As many of you know, I started off my exchange going to a language camp with some other nearby exchange students for the first two weeks. At this school I met some great people, 6 of which were from the U.S and Canada, 5 from South America, and 1from Slovakia. Meeting all of these exchange students so early one was comforting. We were able to experience all of the strange and awkward cultural differences together, we were all lost in the culture, but at least we were lost together. Other than meeting our amazing Danish teacher, who was probably the nicest teacher I have met to date, we helped each other learn how to use the public transportation, had the opportunity to complain about the strange bathroom facilities (like the toilets with multiple flushing options or the showers that are really get the entire bathroom soaking wet), and experience some delicious, and disgusting, food. After this language school, I had to say goodbye to two of the exchange students, the girl from Slovakia and the girl from Argentina, because they're a part of AFS, not Rotary.
Here is a picture of my awesome class:
Then, I got to travel through this beautiful country and was introduced to my host family's cozy little cottage on an island of the coast of Zealand. The weather was perfect and the ocean was beautiful, but a little to cold to go swimming. I met some of their friends, who lived in Houston for three years and had some delicious food. I also went to a fresh fish market for the first time and had fresh fish for lunch while sitting in the marina look out over the ocean. Needless to say, I was amazed by the beauty and couldn't help but think of how lucky I was.
Here are some more pictures of my time at the cottage:
Leaving this magnificent place was difficult, but I was excited to be off at Introcamp with the other 170 exchange students in Denmark. Introcamp was obviously crazy and exciting to say the least, just like any Rotary event. Within an hour of arriving, I had met just about everyone, knew where everyone was from, and exchanged pins and cards with at least 80 people. By dinnertime, we had met our teachers for the week, and become friends with everyone at the camp, and by the next morning I was already calling some of my friends family and others my best friends. By the third day I had decided I never wanted to leave Introcamp because every one there had become a family to me, one that consisted of 170 kids and 8 teachers, one that was almost as closely knit as my family back home, one that I never wanted to leave because I felt so at home there with them. So much happened in this week, and I had made so many memories in such a short amount of time that it felt like I had been there for at least a month. If this post wasn't so long already, I would go through each day and tell you all about every single activity, but that might be a little extreme in this case. So instead I will tell you about the really big things that happened while at camp.
The First Night:
Meeting everyone and getting pins and bracelets from all around the world is something that can definitely make someones day, especially a Rotary exchange student (we have a little obsession with pins / stuff we can make into pins). Sometimes, the names were easy to remember, but when it was to difficult to remember, calling people by there home country/state/city was perfectly acceptable. The only issue with that was the Brazilians, being that there were about 70 of them and if you called out "Brazil" you would be answered by a huge roar of noise followed by spontaneous dancing and chanting (and I though America was patriotic...). By the end of that night, I had become close with my awesome room mate, Abby, and made some friendships that I couldn't imagine not having, like my friend Guilherme from Brazil, who is probably my best friend now and one of my favorite people in Denmark. The first night we all walked down to this little park to have coffee, cake, and fruit while sitting by the river and meeting everyone. This eventually turned into a bunch of singing, pictures, more pin exchanges, dancing, and the casual mini food fight/wrestling.
At the end of the first night we ended up with this awesome picture:
On Wednesday night, the teachers surprised us with a concert by a danish band called Mettro. The band was amazing and were taking pictures with all of the different flags and exchange students mid-song. Then the played a cover of the song "Put Your Hands Up for Detroit", and needless to say I went a little bit crazy and everyone was pointing to me saying that I was from Detroit. This then prompted the band to give me a bunch of free stuff and one of the other exchange students to lift me up on his shoulders. I don't have the pictures of the concert, most of them were taken by my friends, but once I get some of them I will post them.
The Århus Museum of Art:
Being the art geek that I am, I felt like a little kid in a candy shop. The Museum is world renown for its amazing installations and its amazing modern art collection. The most famous piece in the museum is the large installation on top of the museum. This installation is a huge tunnel, in the shape of a ring that you can walk inside of, but the catch to the tunnel is the optical illusion it creates. The tunnel walls are made of colored class, which is designed as a spectrum wheel. The optical illusion is created when you are standing in a certain color, you are looking out at the beautiful colored view of Århus and then you reach a section with natural light and no glass, when you look around you, everything is colored the color that is opposite of the one that you were standing in. After walking around in the spectrum for a while, and then walking outside, you start to see more vibrant colors for a few hours because of the illusions that were played on your eyes. Also while at the museum, I saw one of my favorite sculptures, which is a large neon lettered sign, a sign that is so big that you can't read it when you are standing in front of it, you have to walk in front of it in order to read it. I didn't know that this sculpture was housed in the museum's modern art gallery, so I was very happily surprised. The museum was followed by lunch, shopping and sight seeing with some of the other exchange students in Århus.
Here are some pictures from the day:
This is a live woman
"Boy" (note the size comparison)
The view from inside the spectrum
My lovely roommate
(my favorite)
Saying goodbye to all of the other exchange students was difficult, I cried and I was hugged by 170 people. I burst into tears saying goodbye to Guilherme and Abby, and was kissed on the cheek by every single Brazilian. I had to say goodbye to my awesome teacher, who I had so much fun with making fun of the weird danish culture. I miss everyone from Introcamp so much, but there isn't much that can be done about it, and I know that I will see them in November for an amazing few days in Copenhagen.
I will post again next week, and I will also post some more pictures this week and put up a map of Denmark with all of the cities that I have visited.
Vi ses i næste uge!
Becca
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