First weeks of Danish school!(+ food pictures!)

Hej there everyone!
Welcome back to ye ol' blog. It's been a little over a week since I last posted, so I figured it was in due time for an update! Also, I just got back from the park and it's a friday- so I have a bit of free time.(weekend! woot.)
Anyway. So with the help of journaling and planner-ing, I have a pretty easy time remembering what I did. As I was looking over at this stuff, I realized that I've been learning a lot about the school system and social bit here without even really noticing it. That being said, I figured I'd write about it here.
SCHOOL.
Something that I think a lot of us, especially as we get older, like to say we hate. But, even if going to classes for 7 or 8 hours a day isn't really our cup-o'-tea, school is admittedly a place where a lot of socializing and people-finding goes on. As an exchange student, this is definitely the case.
Things I have learned about school:

1. When you go to school here, you stay with the same group of people all day, every day. When you say 'my class' here, it means the 25-or-so students who you are almost always with-- not the people you're graduating with. This has a lot of ups and downs, ups being that you really get to know the people in your class, and you spend a lot of time with them. Downs being you don't get to met as many people, and if you ever were to get 'sick' of someone-- well, you're stuck with them.

2. You change classrooms, all the time. In the US, we have a set schedule for everyday. It's like, at this time, you go to this class, with this teacher, with these people. In denmark, you have to look at your schedule online everyday, because even though your English class may have been in classroom 60 last week, today it's in classroom 15. Also, we have different classes and lengths of classes EVERY day. One monday you might have english for two hours, biology for an hour(1 hour being one 'lesson'), and religion for an hour. Tuesday you might have biology for two hours, gym for 1 hour, danish for two hours, and political science for an hour. You see what I mean? Also, classes get cancelled a lot. Sometimes only a few minutes before the class was supposed to start. If you don't check online a lot, sometimes you end up sitting and talking to your classmates for a while with nothing much to do. Also, we start and end at different times everyday-- and, obviously, having a short day is really really nice.

3.Clubs and activities at schools don't really exist. There aren't any sports teams, or 'german clubs' or 'key club' or any of that stuff. If you want to do activities like those, there are 'centers' of sorts that you can go to. Many of these 'centers' are free to use or at very low cost.(Thanks socialism!;) My school is kind of unusual in the sense that we do actually have a few 'activities'. For example; we have a big school musical, and a school newspaper.

4. Arts and music kind of fizzles out as you get older in Denmark. What I mean by that is, even if you really like art, by the time you're in gymnassium(the kind of school I'm in, which is the school that prepares you for university), you usually stop being involved in those kind of activities. There are also not many class like music or arts at school.

5. (this one applies to a lot of countries, not just denmark) Foreign language, especially english education, is very good, and has a lot of emphasis placed on it. Most kids in my gymnassium are more or less fluent in english, and many also more or less fluent in a third language. I think this is really impressive, and the fact that it's a cultural norm even more so.

6. A lot of people bring lunch to school, just because the cafeteria food is so insanely expensive. This is just a small thing I've noticed.

Alllrighty folks, I'm sure there are things I've left out, but these are the bits of information fresh off the top of my head. SCHOOL. Bam.

To end this post, though, I figure I'd show you a couple more pictures! Here's one of lunch, and one more of my city just because it's so freaking pretty.

with good vibes
-Rowen

PS- I forgot about this! Today, we went to copenhagen and ran into the lgbtqia(aapp etc) parade! It was amazing! Here are a few pictures:

:)

First impressions of Roskilde! +life

Hej there everyone!
This update is coming at you pretty fast, but that's because my school doesn't start until Thursday, so I have a few days to work on Danish, settling in, getting my CRP number, etc. All of that wonderful technical stuff that we all have to do. Anywho. No expectations for the rest of the year, though, alright? 

Having some time here, I thought I'd write a bit about my first few days with my HOST FAMILY! Woooot! Three days ago I arrived here at my new home, and got to meet my family and see my room. In my family I have a mor og far(mother and father) and to søsters(two sisters), all of whom are lovely people. 

Now that I've been here a few days we've gotten to know each other a bit better, and I feel like I've been here ages longer than I have in reality. A side note; My host parents are definite 'foodies' so we eat amazing stuff. I'm not really someone who takes 'food pictures' but maybe sometime I'll show off some 'mad'! (food.) 

Jeg elsker Roskilde!! I really, really love my city. It's beautiful. Yay europe yay! 

Anyways. So I've been exploring a bit with my host dad and host sister. All by bike, mind you. Biking, as per the stereotypes, is an super huge part of Dansk life. Everyone bikes all the time, and it's really safe and normal to bike to work, school, grocery shopping, to a doctors appointment, going out at night, etc. There are almost always completely seperate bike lanes in between the roads and 'sidewalks' of sorts. You can see this up in that photo above. ^  You do have to bike pretty fast here, though. If you're not going maybe 20 mph, you're going really slow, and should be prepared to move over for other people. A nice thing about biking her in Danmark though is that it is very systematic and effective. EVERYONE uses handsignals, everyone is aware of space around them, and if someone says the equivalent of 'on your left', or rings their bell, no hesitation, everyone follows suit. So it works out well. I've heard the only time you need to be at all worried is at night....the danes have quite the reputation for getting drunk, haha. 

I dag(today) I went to school with my younger host sister. It was the equivalent of like a mass elementary-middle-sort-of-highschool. I'm personally attending the school AFTER this type of school, called gymnassium. It's kinda like a high school-college mix. But anyway, at my host sister's school, I went to english class with her and it was GREAT. Only time so far I've felt like I've had a step up. I also went to school with her because the danish lessons I'm taking on tuesdays and thursdays are held at her school, so it was good to see where the building was. 

SPEAKING of danish....yeah. It's really fucking hard. I expected this, but I'm still sort of being hit in the head with it. 
Thankfully, my host family is amazing and helping me out(especially my sister! We kind of have a trade going: I help her with English, she helps me with Danish), and my sister even went into the attic with me and we dug up all of my family's old kid's books!

I've been trying to get through them, but, alas, super difficult. Again. I'll get there, though......I think. 

So, these danish lesson things I've been refering to....FREE. Silk printing class on the weekend? Free. Trip to sweden on horseback? Not free...but almost! Japanese class after school? Free! Specialty cake class? ALSO FREE! I love this system. So, basically, in denmark, you have this magic card/number; your CPR number. You get it by either a. being a resident of denmark or b. having a visa/student permit. This card gets you access to many things, for example healthcare, community events, free university+money from the government each month, etc. The way this is possible is that you pay really high taxes on everything from your salary, to a 25% tax on all purchases. I personally think it's a really productive and smart way to live, but definitely a lot different than the capitalist mentality and system going on in the US.  

On a personal note, I'm still in the stage of being where I'm mystified and enchanted by everything around me.(except for danish and the intense gym class I'm signed up for in school...ugh.) I'm all good, amigas! I love the food, the people, the visuals and I'm having an amazing time. 

I'm hoping to keep these posts pumping out in a pretty frequent manner, but if not, just assume it means there's too much going on over here in Roskilde for me to have time to write! 
Vi sees and good vibes everyone,
-Rowen 

FIRST WEEK IN DENMARK!! (I'M ACTUALLY HERE!)

Hej everyone! Hvordan ha du det? How are you guys?
Guess what? I'm in DENMARK. FUCKING DENMARK. (First thing I learned here: danes say fuck all the time. It's completely appropriate. Talk about a different culture!)
AHHHHH.

I actually got here a day late, but now I'm here. I got here after maybe 22 hours of no sleep, a day without food, and very little patience with travel....but everything worked out in the end, because it's WONDERFUL!! This country is beautiful.

All of us YFU students staying here in Denmark for a semester or year are at a week long orientation right now in a city called Ry in Jutland. It's a small city, and we're in the middle of the forest near a lake with lots of wonderful smells, foods, and people. Everyday we have culture lessons about Danish life, and lessons on the danish language. At meals we eat very traditional Danish food, and whenever possible we have to speak Danish. It's sort of like a crash couse in what it's like to be a dane, or, as close as they can get in a week anyway.

Because at the orientation everyone from all around the world living in denmark is here, it's a really unique and cool experience. People from Turkey, France, everywhere....so cool! Anyway. Things' that I have experienced here in Denmark so far:
LICORICE. Super salty, bitter. strong, potent licorice. And I LOVE IT.
Liverpastej. This ground-up liver-paste stuff you put on bread. I love this stuff too.
Danish sense of humor. As an American, I don't really understand it...but I'm working on it. It's EXTREMELY sarcastic, and extremely dark. Dead baby jokes are really popular.
Sex, naked people, swearing....everything. Everything is very, very open. You want to talk about it? Go for it. So far, from what I've found, very little is off limits as long as you're respectful and aren't mean to other people.
Safety. Things are generally very safe, and clean. This is definitely a change, and something pretty nice.


OKAY. So those are the generals. Specifically, though, today was not a usual 'class day' here at the orientation camp. Today, we went to the highest point in denmark, called 'sky mountain'. It's actually only 147 meters, so really small compared to mountains in the states, but it was really beautiful. We also took a boat into a city Silkeborg, which was amazing! I've never been to city like it. and I thought it was really beautiful. Small streets with little shops, and no cars. I bought my first danish thing! I bought an icecream cone with licorice sprinkles....IN DANISH! I was a bit proud of myself. (I shouldn't have been though, I sounded shit! Ha.)

Okay, enough with my ramblings. To end this post, I'll include some pictures from the day that my friends took:

Write soon! Vi sees! 

-Rowen:)