In response to the previous blog, I really did not mean for it to sound so depressing. I read it later, after I had wrote it and realized how depressing it really did sound. When I wrote the blog, I was actually feeling pretty good. I will be careful to give the wrong impression in future blogs! Even though, I really enjoyed all the comments!
On Saturday, Joe (exchange student from MI, USA and language school) and I took the train to Næstved to see some other exchange students. It was really a great time. We met four Kiwis (New Zealanders) who were in our "group" from arrival camp. Two of them live in Næstved and two came from from Jutland. Also, an Italian and Brazilian who live in Næstved joined us. The weather was beautiful and so the eight of us decided to go to the beach. It was about 4:00 when we left and 8:00 when we came back. It was a really wonderful time. I had to go home at 10:00, because the next day Fie and I went to Copenhagen. We visited my older host sister, Malene, and her boyfriend, David, at their apartment in a suburb of Copenhagen. They were going to take us to a "football" game at 3:00, but it was rescheduled for 6:00. To kill time, we played Monopoly. (The Danish version is called "Matador".) After, we ate at a cafe and then headed to the stadium. It is called Parken and is FC København's stadium and is also where the Danish National Team plays. It was fun to see soccer played professionally. I never knew that there was so much strategy to the game. It was a fun day and I really enjoyed it.
Last night I went to Køge to another volleyball club. It, ironically, is located only 2 blocks or so from my language school. It was awesome! There were six other boys on the team and they are all about my age. Although my volleyball fundamentals are extremely underskilled, I had a great time. It was especially great, because I felt really comfortable! All six of the boys really encouraged me and they are all really good! I have a long way to go with my volleyball skills, but the social part I think will be a little easier. I am going back on Wednesday and Friday. If I continue to have fun, I will join the club.
This Friday I also have my class party. I am in class '2b' and so the party will be all the B's: 1b, 2b and 3b. I am really looking forward to it. I really like my class and enjoy spending time with them. I am really lucky that I have them to help me become "Danish". The family situation is better, but still not resolved. I am thinking that a big part of it is the language barrier between my host parents and I. Neither of them speak much English, so it is hard to communicate beyond the basic conversational level. It will just take time and hard work!
Andy E
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
LONG Post
It has been 15 days since I last wrote and a lot has happened!
I went to Copenhagen and met a really good friend. Her name is Merih and she is from Turkey. She was having problems with her host family, school, Danish and also some problems back home. She was unhappy here. She was already in the early stages of going home to Turkey. She is probably my favorite exchange student that I have met so far and when she said she would be in Copenhagen with her host family, I couldn't pass up an oppurtunity to see her one last time. It was her and me all day and it was very enjoyable. We got some coffee/hot chocolate (I still do not drink coffee, but I am drinking a lot of tea!) in a small cafe that overlooks the main shopping street in Copenhagen. The street is called Strøget and is very similar to Street State in Madison, but is so much larger! After, we walked down Strøget to Nyhavn and then eventually to Christiania. (See the post 'København' for an explaination of all these places.) In Christiania we ran into a few other exchange students who were planning to meet up with later. It was a surprise to see them. They were leaving and we were going in, so we told them we would catch up later. Merih and I sat by the water and had a few beers and talk for a really long time. That is what I like most about her; she can talk about nothing forever and it still makes sense. She will always be a great friend and we have even briefly discussed a trip to each others' homelands in the next years. It started to rain, so we decided to head back to the Strøget. It is about a 15 minute walk and so by the time we got back, we were very wet and cold and hungary. We called the other exchange students and met them at a place very similar to Subway, but with very lazy workers! I watch the girl make my sandwich and put it under a light, then she made her own sandwich, went on break and came back and gave me my sandwich. It was frustrating, but I got back at them by refilling my cup 3 times when it was "no refills". So I guess we are even! After we ate, we took the Metro to one of the exchange student's house. By the time we got there, it was dark, late and I did not know my way back to the station. I asked Elise if I could spend the night and she said that it was fine. The next morning, I said goodbye to everyone and then took the train back to Herfølge.
That week in school was something called 'AT'. I have no idea what it stands for and to be honest what it actually is. It is something where the whole week they combine 3 classes and then on Friday have to do presentations on it. It is confusing. The point is, I could not participate in anything. I went to school Monday-Wednesday and ended up staying in the library and going on the interent. It was useless for me to be there, so Thursday and Friday I skipped school and stayed at home and cleaned, studied for language school and watched Lord of the Rings and Finding Nemo in Danish with English subtitles. Friday night was the first school party. I went to a "varm-op" party with Fie and her classmates. I definitely had too much alcohol and therefore will not continue farther. I not used to drinking at all, so I am still getting used to how much is appropriate for me.
This week started with language school on Monday, instead of Tuesday. It was the final lesson until the Modul 1 test on Thursday (today). It was a lot of "How do you say this?" and "Does that make sense?", but it was a good lesson. On Tuesday, I fell asleep on the train; bad, bad idea. The train I take from school in Roskilde goes from Roskilde to Næstved, with the middle stop being Køge. There are 4 stops between Roskilde and Køge and 5 stops between Køge and Næstved. Herfølge (where I live) is the stop right after Køge. If you were to ride the train all the way from Roskilde to Næstved, it would take you about 1 hour and 15 minutes or so. Anyway, I fell asleep in Roskilde and slept all the way until the last stop before Næstved. I woke up and did not notice the scenary, so I got off at the train at Nord Næstved, bought a ticket for about $8 and then rode the train all the way back to Herfølge. It decided that I will never fall asleep on the train again! That night I went to a Volleyball Club in Herfølge. They said I could come and see if I liked and if I didn't, then I could just not come again. I thought it would be a bunch of kids my age, but was more like a bunch a people who got together to play volleyball. There were 16 people there and the average age was probably about 40+. They only people close to my age were an 11, 14 and 15 year old. Despite the age difference, I really had a good time. I love to play volleyball in gym class, so it was fun to play it with people who actually wanted to play! Even though there wanted the play, they were not all that good. I was surprised that I could actually jump and block and spike. I will not continue going to the club, but I did find a volleyball club in Køge with ages 14-19, so I will attend there next Monday and hopefully I will have a good time!
Wednesday night (last night) was a really hard night. Elise and I sat at the computer and typed things into Google translator to each other. She doesn't understand English very well and I do not understand Danish very well, so this was our compromise. I have been having some concerns about the distance of my school to my home. It is a 30+ minute train ride every day, there and back. It is really frustrating and something which causes me to wake up at 6 a.m. every day; something I am NOT used to! There have also been some issues with my host family. I really do like them, but I do not feel an emotional connection to them. They do not seem like my "mother" and "father", they just seem like people I am living with. It is hard to explain and quite more complicated, but it is not how I want to feel about the people I am going to be living with for the next 9 months of my life. We talked and decided that in 3 weeks I will decide if I want to stay or find a new family. It is so hard, because I know how much of a change they are going through too, and it would kill me to hurt them by just leaving them and going to a new family. I do not them to feel "used". I do care about them, which makes the choice that much harder.
To make matters worse, I had my language school modul 1 test tonight. During the 6 week course, we had to write 2 short, 1 minute papers about our family and our daily routine and also read 3 books in Danish at about a 1st grade level and a write short synopsis about each. Today, we had to randomly choose which one of the five would have to recite. Afterwards, we would also randomly choose a picture and then ask the tester 10 questions about it using: hvad, hvordan, hvem and hvornår (what, how, who, when) and then ja/nej (yes/no). I was 2nd to last our of everyone and I choose 'my family'. I always get nervous about things like this. The things that I cannot control. The uncertaintly of what is going to happen. I am always nervous when reading in front of other people or talking to people I do not know or taking test. So, if you combine all 3 of those, you get exactly what I was getting myself into! The tester was a different person than our teacher and I had a really hard time understanding what she was saying, which made me SO much more nervous. I had practiced all the books, but failed to practice both 'my family' and 'my daily routine'. I was unprepared and it showed. She said that it was too short and she could not understand what I was talking about at times. Then came the questions and it was even worse. I forgot about practicing for that test and last night I was planning to review all the vocab, but I was talking to Elise. The tester said that my Danish was bad and it was not okay that I couldn't ask her questions. It was really harsh and made me feel a lot worse. She said that she could not pass me and let me go back to the classroom. It was really humilating, because my Danish is really not that bad. I can understand what Danes say to me most of the time and can usually respond with something short. It really made me want to give up on Danish and Denmark and come home on the next flight to the US. I was holding back tears and it did not help that all the people in my class had passed. I really do appreciate them, because they tried to make me feel better and genuinely felt bad for me. Because I did not pass, I cannot continue onto modul 2. So, I went home on the train early and walked back the house. The 10-minute walk was hard and 9 minutes of it were filled with my first Danish tears. In those 9 minutes, I was very homesick. I wanted my mom to rub my head and tell me it was okay and I wanted my dad to do that face he makes when he is disappointed with me, but doesn't know what to say. I wanted to to be home, in a familiar place. Then I realized that it is moments like that, the desperatly hard times when I hate everything and want to be home, that are going to shape me into a new person. I am going to be smarter, more mature and independent. I know that those hard moments will turn into wonderful times and will make this year absoulutely incredible.
I can retake the modul 1 test in 3 weeks and then continue onto modul 2. I probably was going to quit language school anyway and take up a sport, because many are tuesday/thursday. So, maybe this is all for the better and eveything will work out fine. I am somewhat over the whole thing, but that fact "they pass everyone" and I was planning on passing and was supposed to pass, that is what is eating away at me. I know it is just something I have to accept and learn from. Yet another learning experience.
I know that this is a tremendously long post and whoever reads it, thank you and please comment. I love to hear feedback and find out who is reading my blog. From what I hear, it is pretty popular! Keeping reading!
Andy E
I went to Copenhagen and met a really good friend. Her name is Merih and she is from Turkey. She was having problems with her host family, school, Danish and also some problems back home. She was unhappy here. She was already in the early stages of going home to Turkey. She is probably my favorite exchange student that I have met so far and when she said she would be in Copenhagen with her host family, I couldn't pass up an oppurtunity to see her one last time. It was her and me all day and it was very enjoyable. We got some coffee/hot chocolate (I still do not drink coffee, but I am drinking a lot of tea!) in a small cafe that overlooks the main shopping street in Copenhagen. The street is called Strøget and is very similar to Street State in Madison, but is so much larger! After, we walked down Strøget to Nyhavn and then eventually to Christiania. (See the post 'København' for an explaination of all these places.) In Christiania we ran into a few other exchange students who were planning to meet up with later. It was a surprise to see them. They were leaving and we were going in, so we told them we would catch up later. Merih and I sat by the water and had a few beers and talk for a really long time. That is what I like most about her; she can talk about nothing forever and it still makes sense. She will always be a great friend and we have even briefly discussed a trip to each others' homelands in the next years. It started to rain, so we decided to head back to the Strøget. It is about a 15 minute walk and so by the time we got back, we were very wet and cold and hungary. We called the other exchange students and met them at a place very similar to Subway, but with very lazy workers! I watch the girl make my sandwich and put it under a light, then she made her own sandwich, went on break and came back and gave me my sandwich. It was frustrating, but I got back at them by refilling my cup 3 times when it was "no refills". So I guess we are even! After we ate, we took the Metro to one of the exchange student's house. By the time we got there, it was dark, late and I did not know my way back to the station. I asked Elise if I could spend the night and she said that it was fine. The next morning, I said goodbye to everyone and then took the train back to Herfølge.
That week in school was something called 'AT'. I have no idea what it stands for and to be honest what it actually is. It is something where the whole week they combine 3 classes and then on Friday have to do presentations on it. It is confusing. The point is, I could not participate in anything. I went to school Monday-Wednesday and ended up staying in the library and going on the interent. It was useless for me to be there, so Thursday and Friday I skipped school and stayed at home and cleaned, studied for language school and watched Lord of the Rings and Finding Nemo in Danish with English subtitles. Friday night was the first school party. I went to a "varm-op" party with Fie and her classmates. I definitely had too much alcohol and therefore will not continue farther. I not used to drinking at all, so I am still getting used to how much is appropriate for me.
This week started with language school on Monday, instead of Tuesday. It was the final lesson until the Modul 1 test on Thursday (today). It was a lot of "How do you say this?" and "Does that make sense?", but it was a good lesson. On Tuesday, I fell asleep on the train; bad, bad idea. The train I take from school in Roskilde goes from Roskilde to Næstved, with the middle stop being Køge. There are 4 stops between Roskilde and Køge and 5 stops between Køge and Næstved. Herfølge (where I live) is the stop right after Køge. If you were to ride the train all the way from Roskilde to Næstved, it would take you about 1 hour and 15 minutes or so. Anyway, I fell asleep in Roskilde and slept all the way until the last stop before Næstved. I woke up and did not notice the scenary, so I got off at the train at Nord Næstved, bought a ticket for about $8 and then rode the train all the way back to Herfølge. It decided that I will never fall asleep on the train again! That night I went to a Volleyball Club in Herfølge. They said I could come and see if I liked and if I didn't, then I could just not come again. I thought it would be a bunch of kids my age, but was more like a bunch a people who got together to play volleyball. There were 16 people there and the average age was probably about 40+. They only people close to my age were an 11, 14 and 15 year old. Despite the age difference, I really had a good time. I love to play volleyball in gym class, so it was fun to play it with people who actually wanted to play! Even though there wanted the play, they were not all that good. I was surprised that I could actually jump and block and spike. I will not continue going to the club, but I did find a volleyball club in Køge with ages 14-19, so I will attend there next Monday and hopefully I will have a good time!
Wednesday night (last night) was a really hard night. Elise and I sat at the computer and typed things into Google translator to each other. She doesn't understand English very well and I do not understand Danish very well, so this was our compromise. I have been having some concerns about the distance of my school to my home. It is a 30+ minute train ride every day, there and back. It is really frustrating and something which causes me to wake up at 6 a.m. every day; something I am NOT used to! There have also been some issues with my host family. I really do like them, but I do not feel an emotional connection to them. They do not seem like my "mother" and "father", they just seem like people I am living with. It is hard to explain and quite more complicated, but it is not how I want to feel about the people I am going to be living with for the next 9 months of my life. We talked and decided that in 3 weeks I will decide if I want to stay or find a new family. It is so hard, because I know how much of a change they are going through too, and it would kill me to hurt them by just leaving them and going to a new family. I do not them to feel "used". I do care about them, which makes the choice that much harder.
To make matters worse, I had my language school modul 1 test tonight. During the 6 week course, we had to write 2 short, 1 minute papers about our family and our daily routine and also read 3 books in Danish at about a 1st grade level and a write short synopsis about each. Today, we had to randomly choose which one of the five would have to recite. Afterwards, we would also randomly choose a picture and then ask the tester 10 questions about it using: hvad, hvordan, hvem and hvornår (what, how, who, when) and then ja/nej (yes/no). I was 2nd to last our of everyone and I choose 'my family'. I always get nervous about things like this. The things that I cannot control. The uncertaintly of what is going to happen. I am always nervous when reading in front of other people or talking to people I do not know or taking test. So, if you combine all 3 of those, you get exactly what I was getting myself into! The tester was a different person than our teacher and I had a really hard time understanding what she was saying, which made me SO much more nervous. I had practiced all the books, but failed to practice both 'my family' and 'my daily routine'. I was unprepared and it showed. She said that it was too short and she could not understand what I was talking about at times. Then came the questions and it was even worse. I forgot about practicing for that test and last night I was planning to review all the vocab, but I was talking to Elise. The tester said that my Danish was bad and it was not okay that I couldn't ask her questions. It was really harsh and made me feel a lot worse. She said that she could not pass me and let me go back to the classroom. It was really humilating, because my Danish is really not that bad. I can understand what Danes say to me most of the time and can usually respond with something short. It really made me want to give up on Danish and Denmark and come home on the next flight to the US. I was holding back tears and it did not help that all the people in my class had passed. I really do appreciate them, because they tried to make me feel better and genuinely felt bad for me. Because I did not pass, I cannot continue onto modul 2. So, I went home on the train early and walked back the house. The 10-minute walk was hard and 9 minutes of it were filled with my first Danish tears. In those 9 minutes, I was very homesick. I wanted my mom to rub my head and tell me it was okay and I wanted my dad to do that face he makes when he is disappointed with me, but doesn't know what to say. I wanted to to be home, in a familiar place. Then I realized that it is moments like that, the desperatly hard times when I hate everything and want to be home, that are going to shape me into a new person. I am going to be smarter, more mature and independent. I know that those hard moments will turn into wonderful times and will make this year absoulutely incredible.
I can retake the modul 1 test in 3 weeks and then continue onto modul 2. I probably was going to quit language school anyway and take up a sport, because many are tuesday/thursday. So, maybe this is all for the better and eveything will work out fine. I am somewhat over the whole thing, but that fact "they pass everyone" and I was planning on passing and was supposed to pass, that is what is eating away at me. I know it is just something I have to accept and learn from. Yet another learning experience.
I know that this is a tremendously long post and whoever reads it, thank you and please comment. I love to hear feedback and find out who is reading my blog. From what I hear, it is pretty popular! Keeping reading!
Andy E
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Concerts and Alcohol
Last Friday I went to a concert in Tivoli, which, for all you non-Danes, is a pretty big deal! Tivoli is basically the national amusement park of Denmark. It is located in Copenhagen right next to train station. It has two parts: the amusement park side and the gardens (which I have not seen). I thought I was going to the concert with 3 girls from my class and one of their boyfriends, but when I got there instead of 3 girls, there were 7 and no boyfriend. It was actually quite fun to be with them in a setting other than school. One of the girls wanted to buy cigarettes, but she forgot her ID and they did not believe she was 18. So, they sent me to buy them because "I am tall and speak English!" The legal age to buy tobacco is 18 and alcohol is 16 (18 in bars), but no one really cares, per se. Also, here in Denmark (almost) EVERYONE smokes! That was a really big culture shock. Many people "party smoke", which means they only smoke at parties, but quite a lot smoke daily.
The concert was Nik and Jay. There are kind of a Danish joke. Everyone hates them, but secretly likes them. I was told that their songs are played at pretty much every party, because when you are drinking no one cares what is playing! The girls also told me that you have to drunk to really concert. So, we did have a few beers, but I was far from drunk! I AM BEING RESPONSIBLE!! The concert all-in-all was really fun.
The next day Jesper and Elise drove me across Sjælland (Zealand in English) to my AFS region's welcome meeting. It was hosted at a park that had all these Danish games you could play. It is hard to explain because there is nothing like it in the States! There are a total of 7 exchange students in my region: 2 from USA, 2 from Thailand, 1 from Australia, 1 from France and 1 from Germany. It was really fun to see them all again (even though 2 of them go to language school with me and 1 them goes to my gymnasium!). All of our contact families were there too, so it was a really great day!
Saturday night was also the final night of Køge Fest which had been going on all week. I meet up with the 2 exchange students from language school (who I had seen previously that day) and hung out with one of their host brothers and his friends. We had some alcohol...probably too much, actually! We were safe! The featured music was the band Aqua, which I had ironicly had an obession with when I was 12. Their most popular song is probably "Barbie Girl", so I am sure most of you have heard them. After the concert, I went to the train station to get picked up by Elise. I had been there for 5 minutes and then all of a sudden there were 15 police officers, 5 police vehicles and 3 drug dogs. It was crazy how fast they got there! And then, one of the dogs went crazy and the officer took it over to a guy and the dog started biting his pants and then the police tackled him and he got arrested! I kept asking myself, "Is this really happening?!" It was straight from the movies!
Today I went with 150 other Spanish students from my gymnasium to a movie called, "Los Abrazos Rotos". It starred Penelope Cruz and was kind of a weird movie. It was hard to me to understand what exactly was going on because the movies was in Spanish with Danish subtitles, but I could understand most of it. I actually learned quite a bit of Danish, because I would hear a Spanish word or phrase and then see it in Danish. It was really good practice for both languages!
I am going to Copenhagen again this weekend to see some of the exchange students who are living there. I really love spending time with all the other exchange students because they know exactly what I am going through, because they are doing it themselves! On September 18th I am going to another town to see some of the people from our intial "group" at the orientation camp. Our group was the English-speakers: USA, New Zealand and Australia. I am also busy for the next 6 weekends, which makes me really happy! I am really having a wonderful time here in Denmark!
Andy E
The concert was Nik and Jay. There are kind of a Danish joke. Everyone hates them, but secretly likes them. I was told that their songs are played at pretty much every party, because when you are drinking no one cares what is playing! The girls also told me that you have to drunk to really concert. So, we did have a few beers, but I was far from drunk! I AM BEING RESPONSIBLE!! The concert all-in-all was really fun.
The next day Jesper and Elise drove me across Sjælland (Zealand in English) to my AFS region's welcome meeting. It was hosted at a park that had all these Danish games you could play. It is hard to explain because there is nothing like it in the States! There are a total of 7 exchange students in my region: 2 from USA, 2 from Thailand, 1 from Australia, 1 from France and 1 from Germany. It was really fun to see them all again (even though 2 of them go to language school with me and 1 them goes to my gymnasium!). All of our contact families were there too, so it was a really great day!
Saturday night was also the final night of Køge Fest which had been going on all week. I meet up with the 2 exchange students from language school (who I had seen previously that day) and hung out with one of their host brothers and his friends. We had some alcohol...probably too much, actually! We were safe! The featured music was the band Aqua, which I had ironicly had an obession with when I was 12. Their most popular song is probably "Barbie Girl", so I am sure most of you have heard them. After the concert, I went to the train station to get picked up by Elise. I had been there for 5 minutes and then all of a sudden there were 15 police officers, 5 police vehicles and 3 drug dogs. It was crazy how fast they got there! And then, one of the dogs went crazy and the officer took it over to a guy and the dog started biting his pants and then the police tackled him and he got arrested! I kept asking myself, "Is this really happening?!" It was straight from the movies!
Today I went with 150 other Spanish students from my gymnasium to a movie called, "Los Abrazos Rotos". It starred Penelope Cruz and was kind of a weird movie. It was hard to me to understand what exactly was going on because the movies was in Spanish with Danish subtitles, but I could understand most of it. I actually learned quite a bit of Danish, because I would hear a Spanish word or phrase and then see it in Danish. It was really good practice for both languages!
I am going to Copenhagen again this weekend to see some of the exchange students who are living there. I really love spending time with all the other exchange students because they know exactly what I am going through, because they are doing it themselves! On September 18th I am going to another town to see some of the people from our intial "group" at the orientation camp. Our group was the English-speakers: USA, New Zealand and Australia. I am also busy for the next 6 weekends, which makes me really happy! I am really having a wonderful time here in Denmark!
Andy E
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