solskin, jeg elsker dig.

Wowie! The past three days have been filled with blue skies and beautiful sunshine! It was so nice to wake up Saturday morning..late Saturday morning...to find the sun out and shining! This weekend Mara, Taylor, Alison (exchange student from USA who lives in Kolding) decided to have a girls' night at Mara's. I didn't have school Friday because my classes were all cancelled, so it was lovely to sleep in late and then spend the night with some of my favourite girls. We haven't seen much of Alison, since she doesn't live on Fyn, so it was very nice to catch up with her. After we woke up to a surprisingly beautiful day we made american style pancakes, from mix and with syrup and boy was it delicious. It definitely made the day start off on a good foot. After we were done with brunch and cleaning up our mess, we went to the centrum to show Alison around and to get lunch. After Alison left and Taylor had also went home, Mara came to my house because my host family was having guests over for dinner, so they said I could invite a friend. It was a really lovely evening filled with talking, delicious foods, and board games.

Sunday morning I woke up and went to my sister's handball game in a city about 30 minutes away from us, this day was also filled with sunshine! After we got home Ana came over and we worked on our presentation we were going to present to another rotary club in our city. We did that today and it was fabulous, this club was the international club in our city, so their official language is english. It was so nice to present in english and talk about our year so far and the rotarians were really interested because they are going to host their first exchange student this coming August.

Well I plan to get my hair cut this week, maybe going to get it short, a little scared though, but I mean this year is all about doing new and exciting things, right? Sunday my class and I travel to LONDON! I am so excited! We picked our rooms today and I am together with Laura V, Cathrine H, and Pernille M, so I am really excited! It will definitely be an amazing week! I promise to take pictures.

Until I write again.

billeder.

the new house.

moving to my third family.

museum i went to during vinterferie.

fun with the best friend.

the girls.

oldies and newbies night to the movies.

let's make a new tomorrow.

So it's been 2 months since my last post and I guess that is a really long time, and yet again I do apologize. So many new things have happened since I last posted and so many exciting things are going to happen in the next few months.

I only have about 4 months left until I go back home, crazy to think about how quickly the time has flown by. I remember celebrating my 4 month anniversary with the danish class in København and that seemed like such a huge time and it also seems so far away.

Well I switched to my third host family at the start of January and they are so nice. My host parents are Søs and Peter. Peter works at my school as a math and tysk (german) teacher. I also have two host sisters, Thea and Sille. Thea is 15 and going to Brasil next year! How exciting, eh? And Sille is 19 and will be done with gymnasium this year, so that is also very exciting. I believe she is going to go to København for university or something, so next year Søs and Peter will have a pretty empty and quiet house. Thea plays handball, so for every game I go and watch, and honestly I've become really fond of handball, I actually wish we played it in Canada. It is so fun to watch and can be so intense. There was the World Championship for handball in January, for men, and I watched almost every Danish game, it was so intense. Danmark won silver, they lost in overtime in the gold game to France, but they played so well.

Our oldies left in January and so of course our newbies came. They seem really nice and eager to learn Danish, so it is so cute to see them trying to speak Danish because it reminds me of when I first came here and understood nothing.

In February it was my birthday, so I had friends over for cake and cupcakes and it was a very lovely night. On my actual birthday my family took me out to a little restaurant in the city and it was definitely a birthday I will remember. What else has happened?

We just finished our winter break, which was so nice. I stayed with my first host family, so it was really nice to see them again, but I did miss my family now, so when they came home and told me about their week in Østrig (Austria) and I told them about my week here, it was very nice feeling. I definitely feel at home with this family.

Well in two weeks my class and I go to LONDON! I am so excited! We are going to see FCK vs. Chelsea football game and also the We Will Rock You concert, along with many museums and also we have a workshop at the Globe Theater, so as you can see it will be a very exciting trip. Then in April we have a week long spring vacation, I do believe. And then in May we have EUROTOUR BABY!!!! Gaaaah, I am so excited for that. 18 days of non-stop fun with amazing people and beautiful cities. I can already predict there will not be much sleeping, but I am totally ok with that, I mean I can sleep when I am dead, right?

I still don't know what day I am coming home, but most of my friends are leaving in June, mostly at the end, so it is so sad. I plan on going to the airport with Ana when she has to leave, if I can, and I know it will be so hard to say goodbye, but hopefully, if our plans work out, we will be seeing each other again next year in the Danish summer.

Well until I write again, hej hej

farvel 2010.

It is currently 2.51 am on December 31st, the last day of 2010. Wow, what a year it was, a little over a month was spent wondering what country I would be moving to in the summer, then four months were spent on wondering which city I would be living in while I was in Danmark, then another two months were spent with finalizing everything and really getting ready for my new adventure. August came and the next four months were spent in a country where at first I knew no one and nothing about Danmark or Odense, but in that short period of time that I have been here I have made life long friends, found a new place to call home, and made unforgettable memories. 2010 was definitely a very good year, a year in which I will always remember, but I am most certain 2011 will be a good good year.

Not only am I counting down at midnight to bring in the new year with a dear friend, we will also be counting down to our five month anniversary here in Danmark. Five months, can you believe it? These five months have flown by so quickly, it is actually kind of crazy how time really has flown by and how so much has changed. 2011 will go by in a flash too, as unfortunate as that is, but I know it will go be unforgettable. The new year brings new adventures for me, a tour to England with my class, an 18 day euro-tour, summer, and who knows what other crazy things will occupy my time.

Så her er der en "farvel" frem til 2010 og en stor "hej" til 2011.

Until next time,

-Maggie. (:

sne, sne, sne, jeg elsker sne!

just for you, becca.

So it has been a while since I last posted and it really hasn’t been on my mind to update my blog, until my friend Becca informed me that she reads it and thought that I need to make a new post and update her/everyone else who reads it.

Well, yesterday I switched families. It was so odd to pack up all my stuff into a suitcase again and have to move, because I had never moved in Canada, so I never needed to clear out my room and put all my stuff in a suitcase, but in the past 4 months I have had to do it twice, so it was very odd. It was really hard/sad to say goodbye to the Knudsen family because I enjoyed them so much, they were truly the nicest family. They made me feel like one of them and definitely made my first 4 months in Danmark ones to remember and they made is so much fun. My suitcase was packed full that I could barely close it and my carry on bag was so heavy from all my school textbooks (textbooks that I have never even opened/used). But my last weekend with them was very hyggeligt. On Saturday we went to my host mom’s cousin’s because it was their birthday and they have a son around my age, so him, Jakob, and I had a snow war and it was so much fun to play in the snow, (btws, we just got a lot of snow and it looks so pretty and I love it so much) except for when they would gang up on me and both throw snowballs at me. Then we went home and got ready to go to the centrum for the Christmas market and to see the tree in the centrum get lit, along with all the other lights. It was so BEAUTIFUL, words cannot even begin to describe how lovely it looked with all the lights lit up. I was so excited and it definitely was not a let down. Then we went home and once we got out of the car Jakob made a snowball and threw it at me, so the war was on! We played outside for a while and by the time we went inside I had snow all in my hair and my pants were wet, but it was totally worth it because it was so much fun. I just LOVE sne! (snow in danish) And that night for dinner we had a traditional Danish Christmas dinner and it was so yummy! On the last morning with them I woke up to the smell of a yummy breakfast, I came downstairs and to my surprise Jens had made “american style” pancakes, and boy were they yummy! During breakfast they surprised me with gifts (I was not expecting this at all) and then I gave them a gift from me, a dream catcher and explained the whole story behind them. I will definitely miss them a lot, but they told me I was welcome to visit, so i will of course take them up on this offer.

On Wednesday my language class is going to Tivoli (an amusement park in København) and I am so excited because a) it will be fun to go on rides, b) it’s all decorated in Christmas stuff and people have told me it is so beautiful ad c) it is a day spent with my language class, who i love and have so much fun with, so all in all it will be a very fun day! And then on Friday I am going back to København with my friend Anne to visit our friend Josephine (they were in Canada last year for their exchange) and I am super stoked to see them because I haven’t seen them since May!

Well Christmas is fast approaching and I am so excited for it because from what I have been told the Danish Christmas is much different than how we celebrate it in Canada. Some things they do differently is that they open their presents on the 24th, that is right you just read that correctly, they open it the night BEFORE! How different eh? They also don’t eat turkey and mashed potatoes and pie like us, they have duck and fish instead, so that will be interesting! They also put candles on their tree, real lit ones, first time I was told this I was so confused at how it didn’t catch on fire, and they also dance/sing around their tree, so that should be interesting. They also do New Year’s Eve a little differently, from what I’ve been told they do a lot of fireworks, so I am excited to see that because I am sure it will be so pretty.

Well in two weeks I have to make a 20-25 minute presentation to my rotary club at our Julefrokost (christmas lunch/dinner) about Canada, my family, and the First Nation people in Canada…oh and it has to be in dansk (danish), so wish me luck. I will tell you how it goes and how the holidays go! Until I write again.

-Maggie.

spent with good company.

It seems like I start off most of my posts apologizing for the lack of writing that I do on my blog, and yet again I shall apologize. I often think “Oh I should really write how my week was on my blog” but I just never get around to it. Since the last time I posted a lot has happened. I shall try and reminisce about it all.

On the tenth of October it was Thanksgiving in Canada and my host mor suggested that we should try and cook a typical Canadian Thanksgiving dinner, so I asked my mom from home to send me recipes on how to cook everything, seeing as I had never cooked one before. All in all the dinner was delicious and was spent with good company. Min bedste ven Ana, fra Brasilien, came to eat with us and my host bror had his friend Morten come over. It was delicious, the stuffing tasted like home, but unfortunately the cranberries were a little funky tasting and the pumpkin pie was not as satisfying as it was at home.

Last week we had our autumn holiday week, so min familie took me to Bornholm. It is a island apart of Danmark. We had to drive to Sweden and catch a ferry and then we arrived on Bornholm. Bornholm looks totally different than the rest of Danmark, it is more rocky and just more nature filled. It was BEAUTIFUL! The pictures taken cannot do it justice, I really fell in love with this little island and will definitely be returning. We left Sunday morning and returned Thursday evening. One of my exchange friends, Katy from Indiana, lives on Bornholm, so we spent Wednesday together and she showed me her town Rønne, which was really nice. It was so good to see her and catch up. Min familie og jeg også explored the island a lot. The first day we went on this long walk and it was beautiful, the ocean view was breathtaking. We also went to Hammerhus, which is a ruin, it was also such a beautiful view. On the more crappy weather day we went to a museum and it had dinosaurs, which instantly made me fall in love. Bornholm is actually the only place in Danmark where traces of dinosaurs have been found, how cool, eh? In Bornholm there was a lot of places with glass blowing, so we saw a lot of pretty and expensive glass, but it was so cool to see them make it and see finished products. We also went to the highest point on Bornholm…not very high, but still very cool. You had the perfect view from standing that high up. We also went to this beach, it was really really nice, I will go there in the summer for sure, when we were there the whole time I just wanted to jump in and go swimming. I also discovered that I love jellyfish, I had never seen one in real life until that week and when I told my familie og min venner, they were so shocked because apparently there are tons of them in Danmark. My host bror even said he will get me one for my birthday, so I shall be waiting for that ;) The Saturday night that we had in the holiday my friend Mara, who is American, came over so we could make our costumes for the rotary get together this weekend, since it is for hallowe’en. I am actually so excited for this because a) I LOVE hallow'en and b) it will be nice to see my friends again.

So I am going to sum this up and say goodbye. I will inform you on how my get together goes, it shall be a hoot though and until I write again, enjoy. :)