School and Festivals

I've been gone from sweet ole' Sugar Land for almost one month now! I can't believe that I am actually an exchange student. I know I've always been telling people since I was around 7 that I was going to go to Denmark just like dad did, and now look at me I'm actually here. School is getting a lot better and I am making many great friends. Because I'm in the "nerd" class as people call it, we consist of only 21 people while all the other classes have 30+. On Friday, we have our first school party where the school serves alcohol. Pretty strange I must say! For the party each class must come up with a theme and have some sort of entertainment to preform at the party. Without even asking me, the class decided that we are going to be cowboys! So this is round 2 of the Cotton Eyed Joe in Denmark! Here is a picture of my class.

Lately in Odense there has been many activities and concerts going on for the H.C. Andersen festival. So far I have attended the annual blomster festival, a 3D light show, and the H.C. Andersen parade. At the blomster festival, people from all over come and set up flowers in different arrangements. Then this past weekend we went into the city to go see the H.C. Andersen parade which is a short funny play based on all of his stories. After the parade, we went and ate an amazing italian restaurant before going to the light show. The light show took place in the city hall on the mayors house. It was absolutely stunning. Every light matched up perfectly to the house and showed one of H.C. Andersen's stories. 

Blomster festival

H.C Andersen parade and house.

The light show in city hall! 

There's a first for everything...

I officially have received my first ticket.... As I mentioned before, I ride the bus thirty minutes to school every day and back. Which is no problem at all except that I don't have my danish social security number. In Denmark this number is very important. It allows you to have health care, bus cards, and even a school ID. Since I don't have my number, I can't get a bus card to take the bus every day. Instead, my host family has been letting me use the family bus card to get from school and back home. On Monday when I took the bus a Fyn Bus patrol man stepped on a began checking bus cards. I confidently handed him my bus card since I had been using it for 2 weeks and it worked fine. He took the card and then started yelling at me in Danish. Because the whole bus is always filled with Danish students that attended my school, I try my hardest to blend in as a true Dane ;)! Once the man started yelling at me and I had no idea what on earth he was saying, I had to finally say, "I don't speak Danish". Everyone on the bus heard it and started to look at me probably wondering why I'm going to a Danish school if I don't speak Danish. He then made me write my name and birthdate on this notepad and I thought he would never find me since there is no address for Natalie Orth in Denmark. Well I was wrong. Yesterday a letter came in the mail for a ticket saying that I owe them 750 ironers which is like 150 dollars! It is completely ridiculous since a bus ticket only cost around 5 dollars and the man didn't even ask me to pay for a ticket. He said that my bus card was only for two zones but that to get to my school it went through three zones! So my host mom wrote a strongly opinionated letter to the bus company explaining that I don't speak Danish and that I shouldn't have to pay for it. Kinda funny how my first ticket came from me riding a bus in Denmark and not from me speeding around Sugar Land in my car! :)

    It's official! I survived my first week of school in Denmark. I started my first day on Wednesday and chose to do the science and math track. This includes Chemistry, Physics, Math, Natural Science, Danish, English, Spanish, History, and Economics. So far my favorite classes are Spanish, Math, and English because those are the only ones that don't completely involve danish. Who would've thought that Spanish would be my best subject?! School is a lot different than in the USA because instead of switching classes every fifty minutes, you're with the same people in the same class all day while the teachers move to your class. School can start at 8:30 at the earliest and ends at 3:40 the latest. The usual day is from 8:30 to 1:50. In order to get to school, I must ride my bike to the bust stop which is two minutes away and then catch a bus that take 25 to 30 minutes. School can be extremely boring, since I can't understand anything the teachers are saying it's easy for me to want to fall asleep. Here is a picture of me on my first day of school.
   

  Most days after school I hang out with my host sister Nanna. Because my host parents had to work late last night, we were put in charge of making dinner. We spent about an hour and a half in the store trying to figure out what to make. We knew we wanted garlic bread and potatoes but didn't know what the main course would be. Nanna finally decided on chicken with picante cream cheese and tomatoes stuffed inside. I have to admit that we did a pretty good job! 

Family

So in case any of y'all were wondering, I made it to my host family! They have two children and live in Odense. Nikolaj is 19 almost 20 and Nanna is 15 almost 16! We've been having a lot of fun lately and visited their summerhouse in Middlefart for their 25th annual Family day. I got to meet the whole family and participate in the family "race" which is like a scavenger hunt. I'm not really looking forward to starting school Wednesday since in Texas I would have two more weeks of vacation, but I'm excited to get to meet new people. Since my danish isn't very good the first month of school will be really difficult for me to understand anything. Some exciting news is that there will be two other exchange students at my school, one from France and one from Germany. Miss all of y'all.

YFU Party

Today was our last day in camp with YFU. I have accomplished to learn how to write sentences in Danish and speak some common sayings. Today has also been exactly one week since I left Sugar Land, Texas. Because today was our last night, the leaders planned for us to have a party. All week we have also been in groups for learning danish by the country we are from. So our leaders told us that each group must perform something at the start of the party about their country. Being the only one in the American group that comes from Texas, I brought up the idea of the Cotton eyed Joe dance! So I put on my cowboy hat and taught everyone a simple dance to go with it! Everyone went absolutely crazy and loved it. Tomorrow we meet our host families for the first time! It's a very exciting yet nervous time. I am still homesick and hope that once I meet my new family I will be able to be more relaxed and put into a schedule. Miss all of y'all!

Himmelbjerget (Heaven Mountain)

So today was the first day that our camp let us go out into the "real" Danish world! First we had to take a trail in the forest in order to reach the only "mountain" in Denmark. In order for Himmelbjerget to be considered a mountain it must be a minimum of 1,00 feet, but it is only 482 feet! Not exactly a mountain ;) Once we reached the top of the "mountain", which is more of a hill, we ate kolaches and fruit. After lunch we were all boarded the oldest steamboat in the world and took it to Silkeborg where we were able to walk around and shop. The counselors told us that we were having BBQ for dinner and being a Texan I got kinda excited. But once we arrived back to camp, I realized they just meant grilling sausages!! We then made snobrod which is when you wrap dough around sticks from the forest and baked it in the campfire. Today has been one of the most busy days and still I think about everyone back in Texas! It just feels very strange knowing that I'm here for a full year. Miss everyone :)

I officially made it to Denmark after a total of 24 hours of traveling! We are staying in this beautiful camp where we will learn a few of the common Danish words and sayings. There's probably around fifty teenagers here that are all staying for a year! I'm really loving the idea of living here, but I miss my family and friends a lot. :(