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 31st,
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 5th
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 (25th 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