Tunisia and the last month...

The month began with District camp - all the exchange students from my district (about 30 of us) met at a scout camp for a weekend of fun. I met a bunch of new exchange students who arrived in July and taught them some of the deep, dark exchange student secrets that we must pass on to the younger generation. There wasn't so many planned activities, it was much more of a meet-and-have-fun weekend.

I've changed families again, for the last time! It was VERY sad to leave the Pejtersens, I had a brilliant time with them. I'm missing many things about my time there, but I can't complain at all. My new family is great fun as well. I went to visit the Pejtersens a week or so after I left and was told Rebekka cried when I left - I miss spending afternoons hopping on the trampoline with her. But they only live around the corner so I can always go to visit.

I realised how much stuff I have accumulated here when I packed up to leave - at least 4 times what I came with. I'll be looking into sending some stuff home by ship...

My new family is very easy going and friendly. I have an 18 year old sister who was an exchange student in Brazil, and 2 older siblings who have left home. My host mum has tea waiting when I come home late from school which is very hyggeligt.


I aced my first maths test of the year with a 10 - the equivilant of an A. They have a very funny scoring system here - with the best mark being 12 (a+), then 10, 7, 4, 2, 0 and -2. 0 is the equivilant of 50%. I still really don't know why they use such a strange system, but apparently it's common across Europe.

I've started jamming with people again, after the previous jam group i was with stopped before the summer. I'm staying in Silkeborg on Tuesday afternoons to play keyboard with 4-5 other like-minded musicians, which is a lot of fun.

And then there was Tunisia!

Arrived in Monastir Airport late Friday night, to discover I needed a visa as I came from Australia...Luckily, it was sorted out within 30 minutes and we were able to drive to Hammamet, where our hotel was. One night there, before we drove to Kairouan to see temples and the city. First impressions were that it was a hell of a lot warmer than Denmark (25 degrees) and very different architecturally. I was also surprised to see Eucalyptus trees on the side of the road - apparently grows well in the dry climate. There's almost no road rules and things very MUCH cheaper than Denmark. The univseral second language is French, as it was a French colony, and they are very fond of curries and sweets. On the first day I bought a carpet and some spices (Saffron is very cheap in Tunisia) and ate a very spicy curry for lunch.


After Kairoaun, we drove a long way to Gafsa. A walk through the city, and then found our 5 star hotel for dinner. "Jugartha Palace" was on the edge of the desert, and had a massive pool, fountains, cocktails waiting upon arrival, jewels on the ceilings and very comfortable beds! We had an incredible night here









The next day we drove out to the desert and took a 10 kilometre walk in the beautiful weather, arriving at a great canyon we walked through.













That evening, we began our camel tour into the Sahara, departing from Gafsa, a city on the edge of the desert. We had a herd of camels, with one person on each camel, led by an arabic man on foot.

Jose and I prepared for the desert:





















My camel:


And the activities of the night in the desert:
our campsite under the Saharan Stars:

and sunrise over the Sahara:
We came back the next day to drive to Douz, a town with a great marketplace where I bought several arabic carpets, spices, jewellery and a woodflute.
Our next hotel was set in caves in a desert town, and I managed to go for a wander and take some great pictures.


We went to visit a family that lived inside a cave in the desert:

The day after, we visited the biggest remaining Roman Colloseum outside of Rome in El Jem.


We spent the final two days in Mahatma, visiting markets, relaxing in the warm medditeranean waters in the warm weather and laughing along with all the danes. I ate hundreds of DELICIOUS olives and had my first good coffee in 9 months! I bargained a little teapot down from 95 dinar to 15 dinar (one dinar is approximately $1) and spent hours sitting in cafes by the sea with the Danes.




Jose from Argentina, me and Tobias from Denmark in our lovely little cafe:

I got home late yesterday evening to Denmark and was incredibly shocked to return to the delightfully cold 5 degree weather. Apparently it will be sunny tomorrow - but when the Danish forcasters say there will be sun, it generally means a total of 10 minutes of sun will fall somewhere over Denmark at somepoint in the day. Alright, maybe 15 minutes. Winter is not too far away...Hopefully my jacket will withstand Denmark in December and early January. It feels very early to be talking about Christmas, but there's hardly a day when Danes don't mention it at this time of the year. Danes give presents on Christmas Eve, and sing songs and dance around the trees after their "Julefrokost", which sounds like a massive day-long feasting celebration! I'm also free from school in early December due to a big individual project my class is doing - so we'll see what I'm able to plan.

Next weekend is the final Rotary student get together with all the students from Denmark meeting in Holbaek, 3 hours away. On the Sunday night after that, I will stay at my penfriend Marie's house, before I go to a concert with The Streets in Copenhagen on the Monday night.

My birthday is also just two days away, and we will be having a hyggeligt family dinner with Danish cakes and lots of tasty flødeboller. I'll make some Anzac biscuits to eat at school with the class during the day too.

Flødeboller: (cream filled chocolate balls with a biscuit base - delicious to eat, not so delicious to pronounce.)

And I've been here 9 months now - whoa!

Love Daniel

ps. now you can click the photos to see them in a bigger version.

pps: NEW ADDRESS and family:

Sam og Mona Eyde
Ahornvej 30
Ry 8680
DANMARK

(+45) 8689 2751

LEGOLAND! and other such good times...

Well, it has yet again been another awesome month. Yes, school been back, which means the resumption of many hours in school where I don't have much to do, but actually, I'm doing a bit in most classes now. Samfundsfag (Society class) has become very interesting now I can understand it and maths, history and religion are all ok.

My days are now 80% danish speaking, 20% English speaking which is brilliant! It's great to feel that sometimes, my Danish is better than their English, as Danes are very good at speaking English. My thoughts are beginning to be Danish-speaking and I no longer feel I have to explain to people that Danish is my second language.

Earlier this month, I visited a beefarm, owned by a Rotarian, and tasted some hard danish honey, very different from our runny Australian honey. I have also visited a Danish dairy factory with Rotary this month, and tasted a lot of tasty Danish cheese.

I had my first Danish school party, or "Gymfest", involving a bar, a dj and an Olympic Games theme at school. About 1000 people came, all dressed up in various exciting olympic games clothes.

Tina and I at a pre-party:


And the queue to get in:


I wasn't home til about 6am from this party. There is no comparison to an Australian school disco here - this was a real beer fuelled, party-music-driven fest of great proportions. It was great to socialise with Danes outside of the class environment a little more - Danes turn into incredibly different people when they have a couple of drinks. They are usually shy and reserved and a little hard to talk to, but with alcohol they are very much the opposite. It's strange to see normally very shy, untalkative people turn into open-armed, welcoming friends. Just another side to the crazy Danes...

I went to Svendborg, 2 hours away by train, to visit Siri and Sophie, two girls from Australia, and to see a Danish jazz group called "Ibrahim Electric". It was a great show, very tight, clean jazz and a very enthusiastic crowd. Bass, hammond organ and a lead guitar:

A classmate lent me their cd months ago, and when I found out they were playing I had to get down to see them.

And then, LEGOLAND!

My good friend Tina asked if I wanted to go to Legoland with her family last week, and what else could I say! It was a childhood dream come true...It's a bit of a cross between a theme park and a open-air museum, with thousands of models of real life monuments and cities, as well as rides and arcade games. We had a great time wandering the models with me, Tina and her younger brother, Emil.

Emil and I:


Model of Copenhagen's harbour:


A street in Hollywood, Legoland:


Me and a windmill:






3 million lego bricks in this one:






Model of the national Danish handball stadium:






Battling lego vikings:


"Lego" comes from the Danish words "Leg" and "Godt", meaning "Play Well."

Next week I have a Rotary camp on the weekend, which will be brilliant! It will be great to see some of the exchange students again. I'm shifting families when I get back on next Sunday afternoon, but I'll be away from home for the Rotary camp from Friday, meaning I'll be packing up here next Thursday. It's going to be sad to leave the Pejdersens! There's a possible trip to Hamburg with Angus, a good friend from Australia, and Tunisia is just 3 weeks away!

I've hit my 8 month mark in Denmark, and I can't beleive how fast the year is going...

Love, Daniel

just a little breaking news...

Well, school's back, the weather's Danish, family is good and Daniel is happy. A more detailed report of the current life situation will come shortly, but there was one big piece of news that I thought I'd break first....

I'm going to Tunisia!!!

There's a trip with my language school, which is really a school for 13-16 year olds, and those who wish to learn Danish (ie, exchange students and newly arrived "ivandrender", or immigrants) that had been organised for efteraar's ferie (Autumn break). It was booked out long ago, long before I knew that the school was organising it. But I found out about it from a very friendly lady from the school, Dina, who said if there was a spare place she'd make sure she let me know.
So then, just last week, I got an email saying a girl had pulled out, and would I like to go to Tunisia? Of course I would! I asked Rotary and back home to see if there was any issue with it and it's all ok! So, from the 13th of October til the 19th of October, I'm going to be in the North African country of Tunisia. The program includes a night at a 5 star hotel, a night camping in the Sahara, a 15 kilometre camel trip, African markets and a history of the WW2 campaign through northern Africa.

Just in case you were like me and are not entirely sure where Tunisia is, here's a little map:


Can life get any better?

more to come soon...

love Daniel

Skanderborg Fest + more

I'm just two days away from my 7 month anniversary in Denmark. How time flies!

I was home just a few days from Belgium before I went to Skanderborg Festival.

Skanderborg Festival is the 2nd biggest festival in Denmark, and is called Danmark's Smukkest Festival, or, in english, Denmark's Most Beautiful Festival. It's in a town just 10 kilometres from here, located in beech forest around the town. The camping sites are on football (soccer) fields and the stages are located around the forest in various little clearings and up and down little hills. It's a very "hyggelig" (cosy, warm, nice, friendly, happy) festival, and the atmosphere is very very warm. That may be helped a little by the sheer amount of alcohol consumed by party-ready Danes, but it was I beleive, at least in part, due to the surroundings of the festival. The festival is watched over by an ancient Danish troll, Gunthler, who is a drunken, non-pants wearing, partying troll who apparently roamed the woods many years ago.

I was camping with about 10 people, mainly from my class, along with Camilla, a friend from Argentina. Our days were spent sleeping in, checking the schedule to see which good bands to see in the afternoon, hitting up the festival for the afternoon, grabbing some dinner from a stall or eating rugbroed and tuna at the tent. Then we would see the bigger bands at night time.

The main stage:


Classmates:


Lenny Kravitz, a definite highlight!


Exchange students:


An installation/bar in the festival:






A map of Africa made entirely from empty beer cans:




It was a brilliant class bonding week, and I got to know a whole bunch of Danish bands that I'd never heard of but are really good. It's rather strange to be at a festival when a classic Danish band is playing a classic Danish song and the whole crowd knows all the words, bar you. However, I could sing along well enough to Franz Ferdinard and Eric Clapton.

This weeks project has been to check out the library and borrow cds from all the Danish bands to listen to more of their music.

School went back on Wednesday, and it was awesome to see the class again. Some people I haven't seen since before Euro-Tour, right back in mid-May. It's really cool to come back and to be able to now understand the classes. I can actually participate in things and help a little which is, for now, quite a nice novelty! After not doing so much serious study for such a long time, it's a nice change.

New exchange students arrived at Silkeborg this week from about 10 different countries. I'm trying to learn the names to 15 different faces and getting to know and showing around people, like my "oldies" did with me when I came 7 months ago.
I took a few of them out, along with some other oldies, to Silkeborg on Friday night to a big fireworks/city party as a bonding/icecream eating activity.

Louis from Dominican Republic, Megan from NZ and Andrea from Italy.


Live jazz and masses of people in the town:




Laser light show:


Local oldies:


And that's that. School is all that's on in the near future. I'll be changing families, rather reluctantly, at the end of August. But I'm sure things will be sweet there too, just like my other two families. I've been playing a lot of piano here, writing and learning tunes borrowed from Silkeborg library, and I'm going to miss that.

NOTE: I've just found out I won't be changing families until the 1st of October. And have also just discovered that there is a free place on the language school trip to Tunisia! (13th-19th October.)

Love to all, Daniel