The Magical Season of Christmas

I have decided to combine both my experiences of the build up to Christmas in Denmark and the actual event, making this blog entry a truly jolly affair.

Firstly, I'll focus on the preparations that have happen at Jakob's home. Basically, they have been in full swing since Sunday the 29th of November, which is when Inger made a few Christmas decorations like the Christmas candle which counts down to Christmas as it burns. These decorations are absolutely beautiful, and have made the house feel so warm because of Christmas. We have also had two advent calendars, one with chocolate and the other an Instant Scratchies type thing, which was very exciting. Also, there has generally always been Christmas songs playing courtesy of Jakob and his laptop, where he has found an online radio station dedicated to Christmas songs. They have been nice, though as most of us know when you hear certain songs over and over again they are more annoying than special. This has actually opened up one thing that I have really missed from Australia's Christmas build up, the traditional Christmas carols and Carols by Candlelight. Certainly however, this has not impacted my enjoyment of 'the silly season' in Denmark. Another thing that has been big in the house for Christmas is the tree, which we got the Sunday before Christmas. As it is a real tree, I had the opportunity to chop it down which was really cool. We actually found out that the tree we got was a 12 year old one from Georgia, so we joked that I had killed a 12 year old...Christmas tree! I actually was able to kill more Christmas trees when we helped the Scout Group sell some on a couple of days before Christmas. We then decorated the tree the night before the main day of Christmas which in Denmark is Christmas Eve, and from then it has really felt like Christmas for me. Certainly the house has been busy in the lead up to this merry occasion, and below are a few photos showing this.








Jakob's school has also gotten into the festive season with a couple of special events. One such event was what is known as Friday Cafe (as everyone translates it to), which happened on Friday the 4th of December. The special Christmas part of it was that we played a special Christmas gift game, where you have a few dice going around the table everyone is sitting at. If you roll a 6, you get to take a Christmas present which are provided by everyone who bring one each. When all the presents have been taken, then people can take other people's presents which leads to many funny moments. Overall it was a fun game to play and made for a lovely afternoon. There was also supposed to be a Christmas dinner and party at the school on Thursday the 17th of December but because of the snow it was cancelled, which was a shame but then again hit was awesome for something to be cancelled because of the snow! The other Christmassy thing the school did happened the day after the party was supposed to be, which was our final day of school for the calendar year (not school year, that finishes in around May/June). In our hour that we were there, we had some of these lovely Christmas balls with jam and sugar which was so tasty, plus we sang some Danish Christmas songs which was rather funny for me considering my lack of proper Danish pronunciation. Certainly, the school was full of Christmas cheer. Below is a few photos from the Friday Cafe (the beer bottles in the background are because the drinking age in Denmark is 16, though not strong alcohol).




All of this preparation and mini celebrations all lead up to the two days over which Danes celebrate Christmas: Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Christmas Eve is considered the more important of the two days here in Denmark, which was a touch different to what I was used to but did not matter. As the sun began to set on Christmas Eve (around 3:00pm), Jakob, his parents, his brother Mikkael and me went to a church service for Christmas Eve at the local church. It was a tight affair, but whilst I couldn't understand what I was hearing or singing, I could appreciate the spirituality of it. Once we got home we then had Christmas Eve dinner, the big meal for Christmas here in Denmark, again different to the norm for me. The food, prepared by Inger, was wonderful with a beautiful goose, pork, potatoes and other glorious dishes. For dessert, we had a really nice almond rice dish traditional for a Danish Christmas, which had a single whole almond in it like the penny that is in a Christmas pudding. Unfortunately, I did not get the whole almond so I did not get a present from that, but when it came to the gift giving later that night Jakob and his family were very kind. Overall, Christmas Eve was a wonderful night for me in terms of experiencing a Danish Christmas. Christmas Day, whilst less important in Denmark than it is in Australia, was still an excellent day in terms of the festive spirit. Much of it was spent relaxing in whatever way possible, be it on the computer, watching TV or lazily doing nothing. In between our moments of relaxation, we had a nice lunch with the whole of Jakob's family, where I was able to have herring for the first time in Denmark. I must say that the spiced herring which I had tasted very nice and I would certainly be willing to have it again. I can certainly say that Christmas is a very special time here in Denmark. Below are a number of photos from the celebrations.







As I am off to Scout Scoop, an international Venturer camp held in Denmark to celebrate the New Year, this will be my final post for the year. I therefore wish you all a very happy and safe New Year.

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.

The Week of Variety

Hi there, I hope everything is well wherever you are right now because things are pretty good where I am. This last week has certainly added to the experience I am having and so I reckon I should let you know what's been happening.

The big thing that I noticed last week was that my gosh Denmark can be a dark place in winter. Not only does it only get light at 7:30am and dark at 4:30pm, but because it is often quite cloudy in Denmark during the day it is also quite dark. I guess for the first time in my experience, I've really missed that aspect of Australia because after a while the lack of sun can really affect your mood. This however, has not affected my enjoyment of the experience, especially in terms of the people that I have met. Just last Tuesday after school, Jakob's friend Louise invited a few of her friends to her house including Jakob and I where we had a nice chat, an afternoon tea with lovely cupcakes and milk, plus an extremely amusing game of Twister in Danish. It was a really lovely time. Apart from this, the week was rather relaxed for me because Jakob had a lot of assignments due towards the end of the week. Thankfully for him, he is basically finished all his assignments for the year which means that there's only one more week of school (full of fun I imagine) before a two week break for Christmas and New Year.

The excitement of last week for me however was the weekend, particularly Saturday. On that day I was able to say that I had been to another country, Germany, even if I was only 10km over the border. The journey down to the border was equally as interesting, as I found out more about how the Danish-German border was located further north for a period of around 50 years until after World War I. The actual border for me was really amazing because it wasn't a big deal crossing it. Apart from a small sign saying that we were in another country and a change in signage on the roads, there was no big thing to indicate the passing from one country to another. I mean, crossing a state border in Australia seems to be a bigger deal than crossing an international border here. Once we were in Germany, we travelled to the city of Flensburg where friends of Jakob's family lived. It was there that we had a lovely lunch of cold meats, smoked salmon and bread, which was really nice. The biggest thing that I couldn't stop noticing while we were having lunch was my lack of language skills in Danish and German. Because all of the communication at the lunch was in German, my head went further into confusion about what was being said. To all those planning to go on SISEP to Denmark, start learning some Danish now while you have the time because this is something that I wish I had done before I came here. After lunch, while Rene and Inger were talking to their German friends, Jakob and I decided to have a walk around the local area and specifically to the local supermarket which to be honest, was quite similar to walking around in Denmark except for a couple of differences like the pedestrian lights. Eventually, it was time to head back to Denmark but before we jumped back over the border, we went into a giant shop known as a border shop where we could get a few things at a really cheap price. After buying up big (especially in terms of cans of drink for Christmas), we made our way back over the unassuming border and back to Norre Aaby. For me, that day was a real experience for me. Below is some photos from the trip to Germany.

The old German border
The new German border, pretty much just the sign and nothing more.

Flensburg

Sunday was also a great day as Inger, Jakob and I went to the historical city of Ribe in Jutland, where Jakob's big brother Mikael lives and works. On the way out to the town, we had the excitement of driving through snow, which looked really pretty. It meant the landscape around us brightened up with white fields, though because it was only light snow it did not stay on the ground for long. Once we got to Ribe and met up with Mikael, we went straight to a large church located in the historic part of Ribe. The most amazing part about Ribe for me is its age, 1,300 years old next year, which astounded me when I thought Australia's oldest city, Sydney, is only just over 200 years old! The church in the town was around 700 years old and after looking through the main part of the church, we climbed the 247 steps (I counted), up the tower to get to the top, where we were treated to a wonderful view. It was here that Mikael's knowledge of history really shone as he was able to point out certain buildings and features that I would not have noticed if he wasn't there. After leaving the church, we went for a stroll along the town's version of a pedestrian shopping mall. This one however was nothing like Rundle Mall in Adelaide; instead it was a mix of local shops and larger firms with a sprinkling of food stores and cafes. The buildings as well were historic in appearance, giving the area a lovely charm. We even saw a local acting group run up the street as a group of poorer people and a couple of rich people from the 18th or 19th century, which was really good. After pottering through the mall, we had lunch at a little takeaway shop before we headed out of the city to visit some attractions in the area. These included a large levy built to reclaim some land for agriculture from the sea and a couple of World War II era bunkers which Mikael, Jakob and I saw after a quick bash through the bushes. The funniest thing while we were touring the area was the lack of wind, because Inger has said that it was the first time she had been on the West Coast of Jutland (where Ribe is located) without having her hair blown all over the place because of the wind. As we dropped off Mikael at his house before we went back to our house, we saw a neighbour of his light some firecrackers which were very exciting to see from the safety of the car! Our trip to Ribe was certainly packed with things to do, which I enjoyed a lot. I hope that these photos below give you a great insight into Ribe.
View from the church tower
Inside the church
Weir on embankment to allow 'river' to flow through

Christmas is in full swing here in Denmark and the preparation for the event is so big that I will dedicate my next blog entry to this. I hope that all is well wherever you are and stay safe.

A Most Satisfying Weekend

Hello there, apologies for the lateness in this entry. Considering the pretty cool weekend I have just had I reckon I ought to fill you in on 'what went down'. Though it was tiring at times the end product turned out wonderfully, that is an enjoyable weekend.

It started out early on Saturday morning as I got up ready for a canoeing trip that day. The plan of attack was to canoe along the Kongeaaen River (which is more like a creek to be honest). It was the site of the former Danish-German border which was around from around the middle of the 19th century until after World War One. An interesting fact about the canoeing trip that had me slightly concerned was the fact that the only other Australian exchangee to do the same trip, Andrew from 2007/08, capsized at one of the bridges. At 7:30am Rene, Jakob and I headed off from home and popped around to the scout hall to wait for the others. Once everyone had arrived we set off again, this time across to Jutland to get to our starting location. In the canoe, I was with Morten who along with Jakob came to Adelaide in July this year, so it good to have someone who I knew well in the canoe with me. Thankfully, all bridge moments were successful for me and I didn't fall into the water, though there was a near miss when we manage to get tangled up in a tree. Along the way, we stopped a few times generally for food breaks which were always a welcome relief, especially with the lovely rolls that I believe were made by Inger. When it came to the end of the trip, it was incredibly bittersweet, though at that stage I was not aware of the evening that was to follow at the scout hall. After the canoeing group got back to the scout hall, we all had a lovely meal of pasta together which was very lovely even though too much was made for us. After this, the Scouts including me played a couple of games before it was time to go. Overall, the day turned out much, much better than I thought it would be, and below is a couple of photos from the day.

The next day was a great combination of a bit of relaxation and a bit of sightseeing, always a pleasant combination. After a "5 minute" sleep in and a lovely breakfast of fresh bread rolls, Rene, Jakob and I drove across to Odense, the biggest city on the island of Funen. With the freeway, it only took just over half an hour until we arrived in Odense. My impressions of Odense were rather mixed, because on one hand I could see some heritage and character about the town, yet on the other hand it just seemed to me that once upon a time it was a bit more lively and more significant than it is now, possibly due to the big bridge built just over 10 years ago. Firstly, we visited the Railway Museum which was a good opportunity to see a few trains. Two things that I will distinctly remember is the special train that took snow of the rail tracks (this doesn't happen in Denmark much now due to climate change, so I have been told), and the ferries that used to carry trains between Zealand and Funen before the big bridge was built, with the train actually being loaded onto a boat! It was a pretty cool museum for me especially due to my interest in trains, and I certainly learnt a couple of things. After a quick pit stop at a small cafe where I had a very nice pastry and a not so nice cafe latte, we headed for Hans Christian Andersen's childhood home where there was a museum dedicated to his life and work. It was really fascinating finding out about the man who I knew very little about, plus I also had the opportunity to listen to a fairytale, namely The Emperor's New Clothes, which was very enjoyable. After leaving the museum, we left Odense and on the way home we stopped at a service station to get a bite to eat. I got a hotdog which I must say was nothing compared to what Inger had prepared last week. We eventually got back home after deciding not to take the freeway, which was a good decision as we were able to see a lot more of the countryside. Finally, the weekend finishes with a bang with a very nice chicken dish made by Inger. So, as you can see I had a pleasurable weekend around the place. Just before I go though, I have decided to hold off doing the blog entry about Christmas until just after Christmas Day so that you can enjoy a large blog about the whole thing, after all its only the 8th of December today which means there's still 17 days until Christmas Day. I will however, do another entry before the weekend. Until then, stay safe, and enjoy the photos below from Hans Christian Andersen's house.

Becoming Part of the Community

Hi there, apologies for the long time between post, however I feel this is a great time to fill you in on little yet significant things that have occurred since my last post. You may be intrigued by my choice of title for this entry, this is because this has been the week that I have started to become more than just the exchange student from Australia; part of the class, part of the Scout Group and indeed, part of the setting around me.

To start to truly fit into the fabric of life in Norre Aaby, I needed to have a good look around. Luckily on Sunday, Rene took me along with Maggie around the town, highlighting some of the historic buildings and a bit of the town's history. As part of our walk, we visited the local Scout Hall where Jakob is a member. The hall is rather different to that of Mount Lofty Scout Hall as there is no 'hall' in the building; instead there are a series of classroom like rooms where the Scout meetings take place. In the large outdoor area as well, they have built a few things like a fire hut and a bunker style structure which can accommodate a number of people. In summary, Norre Aaby Scout Hall is quite different when compared to my scout hall though there are some similarities such as an excellent kitchen.

Speaking of Scouting, I went along to my first Scout meeting since arriving in Denmark on Monday night. It was a meeting with the actual Scout section (those aged between 10 and around 16 in Denmark), where Jakob is a leader. At the meeting, I gave my presentation about Australia which went for an hour because Jakob had to translate everything I said into Danish so that the Scouts could understand. According to Jakob, the Scouts were quite interested, but I still think that some of them were about to fall asleep in my opinion. After the presentation, I showed them the best game that I have learned from Scouting - the chocolate game! Early on Monday before Scouts, Jakob and I popped into a supermarket on the way home from his roughly weekly job as a school cleaner to pick up a couple of blocks of chocolate for the game, and they certainly weren't wasted. For those unaware, the game involves sitting in a circle around a plate of chocolate and requires you to roll a pair of dice as they make their way around the circle. If you roll a double (numbers that are rolled are the same), then you go into the middle of the circle, put on a funny piece of clothing (in our case a funny hat) and then using a knife and fork, try and eat as many pieces of chocolate before someone else rolls a double. As you can imagine, the game can sometimes get out of hand, but thankfully it worked really well with the Scouts on Monday night. In the end, the Scout meeting went quite well and was a great oppourtunity to get to know some of Jakob's Scouting friends.

This sets up a nice lead in for me into talking about school and Jakob's friends there. School has been better than I thought it would be though I am yet to do anything much that could be considered as productive. Nevertheless, I gave my presentation to Jakob's English class on Wednesday, giving them Anzac biscuits that I had made the night before. Despite the lack of cup measurements in the house and using dark syrup instead of golden syrup which is not available at the local supermarket (I think the two are roughly the same anyway), the biscuits came out incredibly nicely with many people praising their taste. Inger has already asked me to make them again before Christmas! Along with the presentation, I showed the class a couple of examples of Australian humour through YouTube, with the two clips I used coming from the TV shows Fast Forward and Russell Coight's All Aussie Adventures. While the class found certain parts of the clips funny, I don't think they understood some of the background behind the comedy meaning that they weren't able to truly understand Australian humour. Still, I found them funny so I was able to have a good laugh. Also, Jakob's friends at school have been exceptionally nice and really good company as well. In the two big breaks in the day, I have always had a laugh with Jakob and his friends in the school's refectory, finding out little thing about Denmark here and there. In the last couple of days as well, I have had the chance to spend time with Jakob's friends outside of school. One of Jakob's friends from both school and Scouts, Stig, hung around with us on Wednesday night when Jakob was shopping for Christmas presents in Middelfart. A group of us including Jakob, Stig and his sister, another friend of Jakob's called Louise along with her friend, all went to the cinema on Thursday night to see New Moon. The main reason for going for me was for the social occasion rather than the movie (though I must say I found it more enjoyable than I thought I would). After the movie, we walked across to an outdoor ice rink set up in Middelfart, though without skates we simply tried to glide along the rough ice with our shoes. The funniest thing about this though was when a giant crack appeared in the ice, which you could easily hear. This amused me quite a bit. Overall, school has been great.

I might just briefly mention TV in Denmark as it has been rather enjoyable for me. Often because Jakob is bust doing things like homework after school, the TV has been a good source of entertainment. Luckily for me, most of the shows have been in English with Danish subtitles, so not only have I been able to understand the shows I have also been able to learn some Danish. The best part about TV in Denmark is that there is a lot of shows on that I love like Friends, Scrubs and Seinfeld in the afternoon when I have been watching TV the most. They also have shows on from a while ago that I was too young to get into, and so I have now been getting into them. The main example of this is Dawson's Creek, which has been rather good to watch as I have not seen much of it. However, I haven't been watching a lot of TV overall which is a good thing.

As it is now December here in Denmark (as it is everywhere else), the Christmas season has truly begun. I will leave talking about the Christmas season to a blog entry next week as it deserves its own entry; it is such a big thing in Denmark that you simply can't describe it properly in a paragraph. Tomorrow, I am going canoeing with Jakob's Scout group, so of course I will fill you in on what went down in my next entry (hopefully with no stories about me capsizing). Until then, stay safe. I will leave you with a couple of pictures of the frost that has been present here on a couple of days this week *for the whole day*, even on some of the roads.