that I might not have some of the paperwork, but everything was in order and we were done pretty quickly. I got my fingerprints taken for the visa (a first for me), which was interesting. And the amazing, wonderful, super exciting thing is that I already have my approval! All of the info I received from both the Danish Consulate/Immigration Service and AFS said that it could take months to get approved, so it was absolutely a pleasant surprise for me to open my e-mail on Friday and have an approval letter from Denmark waiting for me! I don’t yet have the actual residence card, but I’ll get it soon after I arrive in Denmark. No more worrying about my visa! Here’s a picture of the sign for the Consulate, just because it’s exciting:

And a beautiful plant, too

And I thought some of you would enjoy a (somewhat distorted, sorry) picture of the lobby of our beautiful hotel in Manhattan, the Roosevelt:

and another from above

On another note, the title to this post means (and this might be wrong, but let’s hope it’s not!): “Updates on school, orientation, permit, and Danish!” I’ve been working on my Danish language learning, and I think it’s going well! I’ve gotten more than the colors and numbers learned, anyway – I’m into some other adjectives, nouns and some basic verbs. I’ve been using some great free online resources. And what’s more, my mom met a woman who grew up in Denmark, and she said she’ll help me with my Danish! I’m really excited, because I think that getting help from a native speaker will be very useful. I want to have some sort of base to go off of when I arrive. My phone is also set to Danish, which is helping me with some basic things. Here are pictures of what the passcode screens look like (with the lovely Danish flag, or Dannebrog, as my background – can you tell I’m excited?), as well as the keyboard when I text (I can change it to an American keyboard if I need to, though!). When I go on Danish websites now (trying to find out any info about Denmark I can), I can pick out words here and there, which is encouraging. But I still have a long way to go!

The date says søndag 26. maj,
and the bottom says lås op.

I love that the space bar is
mellemrum! Extra letters are
æ, ø, and å. New
message is ny besked.

Skriv adgangskode,
nødopkald, and
annuller

Finally, I’d like to thank all my family members and friends who have read this blog so far! I love to hear from you all, and I’m so glad you’re all excited for me! Thank you for reading, commenting, and sharing your thoughts with me and my mom. You’re all so great and supportive!

I’ll probably write again fairly soon, but until then, hej hej!

Love,

Rachel

P.S. - LESS THAN TEN WEEKS! (67 days until I land in København!)

Hej, Jeg Hedder Rachel – Allow Me to Introduce Myself

Hello!

My name is Rachel, and I'm going to be living in Denmark next year! This blog will chronicle my foreign experiences. I'm currently fifteen years old, a freshman in high school, and I live in North Carolina, USA (though I'm still new here - I've lived in Massachusetts my whole life). Just a couple of days ago I got an email that I've been accepted by AFS-Denmark for their year program! I'll be living in Denmark for an entire eleven months, starting in July. I'll be keeping a blog while I'm there to keep everyone back in the U.S. updated on my life. I also hope that my blog can be a resource for potential future exchange students. So, here's my introductory post!

I'll start off with the program I'll be travelling with: AFS. What, exactly, is AFS? AFS (AFS Intercultural Programs, formerly the American Field Service) is a nonprofit organization, run mainly by volunteers. It is, according to the AFS-USA website, "a leader in intercultural learning [that] offers international exchange programs in more than 40 countries around the world." The organization is basically a new incarnation of the organization of field nurses from battlefields in the world wars. AFS-USA works with partners worldwide to send thousands of students around the world every year. It is probably one of the most, if not the most reputable large foreign exchange program, having been sending students around the world since 1947. I think that the total number of countries forming AFS is somewhere in the sixties.

So, with all of these countries to choose from, why and how did I pick Denmark? Everyone's been asking me that. Overall, I guess it just seemed right. I considered many different countries in the beginning. I knew I wanted to go to Europe, and I didn't particularly care which language I would end up learning. So I looked on the AFS website through all the different European countries (and there are a lot, so it took me a while). I kept a list with all of the possibilities and crossed out countries as I went. I ended up having only a few not crossed out at the end, so I looked more closely at those. I'm about 6 months too young to go on a number of the programs, which ruled out a bunch of possibilities. But I didn't want to have to wait to go my junior year, so I kept looking. When I stumbled across Denmark, I decided that I really like the country in general. One thing that the AFS website said that caught my eye is, "Citizens of a maritime nation, the Danes have always turned their eyes and hearts to the sea, and no part of the country is more than an hour's drive from the seashore." I personally have never lived farther than about a mile from the ocean, and it's important to me to have some proximity to the sea. I also like that the Danish standards of education and living are high, because I don't think I could handle being in a third-world country for a year (all my respect to those who go for service and such, but I couldn't do it - education and hot showers are too important to me!). Furthermore, Denmark is beautiful! I like that it isn't completely developed, like some countries I considered. I don't like living in the city. Much of Denmark is made up of small towns, in more rural areas, that are still easily accessible by train or bus. Some other things that I used to decide if Denmark seemed right for me were blogs of former exchange students. I ended up reading about nine different blogs - all of the posts, from the very beginning - which, admittedly, took a long time, but was worth it. That's one reason why I'm going to write this blog, because those blogs were so helpful to me, and there aren't that many blogs on Denmark. I really could go on and on about all of Denmark's many merits (and I haven't even stepped foot in the country yet - just think of what I'll be like when I come home!), but I'll stop boring you, dear reader. My second choice ended up being the Netherlands, which really looks like a great country. I think I would love it there, too, but Denmark seems like a better fit for me overall, and I've been accepted by Denmark, so Denmark it is. 

I've started looking through the visa information and application, and I've been making all sorts of plans. The application for a student visa is long and fairly complicated, so I wanted to get started on it as soon as possible. I probably will have to go to the Danish Embassy in DC (or maybe New York, I'm not positive about that) for the visa (and how exciting would that be! - I've never been to an embassy), preferably sooner rather than later. AFS helps out with the visa process some, but it's largely something the exchangees must do on their own. There's also an AFS pre-departure orientation coming up for me on May 18th, which I'm really looking forward to. It feels like the first step to Denmark, and I can't wait!

I'M JUST SO EXCITED. About everything. Seriously, I can't express it in words. I've been researching Denmark and foreign exchange in general for months, and, finally, there are around 90 days until I am living in Denmark! I've already made a basic packing list - there's this great website that makes one for you, but is still customizable, and I've also been looking online at what other students have brought - and I predict that I'll end up packing and unpacking a hundred times in the next few months. I've started working on my Danish, which is nonexistent, and so far I know basic phrases, the colors, basic numbers, the months and days, some clothing items, and a few random words. It's hard to learn Danish pronunciations online, without an actual Danish-speaking teacher, but I'm making at least some progress. I don't want to be completely lost when I arrive! I'm normally good at learning languages, so I hope I'll pick up Danish quickly once I arrive. AFS also requires students to take language classes in Denmark, and I'm sure those will be very helpful. I'll try to include some Danish phrases in my posts so my readers can learn a bit. I think I'll end up making all of my blog titles Danish, with the exception of this one.

Okay, wrapping up this very long blog post now... 

I may write a couple more times before I get to Denmark, but I won't guarantee it. Once I'm in Denmark I'll try to write at least once a week, and I'll include lots of pictures! So, vi ses, readers!

Much love,

Rachel