#afsnz

[10monthsindenmark]

Last week...

Only five days left in this wonderful country.

I have been asked a lot over the last couple of weeks if I am happy/ready/looking forward to going home, and whilst I would definitely be lying if I said I no, I do not want to leave Denmark at all. Although I am really keen to see family ( 🐶 is a high priority too ), friends, the naki, and the kiwi ways of life again, I have created a whole other life here over the last year, and just having to up and leave it behind is really quite hard. So have been trying to make the most of the last little while with family and friends.

Anyways, On sunday we arrived back from a warm relaxing two weeks in Spain and settled back into the not so warm danish summer 😂. We spent a large amount of the holiday by the pool or beach either playing cards or reading - soaking up the Spanish sun. We did squeeze in a little sightseeing of course, or mum would have killed me 😜.

Amazing view from our balcony.

Came across a bunch of bodybuilders...

A very cool 4 hour river walk through a little ravine with amazingly clear water - you had to walk in the shallow river 90% of the time as it was so tight.

Caminito del Rey lakes, just north of Malaga.

The main shopping street - Malaga

So yea, all in all been a pretty darn good few weeks. 

I have a very busy final week ahead of me, will be spending all my time with friends and family, trying to make the most of the last few days. I might do one final post when I get home in a weeks time trying to sum the year up, although that really is impossible to do properly. So in the mean time...

Vi ses 😎

[10monthsindenmark]

The 6 month mark

The last month has flown by at an unbelievable rate... although I cant seem to recall achieving anything very spectacular, apart from finishing all of Breaking Bad in 2.5 weeks (a grand total of 62 episodes) which if you ask me, is a very celebratory-deserving achievement! But anyways, everyone said once the new year started time would fly, and it has. This Friday at around 7pm we start the 12 hour drive to Wagrain, Austria for a week of skiing, then the following weekend I’ll be on Fyn (that little island between Sealand and Jutland) with some exchange student mates, and then a few weeks after that we will be traveling to Dublin for a week with my class for a school “study” trip! 

Also (almost forgot)  had my birthday last month which was very nice, went out for dinner with my family and aunt + uncle, then back home for the traditional coffee and cake. Shout out to NZ fam for the birthday care-package filled with chocolate, couldn't have asked for anything better; ate most of it in 1 day 😘

Snow + School

Birthday dinner and celebrations. The chocolate and marzipan cake tasted as good as it looked!

AFS Winter Camp

Klintevej looking fresh this morning... buuuuut was raining by 10am. Gotta love Danish weather!!

We had a theme week at school and one of the days was black, to be honest I didn’t notice at all until as this is how 90% of danes dress every day anyway!

Okay to be honest the real reason I finally got around to writing is this post is because my level of procrastination is so damn high that instead of starting the 3 assignments I currently have, I put them off for another day and wrote this instead!! Don’t worry mum, Denmark is greatly improving my work ethic 😂

So yea, off to Austria very soon so expect the next post to be filled of skiing pics!!

Vi ses 😎 

[10monthsindenmark]

Pre-Christmas in Denmark

 I thought I’d take the time enlighten you all about the danish Christmas traditions, since it’s halfway through the festive season! 🎄😄🌨 The danes have many different different pre-xmas rituals, but I think they intensity of them vary from family to family. For example, there is a Christmas tv show which plays for 30 min every night, and is mostly directed at kids, but I know of some families who watch it religiously. 

These baked dough donut-like balls are called æbleskiver (roughly translates to Apple balls or something). They don’t actually contain any apples however, but are eaten hot with jam, icing sugar, and basically anything else sweet. They are eat as a desert every now and then during December.

Another danish tradition is the christmas candle. This is our one on the 1st of December, and each day you light the candle and burn it down to date it currently is.

The next one is or Gavekalender or Gift Calendar. Some families with younger children give a very small gift for each day of December until xmas, but once you get a little older its usually just one gift for each of the Xmas weekends (the 4 weekends before xmas).

Julefrokost, or Christmas Lunch is also a big danish tradition and most people will go to multiple. I had one with exchange students earlier in the month, one with family last weekend, I have one this Friday with my old class and on Saturday evening ill join my new class for the end of theirs. These events involve a lot of good (and bad) alcohol (more so with class ones than family ones), and a heck of a lot of beautiful food!!! These lunches tend to go from 1pm to late, and all of the time is spent sitting at the table talking, eating and drinking, and if there has been enough of the latter than probably some dancing too! These Julefrokosts are a lot of fun and also a good way to pack on some weight before the winter cold really sets in!

There is a little game played within the class or workplace during December, which I cant remember the danish name of, but it basically translates to “secret elf”. Everyone is secretly given a name of a member of the class whom they have to anonymously give small gifts too once a week leading up to christmas break, and at christmas everyone has to try and guess who their secret elf was.

Being the alcohol fueled country that Denmark is, they have a tradition where a special beer is brewed specifically for Christmas, named JuleØl. Most of the danish beer brands are aboard on this, and from the first Friday of November each year until the end of December it is available to buy. Its basically just stronger with a slightly different flavour, but a cool tradition nonetheless!🍻

I think I have covered most of the pre-christmas traditions but if I remember any more ill edit them in - the Danes have a lot!

I drive to Hamburg on Saturday morning (at some ungodly hour) with my family to see the Christmas Market, which is apparently quite famous! And also ill make another post with the Danish Christmas day traditions after xmas. If you have any questions or anything about it or just want to know anything else, just email or facebook message me 😊

Vi Ses! 😎

[10monthsindenmark]

Winter is coming...

Or actually, it is most definitely here already. 

Although snow is nothing new for me having skied ect for the last like 12 years, waking up on a Sunday morning and looking outside to see a 20cm coating over everything is still very exciting. The snow just makes everything even more stunning! I didn’t take nearly as many photos as I should have unfortunately, as I spent most the day playing and spectating handball. But it was honestly a winter wonderland, and made me very very excited for the family ski trip to Austria we have planned for February. Also picked up a good winter coat and some wintery boots on the same day, good timing. Although it snowed, it was only 0˚ all day Sunday, but then on Monday it dropped to -9˚ overnight and just froze everything solid. 

Ikke sjovt. 😒

It’s very cold and dark, and I know its only really the start of it. But the plus side of it is you can snuggle down and watch a movie never feel guilty about wasting away the day - very hyggelig!

Thats all for now... 

Vi ses! 😎

[salut-hope-blog]

Venice part 2

26/10/15 - 31/10/15

Monday - woke up early so we would miss the traffic we got stuck in yesterday. Once we got to Venice we met up with the friends who had also run the marathon yesterday and walked down to the ferry terminal. We caught a boat from Venice to a beautiful little island about 45 minutes away that I have completely forgotten the name of. We spent most of the day walking around the island taking pictures of the houses and everything in between, stopping for a picnic in a park at lunch time. We caught the ferry back in the late afternoon and then took another boat back to the bus station rather than walk. Got home in time for dinner, then relaxed for the rest of the night.

Tuesday - woke up late and had a lazy morning. After lunch we drove to another little town (I’m really bad at remembering the names of places…) and walked around a huge mansion place thingy. Came home, watched a movie and tried uploading some photos on Facebook but the WiFi wouldn’t let me…

 Wednesday - was raining all day so we didn’t head in to Venice. Instead we went to a giant mall and did a bit of shopping. There were plenty of shops there that we don’t have in new Zealand yet like H&M, Zara, Sephora and Pull and Bear. There was a lot of stuff I wanted to buy but I was so overwhelmed by the choices that I only ended up buying a jumper. Spent the afternoon not doing anything much. I got an email from AFS with info about my host family there and the timetable of things we would be doing. It sounds like it’s going to be a pretty awesome week and it seems like I’m not going to miss anything by coming a day late which I’m really happy about.

Thursday - was raining again this morning so we didn’t leave for Venice until just before lunch. Spent the afternoon wandering the streets, stopping of for our first ice cream of the trip (it was pretty damn good). My host parents dropped me and my host sisters off home before turning around and going straight back to Venice for dinner. Watched a movie after dinner and then went to bed.

Friday - last proper day in Venice so headed in early to make the most of it. we spent most of the day just wandering the streets, stopping off for a picnic lunch by the sea (the actual sea not just a canal).

Saturday - spent the morning cleaning up the house and then attempted to finish all the food from the week for lunch (didn’t quite happen) it was a beautiful day so after lunch we spent an hour or so sitting outside and playing swing ball. We left for the airport at about 4 and took of from Venice at 6:50. the flight was pretty uneventful, I wasn’t sitting with my host family because I had booked the flights later than them but it was okay because I had the window seat. Unfortunately the match was happening during the flight so I didn’t get to see any of it, the first thing I did when we landed was look up the score. Felt pretty proud when I found out we had won and got a few weird looks from others as I celebrated. We then headed back to the hotel in Beauvais that we had stayed at last Friday, stopping off for some KFC on the way (second time ever having KFC).

xx Hope

[10monthsindenmark]

12 weeks

Today (minus 12 weeks....) was the day I arrived in Aarhus. The last 3 months have gone so fast its crazy! I’m making the most of it while its not raining though 😆

It’s starting to get darker and colder here, today we started loosing light at 4.30pm, but apparently in December/January it gets fully dark at about 3pm or 4pm 😮

Ive had a pretty cool week 😎We went to watch the Aarhus handball team playing on Wednesday night which was extremely exciting - at full time the scores were tied, it went into extra time which at the end of (despite many more points on the board) there were still no winners. After going into a SECOND lot of extra time, it was still a draw. It then went into penalty shootout, where the home team came out victorious! It was a pretty nail-biting game to say the least.

Friday night I went out with my new class which was very cool to become closer with them ect ect

I spent most of the day today in the city with 2 fellow AFSers - Julia from USA 🇺🇸 and Hlöðver (noone can pronounce it so we just call him Joe 😂) from Iceland🇮🇸.

Tomorrow (Sunday) I have a handball game at 1.30pm and homework that I have to do if I want my new classes teachers to like me... 😒haha.

Also I received a care-package with some NZ lollies/chocolate ect from the fam on Thursday which was very nice!! 👌

Århus håndbold team

The city with John

Most important item from the care-package 😍

3 musketeers

Denmarks stunning architecture

More of the stunning architecture 😜 

The cycle into town never gets old

So ya it’s been a pretty good week, as is every week here 😎

Vi ses!

[10monthsindenmark]

Term 2

The last two weeks have been pretty quiet, haven’t done much out of the norm. We had a week of autumn holidays last week which I spent half of at a summerhouse with 4 classmates in Holbæk, north Sealand. It was a pretty hygge few days of catching up on sleep and not doing much - a holiday well spent! 

I started in a Danish speaking class on Monday (start of term 2) which I was a little nervous about but my new classmates are all really nice. Its also a good opportunity to make new mates and gain new experiences, ect ect.

Just a small post as I don’t have any photos to post or much to talk about but I didn’t want to neglect the blog for much more that 2 weeks incase it became a habit!

Vi ses 😎🇩🇰

[10monthsindenmark]

Had an amazing day in the city today, doing touristy things with 2 fellow AFSers who I’m good mates with 😀We visited the art museum, which has an amazing circular walkway around the top, with each pane of glass being a different colour. 6 weeks have past and I’m feeling as happy as ever! 

Keeping it short and sweet with lots of photos instead 😁

Vi ses!