Helloooo Denmark!

It seems that when you are in a place where nobody knows you, you become most yourself.

Hej!

So I’ve been in Denmark now just over 24 hours, and so far it’s been great! I left my house 9am Saturday, and then left Calgary just after 1. The flight went surprisingly well, except for a confusing connection in Frankfurt. And then I landed in Denmark 9:10am local time (1:10am Calgary time) and was met by a Rotarian who helped me get my luggage, and then he took me out to my counsellor, Susanne, who then drove me to my host families house.

My host sisters are on vacation, so it was just me and my host parents and Susanne for breakfast. After breakfast (which was more like a midnight snack for me) my host dad showed me around the house. While Denmark is not super different from Canada, there are some noticeable differences. The houses are one of them. There is no wasted space in the house. There is the kitchen and dining room, where we eat, the living room where we hang out, and then just the bedrooms, and a small rec room type thing outside of our rooms where we can hang out. I will be living in my older sisters room, which is really nice of her to give it up for me! And it’s so beyond cute! And then the one thing that will be most different for me is the one shower for all of us! In Canada I had my own bathroom and could shower whenever, but here we have to divide the time between the five of us. There is a second half bathroom though, so even if one person is in the shower, there’s a second bathroom. But overall it’s really nice. I forgot my camera cable in Calgary, but hopefully it will be here soon, and I can put up pictures.

And then yesterday my host parents wanted to keep me awake, so we kept really busy. After breakfast we went grocery shopping at this costco type store, and it was so confusing because everything is in Danish. I picked out these cheerio things with like four different flavors of cheerios in them, but I don’t even know what the four flavors are! And, their yogurt is soo different! It comes in a milk carton, and is only slightly thicker than milk. I haven’t tried it yet, so I don’t know it tastes, but it smells good. And then after that my host dad took me to Ikea to get a new light fixture for my room, and then to this mall that I can’t wait to go back to, and then he just toured me around the area. I saw my school, which is much bigger than I expected, and the local “downtown.” Downtown Taastrup is just one street with a few shops, cafes, bank, and I think my doctors office is there too. I can ride my bike there in like fifteen minutes, which I might do later today or tomorrow. I’m just really scared of getting lost! And then after that we came back home, and I skyped with my mom and dad in Canada (I’m getting all confused with all of these parents haha) and then my host mom took me to the beach. (By this point it’s 6:30pm, which is 10:30am Calgary time, which means I hadn’t slept in 27 hours, minus an our that I slept on the plane. And then we had dinner, and then we watched some TV, which is when I finally fell asleep. So yeah, that was my first day in Denmark! It was a lot of fun!

And the this morning my host mom took me to the town hall where she works to get my social security card, and then she took me back home and now I’m home alone while they are at work. And tonight my younger host sister comes home!

I hope you are all doing well, and I’ll talk to you soon!

Farvel,

Andrea