Ice, Snow and Aarhus

Hey all. Even though I said that this blog entry would be about Christmas in Denmark, the events of this week have already had such a good impact on my exchange that I decided to leave the Christmas blog to just before the day itself. Anyway, this week was special for three main reasons: ice skating, *snow* and our day trip to Aarhus.

Firstly, a bit about the ice skating. On Tuesday after school, a group consisting of me, Jakob and some of his friends went to an outdoor ice skating rink in nearby Fredricia. Yes, that's right, an outdoor ice skating rink! This is something that I wanted to do whilst on this exchange after seeing a few rinks on a website about London. I then found out that there was a rink in Fredericia and so when one of Jakob's friends, Stig, invited us both to go ice skating, I was very excited and keen. Once we had arrived at the ice skating rink and waited for everyone to arrive, we got our skates which was a bit daunting for me because I am not sure what my shoe size is in the European system. Luckily, Jakob knew the right size for me so the skates that I used, which were laced, were close to a perfect fit. It was then time to hit the ice. Because it had been over a year since I last skated, I was very slow-going at first. I also took the phrase 'hit the ice' a bit too literally to start with as I fell over a couple of times. After awhile though, I got more confident and by the end of the hour long session we had paid for, I was doing a lot better. I think over the course of the hour we had, everyone fell over and certainly everybody had a great time. I definitely can't wait to do it in London! Below are a couple of photos from the rink.



Nevertheless, the highlight of the week if not my entire exchange came the day after. As Jakob and I walked from the house to a spot on a main road from where Jakob's brother Henric drives us to school, we felt and saw a few drops of snow on our jackets which was pretty cool. As we headed towards the school via the freeway, we realised how fantastic this was, with the snow more prevalent has we travelled closer and closer towards school. Once we arrived at school, we were welcomed to at least 10cm if not 20cm of white, powdery wonder! Because of the snow, a number of our teachers for the day were late to school, meaning that we had time for a few snowball fights, which was so much fun! Over the course of the day, the snow just kept coming and coming, and by the time Inger came to pick us up from school to takes us to nearby Kolding to do some Christmas shopping, it was really affecting the roads. In fact, the trip from school to Kolding, normally a trip taking less than half an hour, took us well over an hour due to the terrible driving conditions. We ended up staying in the shopping centre for a bit longer due to the snow I think, which meant we had time to do things like get our masks for the New Year's Eve celebrations at Scout Scoop. When we eventually got home however, we were greeted with a driveway covered with snow, meaning we had to shovel the snow off in order to get the car up the driveway which was a really cool experience for me. This day was really good for me, but I certainly wasn't aware of the day that would follow.

When I woke up the next morning at the usual time of 6:30am, I found out from Jakob that his school was closed for the day because of the snowstorm we had that night which had cancelled many bus services. Yes, this meant we had a snow day, which was exciting for me! In fact, the road where the house I'm in is was actually completely covered in a thick layer of snow which meant that we were literally snowed in, with the car only able to get out of the driveway after a significant amount of snow shovelling! I took the day pretty easily, until around 3pm when Jakob, some of his friends and I had what I would call a snow brawl, with lots of snowballs, snow in the face and other snow related things. It was so much fun, and really capped off two very good days well. All I can say is that snow is fun, and below are some photos of th snow (sorry, none of the big fight, you can imagine how vulnerable a camera would be in a snow brawl!)







Saturday was designated as our day to visit Aarhus, and the city certainly didn't disappoint! Leaving Norre Aaby just after 9am, we got to Aarhus via Denmark's highest geographical point. I say its highest geographical point (at around 170m above sea level), because the towers on the big bridge between Zealand and Funen are actually taller. Anyway, once we arrived in Aarhus, we quickly went to a bakery so that Rene could make a visit to one of his company's clients before we went to the city's main attraction, the old city. It is actually a social history museum about Denmark, which is rather similar to Ballarat's Sovereign Hill. Most of what was in the 'museum' were a number of different shops and buildings like a carpenter and a post office, but with old buildings from as far back as the 16th century! Throughout the museum there were also a number of stalls selling food, drinks, clothes and objects which were pretty much all handmade. They also had a horse and cart ride which we didn't take, although I was almost run over by one of the horses because I couldn't understand the man trying to tell me to get out of the way. Overall though, the old city was great and made the trip to Aarhus so fantastic. Below are some photos to show the day's highlights.








Currently outside, it is well below 0 degrees with the temperature expected to get down to -10 degrees tonight. There is also still about 50cm of snow so hopefully the first white Christmas in Denmark for over 14 years in on the cards. Until my next blog entry which I promise will be about the Christmas build up, stay safe.