Thanksgiving i Danmark

Here in Denmark there is no thanksgiving.  So I ran around telling everybody to spread the word, we are thankful for.  Now that it is actually thanksgiving day, I can report on the last week of my personal festivities.

Ten people from around the world gathered last sunday at Jennifer Moores house to embark on a voyage.  They knew upon arrival that they could not turn back before trying all the typical american thanksgiving food, and I can assure you that there was a lot.  8 danes and 2 Americans were to eat: 24lbs of turkey, tons of mashed potatoes, home made stuffing, green bean casserole, "grandma's" spinach artichoke casserole, gravy, and last but not least, the cranberry sauce.  Desert was served with pumpkin pie and chocolate bourbon pecan pie.

To make the holiday more like home we played christmas music lightly in the background,  bearly audible over the holiday commotion.  We found a football game... American football-  and watched it, although it was not a very exciting game and I had to go home before the half time.  It was lots of fun though.

Today we have an AFS meeting.  This is another reason we had thanksgiving on Sunday and not today.  We have to present differences between our countries and Denmark.  I am focusing on transportation.  Wish me luck this fine... but rainy... thanksgiving!

I am sorry for not having any pictures... I did take a lot, but I am unable to upload them because the internet is sooooo slow.  So I suggest once again returning to Jennifer's blog  if you want to see pictures from that day.  I will try to upload some soon.  

We are a little under a month from Christmas and I am very excited.  I got an email from my host parents explaining what we are doing this christmas on a day to day and hour by hour itinerary.  If that tells anything about my host parents, they didn't come to me and explain it, just sent an email from one room to the next.  

On December 23 Boris, Ivan, Tove, Kathja and her kids, and myself leave for London.  Mor and Far leave the day before, and I don't know why we are leaving the next day, but that is what I have been told.

On December 24 we are eating at Covent Garden Grill.  I think we are going to St. James Paddington church... if I translated it correctly, on the 25th and we are also going to Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens.  Overall I'm confused and trying to translate you guys on the exact things I am doing, while in reality I have no clue if I will be doing all this.  

December 26 looks like we are going to zoo or something.

December 27 completely confuses me.  At 19:30 we will attend "We Will Rock You".  I don't know what that is at all, but I guess I will know once that I am there.

I am pretty sure we leave on the 31st of December.  I hope to be writting a blog before that, and during, and after.  :)

I am thinking of all of you this Christmas Season and wish I could spend this time at home by the fire and looking out across the snowy lawn.  Maybe it will snow in London at Christmas time... a white Christmas would... be great.

Welcome to the basics of Danish Geography 101.  I will attempt to show you where I live and the cool places to go in case you are coming to visit Denmark.  These pictures were taken from Google maps as a screen shot, so you can in fact go to google maps and see closer to my exact location.

In the picture we have the whole country of Denmark.  Capitol city is København which is to the far right in the picture.  You can also see Århus, one of the more popular cities for site seeing.   I enjoyed my time in Århus and must say they have a great are museum.  I think the museum is all modern art.

The country is divided into 3 different regions.  Jylland is the peninsula where I live and is the largest, but not most populated, region.  Fyn is the island which contain Odense.  I go there once a week to study music at the Odense music hall.  There is also Sjælland which is home to København.  I am not sure what all these things are called in english other then København being Copenhagen, and Jylland being Jutland.

Then there is a closer picture here above.  If you look very close to the center of Jylland you will se Vejen.  This is the city closest to where I live.  The exact town that I live in is Askov, and is pronounced Ask-ow.  It is a long journey to go to Esbjerg or Kolding, and is typically taken by train on weekends.

Simple Editing

I have very exciting news... which is really only exciting because now I can post a lot easier without my blog screwing up.  I changed some settings and now I can write text next to the pictures.  Perhaps you didn't know my ongoing struggle with writing text next to pictures... but trust me it has been very very annoying.  

ALSO!!!  I now have a stat counter which gives me the IP address of each computer which views my blog as well as the number of times you view.  After entering the IP into the proper websites I can track down where the computer is located and using my brain discover who is actually viewing my site.  That is correct... I am watching you.

As everyone is aware, or at least I am very aware, Christmas is very soon.  I hope you guys all know that I think quite often of everyone back home and that nobody has been forgotten.  I think of my family, and that includes everyone in the family.  Especially when it comes to thinking of the christmas season and the smell and feel back home.  I think of my friends and how you guys have probably forgotten all about me... how you guys won't post on this blog because you guys don't read it.  I even think of my teachers, especially Ms Shahin.  I don't know if you ever read any of the emails I sent you Ms Shahin, but you are now featured in my blog. Thanks guys, and if you have enough time please leave a comment by pressing the small comment link right below this post.  Thank.

PS - I also think of all the new friends I have.  I strongly suggest you check out these links Francine St. Laurent & Jennifer Moore.  These are two other AFS students from USA in Denmark.  Note that they don't come from Ohio, or at all the same background as me.  Francine comes from Alaska and Jennifer.... comes from where ever, her family has moved while she has been away.

Good ole' fashion party!

 

I thought it would be a good idea to take some pictures of todays café and post them for you to see what my fridays are like.  In this particular friday Hanibal, the group in my school in charge of parties, rented a mechanical bull.  It was a lot of fun to ride it and watch others ride it.  My best time was 22.3 seconds... but it was very difficult to stay on really.  I had the record for a small amount of time.

I hope you enjoy my short video.  I also recorded the music, without layers, in class.  This is a really rough cut, but we don't have the time to record a good version.

Handball

I will attempt to explain a few things about handball in this next post.  If you are completely confused on why I am posting about handball, it is because I am on two different handball teams here in Vejen.  I play on a community team filled with great players, mostly above the age of 20. I also play on the school team.  This just started for me and it seems like I am playing a lot now.  I hope to improve soon because so far I have not been very good at shooting or passing... making me... worthless.

I will begin by explaining the ball.  The ball looks like a soccer ball, but is much smaller, maybe the size of a kids soccer ball.  It also is sewn together the same way.  It is filled until hard with air but stays very light.  The key difference between this ball and all other balls is the sap. Before you play, you apply sticky sap to your fingers and palm,  this makes it so that when the ball hits your hand, it sticks.  It does have some issues though.  The sap tends to make the ball difficult to pass accurately.  It sticks to your hand and makes it release towards the ground.  The sap also is so strong that it pulls up your skin and creates blisters.  All mine have healed now!

Each team has one goalie, a center person (who plays at the 7m line) , and 5 other players(who pass around the 9m line).   The team on defense stays around the 7m line and usually play man to man defense while the offensive team tries to throw the ball into the net.  The limit it the dark 6m line.  You can not touch the ball within that area, thus when shooting you jump over the line and throw it before you touch the ground.  Sounds easy eh, well... it's not.  The defense is basically allowed to tackle you if you have the ball.  Typically the offense pass the ball around and cross over while the center picks people to open a hole for the shot.  This is the basic set up.

That was a very basic set up for explaining handball.  To tell the truth, there are not many rules. Just run and pass and find an opening in the defense to run in and shoot.  It is a lot like basketball though.  You have to dribble, but can not double dribble.  If somebody is running at you, you have to keep your feet planted and are not allowed to tie them up.  Other then that, jump high and throw hard.  It is fun, and will keep me in very good shape.  Practice is once a week for the school for a few hours.  It is also twice a week at night for the community team.  I hope you could understand my explanation.

Ses, Kyle

Ja Tak

I will video blog a little more in this blog.  The video is just me showing some more pictures I have taken while here. 

 

I also would to talk a little about all the suggestions I got from people who read my blog.  Thanks a lot guys and gals!

Danish Teachers and Class Discussion

I think I have talked a little about this earlier in my blog but I will revisit the classroom.  Being a teacher here in Denmark would be a rough job.  I have a few teachers and for english and one of my spanish classes I have the same teacher.  The teachers job is almost the same as at home, meaning they teach the class the materials given to them by the school.  Many differences are present though.  Teachers do not hold the power of giving detentions.  If you are bad they will tell you to leave class.  I have not seen anybody do the wrong thing though, other then a kid who drank a beer in class and the teacher gave him a look, but thats about all.  

I do not have a favorite teacher, and I don't really talk to most of my teachers.  I talk to my English/Spanish teacher every once and a while.  Teachers also do not have their own rooms, so finding a teacher can be very difficult, and they can go home whenever they want, including during class, so it can be difficult to contact them about class.  I have a teacher who every class writes five questions on the board and then leaves for an hour and comes backs and lets us leave.  

I think school is easier here then at home, although it is really hard to tell.  I try to do my work but it is very very difficult to translate and then do the work.  Right now my favorite class is Biology... not because I know the material well, but I feel like it is the one class I really try to do work in, because we do reports and research often.  I like the teacher and I have a few of my good friends in that class.

When I come back to America

That is such a long, yet short time away.  I will be pursuing music of coarse.  I hope that the knowledge of real life I am experiencing here will help me stay realistic in my journey.  I have met a lot of very happy people here, and I have discovered why they are so happy, although it is not on a personal level.

I have thought a lot about maybe coming back and living here in Denmark some time in the future.  This country could use more bassoon teachers... because although I have a lesson "almost" planned, it has taken this long to get one.  WOW!

Comments One and All

I realize I have not posted in a long time.  Here is you chance to leave a comment on what you want in the next post!