Another weekend gone, another weekend well spent. Friday went by pretty fast, being a normal school day, but some different things did happen. One of the boys arrived at school wearing a bright orange wig, which he kept on all day, and as far as I know (not that I speak Danish) none of the teachers cared. This was quite remarkable to me, as if I went to school without a ribbon in my hair it got commented on by at least one teacher during the day. One of the other interesting occurrences of the day was the Biology prac teacher being assessed. Now, in Australia university students go out and do prac, then the school sends a report back to the university on how the student went. But in Denmark things are very different, we had three extra teachers in the room, on top of the normal biology teacher, who all sat at different vantage points around the room to observe. The prac teacher stood at the front of the room, teaching the class. Although there were mishaps through her lesson, none by any fault of hers such as her computer deciding to restart in the middle of her power point, my assessment of the situation is that she did quite well.
During one of our breaks between classes, Natacia discovered that the Slagelse Scouts were going to be participating in a Christmas celebration where they walk through the streets holding flaming torches, til they reach a central point, where they turn on a Christmas tree (not with the torches, they just flick the switch so the lights turn on). So we made our way into the city after school to look around the shops until the time for them to begin. Natacia was very successful in buying any Christmas present she had to buy. When it was time we made our way to a good viewing point of the Scouts, and we waited... and we waited... and we waited... After about an hour of waiting, and nothing happening, it was decided that we go and stand near the tree. Near the tree there was a little animation being projected onto the side of the lolly shop, which I was told later was created by some students who attend Natacia's school. The Christmas tree, however, already had it's lights on, and they had when we'd arrived at the shopping centre earlier that afternoon. We were both very confused, and eventually it was decided that we should just go home, despite the fact that we never saw the scouts, at least we got some Christmas shopping done!
At home Natacia's mother was home from work, and Natacia's father had been home all day, because he'd injured himself at work on Thursday, and isn't meant to work until after Christmas. For dinner we had some really lovely marinated chicken, and some home-baked chips. It was delicious. After dinner we had to pack some clothes, as we were going to Jutland for the weekend, YAY! and Natacia had a maths assignment to do.
We had a half an hour sleep in on Saturday Morning. We had promised Oliver that we would be at his school to pick him up at 9:00 am, and it took just over an hour to get there, so we had to have left the house by quarter to 8. Everyone went about getting dressed and ready for the trip, then we all sat down for breakfast together. After breakfast we all brushed our teeth and packed our toothbrushes, before packing everything into the car. Due to his injury my Host Dad couldn't drive, so Host Mum had to do all the driving, and the poor thing wasn't very well, but we managed. I got to see the large bridge between the islands of Denmark, which was really exciting, but unfortunately it was foggy, so the view wasn't the best, but that didn't stop me from taking a million photo's of it. We got to Oliver's school in time, and Oliver came to the car and put his bag in, asking 'Where's Mum?' to which our response was 'She's gone in to get you, didn't you see her?' he hadn't, so he had to go back in, eventually we were all back in the car and on our way. We drove through Odense, the third biggest city in Denmark, and eventually arrived in Aarhus, where we would be spending the weekend.
The first thing we would be doing was visiting 'Den Gamle By' which is a museum of Denmark through the ages. It's an outdoor place with houses and buildings from different time periods, you can wander through and read about the different times and occupations, look at what life was like for the rich and the poor, in different time periods. It was very interesting, though it was quite cold and it rained for a bit, so the ground was wet. I had a lovely day, and enjoyed every moment of it. Though the day was a little bit rough for my Host Dad, who had to hobble around on crutches all day, and it was too difficult for him to try and enter the buildings, but Oliver kept him in good company. When I was finally done looking around, we decided it was time to leave. We left Kurt (Host Dad) at the front gate of the Den Gamle By, and went and fetched the car to come and pick him up. By this time everyone, except myself, was starving, while I was only just beginning to be hungry. So we went to the shopping centre to find a place to eat.
After some lovely, warm food, and something to drink, we left my host dad sitting in the restaurant to rest, as he was very tired after hobbling around all day, and to drink coffee. The rest of us went down to look around all the shops in the street. After a while we had looked through most of the shops, and the shops were starting to close, we decided that we should go and find where we were staying that night, so we went back into the main centre to find Kurt. We made our way back to the car, and off we went to find our accommodation. Along the way we stopped at the grocery shop to buy some food for dinner. It wasn't a long drive until we found the place we were to stay. It was a lovely little place, and we settled in nicely. We had a lovely dinner of tortellini and meatballs, then all went into the master bedroom, where we all, except for Kurt, who took the couch, climbed into the bed and watched the Christmas Calendar shows. We then watched the movie 'Four Christmases', during which everyone fell asleep, and I spent the majority of trying wake Natacia so that we could go to our bed, so that everyone could sleep properly. It turns out that she isn't the easiest person to wake up. She would open her eyes, but when I asked her if she wanted to go to bed, she would nod and roll over, snuggling deeper into the bed, then promptly go back to sleep. So I watched almost the whole movie, by myself, until I fell asleep with nearly 10 minutes to go til the end. Although not long after the movie ended we all woke up, and managed to find our way into our pajamas and into bed.
Then next morning when we all eventually woke up (apparently I was the last to wake, but in my defense, they all went to sleep before me), we got ourselves dressed and ready, then Oliver, Natacia and I washed the plates from dinner, and reset the table for breakfast. Oliver was the toast master, toasting and handing out the bread. We all ate our fill, then Oliver, Natacia and I did the washing up again, as My host parents packed everything up to take back to the car. Everyone then brushed their teeth, then we took everything up to the car. After saying goodbye to the landlord and piling into the car we made the few minute trip to ARoS, the art gallery in Aarhus. This was very interesting to go through, starting at the bottom in the '9 spaces' exhibition, which was 9 'spaces' which different artists used to isolate your senses and try to make you question what you're really thinking and feeling, I must admit going through the rooms gave me a really bizarre feeling. We then went from the very bottom of the museum, or 'hell' as the 9 spaces are metaphorically representative of, to 'Heaven', the massive rainbow panorama viewing circle on the roof of the museum. This was so cool! The rainbow panorama gave you an awesome 360 degree view over Aarhus, and there are some quite exquisite views to be seen. Unfortunately my camera battery died before we'd made it the whole way around the circle, due to the battery getting so cold yesterday in the old town, but my Host Mother let me use their camera to finish the circle, and through the gallery. We made our way from the top of the gallery to the bottom again, Some of the artworks were very intricate and interesting, while others (and true appreciators of art would hate to hear me says this), I struggled to find the art in. There was, however, a whole section of the gallery displaying artworks that the Queen and her Husband have created, and they are both extremely talented people. The Queen's paintings are so beautiful and detailed, while the Prince Consort creates beautiful sculptures. Once we had finished looking at the artworks, we had a quick look around the gift shop before leaving, as we needed to get Oliver back to his boarding school.
When we got to Oliver's boarding school, he kindly took me on a tour of the school so that I could see what a Danish Boarding School looked like. The boarding schools in Denmark can be for a variety of things, for example, last year Natacia attended a boarding school that was only for scouts, while Oliver attends a school that is for people who are dyslexic. It was very cool, and quite different from what the boarding part of my school looked like.
Once we left Oliver at school we traveled a little bit further to Natacia's Grandmother on her Mothers side. Both her Grandmother and Grandfather spoke English quite well, that was nice as I was able to hold a conversation with them. While my Host parents and grandparents had a chat, Natacia took me around to look at the harbor and town square. It was cold and windy, but it was very beautiful.
After looking around for an hour, we all climbed back into the car and made the last part of the trip, back over the big bridge, home.
It was a lovely weekend, I got to see some very different and interesting things, and am very grateful to have such a lovely host family, who are willing to show me the sights of their beautiful country.
Photo's will be posted in later in their own post, because there are just so many!
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