Hej alle sammen!
So I'm
finally getting around to writing a blog post, and I again apologize for the delay. I can't believe it's been a month since I wrote my last post! Sorry!
Lucky for you, I have lots to write about today! It is October 9th, which means that I have been in Denmark for about 9 weeks. (the 2 month anniversary was the 2nd). It doesn't at all feel like it has been two months, and I really
really hope that the rest of my exchange doesn't fly by just as quickly as the last months have (though something tells me it probably will). It honestly feels like just last week that I packed my bags in the car and drove to New York. I am also now 2/11 or 18.182% through my exchange... but I don't like to think about that.
A recent exciting event was my fall AFS camp! I had a camp with 23 other exchangers from the Nordsjælland, København, and Bornholm chapters of Denmark. We were again in a school, this time in Gentofte, near Copenhagen. It was so amazing to see everyone again, just bonding and spending time and hygge-ing. The other exchange students are some of my best friends here, and I love them all so much! Since we all have the same situation, we understand eachother and get along really well. At the camp, we had more group sessions, in which we talked about family, friends, school, and goals for the future. These group sessions were better than the ones at the first camp, and I think that they were helpful and only a little boring. In the group sessions we also wrote letters to our future selves, which I think will be good to read later. One interesting thing we did was a cultural activity where we were told a story (acted out beautifully by volunteers), and we had to decide which characters were the 'best' and 'worst'. The cultural differences evident in the lists were so interesting! We had to try to agree on an order of 'goodness' for the characters in small groups, which was practically impossible. Interestingly, my list was most like a Slovakian girl's, and not at all like the other American's. At night, we watched a movie (Pitch Perfect!), which was so hyggeligt! Over the weekend we also took
tons of pictures - I have over 600 pictures from less than 3 days! Basically, we played games and talked and played piano and made cakes and were just happy. The only downside to the camp is that I'm so exhausted now! I got so little sleep that when I got home on Sunday I fell asleep and slept through the night. Here are a few pictures of my weekend, for any who aren't friends with me on Facebook. You can always tell which one's me because I'm the only blonde!
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| Here are all of us AFSers! This includes people from Spain, Bolivia, France, Chile, Mexico, Venezuela, Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan, Hungary, Switzerland, the US, Italy, Brazil, Slovakia, and Turkey. |
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| A few of my favorite people |
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| Making cake! |
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| It was really good |
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| Good luck bracelets from Brazil! |
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| God mad (good food) |
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| Singing our song about the Danes |
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| Movie night! |
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| My favorite thing |
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| We were all really tired, as you can probably tell |
At the camp, I spoke in 'Danglish' with my exchange student friend from Spain. We both used as much Danish as possible, with English as necessary. It worked really well, and I'm now going to attempt to use Danglish as much as possible. My Danish is going pretty well, I think, and I can definitely see improvement! Over the last couple of weeks especially, my understanding has shot up. Though it's not quite where I'd like it to be (I've been using too much English), I am still happy with my progress. Check at the end of this post for my attempt at writing in Danish - something I can look back on later to see my current level in the language. One thing that is definitely helping me is that my class now speaks to me in Danish at least half the time.
Speaking about my class, I'll talk about school! It's going alright, but classes are probably my least favorite part of being here. AFS told us at the camp that the EU has imposed a new rule that states if you aren't an EU citizen, and you have more than 10% absences from school (they calculate it here by individual class, instead of by school day), then you will get sent home and banned from Europe for 3 years. This is a new rule, created because so many exchange students were skipping school while here on academic visas. School is still okay, though, because I can hear and speak Danish, and I can get to know my classmates more. But most of the time I don't do much - in fact, I'm wrote this entire post during my Danish and math classes.
The next few months are going to be really exciting, so coming up I'll have lots to write about on here. Next week is fall break, and it's especially exciting for me! Tomorrow my amazing friend Annabeth is coming to visit, and then I'm going to visit her! She's also American, but she's currently an exchange student in Finland.
Click here for her blog if you're curious! I get back to Denmark on Thursday, and I think after I get back I'm going to spend time with some exchange students. After a wonderful beginning of vacation, I think I'm either going to Sweden or Germany for a day trip with my family! Even though it'll be short, I think that it'll be really cool to see another new country. After fall break, it'll be Halloween! I don't know if I'll do anything for it, but I know that some people here have started celebrating it. After Halloween is the holiday season, my favorite time of year! I was talking about the holidays with some of my friends at school the other day, and I've decided to have a little Thanksgiving for my class during English class. I'm also going to do something for my family, of course. Thanksgiving is one thing that I love about America, and I'd love to share it! And after Thanksgiving, of course, it's Christmas! In Denmark the whole month of December is all about Christmas, and I've already been planning things to do. I know that Denmark has some great Christmas traditions, which I'm so excited to experience - but I'll write about all that when I get to it.
Nu for dansk! Jeg ved ikke hvad jeg skulle skrive, men så jeg vil bare tale (eller skrive.. haha). Nu sidder jeg i skole, med min venner. Min lærer for danske, som jeg har nu, er rigtig flot, og hjælper hun mig med mit dansk. Dansk er ikke
virkelig svært, men nogle ting er svært. Den mest svært er præpositioner, ordstilling, og ord slutninger (og også bruger én eller ét). Jeg er bedre til dansk end jeg var når jeg kom til Danmark, selvføgelig. Hvad skal jeg sige nu? Jeg har meget mange billider fra den AFS camp, som jeg vil sætte ind dette blog-indlæg senere. (færdig nu!) De er på Facebook også. Jeg elsker AFS og udvekslingsstudenter! Dette dansk er dårligt, tænk jeg, men det er en god start. I dag efterskole har jeg dansk tema. Jeg håber at lær nogle ting. I morgen kommer Annabeth, min rigtig god veninde! Det er virkelig spændende!! Temaet er næsten slut nu, så vil jeg stopper med at skrive. Hej hej!
I don't really have anything else to say! I hope you enjoyed my post (and my attempt at Danish), and I promise I'll write soon!
Vi ses!
Rachel
P.S. It's starting to be fall here! The trees are turning orange all of the sudden, and it's great :)
