Denmark

Hello to people reading this 


Well I've been in Denmark 3 days and I already think it is one of the most beautiful countries I know ( with the experience of only knowing Australia). The Denmark bound students (myself included) touched down at 6.23 am  at Copenhagen to 0 degrees. I thought that long haul flying would be an adventure, I was wrong. Melbourne airport just annoyed me and the joy of having my own TV and airplane food quickly died away. By the time we got to Bangkok, most of us were sleep deprived and had no clue how to get around the airport seeing that it is insanely ginormous - I'm not kidding when I say that, there were about 4 of each store within one leval and within minutes, I had lost all sense of coordination ( however that's not too hard for me :p) The travelator's soon became our best friend and once we boarded the two storey plane (that was a bit wierd as well) I fell asleep during take off. The one flight that was somewhat pleasant, if not cramped, was from Copenhagen to Billund. The photo below was as we were heading toward the domestic terminal to catch the shuttle bus, first experience outside and it was freezing thus the more grimancing smile. 

first time outside in Copenhagen ( o degrees)

Anyway, as we got close to Billund, the clouds parted and the green Danish countryside emerged, along with masses of frozen lakes and very neatly kept gardens and farms. I was met by my first host family and counsellor and we drove for 45 minutes or so ( a long time in Denmark) before getting to the counsellor's house and their view overlooks lillbælt ( I think that's correct??) and you can see the middle island Fyn very vaguely. Had a Danish style lunch, slept a bit and then experienced my first match of European handball ( Denmark vs Poland-Denmark won!) and I have decided that it is an awesome game, nothing like the Aussie 4 square with King, Queen, Jack and Dunce but more of a cross between soccer, basketball and various other games, it moves pretty quickly and is much more fun than cricket will ever be. They played Argentina last night and won, and head into the semi finals against Sweden. I've finally found a sport that I can stand watching :D

Icy road - came incredibly close to stacking it

We( Sven (counsellor), Connie (his wife) and I) went walking along the beach for a couple of hours or so. Most of the coast is clay that is constantly being washed away by the melthing ice so all along the path were uprooted trees in soft clay. The town is home to one of DK's major military bases and as we were walking home ( on a frozen road which is incredibly difficult to walk on) we ran into a army dude who had spun off the road in a mercedes benz jeep and was stuck in close to a metre ditch. I considered taking a photo but I don't exactly know if thats allowed, or if he'd be happy with it.

Anyway, we also visted the 'birth certificate' of Denmark  in a town called Jelling(pronounced like Yelling) - two big mounds, one that held the Danish King Gorm who is one of Queen Magarethe's ancestors, with a little white church in the middle, which represented the change in worship from Nordic Gods, one of whom was called Gorm, to the Christian faith and next to the church is a big rune stone. One side tells of the change to Christianity, another shows a snake encompassing a lion ( from the Nordic Gods) and the other depicts Jesus on the cross. Anyway that's me in front of it, in the freezing cold. 


When it gets to 4 pm DK time (4am Aust time), my body decides it wants to sleep which is pretty annoying but I'm slowly getting over that. I was told that each hour difference will require another day to get over so I should be in a normal sleep pattern by the end of the week, ready for intro camp with all the other exchange students. 


I forgot that cars drive on the other side of the road so to learn how I cross roads, I follow the 7 yr olds on their way to school and so far so good, I havn't been squished yet! 


I start school tomorrow in 2nd G which I guess is like yr 11 although most people will be my age or older and the school is amazing, the cafateria is massive and each homegroup have their own table. During the breaks, competitions are held as well as performances and the like. For field trips, classes go to places like London, NY, Rome, Berlin etc. and my class (2c) will be heading to Iceland in March so here's to hoping that I can go with them! I will be studying Bio, English, History, German, sport and chem (sigh sigh sigh sigh - another year of pain) but at least it doesn't count for uni. There are about 30 people in a class, you call the teacher by their first name and cycle to school every morning, it'll be very different - also no uniform (yay hip hooray).

Most of the houses look like this and have very good central heating and heated tiles in the bathroom- I don't know why more Australian houses don't have them :P Home sickeness hasn't been too bad but every now and then something happens and it makes me think of home i.e. Carly Simon's 'Your so vain' played on the radio and I thought of Richard's annoyance at the song . Anyway, electricity and things in general are incredibly expensive here although it all pays for education which is free for all as well as the very good public health system that they have. I also think that due to not knowing how the whole exchange rate thing works, I paid the euro equivalent of $10 for a cup of coffee and pastry. oops. The royal family is much more equal that somewhere like England and there seems to be less of a celebrity status around them, so maybe I have a chance of meeting Mary after all :D


For now, from an amazingly beautiful country, until after intro camp, farvel
xoxo