Fall Break

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

-Robert Frost

I will not become a lazy blogger. I will not become a lazy blogger. I will not become a lazy blogger. Maybe if I say it enough times it will become true. Either way, I’ll try harder not to put off posting.

Last week was Efterårsferie, or more easily said as Fall Break. A concept that I hope to bring back to Canada with me.

Friday after school we drove two hours to Fyn to stay with my host moms sister and her family. We arrived Friday evening and had dinner, and then Friday night we decided to go to a movie. Fun, right? Not exactly. We got there and the movie started, and I’m sitting there thinking that they’re speaking really weird English. Turns out it was not english. The movie was German, with Danish subtitles. I followed along as best as I could with the subtitles for about ten minutes, but I was getting really confused, so I put my hood up and took a nap. I’m pretty much always tired here, so sleeping on demand is no problem.

Saturday we drove to Odense, and went to the Hans Christian Anderson museum. They had lots of old things from the 1800’s, including an old wooden bike that I can’t imagine having to ride, and his teeth. Yeah, you read right. They had H.C. Anderson’s teeth there. Or his dentures, rather. But still, gross. And then we got to see his actual house. It was so cool to see how small houses were back then. The doorways were barely taller than me, and the rooms were closet sized. I’ll never complain that my room is too small again.

Simone and I outside H.C.Anderson's house

Saturday night we drove back home, and then bring and early Sunday morning Chelsea came over and we started preparing thanksgiving dinner. Thanksgiving is a really big deal to my family in Canada, and I wanted to share it with my family here. So Chelsea and I spent all day cooking all of the traditional thanksgiving food. The only thing different was that we had to substitute turkey for chicken. And we made pretty much everything from scratch. The stuffing was easy, but the pumpkin pie was not. We started with a legit whole pumpkin, and then had to cut it apart and bake it, then we had to microwave it so it was soft. Then we had to scoop the pumpkin off the skin, then puree it, then add all of the flavors. Overall it took more than two hours. But now I can say that I know how to make pumpkin pie from scratch! It was totally worth it though cause besides my counsellor, no one else had really tried pumpkin pie before.

What it looked like in the beginning

After! It was a great success!

My counsellors family came too, so it was my family, Susanne’s family, and Chelsea. It was really, really nice, and I’m so glad that I got to share the holiday with them.

Me, Chelsea and my host mom.

My amazing counsellor and the thanksgiving chicken.

Monday to Wednesday I stayed with my friend Erica, who lives about an hour away. I love hanging out with exchange students because it’s so natural. We dyed our hair, and watched movies, and went to dinner and shopped and it felt so normal. Monday night we were having dinner in Copenhagen, me, Erica and another exchange student, Hillary, and we were just looking out the window and it was like woah, how crazy is this, we’re having dinner in Copenhagen. We’re surrounded by amazing buildings and castles, and this is our life for the next eight months. It’s really crazy to think about.

Ready for girls night out.

Wednesday night I came home, emptied my suitcase and then immediately repacked it, because Thursday was the day I had been waiting weeks for -- I left to go visit Emma! I hadn’t seen her since intro camp back in August, so it was so great to be back with her. We shopped and went to see Paranormal Activity 2, and ate lots of fast food, and on Saturday we went to an aquarium, which was so much fun. They had all sorts of crazy fish and we were like little kids, ‘oo’ing and ‘aww’ing at all of the colourful fish. And I bought a stuffed stingray which is pretty much the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen, but I love it so much because it’s a reminder of my amaazing weekend. This weekend was the first time since intro camp that I was 100% myself. We were loud and crazy and annoying and it felt just like I was at home with my friends. It was really great, even thought I think we scared her host family.

Me and Emma with the awesomely ugly stingray.

This week I was back in school, and this afternoon I leave for Holbæk, where all 200 of us in Denmark will meet for a halloween get together weekend. I’m super excited, especially since they don’t really do halloween here, so I’m happy that Rotary is doing something for us so that we can still celebrate with our friends. And then Sunday night I think that me, Simone and her friend will try trick or treating, even though I don’t actually think that people will have candy to give us, but it’s worth a try.

Also, on Monday I will be starting with a new class at school. I’m going to be with a first year class, which is 16-17 year olds, instead of the 17-18 year olds that my current class is, so I hope it will work out to be with kids my own age. So I’m really looking forward to fresh start, and hopefully things with school will pick up from here. :)

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Kærlighed fra Danmark

Andrea