Camping!

So yesterday afternoon I set off with the family for a camping excursion in Sweden. I was really excited but at the same time I must admit that I was also nervous.

I wasn't really sure about everything that was going to happen, except that my family as well as three other families were going to join each other on a camping trip in Sweden and that Neil had referred to the place we were going to stay at a cabin and also as a hut.

So we set off yesterday around three o'clock. Mathilde left much earlier because she rode with one of the other families because not everyone would fit into our car, which means it was Neil, Ingeborg, Magnus, Singe and myself in our car. It was a three hour drive which wasn't a big deal but for the drive itself Magnus made coffee and tea and put them into thermoses in case we felt the need to have some on the drive. (haha)

So after we cross the boarder into Sweden this man is honking and pointing to the back of our car and so Neil pulls over into the rest area to see whats wrong and we notice that one of our tires could use a little air and makes the executive decision to get air when we stop to get some chocolate :)

About 20 minutes after putting air in the tire we here an explosion (yes, an explosion that came from our car) so we pull over. Since I am sitting closest to the highway I am the last one to get out of the car and before I get out I ask "what happened?" and the response I got was "we have a flat tire."

Now I feel that before I can continue I should explain what "we have a flat tire" actually means because when I got out of the car the entire passenger side back tire was GONE. COMPLETELY GONE. Our tire exploded and there was nothing left of it...even the hub cap blew off.

So luckily we do have a replacement tire but it is underneath the massive amount of stuff we have brought for this camping trip that we have embarked on, so this means that everything in the back of the car must be removed and placed on the side of the highway.

The only other interesting part about our "flat tire" was the fact that half way through Neil teaching Magnus how to change a tire was Magnus got thirsty and breaks out the thermos and drinks a cup of tea as he changes the tire.

So we finish driving to the said "hut" and when we pull up I think I died a little...because you see this "hut" was a mansion that had 33 beds, 7 bathrooms, a sauna, pool table, and fooze ball table...hut??

Basically I had an amazing camping trip. We laid around, ate good food, watched movies, played games, and the younger ones made an igloo....a huge igloo because of the massive amounts of snow everywhere.

Unfortunately I couldn't stay the whole weekend because Signe and I had to catch a train home tonight because tomorrow morning I leave for my long study tour to Tallinn, Estonia and Stockholm, Sweden!

Crazy Danish School Care

So last week I meant to write about my first "long" practicum because the first time I wrote about my experience I was only there to see the place for about an hour; but now I have gone three days, and oh the adventures I have had!

So the first "long" day I had there was different...but not completely crazy. When I got there I played with the kids and did things such as dance to music, do puzzles, look at picture books etc. Then one of the girls came up to me and was like "so me a few of the other interns have decided that we don't feel like sitting here anymore so we are taking some of the kids into town, would you like to join us?"

To begin with, where I'm from you can't just peace out of the school with someone else's kid without a ton of permission and release forms...it just doesn't happen. So I go and there are three interns (excluding me) and six little girls. We go into the city (Copenhagen) and take a walk. We go to the Botanic Gardens and we just let the kids run free. We eat lunch there (which the kids all bring their own lunches and they were in their book-bags that they were wearing) and then we wander back to the school. So not bad...I mean it was different, especially taking the kids on the train...just not my normal.

The next day I go and I am more mentally prepared. Before I came they told me that we were taking some kids to the movies no big deal. There are 7 adults and 14 kids and we go to a place and watch some Danish cartoons and eat our lunches and head back. It was basically an all day ordeal but I was prepared so nothing shocked me.

The third day however blew my mind. I know we are going on a field trip, just not the full extent about what is about to go down. So when I get there all 60 children that attend this facility are lined up outside...(scary right??) We start walking and I'm monitoring about 8 children (thank God I'm used to that with the kids in my family) and we get near the train station and it's no big deal because we took the train to got to the movies. Well then we pass the train station...and I'm wondering "maybe we'll take the bus??"

WRONG

After an 1 1/2 hours of walking with these 60 children we finally reach our destination. A puppet show. All of the children take off the five layers of snow gear they have on and go sit down to wait for the show to begin. This puppet show that we have walked 60 children trough the snow down pretty busy streets last for approximately 15 minutes. Ya know what happened next? The children redressed and we walked back...holy crap.

I wasn't mentally prepared for that.

At all.

The End.

London Bridges

Right now it is Saturday night and I am waiting for my family to come home from London. They left bright and early Wednesday morning and I haven't seen them since Tuesday morning.

While they were gone (mind you they know about this so I'm not hiding anything) Ashley basically moved in. She came over on Wednesday after her field study and just left a few hours ago. She's having even more problems lately with her couple so hopefully this week gave them time to patch everything up.

While she was here we ate massive amounts of food and when I say massive here is the list to prove it...this does not however include lunch or any snacks during the day...just breakfast and after we got home from school each day:

• 2 pizzas
• 4 bagels
• 1 container of cream cheese
• 2 packages of pretzels
• 2 liters of yogurt
• bag of grapes
• bucket of jelly
• 3 bags of pasta
• 2 jars of pasta sauce
• 1 pot of meat sauce that Ingeborg made before she left
• 1 chocolate cake
• 1 loaf of white bread

I will however add that Friday night Becky and Caitlin came over and did help us eat some of it...but not much of it.

We also spent our week being very productive. We trained for the military by going through boot camp, combat training, and assault training. We learned how to work in a spa by properly giving massages, waxes, and filing nails. We ran, jumped hurdles, played frisbee, fished, played with a cat, and became DJs. If you are wondering how in the world we accomplised this the answer is quite simple. We found a Playstation 2 video game called the eye toy and it's bascially the pre-wii. This game was played so much that we are all very sore and we need so much space that we had to move the furniture in the living room to make room.

Friday was awesome as well. We were supposed to make mac-n-cheese but cheese is extremly expensive so we made spaghetti and a cake (from a box that the directions were in Danish). We forgot that we had to make the cake early so we could actually eat it so at midnight after the cake was finished baking, we put it outside in the snow to cool...it took about 10 minutes.

When everyone left today Becky's family invited me over for dinner so that I wouldn't have to make dinner for just me. It was very nice because I hadn't really spent much time at her house and I didn't really know them so I was good getting to talk with them and have a hygge night ("cozy" night but it doesn't translate into English). We had hot fruit pie and tea for dessert and it was very relaxing.

The past week has been amazing but I must say that I do miss the family and I can't wait to eat healthy dinners again! Sad thing is I don't think I'm going to be able to stay up much longer because my eyes are slowly drifting and they won't be home for another two hours because Neil just texted and their plane has been delayed so they won't be home until after midnight. So in the mean time I think I'm going to go to ch131.com and see what's new on tv lately :)

Paid Off!

Remember how I got a ticket for being in the wrong zone on the Metro??

Well Neil and Ingeborg wrote the Metro and they have decided that since the man was incredibly rude to me for no reason at all they dropped the fine down to only 100kr which is only $20!! I was stoked that I didn't have to pay hardly anthing at all.

Well then today I gave Ingeborg the 100kr because she said that she could take care of it from the house...she refused to take my money because her and Neil wanted to pay the fine for me.

I wasn't sure how to react because I am obviously ecstatic that I don't have to pay 100kr for a mistake but at the same time I felt bad that they were going to pay for it because they felt bad for me. Neil was funny though, because when they told me he suggested that since I had taken out the 100kr I should go to the store and by booze to celebrate and to have when they leave for their trip to London!

Basically I have the best host family anyone could ever ask for!

Oh What A Rain That Would Be!

Tonight I had a completely "American" night!

Ashley, Becky and I went to go see the movie Valentines Day in Dybblsbro tonight at it was fabulous. First off when you go to the movies here you have to reserve a ticket before you go and then you pay for it when you get there. So we go and Ashley's host "mom" (i put that in quotations because Ashley lives with a couple that is 26 and 32 and she finds it akward..so shes not mom...shes "mom") is there with her; because this woman doesn't believe that Ashley has any friends so she more or less invited herself to see if she really did.

So during this movie Ashley, Becky and I laugh histarically through parts when the rest of the theater is completely quite...apparently they didn't get the jokes.

After the movie Sascha and Allen (Ashley's couple) has decided that we should go to the Hard Rock Cafe and Allen is going to meet us there. When we get there everything is in English and everyone is speaking only English....AMAZING!

While we wait on our table Ashley's couple stands nowhere near us and just whispers to themselves in Danish. We finally get a table and the menu is fantastic and we decide that we must get chicken tenders because we can't find them anywhere else...they were out...

We settle with getting chicken sandwiches and french fries and we kill a bottle of Heinz Ketchup. The food was great, but Ashley's couple is fondling each other and whispering and have their legs all over each other so basically we ignored them the whole night.

We talked about middle and high school and the songs that were popular back then and for some reason we got on the topic of little kids tv shows...aka Barney. This conversation lasted for a really long time and when we left we are still talking about Barney, we remembered the old song "if all the raindrops were lemon drops and gumdrops oh what a rain that would be, standing outside with our mouths open wide ah ah ah ah ah ah ah if all the raindrops were lemon drops and gumdrops oh what a rain that would be!" and so we sang this LOUDLY down the streets of Copenhagen back to the train and Ashley's couple just thinks were "not funny" to quote from them.

Basically it was a fabulous night and now I'm back to my reality that I'm in Denmark and not the states, and everyone speaks Danish...oh well it was fun while it lasted :)

Short Study Tour

This past weekend I went on my short study tour. The short study tour is where DIS puts all 700 students on buses and we disperse throughout Denmark for three days, Thursday through Saturday.

On my tour (children with special needs) we went to Helsingør and Odense. We spent the time going to different schools to see how children with special needs are treated within the school and then we also went to some things that were more for culture appreciation and fun.


In the first town we went to a Byskole which is basically a typical Danish school..well they did have children with special needs, but their integration if you can call it that was the children were completely sperated except for recess. They were very proud of their system but I was no impressed, mainly because any and all disorders are treated exactly the same. This meant that the blind girl, the autisitc boy, and the boys with ADHD were all treated exactly the same and I don't think that a child with ADHD should be kept separate from the "normal" students.

That day we also went to a Højskole. A Højskole is the non-traditional school for people who want to learn more. These people can be deciding what they want to go to college for or they can be the gandma who wants to learn how to paint, it doesn't matter. The people that attend the school typically live there and take classes that interest them for either a semester or a year. There are no grades and no testing because it is for your own benefit.

Another school that we went to was kind of like a private school and the kids (in all grades) were working on a project of America! It was so neat; they made a diner with the typical "american" food aka hotdog, hamburgers, budlight and cupcakes. They were also putting on a production of Greece! It was so adorable and I was quite impressed at how the seven year olds were working with the sixteen year olds!


The last school that we went to on our trip was desinged for only children with special needs and every student has an IQ of less than 70. It was so different to see the materials and things that the school had for the children to do. For example one of the "classes" that they have is woodshop; with the chainsaws, drills, and all that other stuff that no one in America would dare to let a child touch, much less a child classified with speical needs.


We did a few other things that day but the last "event" we had was a symphony orchestra. It was interesting and nice, but we we're all too tierd to sit and listen to music so I stayed awake by watching the man in the front row continously break the strings on his bow to the violin.


Oh yeah and before the symphony we went to "the ugly ducking" restaurant. It was cute, but I must say I'm still not used to this whole being legal to drink and it stunned me when Rita, our teacher, bought us all drinks.


After the symphony we went to a bar, but nothing was happening yet so we all went to the 711 and bought drinks and went sight seeing :)

The next day was less eventful mainly because it was a Saturday and a general rule of thumb is that schools are closed on the weekends. We went to the Hans Christian Andersen Museum, the one for kids and the one for grown ups, and I must say the one for kids was a thousand times better. If you are wondering who is this man and why we went to two museums about him, he is the creator of stories such as:

• The Little Mermaid


• The Ugly Duckling (hince the restaurant we went to)


• The Princess and the Pea


• Thumbelina
  
• and like 100 others (no joke)
  

The kids museum was amazing because it was set up like you were in a fariy tale and everyone dressed up (yes all of the american college students dressed up like princesses, cows, chickens and knights) and it made us all feel like we were little kids again :)

The weekend was a blast and we ate sooo much! Every place we went to gave us hot chocolate, tea, coffee, bread, and danishes.

After I got home only the host brother and his friend were home. So they made me dinner and we just talked for hours on end until I finally passed out at like 2am.

So the pictures below include one taken at the orchestra...the man towards the right looking backwards is the man I continuously watched. The other was taken at the Tinder-Box (the H.C. Andersen Museum for kids).