EUROTOUR

Eurotour 2008 was absolutely and brilliantly perfect. I had the time of my life, and there's no exaggeration there. How more perfect can it get, than driving 4000 kilometres around Europe with 40 other like-minded people from 10 different countries of the globe, exploring, socialising, discovering, learning, sleeping, partying, dancing, laughing, singing, screaming and all other kinds of things potentially not suitable for my public blog! I have made intense friendships with people from Brazil, the US, Lithuania, Argentina, Mexico, Canada, New Zealand, Italy and of course Australia and though I know I'll never see some of them again, they'll always be remembered.

Our route went like this:



Skanderborg, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Lido de Jesolo and Venice, San Remo, Monaco, Avignon, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and back to Skanderborg. Over 4000 kilometres in a bus with a blocked toilet and broken airconditioning, winding our way through the back streets of Vienna and around the grand buildings of Vienna, up the mighty Champ D'Elysee and down through the "Hills are alive" of Austria, across the rivers of Northern Italy and into the beautiful villages of Southern France.

I'm not going to give a blow-by-blow account of the entire tour, otherwise I would be typing for weeks and your eyes would turn to squares, but a brief overview and some pictures.

Berlin was our first stop, in a hostel out of the city. I shared a room with James (a US jazz drummer), Lukas (a frisky Lithuanian) and Cristiano (the "little brother" of the bus, Brazillian). Us four boys spent most of the Eurotour together. Though we hadn't met before, we were pretty much instantly friends.

As in most of the cities, we had only two nights here, and that equals only one day of sightseeing. Minus the time it took for our bus driver to find a park, in each city we had an average of about 6 hours. We were allowed to do what we wanted in the cities. Essentially our three tour guides (Max (60ish), Esben (22) and Cecilia (22)) left us to do as we wished. In Berlin, the bus dropped us at three different locations over the course of the day, and we walked through and saw the sights at our own time. The Berlin Wall, or the relics of was the highlight of Berlin for me. We saw a church that had been between the two sides of the wall that had been demolished, but was now rebuilt as a kind of memorial to the wall.


Brandenburg gate:




From Berlin, we went to Prague, a fascinating city with an incredible mix of Eastern Europe and Western Europe. It was also very cheap! We spent the morning with a bunch of Brazillian girls shopping, but broke off when we realised that we had only one hour to see all the sights! Us boys decided to run around the city, and in an epic effort covering 6 kilometres of the city we managed to see most of the sights.

Drengerne (the boys) in Prague


Looking like we are out of "High School Musical" in Prague:


An incredibly beautiful church that we ran up 400 stairs to see in Prague:


Hiding from the rain, having a "hyggeligt" time in Prague:


We stayed in a brilliant four star hotel in Prague, where us four boys shared a huge room where we hosted a little party during the nighttime.

From Prague, it was onto Vienna, the city of incredibly intimidating large white buildings, and home of Mozart.

Alle sammen (together) in front of the Schonnbrun Palace:


Mig og min "oldie", Dierdre, med Schonnbrun Palace:


Intimidating white buildings in Vienna:


Yasmin(Brazil) and I, Vienna gardens:


James and I in gardens:


Mozart house!:


Our hotel in Vienna was in the mountains, prompting many a "Sound of Music" moment.

After Vienna, we went to Lido De Jesolo, a terribly touristy yet excellent place to rest for 3 nights. We met both the first and the 3rd bus here in Lido on our first and last nights, and we partied away all three nights on the waters of the Mediterranean. We all worked on our pale skin tones after months of Danish winter and relaxed on the thousands of beach chairs that covered the sand.

James and I on the beach in Jesolo:


My dreadfully pale self in Lido:


Italian food!:


On our 3rd day in Lido, we took a day trip to Venice. An incredible day of wandering around the beautiful alleyways of Venice and a "fantastisk" trip on a gondola made us very happy.
Gondola ride:


Squished in the tiny Venetian alleyways:


Streets that ended in water:


James and I:


Lunch in Venice:




Abusing our tour leader:


After Jesolo, it was onto Verona and San Remo.

Juliet's balcony in Verona:


Groping Juliet for good luck in love:


Love notes scrawled around the walls of Juliet's courtyard:


San Remo was merely a stoppover, and we didn't see the city. The next day we were in Monaco.

First crepe of the tour:


Side of the Monaco palace:


Windswept in Monaco:


After Monaco, it was onto Avignon, a picturesque French town where the popes lived in the 12th and 13th cent.

Drengerne:


Kiwis doing the haka in Avignon, in front of a fruit salad world record making attempt:


Tasty, tasty fruit salad (all the better because it was free!):


Avignon:


After two nights in Avignon, we went to Paris for three nights. Again, we met bus 1 and bus 2 here for our first and last nights, and we spent those nights under the sparkling Eiffel Tower until the early hours of the morning, along with thousand of Parisians and tourists. Our hotel was 30 minutes by metro from the centre, but being my incredible fourth time in the beautiful city, I could find my way around.

Triumfbuen, eller "L'arc d'Triomphe":


James and I and Notre Dame:


On our last day in Paris, James and I hired bikes from our hotel, 15 kilometres from the centre of Paris. It was just about the best day of my life. We asked directions to the Eiffel Tower from our hotel and were immediately laughed at, but 2 hours later we had made it. Rode up to Montmartre and discussed philosophy while sharing a plate of cheese.



From Montmatre:


Made our way through the crazy Parisian traffic and up the Champ D'Ellysee to the Arc D'Triomphe. Had a great time making our way through the incredibly disorganised Parisian intersections, including the Place De la Concorde, but made it alive.



Also popped over to the Eiffel Tower and to a little french cafe for a croissant. That evening, we found a jazz gig we wanted to see in a little book we'd picked up from a music store and caught the metro to the location, and then walked through the nightlife of Paris into a little back street that looked a little scary and deserted. But the cafe suddenly appeared around the corner, and we made our way into the hyggeligt little venue where a little jazz fusion band was playing Miles Davis covers mixed with a heavy dose of reggae. We got front row seats and the singer realised we didn't speak french, and he translated everything he said for us! We had a brilliant night there, and at midnight we left to go to the Eiffel Tower again until the wee hours of the morning.

Recovered sleep on the way to Brussels, where we had two nights.

Manekin Pis:


Near the EU headquarters:


Riding around Brussels:


Brussels:


We also went to a bar in Brussels with 2500 different types of beer. I tried Mango, chocolate, passionfruit, coconut, 15% alcohol beer, honey beer and many more!

The next day we went to Amsterdam, where we took a very hot canal tour.
Hot and pale on the boat:


Our hotel was in Arheim, and we had a very late night partying in the hotel as we celebrated one awesome Eurotour.

Our final picture together in Denmark:


And that was Eurotour.

It was nice to come home again, and to see my little sisters and host parents. I missed hopping on the trampoline with Rebecca and practicing English/Danish with Kira. I went to see Indiana Jones with my host dad, which was hilarious fun.

The last week and the next few weeks will involve many parties and gettogethers as all my "oldies" get ready to go home at the end of this month. I have also been catching up with my class mates who are taking their exams at the moment.

This weekend I am to fulfill a childhood dream and visit Legoland!

On the 28th of this month, I have been asked to play background music for the crowning of a Rotary District Governor. I will assemble a set of jazz numbers, and I will also accompany a lady to sing a Danish, a German and an English song.

I will also go to Copenhagen at the end of this month to pick up my host sister from the airport, and to do some sightseeing!

Yesterday I booked my flight to go to Belgium from the 17th of July until the 1st of August to visit Papa's cousin and wife in Brussels, and my friend Soetkin in Antwerp.

Mange knuser til alt,
Daniel

Norway!

I returned home from a BRILLIANT trip to Norway yesterday, meget traet (very tired) men meget glad (but very happy!)

On Saturday morning, I was up at 4am to get to the Ungdomsskolen (the youth school) where the bus would be leaving from. On the trip with me were about thiry 14 year old students from the Ungdomskole in Silkeborg, and 4 other exchange students (Deirdre (US), Soetkin (Belgium), Nikki (China) and Hannah (US), and 3 teachers from the Ungdomsskole.

Our journey followed this route:



Our ferry ride over was very calm and nice, and not one student got seasick.

The wake from the boat:



First parts of Norway:



Then we drove 1/2 hour on our bus to a spot in the Norweigan wilderness where we simply set up our gear and began to climb some cliffs. It was beautiful weather (20 degrees) and beautfiul scenery, very different to flat Denmark.



Cliffs (not the ones we climbed):


View from the top of the cliffs:


Exchange students looking out over the view:


Setting up on the cliffs:



Me climbing:


After an afternoon of climbing, we went to our campsite to set up. It was a beautiful campsite set on a perfect peaceful in the shadows of beautiful mountains.



10pm sunset over the campsite:


We cooked dinner over the fire (Friggadella, which is basically Danish Rissoles) and potatoes with sauce. Dinner was at 7pm, but at 10, just after sunset, we ate Danish hot dogs before going to bed.

On Saturday we woke up to get ready for Water Rafting. We went to a special centre to do this, and we were rigged up by a group of English camp instructors as well as one Aussie guy from Tasmanian!



Unfortunately, my camera couldnt come on the boat. But we had a crazy time on the rafts with 10 other people, trying to steer around the rapids in water that had, until very recently, been snow. I was in a boat with the Aussie bloke, and he had a good time steering us down the river. "If we hit that point there, we will definitely capsize. Let's see how close we can get!" We eventually all fell into the water, but mostly due to friendly pushing in the calmer sections of the water. Our last set of rapids we "surfed" through, and then involved keeping the boat stuck in a point on the middle of the rapids. I fell in during one particularly big wave here, but was quickly pulled back in. It took me an hour to defrost my toes after that though!

After the morning of rafting, we went to an area where we could climb a different rock face, as well as abseil down a wall and climb up trees with some special equipment.





We came home at about 5, very exhausted from climbing and canoing. Dinner was Korn Karry (corn curry) and we also had hot dogs before bed.

On Sunday, we placked up and left by 10.

Our last meal:


The campsite once more, which symbolic norweigan flag:


We drove back to Kristiansand, where we had an hour to spare before the boat, so we went for a little trip around the town.

Icecream in Norway:


And the trip home:



The waters were about 4 metres high on the way back, and many people were quite sick. The crew gave our sea-sickness pills before we left to keep us safe, but many still felt dizzy.

I arrived home at about 6pm in time for dinner with my family and told them of my adventures in Norway.

I have only one more school day, and 3 more whole days until I leave for Eurotour! I'm very very excited about it, and perhaps it will be a little while before I update this again, but maybe I will get a quick one in from a hotel somewhere in Europe!

Re: Last post

Claire, Bådfartplan means Boat Timetable. And things grow incredibly fast! One week the trees were bare, and the next there is full folliage.

And Jacqui, the 4th image down in the last post was a birthday cake. It's a funny danish one, apparently an old tradition. in this part of denmark its actually a tradition to all scream when someone cuts of the head of the cake. Very strange to be sitting at a table when everyone starts screaming when someone cuts the birthday cake!

Love to all , Daniel

New family and brilliant weather!!!!

Hallojsa til alle! Hvordan gør det?

Yesterday was my final day with the Lysdals, and it was a little sad but it's definitely not a goodbye. While I am missing them already, I will see them often and I will still play in the band with Søren and I'm sure I will spend a little time with Andreas before he goes to Australia in August.

Some photos from the final days with the Lysdals:

Aftensmad med Søren, mig, Andreas og Berrit


Spiller Lego med Lasse




Lasses fødseldag kage og Mormor:


BBQ med Freddie:




Rowing with Andreas:


På bilen:


En øl med Freddie:


Lasse and I at the cleanest lake in Denmark:


So now I am living with the Peidersens, a little closer to the train station in Ry. I have a lovely double bed and much of the house to myself due to the absence of my two oldest host siblings (Ida(17) is on exchange in Chile until July, and Leon(20) is visiting his old host families in Brazil). But I have two little sisters, Kira(11) and Rebecca(3) and they are very very sweet. It's quite a change coming from a house of four male children to suddenly having 2 sisters, but I'm enjoying it.

My new address is

Thorsvej 44
8680 Ry
DENMARK

I'm off to bed now, but my next update will come with photos of Norway (only 4 more days to go!) and probably I will have finished school, as I am free as of next Wednesday until mid-August. And then Eurotour!

With Love, Daniel

Ps.
Danish signs will never cease to amuse me:

Goddag til min Aussie venner og familie! Hvordan goer det?

Things here are going very well! I've just hit the big 3 month mark a couple of days ago, but only feels like i've been here for about a week! I'm just having a brilliant time here, and while I miss some things from home (beaches, warm weather, mangoes, tim tams, friends and my record player, but not in that order particually), mostly I have enough things here to keep me more than amused.


I've fallen in love with a danish liver spread called Lever Postej (post-eye):

From Wikipedia:

In Denmark the liver is formed into a paste to which herbs, salt, pepper and other desired seasoning are added. It is then put into a loaf pan and baked in an oven.

The leverpostej is sliced or spread on buttered Danish dark rye bread (rugbrød) and eaten as an open faced sandwich. It might also be topped with any of a variety of pickled items, such as beets, løj, or cucumbers. It is also traditional to place a slice of the saltkød on top of the leverpostejmad.

It's probably the Danish equivalent of Vegemite, and it certainly took a bit of getting used to, but now i love it!

Earlier this month, I had my second Rotary camp, a Viking camp in a city called Roskilde, about 3 hours from here. All the rotary exchange students (new and old) met for a weekend of hammer throwing, viking ship building and danish folk dancing, which was all very very fun.

Everyone (except me, i seem to be lost in the back row somewhere):



Matt (Newcastle, Australia) undertaking a typical Viking pasttime, log throwing:



Camilla (Argentina) with a danish troll:



Some attractive vikings found in the museum:



On a replica viking ship:



Alistair (Canberra, Australia) with a viking-sized icecream, the Grand Danois:



And me with my hair-twin:



This month I also went with the Silkeborg exchange students to visit the resting place of the first king, and ancestor of Prince Frederik, King Gorm. His bones have been moved around a lot in the past 1000 years, but they currently rest in Jelling inside a modest church. The Danes take their Royalty very seriously, and actually have the oldest continuous Royal family in the world.

The Jelling Stone has runes on it dating from 1000 AD, raised by Gorm the Old for his wife.



Soetkin (Belgium) and Julia (Italy) in the church where Gorm's bones lay:



Most of the silkeborg exchange students with a statue of H.C. Andersen:




On the same trip we also visited Odense, and saw the exact place where Hans Christian Andersen was born inside the H.C. Andersen museum which was very cool.

Other events in the recent few weeks include purchasing tickets to the Skanderborg festival, as unfortunately i wasn't allowed to go to the bigger Roskilde festival. However, Skanderborg festival involves 5 days of camping in a town just 10 minutes from Ry, with big names like Eric Clapton, Franz Ferdinand and the Kings of Leon playing. It's not til August, but tickets sell out every year. It's called Danmark's Smukkeste Festival, (Denmark most beautiful festival) so I'm looking forward to it a lot!

I've also recently been out rowing and I can really see spring on the way now. Apparently in the next two weeks, all the beech trees around here will get their leaves back and the whole countryside will turn much greener. The weather this week has been very very nice, I was even able to wear shorts and a t-shirt on the weekend! This Thursday, it's going to reach 17 degrees! I helped Freddy mow the lawn on the weekend, and managed to get the tiniest bit of sun on my arms and face.

On the 4th of May, I am going to be moving families, which is both very sad and very exciting. I'm looking forward to my next family, but I'm going to miss this one a lot. On the 10 til the 12th of May, I'm going to be on a trip to Norway with my language school for whitewater rafting! We are travelling by ferry up to Norway, which I'm sure will be very very cold. And then, the weekend after that is Eurotour! Beyond that is school holidays until mid-August.

Mange knus, Daniel

Shining sun, sweet songs and upcoming sight-seeing!

Denmark finally warms up! The sun has begun to emerge from behind the layers of winter and flowers are coming up, daylight savings has begun and people on the street are starting to smile a little more. I received my first "God morgen" from a person on the street the other day, a sure sign that spring is in the air. All of Easter's late snow has melted away and we are reaching temperatures that exceed an epic high of 10 degrees quite often.

Earlier this month, Soetkin(Belgium) and I read that a band called "String Swing" was playing in Rambelys, the same bar that I played with Soren's school rock band in in February. The band was really great, and I intend to go back to the bar to see some more bands, as they have several on every week.

I have been spending time in Aarhus with other exchange students (udvikslingstudent, i Dansk) from around the world. Last week we went to see a band called "Alphabeat", who actually attended Silkeborg Gymnasium a few years ago, and are now getting quite a name for themselves.

You can listen to one of their songs here:



It's very catchy, happy pop music in English and we had a great time in what is apparently one of Denmark's best clubs, Train.

The gang:



and the band:



There has also been a couple of exchange student parties for various birthdays (fodseldag) and here is a couple of photos from these:

From right to left, me, Soetkin (Belgium), Marion (France) and Steph (Costa Rica)


Soetkin, Hannah(USA), Deirdre (USA), Marion, Alice (USA), Nikki (China) and Steph


On Friday night, I went to my first proper Danish party with my classmates. There was money left over from the trip to Paris, so Asbjern hosted a party where we ate curry and chocolate cake and had a very nice time. It's always good to see my classmates outside of the school environment, and Danes are very friendly people when they have had a drink or two.

This week, Silkeborg Gymnasium is holding a Spring Concert with a David Bowie theme, so all the music classes are performing items. Our class is playing "Space Oddity", and I'm on the string synthesizer.
Next week, the language school has organised a trip for the students to Odense, a city on the island between Zealand and Jutland, the two main parts of Denmark.
Next month, I'm trying to get myself onto a white water rafting trip to Norway for a weekend (the 10th til the 12th of May) with the language school. I will also be changing host families around that time, to another family in the pretty town of Ry. It will be difficult to leave this family, but my next family will also be pretty fun. They have a daughter who will be returning from Chile while I am staying, as well as a 20 year old son who went on exchange to India, and two little girls.

On the 18th of May, Eurotour begins! Three weeks on a tour around many of Europe's most beautiful cities with a bus load of crazy exchange students.

After Eurotour, I will have finished my year of school. (because in Europe, the end of the school year comes in July.) I will have almost three months of holidays before I return to school in mid August! Life is indeed great. Also, if anyone was considering a trip to Europe/Denmark this year, June to Mid-August I will have no school to skip and no other current plans! Most of the exchange students at my school will be leaving to go home in June/July so I'm going to be saying goodbye to a lot of great friends who I'll miss a lot, but will hopefully remain in touch with to exploit spare beds from in my inevitable later years of travel.

My language skill seem to be developing alright, I can understand quite a bit and have finally perfected saying "Ry". Don't be deceived by the apparent innocence of its' spelling. Its not pronounced like Rye at all, but has a very strange foreign sound to it. The R sound comes from the depths of your throat and has to be fired out across your mouth and then moulded into a "y" as it comes of your tongue. Your tongue then has to try and make the "o" and the "i" sounds almost simultaneously. It was very much a big moment when I learnt I could pronounce it.

Several weeks ago, I ordered some cds from Amazon in the US, and thought I had found a nice cheap way of buying cds. I ordered Jack Johnson, "sleep through the static," the soundtrack to "Across the Universe", a cd by a French guy called Tete and Blue King Brown's first single. However, when i went to pick them up this afternoon, I found that Danish importation taxes has doubled the price of my cds! Needless to say, I won't be importing cds into Denmark like that anymore!

Love to all, Daniel.