This last week, I was at intro camp. Rotary sends all the exchange students to the Nørgaards Højskole. (I can't really explain what the facility is in English, the best I can do is call it a year long boarding school). At intro camp, we were subjected to 6 hours of Danish lessons everyday. The main thing that I learned was that Danish has very complicated grammar rules and how to say I love cake, (Jeg elsker kage). The food was typical Danish food, and made in mass quantities. I have never missed American food more, especially Mac n' Cheese. THEY DON'T HAVE IT HERE, AT ALL.
Every night during the week, the South Americans would play music and have a dance party. It was insanely fun to try and dance to their music. The North Americans were awful at dancing compared to the South Americans, but it was still fun. The South Americans are a lively bunch, especially when you're on a long bus trip and it's before 9:00. They play their music loud, and it's just WONDERFUL.
On Thursday, we went to Aarhus. It was an hour long bus ride, which was spent gossiping. Our first stop in Aarhus was the Aros Art Museum. Some of the people were extremely loud in the museum, children who make unnecessary noises should not be aloud inside. I absolutely adore art museums, but at that point I wanted to walk right out. Besides the chaos, the museum was marvelous. I am a big fan of contemporary, modern art and that place was like the holy grail. There are three exhibits that come to mind when I think about that museum.
1. The rainbow on top of the building. It is utterly fascinating to see all the ways the colors of lighting can change our perspective.
2. The Boy, it is a larger-than-life sculpture of a young boy. This may not sound impressive, but he was so life-like it gave me the chills. The amount of detail was phenomenal.
3. The rainbow smoke room. It was a room filled with (harmless) smoke burned from banana oil with colored lights. It was surreal, you couldn't see more than a foot ahead of you because the smoke was so thick. The colored lights made it dream-like with all the colors of the rainbow. So if you are ever in Aarhus, go to the museum and see this exhibit.
After that, we wandered around Aarhus. We found a Starbucks, which was exciting. I hadn't yet seen a Starbucks in Denmark. And I bought some excellent Italian ice.
As the week was drawn to a close, there were many dramatic goodbyes. Long hugs and tears between friends, and passionate kisses between forbidden lovers. The bus ride back had an air of exhaustion, just about everyone was sleeping peacefully by the time we made it to Copenhagen. When the bus stopped, I said goodbye to people who went from acquaintances to good friends. It wasn't sad, because I will see them again. It was a good week, filled with Wicked, #europrobs, and some Danish lessons.
After saying goodbye, I had to take the train home, because my host family was stuck in Sweden. I had ridden that route one time before, with people who spoke Danish. I bought a ticket, with the help of a kind stranger, then waited for the S train that would take me to the Hillerød station. The screen near the tracks said "00 until departure" and I still couldn't find a train that said Hillerød on it. So I asked someone who works at the station if that was the correct train, I couldn't understand what he was saying and he just pushed me towards the train doors. Inside, the train was packed like a can of sardines, I could barely fit my suitcase between the people. After about 5 minutes on the train, an announcement came on over the intercom. It was in Danish, so I asked the patrons of the train what the announcement had said. A nice, young woman answered, "You have to get off the train and take a train bus to Hillerød, it goes straight to the station there. I'm heading that way if you want to follow me."
I nodded, relived that someone knew what was going on. When we got off the train, we headed out the doors of the station to a bus stop right next to it. A typical city bus came and picked up a load of people, we were not able to get on. We waited for about 20 minutes, then a female train attendant came and told us that the buses were having trouble getting around, so they would send tour buses to take us to the station. Eventually the buses came, and I was separated from the nice lady. When on the bus I relaxed, thinking "This is it, this bus will take me to the right station, then I can take the local train and go home".
Boy, was I wrong. The bus came to a stop, at Helstrup... So I ran around for 5 minutes and found a train that was maybe going where I needed it to. I got on, then train came to a stop, in Hillerød. I called my host mom and told her that I was almost home, she said that if the train didn't leave in 20 minutes my host dad would come and pick me up from the station. Shortly after the phone call, my phone died. My host mom is the type of woman who worries, a lot. As soon as it died, I knew she would get very worried, and I hoped she wouldn't call the police to look for me when I didn't answer my phone. The train came, and I got on. There was some things that needed fixing, so the train didn't leave for a good 10-15 minutes. Finally it took off, and my host dad was waiting at the Græsted station when I arrived. It had taken me 4 hours to get home, instead of the usual 2 hours. Later I learned that all of this was caused by major flooding all over the country.
There are three thing that I am proud of doing since coming to Denmark;
- Being able to remove a chocolate stain, and a blood stain from a WHITE shirt.
- Maneuvering an insanely difficult transportation situation, while staying calm.
- Finally loving what I'm doing with my life.
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