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. :)

take a photo it lasts longer.

yummy pancakes we made. (real pancakes)

the making of the pancakes.

group photo.

the yummy dessert.

the brasilians.

two months.

So here is to two months of being away from my family, friends, and my home. These two months have gone by so quickly, but at the same time Danmark feels like home and it feels like I have known my host family and new friends forever. It is quite odd, but now I cannot imagine going home. Well let me update you on what I have been up to

Last weekend was Vitor’s, an oldie from Brasil, birthday party, so a lot of Brasilians came for the weekend and Rafael stayed at my house. A couple girls stayed at Ana’s house, so we all hung out for the weekend. It was really nice, but when a huge group of brasilians get together they just speak Portuguese, so a lot of the time I didn’t know what was going on. But they made this delicious brasilian dessert, it was so yummy, I loved it. The week went by quickly and I had Danish lessons, I really enjoy them and everyone in my class. Thursday night we all decided to go have dinner together and then hangout at the park, it was lovely. The kids in my class are so nice and easy to talk to. Also at lunch some of my classmates have been getting me to speak Danish to them, they will ask a question and then I have to respond or I ask a question and they respond. I think this will really help me learn and hopefully soon I can start speaking it more and more.

Tomorrow I shall be having dinner with one of the rotarians from my club and his family. His daughter went to Canada, so that will be really cool to talk to her and I believe he said they were hosting an exchange student named Jenna. I went with my rotary club to the Odense Theatre on Thursday and it was really cool, we got a tour of the whole building and we got to stand on the stage, but to my surprise the theatre was very small, I honestly think that my school auditorium back home was bigger than it. But they had a HUGE costume space, it was MASSIVE! I unfortunately forgot my camera because I had limited time to get ready because silly me thought we were going at 8 pm, but no, we were to meet at 8 AM, so I was sleeping and Lisbeth, a lady from rotary, came to pick my up at 7.30 and I was sound asleep, but it was so nice, so I am glad I went. Also tomorrow I am going to Mara’s house with Taylor and Erin, Erin is from Canada and Taylor and Mara are from America, and we will be making a Canadian/American breakfast which will consist of pancakes (the thick kind), bacon, scrambled eggs, syrup, hash browns, and toast. It will be so delicious! I will take pictures and post them.

Until I write again, Maggie.

all jokes, of course.

So I really am terrible at keeping up with this thing and for that I am truly sorry. I can never find the time to just sit down and reflect on my adventures here, even though I have loads of free time, I just feel that I never have the right words to describe my life here. I really am loving it, the people are so friendly, the places are so beautiful. The only thing that I can see to complain about would be the biking in the rain, but even then it is still kind of fun. Usually if it is raining in the morning my host far (dad) will drive me and my host bror to school, so that is always nice. I am slowly, and when I say slowly I really mean SLOWLY, understanding more and more. Coming up with responses is the most difficult. If I understand what they said to me in danish I usually just reply in english and then say one or two words in danish. But I have definitely made some true friends here. I think since we are all in the same situation, we as in the other exchange students, we can talk about anything and everything because we are going through relatively the same thing. Where as when I am trying to come up with topics to talk to my host family or my classmates it is a little difficult. I really do love the danish friends I have made here and my host family, they have truly made me feel apart of everything and have made Danmark feel like home. But my best friend here is definitely Ana, from Brasil. She goes to my school, but she is not in my class, so we usually hangout outside of school and usually go to language lessons together. Talking with her is just so easy and we are always laughing. She will be a life long friend, I can feel it. And I can feel that the others that I have become close with will be as well.

School isn't getting any easier, I really do not understand what the teachers are teaching. Sometimes when they draw diagrams I semi get what they are talking about, but when you cannot understand what the teacher is explaining it makes it much more difficult. But my teachers, being the fabulous people they are, don't really expect me to do the work. They understand that I am illiterate in danish and do not understand anything, so they know how difficult, and at times boring the class can be for me. But I do participate in my english class, so that is always a relief because that is the one class I can understand. In english last week my teacher asked me to do a presentation to the class about school in Canada. I think it really helped to enlighten my peers on how a daily school day was like in Canada and I really enjoyed explaining it to them because it was the most I talked in a while. And the topic was about something that I really love. Being away from PCVS and my town has made me appreciate it 100 times more. I love it here, but I do love my home. And I enjoyed the class asking me questions and being able to answer.

I went to the zoo this weekend with my host brødre (brothers) Jakob and Jens, and Jens' girlfriend. I got to see the giraffes, which I absolutely love. It was a wonderful day. Jakob spent most of it making fun of me, or saying things like "oh that's your family" when we saw the monkeys. And saying I have the same schedule as a six year old tiger. All jokes of course, but they all made me smile. And I got to see the cutest little monkeys..I don't know what kind they were, but they were so adorable!

Well, until I write again. Enjoy. (:

Jeg hedder Maggie. Hvad med dig?

katy, madchen (dots over the a) mara, sarah, evannia.

my danish class.

evannia, taylor, mara, alison.

ana, south america love!

Since it has been almost a month since I posted something new I thought I should update this. My first month in Danmark was amazing. The people here are so friendly and I really enjoy my classmates, not necessarily the classes though. School here is tough, I think if I spoke danish fluently than it would be significantly easier, but not knowing the language and just sitting there for hours on end is actually so mentally draining. I use to think school back home was draining, but being here I realize that I actually miss canadian schools and actually learning something. But my classmates are so nice and will try and translate when they can, but I don't want to disturb them from their learning to just explain something to me. Everyone here brings their laptop, they even do math on their computers, which is quite odd for me. I do not bring my laptop to school because I have to bike 7 km to school and knowing my luck the day I brought it I would crash and break my computer, which would not be good. So if I take any notes I rock it old school with a paper and pen.

I had my first week and that Saturday I was invited to a birthday party for one of the boys in my class. It was really nice to be invited and involved. Before the party I went to a girl from my class, Laura's house with the other Laura in my class and Pernille, we made mini pizzas for dinner. It was really lovely, these people are just so nice and made me feel very welcome. We later met up with other kids in our class and biked to the party. I went home that night early because I had to get up and catch the train to go to introcamp for the following week.

Introcamp was where we got to meet all the other exchange students, there were about 150 of us. It was amazing, I loved meeting all the other kids. So many were from Brasil! But all in all everyone was very nice. We went to some cities to shop and to a museum which was of modern art. It was beautiful art, some exhibits were a little odd and I would never see at home. One in particular; 'I love you' also known as 'I fuck you'. Other people called it 'artistic pornography'. As one art piece they just had sex swings everywhere, it was very very different. We had danish lessons pretty much everyday and some days for 6 hours. It was very helpful though, but I still am not very confident in my danish speaking. I made some friends who I know I will keep in contact with. A group of girls, mostly from America, I became very close with, they were just so nice and easy to talk to. One was from Canada and we had danish lessons together, and two of the girls live in my city, so I already knew them. I cannot wait for the next time I see them.

Well I cannot promise I will update this religiously, as I seem to alway forget about it, but I can always try.

-Maggie.

and so it begins.

So it has almost been a month since I wrote my first post. My last few weeks in Canada were pretty hectic, getting things ready, insurance, seeing friends and family to say goodbye. It all went by so fast and it never felt real until I was in the airport and I had to say bye to my parents for a year. I hadn't really cried about my whole exchange, even when I said goodbye to my best friends, it was like a "see ya later" with a hug, it felt like I was just saying bye and that I would just see them in a couple days when we hungout next, but that is not going to happen for a year. I didn't really realize how long a year was, and I am so happy for this exchange and this oppurtunity, but I realize now what the other exchange students were talking about when they told us that sometimes it was hard. It was hard to say bye to my parents and see people cry, I hate crying and I hate seeing others cry.
But I have arrived in Danmark, safe and sound. Flying wasn't as scary as I thought it would be, it was actually such an amazing feeling. It felt like my two favourite things put together; driving and rollercoasters. The take off reminded me of being at an amusement park and going on a ride and then just flying reminded me of driving. I didn't get too lost in the Amsterdam airport, which was really nice. I didn't explore I just went straight to baggage, which I didn't need to, then I just went to the terminal and sat there. I didn't sleep for over 25 hours, which made the jet lag easier because I had a nap after my host family showed me my school and then I woke up for dinner and then went to bed at the same time as everyone else. I slept for 12 hours and woke up at 12.30 on Monday. Jakob and Marianne took me for some more exploring and they showed me Jakob's old school and I met Erik's mom, who only speaks Danish, but she seemed like a very lovely lady. My danish isn't very good and I am very hesitant to speak it because I don't like being wrong or doing things wrong, so I always fall back into speaking english, which I really need to stop doing.
On Tuesday Jakob and I went to Odense and he showed me the shopping areas and around there. It is beautiful here and there are so many people and bikes. The streets were packing with people and with bikes, I have never seen so many in my life. It amazes me how everyone gets around on their bike. In the evening we went to a family friends' house for dinner, which was delicious. Danes really are such nice people. This family had three children; 2 sons and one daughter. The older son is Jakob's age, so a year older than me. He was very nice, they all are so nice.
So it begins, my year abroad. My year with different people, culture and in a different place. I will try and keep this updated and share all my experiences over here because I know this year will be an amazing one.
-Maggie. (:

Sixteen.

Wow, I only have 16 more days left with my family and friends before I start the best year of my life. The past 10 months have gone by so fast, it feels like just yesterday I was applying to be on this exchange. So much has happened and I have met so many great people through Rotary and I have yet to even start my exchange. The first weekend I met all the exchange students I didn't think I was going to end the weekend with new life long friends, but I did. The exchange students, inbounds and outbounds, are all amazing. They are all so cheerful and down to earth and just so easy to talk to. They raise the bar very high for other exchange students. Most of the inbounds (students from other countries that come to Canada for their exchange) are going home this month, a couple from the Southern hemisphere stay until January. It's weird to think that these new friends I have made live hundreds of kilometres away and that next year I'll be hundreds of kilometres away from my family and friends. It still hasn't fully set in yet, even with sixteen days left in this country. I know this year will be amazing, one I will look back to my whole life and think 'wow, that was an awesome year!'

My first host family seems really nice, I have been in contact with them for about a month or so now. They have three sons, and one, Jakob who is 17, is just finishing his year in Chile. He was there with Rotary, so it is nice to know I can be able to talk to him and he can help since he has done the whole year away thing.

OH MY! I forgot to even say where I am going! I was chosen to go to Denmark and I will be staying in the city of Odense. From pictures and what everyone has told me it sounds beautiful. I'm excited to live in a city, 'cause in Canada I live in the country, so it will be a little different.

In this photo is the exchange students from my city, Peterborough. On the left is Byron, he is going to Mexico, then there is me. Nick is from New Zealand and will be leaving in January, and then there is Lisa, she is from Taiwan. Lisa and I go to the same school, PCVS, and Nick and Byron go to TASSS. I have become very close with these lovely people, especially Lisa. She leaves a couple days before I depart for my adventure. It is really weird to think that when I come back she won't be there, she won't be in the halls sitting with my group of friends before morning classes or eating lunch with us. I will really miss Lisa and I am so glad she came to Canada and befriended me! (:

I finally started this blog after months of pushing it off. Other outbounds (kids from Canada going to a different country for their exchange) have already started their own blog. I'll try and keep it up to date as possible!

-Maggie! (: