"God Mad"

After 5 failed attempts of me trying to be clever, I have resorted to being blunt and extremely unpoetic. Intros have never been a strength of mine.

Christmas in Denmark was honestly and truthfully, not that much different than it is in the US. Right away it seemed heaps different, until I realized that, well, it isn't. People exchange gifts, just like in the US. There are seasonal movies on TV, just like in the US. Everyone is, generally, in a jolly, "christmas-spirity" mood, just like in the US. Everyone dances around the tree while holding hands and singing holiday songs, just like...oh wait, no. Okay, so besides that and the total lack of Christmas lights on houses and blow-up Santas on lawns, Christmas in Denmark was very similar to how it is in United States. However, one major difference, FOOD! I know I have meantioned this before, but the Christmas food in Denmark is truly magnificent. In the days leading up to Christmas, we had all this traditional food. And/duck, risengrød/rice pudding, risalamande med kirsebærsauce/rice pudding and almonds with cherry sauce, brunede kartofler/caramelized potatoes, æbleskiver/something like apple pancake donut holes, and more. Also, Danes celebrate on the 24th. That is when all the gift-giving, dancing (more like walking) and christmas spirit happens. Leaving the 25th to be a lazy day of playing with your newly aquired presents and eating all the leftovers, YES! The food is already something I know I will miss. Knowing that I feel this way, my host brothers bought me a Danish cookbook for Christmas called "God Mad" (Good Food)! It was by far my favorite present. I made sure it has all my favorite recipes. I cannot wait to get back and make all these crazy Danish dishes. I guess I have the next 6 months to practice them!

The 26th was a family gathering of Kjeld's, my host dad, family. Many of them came early and I had lots of awkward conversations with them. My life is about 70% Danish now, refering to language. For the majority, Aske and Hjalte speak English to me. Not for my benefit, but for theirs. However, recently, they have begun to speak more and more Danish to me. I would classify my Danish as a 2/5. Suffcient, but LOTS of room for improvement! :) Anyway, back to the family gathering. It was pretty much just a lot of talking and playing cards, but it was fun. We had Vietnamese food and we ate with chopsticks, which I am surprisingly decent at using. It was really delicious food. Afterwards, we exchanged presents. I was happily surprised to get 2 presents.: running socks and a gift certificate to the movie theater. I felt bad that I hadn't gotten anything for the gift-givers, so I went to my room and searched for something to give them from all the gifts my mom sent. I think that they were also plesantly surprised that I had returned the favor. All-in-all, it was a really nice evening.

New Year's is coming up and I am glad to say I have plans. Never in my life have a made plans for New Year's earlier than the 31st, so I was glad to break that. I am going to spend it with an Australian exchange student who has already been here for 11 months. She leaves the 4th and since I will be in NORWAY, I will not be able to see her off. But, I am not too sad, because I will be in NORWAY! I am super-duper excited! We leave Jan. 2nd and come back the 9th. It will be a week of skiing and having fun. I am pretty sad that I will miss a week of school, though. ;)

I hope everyone had a tremendous Christmas season and has a fun, safe New Year's. Take care!

Andy