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.

The past week...

The paskeferie break has been a very relaxing way to spend a week. I've had a week away from school, and we return on Tuesday the 25th. After the crazy Parisian trip, it has been nice to just slappe af (relax) with my host family and friends.

The day came finally when Freddie was allowed to drive his old Fiat. Due to insurance reasons, he can't use the car in the winter, or when the temperature is too low. But we had a lovely weekend, and I went travelling to one of the surrounding "mountains" (which, in Denmark, is what they call a slightly large mound).


Me, wishing I was allowed to drive in Denmark:



and a chilly wind on a spot which may be the highest point in Denmark. It seems to depend upon where you live if you think this point or another point is the highest. But there was nonetheless a lovely view:



After this relaxing start to the week, on Wednesday we went on a day trip to Germany to purchase cheap alcohol, lollies and blank cds. We went to a city called Flemsburg and it took less time to travel here than it would to travel to Sydney from Newcastle. However, my mind is beginning to think this is a long trip. Denmark is such a small country! We went first to the supermarket, and then into the city to find lunch and to have a little look around. It seemed most of the people there were Danish people doing exactly as we were.



Andreas:



Myself with some kind of strange animal:







We returned on Wednesday afternoon from Germany, and then on Thursday morning we left for Freddie's brother's sommerhus in the northwest of Jylland to stay for a night. I think if the house was placed in a small beach village on the north coast of NSW it would fit right in.



A danish breakfast:



On a visit to the West coast:



Windfarms, which are everywhere you look in Denmark. 19% of Denmark's energy is produced by wind turbines:



Freezing on a walk:



Soren and I on a jetty:



The trip was a lovely holiday, and it was great to see some more of Denmark. Freddie's brother has a wife and they have a little son who was very funny to watch. Andreas didnt come, but it was a full household for the one night. Not quite a Tynan family reunion but great fun anyway.

Today was Saturday, and I woke up to snow!

And then today was Easter, and Lasse woke up to find the Easter Bilby had come and left easter eggs all around the garden! I got up really early to hide them all in the snow.


a bilby in a cold burrow:




and the collection:



Thanks so much Nana and Papa and mum for sending over a lot of Australian chocolates. I bought a little extra danish chocolate as well and that was what I used for the hunt.

Next week I'm back to school on Tuesday. There's a rotary camp from the 11th-13th of April with all 150 exchange students in Denmark and a couple of parties coming up.

Thanks for the news Claire, nice to hear from Melbourne! And Paul, its depends how much im into the music, but generally i'll be right down the front getting as close to the musicians as possible.

Happy Easter all!
Love Daniel