Spring has arrived in Denmark, a little late, but that is understandable since we have just had on of the worst winters Denmark has seen in 14 years. Finally the snow is gone, the trees are starting to turn green, the flowers are blooming, the bees are pollinating, and the bears(Danes) are finally out of their caves. With spring comes many changes, the most remarkable change would have to be the Danish people. All winter long the Danish people hide themselves in their houses, understandably so, seeing as it is below freezing. The towns are dead and covered in snow, occasionally one might catch a glimpse of a fellow human, before they quickly shuffle indoors. The towns stayed dead all winter, and it was a long winter. Suddenly, the sun came out, and the towns were flooding with people; shops selling ice cream and people lying out in the sun, even though it was still only 10 degrees Celsius. The towns sprang to life in a matter of weeks, I have never before seen such a drastic change. Now the temperature never dips below freezing and I no longer have use for my winter cloths. This came so suddenly I am only recently becoming used to it.
Another change that came with spring was my housing situation. I no longer live in the little fishing town, Kerteminde, I now live in a small town called Åsum, pronounced almost like "awesome", and that's just what it is. This small town lies on the east side of the large city of Odense, the city in which my school lies. This move from 20km to 4km away from my school has made life much more convenient: I can ride my bike to school, come to and from my house when I want, and most importantly, sleep longer. The town is also extremely beautiful, there are not many citizens, and a good share of the citizens are interested in gardening. This has created a beautiful town. The town also gets together and has activities, such as what I was doing today, collecting garbage. The town also has interesting activities, some time in my there will be a little festival where we will burn a witch at the stake... I am not kidding, its tradition...luckily for the women of Åsum it will be a fake witch, this will not turn in to The Åsum Witch Trials.
Although I said I live in Åsum, I actually also live in a far away town called Dalby. I actually have two host houses. My host parents are actually divorced. My host mother in Åsum, and my host father in Dalby. They both have girlfriends/boyfriends, so its almost like I have two host families. Although some might think its annoying, I love it. I get the best of both worlds because my host fathers place is almost the opposite of where I live now. My host father lives in Dalby, about 32km from Odense, so its really far away and inconvenient to go back and forward. It makes up for it by being an incredibly beautiful house, away from the town, and near the beach. My host father even has a boat and some kayaks, making this house the perfect summer get away. In all, I get the city life and the country life all in one host family, I would call myself lucky.
My host mother's name is Helle, and her boyfriends name is Thomas. They are great host parents. Helle is really interested in gardening and used to have a really beautiful garden when she lived with my host father. She has two sons, Kaspar and Jens. I met Kaspar before I came to live here, actually I met him in California. Kaspar was en exchange student last year up in Arcadia, I got to meet him when I went to some rotary get-togethers, and now he is my host brother. He doesn't live at home, he has an apartment in Odense, but he comes back so often, to eat mother's cooking and get some laundry done, that I still get to see him. He is a really fun and relaxed fellow. Thomas has introduced me to a sport I find really fun, golf. He takes me with him some times to play golf. My first time playing an actual game of golf, not mini golf or driving range, was just last saturday. Helle, Thomas, and I went down to Svendborg, to a place where you don't need to belong to a club, a pay and play place. It was cloudy and and the wind was strong, but it was still fun. They rented me a set of golf clubs and we took to the driving range to warm up. We played a 9-hole game with a total par of 30, I got +31 over par, an average of a triple bogey for every hole. I considered that good for my first time, and I found that I really like the sport. I have never really been one for team sports where I need to concentrate on both what I am doing and where my team mates are, probably why I like swimming, sailing, table tennis, and now golf. At night we might play Backgammon or a game of cards and enjoy a class of wine.
My host father's name is Jes, pronounced like "yes", and I forget my father's girlfriend's name. I really like them both. Jes spends his spare time renovating his house, which is amazing. He has built his own pizza oven, and is trying to grow a forest in his massive plot of land. This man seems to do everything; I went on a walk with him around his house and he would keep pointing at different things and telling me which year he started growing what, or built what. He really loves to work with his hands. My host father's girlfriend is from Norway, it is rather difficult to understand her sometimes, because she has a strong Norwegian accent. She has two kids: a son, 11, and a daughter who is younger. I like playing with the son, when I first met him we played a game of chess. I lost, but I like to think it was just because I did the stupidest move ever and let him take my queen with his pawn. They are both really nice.
Another change in my life came on the 7th day of February, my birthday. I am now 18. My family in Kerteminde held a party for me, with a large traditional Danish lunch, with lots of herring, that I requested. I had all the exchange students around Fyn and two class mates, along with the whole Sørgård family, and my first host family. In all there was over 20 guest. Eva, my best Danish friend baked me a cake in the shape of a pokemon, just for fun. After the delicious lunch we went out into the back yard to play "slå katten i tønden," which means "beat the cat in the barrel." I must say I really do love these old Danish traditions, burning witches, beating cats in barrels... again not a real cat. This tradition is quite old, when it was thought that cats were linked with the devil. The village people would, in the months of march/april, put a cat in a barrel and beat the barrel until the cat died. Today, we just put a bunch of candy and oranges inside a barrel, hang it up, and beat it until nothing remains of the barrel. All the while dressed up like it was Halloween. One can also win the title of queen if they break off the first board of the barrel, or king if they break off the last piece. My first host bother won king, and Milly Wallace, the other exchange student from my district in California, won queen.
The Danish people call me fluent in Danish, but I really don't feel like it. There are just so many expressions, and weird ways of using the language, that I don't sound Danish at all, but the others are quite impressed. Danish is on the list of the hardest languages to learn, and I would say its just because how they use the language. One example is that Danes say "i går" after ever other sentence, well some Danes do, and what it means is yesterday. They obviously dont mean to say yesterday, they just put it in. Its a odd, but fun, language.
This post was long overdue, I will update more often now. I still have more to tell, and more will certainly come with time.
Med venlig hilsen,
Greg Martin
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
The Coldest Winter I Ever Spent, Was In Denmark.
Firstly, I apologize, I have kept my readers waiting and broke a promise. Secondly, SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNE!
Yes as you can tell the biggest difference from my last blog is the weather. Around mid of December, it snowed, not just a little, but well over half a meter! Although do not think of Denmark as a winter wonderland, in the past it has had many green winters. This is not the typical Denmark, but rather an outlier. It has not snowed this much in 15 years, nor has it been this cold in over 20 years. I have probably lived almost a solid month with temperatures just barely in the negative(Celsius). Surprisingly its not common for a family to have Ice Skates, one would imagine that the residents of a Scandinavian country would all have ice skates, but then again it hasn't been cold enough in almost 20 years. All ponds and small bodies of water are completely frozen over, one can most safely walk, run, and even jump on the ice. Even a bay with might be over 20 square kilometers is almost entirely frozen. I was so excited when the snow came that my host family now says that I was like a baby seeing snow for the first time. I fought valiantly in so many snowball fights, shoveled quite enough snow, and made plenty of snow angels. Although surprisingly, not one snowman. Now, however, the snow is becoming irritating, and I think I have forgotten what it was like to be able to sometimes wear just a T-shirt in winter. Here, one must wear, at the least, a couple of long sleeve shirts, a thick jacket, a scarf, and gloves, along with the normal articles. It is so dry and cold that just staying out for about twenty minutes without gloves caused my hands to become so dry the skin started cracking. My knuckles were so red and scratched up that my family thought I got into a fight. There is one thing about the weather that I will always be thankful for, I was able to have my first White Christmas.
Christmas is celebrated slightly differently in Denmark. First off, the celebrations start in November as many will have Julefrokoste, see back in my previous blog for a discription of these, and some times don't end until mid January. Second, the Danish hold their celebration on the 24th. On the 24th my family got up around 9, ate a small breakfast then went on a run with many others from our street. We ran over 5 kilometers, well I did, some others went for a 10 km run. I was exhausted. We finished our run at the beach, where we quickly stripped to our underwear and jumped in the ocean. Just to give you an idea of how cold that is, the sand was mixed with snow. It was the coldest thing I have ever experienced, it felt like the water was at absolute zero. Although as soon as I got out, I felt warm(except for my feet), and was in no hurry to put on my cloths. After we were dressed we stood around and had a shot of schnapps, which does not taste good, to warm us up. We went back into the house and took a shower and got ready to go to church. After we got back from that we had a great big dinner, with very typical Danish food, like duck, potatoes, pork, and pickled red cabbage. It was delicious, and to top it off we had Risenlamande, a dessert made from risengrød, again explained in my last blog. This was the dish with the almond hidden in it. I was the first to get served and my host grandfather next to me gave me an extra scoop. I wound up finding the almond, but I think I had help. I hid the almond in my mouth and denied my having it for a while, then as they started wondering it was put in, I stuck it out like I would stick out my tongue., winning me the prize. After dinner we held hands and danced around the Christmas tree, singing songs in Danish. Then we gave out gifts, I put on an elf hat and helped deal them out. It was all very hyggeligt(that feeling of a very nice christmas with your family, cozy).
For New Years Eve, the Danish also celebrate it more than we do. First, fireworks, completely legal. I went to a New Years party in Odense, a city a bit less than the size of Santa Rosa, and I was amazed as I spun on the spot and not a single strip of the horizon was without the colorful explosions. The Danish also have their queen give a speech every year, this part was rather boring but a good exercise of my Danish. Right afterward, a little skit comes on the T.V. called Dinner for One. It is about an elderly women who holds a dinner with all her friends, except that all her friends are no longer alive. The only person there is the butler, but she has him act as if her friends were there, giving them wine and other types of spirits. But thats not all, she also makes him play the role of the guest each time they cheer, putting on there voice and drinking their drinks. He serves serveral courses and by the time the dinner is over he can barely even stand. It is hilarious and all in English so just find it on youtube and enjoy. The last really Danish tradition is to have a cake made with a lot of Marzipan.
Yes as you can tell the biggest difference from my last blog is the weather. Around mid of December, it snowed, not just a little, but well over half a meter! Although do not think of Denmark as a winter wonderland, in the past it has had many green winters. This is not the typical Denmark, but rather an outlier. It has not snowed this much in 15 years, nor has it been this cold in over 20 years. I have probably lived almost a solid month with temperatures just barely in the negative(Celsius). Surprisingly its not common for a family to have Ice Skates, one would imagine that the residents of a Scandinavian country would all have ice skates, but then again it hasn't been cold enough in almost 20 years. All ponds and small bodies of water are completely frozen over, one can most safely walk, run, and even jump on the ice. Even a bay with might be over 20 square kilometers is almost entirely frozen. I was so excited when the snow came that my host family now says that I was like a baby seeing snow for the first time. I fought valiantly in so many snowball fights, shoveled quite enough snow, and made plenty of snow angels. Although surprisingly, not one snowman. Now, however, the snow is becoming irritating, and I think I have forgotten what it was like to be able to sometimes wear just a T-shirt in winter. Here, one must wear, at the least, a couple of long sleeve shirts, a thick jacket, a scarf, and gloves, along with the normal articles. It is so dry and cold that just staying out for about twenty minutes without gloves caused my hands to become so dry the skin started cracking. My knuckles were so red and scratched up that my family thought I got into a fight. There is one thing about the weather that I will always be thankful for, I was able to have my first White Christmas.
Christmas is celebrated slightly differently in Denmark. First off, the celebrations start in November as many will have Julefrokoste, see back in my previous blog for a discription of these, and some times don't end until mid January. Second, the Danish hold their celebration on the 24th. On the 24th my family got up around 9, ate a small breakfast then went on a run with many others from our street. We ran over 5 kilometers, well I did, some others went for a 10 km run. I was exhausted. We finished our run at the beach, where we quickly stripped to our underwear and jumped in the ocean. Just to give you an idea of how cold that is, the sand was mixed with snow. It was the coldest thing I have ever experienced, it felt like the water was at absolute zero. Although as soon as I got out, I felt warm(except for my feet), and was in no hurry to put on my cloths. After we were dressed we stood around and had a shot of schnapps, which does not taste good, to warm us up. We went back into the house and took a shower and got ready to go to church. After we got back from that we had a great big dinner, with very typical Danish food, like duck, potatoes, pork, and pickled red cabbage. It was delicious, and to top it off we had Risenlamande, a dessert made from risengrød, again explained in my last blog. This was the dish with the almond hidden in it. I was the first to get served and my host grandfather next to me gave me an extra scoop. I wound up finding the almond, but I think I had help. I hid the almond in my mouth and denied my having it for a while, then as they started wondering it was put in, I stuck it out like I would stick out my tongue., winning me the prize. After dinner we held hands and danced around the Christmas tree, singing songs in Danish. Then we gave out gifts, I put on an elf hat and helped deal them out. It was all very hyggeligt(that feeling of a very nice christmas with your family, cozy).
For New Years Eve, the Danish also celebrate it more than we do. First, fireworks, completely legal. I went to a New Years party in Odense, a city a bit less than the size of Santa Rosa, and I was amazed as I spun on the spot and not a single strip of the horizon was without the colorful explosions. The Danish also have their queen give a speech every year, this part was rather boring but a good exercise of my Danish. Right afterward, a little skit comes on the T.V. called Dinner for One. It is about an elderly women who holds a dinner with all her friends, except that all her friends are no longer alive. The only person there is the butler, but she has him act as if her friends were there, giving them wine and other types of spirits. But thats not all, she also makes him play the role of the guest each time they cheer, putting on there voice and drinking their drinks. He serves serveral courses and by the time the dinner is over he can barely even stand. It is hilarious and all in English so just find it on youtube and enjoy. The last really Danish tradition is to have a cake made with a lot of Marzipan.
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