Sunday, September 8, 2013

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