Mallorca

Hey everyone!
So in the 2nd year of high school in Denmark, everyone takes a study trip to some foreign and exotic land. My class had the opportunity to go on our studietur to Mallorca, which was such an amazing opportunity.

We woke up early Saturday morning and flew down. After a very exhausting and long uphill walk to our hotel, everyone was quick to hop into their swimsuits and jump into the pool, despite the fact that it was only around 13 Celsius or 55 Fahrenheit outside ;). After that, we walked around and got to know the town we were staying in. Palma de Mallorca has the most beautiful cathedral, so that was really nice to see.

Then on Sunday we got up and went on a 30 km mountain biking trip, which was actually so amazing. Since my class's line is p.e., our studietur was very adventury athleticy themed, which I was a little worried about at the start, since I'm not that athletic, but I'm actually so, so thankful that we did that instead of just going to museums or something. The mountain biking trip took us all around the city and down the beach, and it was just really nice to see the city from a different perspective.

On Monday we went off into the island to go to this tourist adventure park thing. We split into two groups, and our group went and shot archery and BB guns. Then for the 2nd half of the day we went for a hike thing up to go rock climbing, where we went on all these tight ropes and stuff to get there. Then we went rock climbing on the mountain, which was super cool, and then zip lined back down to the bottom. I'd have to say Monday was definitely my favorite day. The weather had also started to warm up and it was around 18 Celsius or 65 Fahrenheit and sunny, so that was super super nice. I even got a little sunburned before coming home to snowy Denmark!

On Tuesday we went off into the island again to go hiking and look at flowers, which was super beautiful. It was up in the mountains though, and so the bus ride back was the most traumatizing thing. The road was pure hairpin turns, and the driver was a literal maniac and the bus was so so hot, so nearly 10 of us got sick on the 2 hour bus ride back. It was awful at the time but looking back it's pretty funny, and maybe even was a good bonding experience for the class? Then we all went out for dinner as a class and had Tapas, which was just really delicious and lovely.

Our hotel was also so amazingly nice. It had the best view of the ocean and the pool AND a jacuzzi bubble bath. I actually miss the jacuzzi bath so much now it was just so perfect.

Another thing that was definitely a big culture difference for me was the amount of freedom we had. When we go on a field trip in the US, the teacher takes attendance every five minutes. Our teachers didn't take attendance once the entire trip, if you didn't stay with the group then you were on your own. Also, after we were done with our activities for the day, we were free to do literally WHATEVER we wanted. This is in stark contrast to when I went to All-State orchestra in the States last year and they literally taped us into our rooms at 11 pm. I was talking with my host mom about it, and she made the point that it's freedom with responsibility. While we're free to do whatever we want and be as stupid as we'd like, we're held to the responsibility that we'll still make intelligent decisions, and if we don't, we're on our own.

Here's some pictures:

 On the flight over

 First views of Mallorca

 First views of Mallorca

 First views of Mallorca

 View from our hotel window

 Mountain biking

 The Cathedral I think?

 Taking a bubble bath

 Mountain biking

 Archery

 BB guns

 Rock climbing

 My class

 Enjoying the sun

 So so pretty

 Hiking

 Hiking

 Enjoying the sun

Aaaaand we're back in Denmark

Going to Mallorca was just such a fun and unique experience, and I'm so glad that I was able to tag along. Tak for turen 2.w!

And now tonight I'm moving to my 3rd and final host family, and then I'm off to Flensburg, Germany with my orchestra tomorrow, so stayed tuned for more posts on those!

Alicia

LALANDIA

Our Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyTbpVTW_7w&list=FLZSYQ9Pue0CSICSxA-nzlJw&index=1

Some Pictures:

On the train there

On the train there

Lalandia!

 

Eight people

 

Thirteen people

 

You try to take a picture and literally every exchange student ever shows up

Our cabin

Canada Bahamas and the US in Denmark

 

 On the train home we had seats!

Østrig

So my first host family spontaneously invited me to go skiing with them in Austria last week, which was such a lovely surprise! It was such an amazing opportunity, and even reminded me a little bit of home with the long car ride down (14 hours) and being surrounded by mountains, two things that I've actually really missed since coming to Denmark.

We woke up on Friday and drove down most of the way, taking a ferry to get to Germany, which was a pretty cool cultural experience. We ran onto the ferry, ate a speedy lunch, and then went to look around the ferry shop. It sells candy and drinks and cosmetics that's much cheaper than anything you could find in Denmark, so that was pretty cool. Then we hopped back in the car and drove down to somewhere in southern Germany to stay the night in a motorvej hotel. Then we woke up and drove the remaining four hours down to Wagrain, Austria!

The next day I hopped on the slopes with my host mom. Everyone else we were travelling with has been skiing for their entire lives, so naturally they were out on the black diamonds and off skiing and god knows what else. I've only skiied for like, two or four days in my entire life, so I wasn't that good. I decided to just take it slow and steady, cause the slopes we were on were pretty tough and it was soo icy.

On Wednesday we took a day trip to Salzburg, which was so fantastic. I went there with my mom two summers ago, so it was so fun to be back. I'd have to say it's one of my favorite cities in Europe, besides Copenhagen of course! It was so fun to see all these places I visited with my mom, although it did make me miss her a little. We saw the house Mozart was born in, as well as another Mozart museum, the Salzburg cathedral, and just walked around Salzburg's beautiful shopping area.

Then on Thursday it was back on the slopes. I decided to get a ski teacher for an hour, just to help me get a little better, and it was so helpful! Afterwards I was so much more comfortable skiing and gosh it was just so good. I was a little bummed that it was at the end of the week though, so I only had two days to exercise my newfound ski prodigy skills.

Then on Saturday it was back on the road. Except we decided to drive the whole fourteen hours home in one day, instead of two like we did on the way down. It was such an amazing opportunity, I'm so thankful that my host family invited me to come with them and that I got to experience skiing in the Alps!

Here's some pictures:

Having lunch with my first host mom

I was so happy to see mountains again

The view from my hotel window

Beautiful streets of Salzburg

Mozart museum

The house Mozart was born in

Beautiful streets

 

Me!

 

 Salzburg Cathedral

 

Horsies

 

 Mozart's violin

Salzburg

 First host family

 

Giant snowman with my first host mom

And then literally right after getting home from Austria I found out my Rotary club invited me to come to Stockholm with them in May, I love living in Europe so much!

I hope everything is going amazing for everyone back home!

Knus,

Alicia

Unique and Interesting Blog Post Name

High quality video footage from a high quality webcam for your enjoyment.

Danish Christmas vs American Christmas

Christmas in Denmark is full of veery traditional traditions, many of which are very different from an American Christmas, so I just thought I'd post something about all the differences!

-Advent is a really big deal here, so Christmas is a month long holiday. Danes have advent candles for every day and every Sunday, advent gifts, advent calendars and advent lottery calendars.

-They don't decorate their tree until right before Christmas, and when they do, Danes hang their flag all over it and light REAL CANDLES on it. The candles are only lit for a little while, but still just oh gosh living on the edge.

-Christmas food here is SO GOOD. On Christmas eve they eat flæskesteg, roast pork but so much better. It has the fat still on it, and that's cooked or roasted or something and salted so that it becomes this crunchy amazing delicious yummyness, and it's heartbreaking because you can't get that cut in the US because our pigs are too fat, so I'll have to leave flæskesteg here when I go home. And then they eat potatoes and caramelized potatoes, and grated cabbage and brun sovs, this delicious brown sauce. And then for desert they have ris alamande, rice pudding with almonds, and there's always a full almond hidden in the pudding, and whoever finds it wins a gift.

-For julefrokosts (Christmas lunches), they eat all these assorted things on pieces of rye (or white) bread. Curried herring, shrimp salad and eggs, this meat thing (possibly liverpaste?) with bacon, remoulade, and much, much more. There's also usually schnapps involved (one thing I won't particularly miss) and also of course more ris alamande.

-Also just for normal Christmas coziness Danes have æbelskiver, these round pancake things that you eat with jam and powdered sugar. They actually sell them at Trader Joe's so everyone go try some! And also they drink gløgg which is warm wine and cinnamon and raisins and all this stuff, I'm not really a fan of wine, which was good because we had non alcoholic gløgg which just tasted very cinnamoney and cozy so I actually liked it a lot. They also have a special Christmas beer, which is very sweet, it tastes more like root beer than real beer.

-And along the lines of alcohol, again it's just so different from the US. For our lunch on Christmas, there was beer and schnapps all over the table, free for the children to drink, too.

-Danes open their presents on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day.

-They dance around the Christmas tree before opening the presents, which is just a very old tradition and it was SO CUTE.

-Danes hang hearts as decorations everywhere.

-They watch Julekalendar, there's several different ones, that all air every day leading up to Christmas. My favorite (and I think most people's favorite) is Jul i Valhal, a show about two kids that go off to this secret world and are friends with the Nordic Gods.

-They only go to church (generally) on Christmas. I know a lot of Americans do this too, but most Americans that only go on Christmas usually go on Easter too, but from what I've heard I don't think many Danes go to church on Easter even. Religion seems like it's more of a cultural, rather than spiritual, thing in Denmark.

Well I think all my blogging about my Danish Christmas is finally done. I hope you all had an amazing Christmas back home and have a happy New Year.

Alicia

Jul i Danmark

Oh my gosh I have so much I want to blog about. I'm hitting the 5 month mark, and nearly halfway done with my exchange soon, and there's just been a lot of deep reflecting on how far I've come lately. SO MAYBE after I get through all my Christmas blogging (because oh my goodness Christmas is HUGE here) I'll post some deep exchange student posts too.

Okay well where to begin. Well like I said in my last blog post, Christmas is an entire month long celebration. So for the past 27 days I've been opening advent gifts and eating advent chocolate and scratching advent lottery calendars (I was one Christmas tree away from 1,000,000 kroner, ONE!) to get excited for Christmas.

And then last Thursday all the big Christmas stuff finally started. I had a julefrokost (Christmas lunch) with my old class, which was so nice. We ate a ton of traditional Danish food, and they got drunk under parental supervision (something I'm still getting used to) and we watched julekalendar, more specifically Jule i Valhal (a show that's played every day leading up to Christmas about 2 children that go off to this other world and are friends with the Nordic Gods) and ate ris alamande (rice pudding, ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT DENMARK, and there's chopped almonds in it, and the one that finds the whole almond gets a mantle gift). There were 2 mantle gifts, Rudolph antlers and a nose, and penis glasses. Yes penis glasses ohh Danish humor. Then we headed off to the school to have a school fest, and it was all very fun and hyggeligt.

Me and Maja

Can't get over their humor

Me, Sofie, and Trine

Then on Sunday my host family and I cleaned the entire house and made candy in preparation for having Christmas Eve AND Christmas Day at our house. It also snowed, but unfortunately the snow didn't hold out for Christmas </3.

Wahhhh

Danes celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, so on Monday we got up and went to church (the first and probably last time I will go to church in Denmark, most Danes aren't very religious) fun fact, the church in my town is like, 800 years old, and it was a really pivotal part of a very bloody war between Denmark and Sweden in the 1500's, and so now there's a sword hanging in the church, and legend has it that if it ever falls the war will re-continue ooooo. Then my host grandparents, host uncle and cousins and host uncle's girlfriend all came over and we had a DELICIOUS CHRISTMAS DINNER. I'll post another blog about the differences between Denmark and the US's Christmases, so you can read about it there. Then we danced around the tree (very traditional and unique experience) and spent the next like, 3? hours opening allll the presents under the tree. After that, exhausted, we collapsed into bed.

Christmas decorations

 

They use hearts as decorations for Christmas which I find really cute.

Our 10 billion advent candles

Christmas tree with all our presents!

All the kids

Lucio, the exchange student from Argentina that I'm currently living with

Christmas table

They light real candles on the tree, but only for when we're dancing around it

My host cousins literally crawled under the tree looking for presents

Min sød værstfamilie

Then for Christmas Day, we had 26 guests over, which I thought would be impossible because we have a pretty small house, but it actually worked out really well. They were all my host dad's family, and get this, they're all half Oregonian! Half of them have lived in Seaside and my host cousin was looking at moving back to Oregon and it was so crazy, like a little piece of home. We also played pakkeleg, this crazy game where everyone brings a gift and puts it on the table, and then we pass around dice and whenever you roll a 6, you can take a gift. Once all the gifts have been taken, you take them from each other and it gets pretty intense. I won some body butter from the Body Shop which was basically perfect.

And then no, Christmas does not end with Christmas, so on the 26th we went over to my host grandparents (on my host mom's side, the ones we spent Christmas Eve with because my other host grandparents live in OREGON) and ate even MORE FOOD. Danes certainly win the most crazy about Christmas award like I can't even I loved it.

It was such a nice and HUGE Christmas and I'm actually really sad that my Danish Christmas is finally over. Today I'm gonna go into Copenhagen and buy some Danish Christmas stuff to take home so I can attempt to celebrate a Danish Christmas next year too!

Alicia