Monday 6 January 2014

New Years and a Visit From David

So New Years Eve marked 1 month, 1 week and 1 day in the beautiful country of Denmark. Meaning that there was only 2 weeks left, which in the grand scheme of things, isn't much. Luckily for me I got to experience two big occasions, Christmas and New Years! Christmas was a blast, it was a different experience, but it was great fun, so my expectations for New Years were high and Denmark did not disappoint. Natacia and I were attending a party with most of her class from school. One of the girl's family owned a beach house, and were kind enough to let us use it for the party. When we arrived the dinner that we were going to eat was in the oven, and smelled really good, and the soup was on the stove. Eventually everyone arrived, and at 6:00 we all sat down at the tables to watch the Queen's speech. I didn't understand it, but that was ok. It's a tradition in Denmark for people to watch the Queen give a speech on New Years Eve. Once the Queen's Speech was over we started dinner. The Entrée we had Salmon rolls, which was Salmon and a sort of cream cheese, rolled up together. This was alright, but I'm still not so keen on the whole idea of eating raw fish. The next course was the 'Mexican Soup' I didn't have any, but it didn't look too bad. The third and final course to our New Years Eve Dinner was Lasagna with bread and salad. This was really yummy. Once dinner was over the partying started. There was music and dancing and general fun, also being Denmark the legal drinking age is 16, so naturally the class mates were drinking. Just before Midnight we turned the TV back on to watch 'The 90th Birthday' which is a comedy skit where an old woman decides to have a celebratory dinner for her 90th birthday, and invites all her friends (who happen to be dead) so her husband plays the role of all her friends, and as the scene goes on he gets progressively more drunk... It was rather funny. All too soon it was midnight and 2014 had begun. Due to fireworks being legal in Denmark, this meant we all put on our coats and went outside in the cold to watch the fireworks, which were set off by the boys. It was quite nice to see, though in no way do they compare to the Australian fireworks displays on New Years. Once we were done with the fireworks we went back inside and continued partying through the night. My host Sister felt ill, however, so went to bed around 1:30, I managed until 5:30 where I was serenaded with 'What Makes You Beautiful' by the class, before I decided that I should probably try to get some sleep. At 6:00 I was woken by the sound of people entering the room I was sleeping in, which resulted in a very funny interaction with the Danes. I assume they were looking for a blanket, but they were rather drunk and the conversation between them went something like this (I'm not entirely sure, they were speaking Danish): 
Person a: (to person b) 'Can you speak English?'
Person b: (to person a) 'No, Can you speak English?'
Person a: (to person c, who just entered and is sober) 'No, can you speak English?'
Person c: No, (grabs a doona, both persons a and b and leaves)
*Note rough translations, it was in Danish... but that is what I assume they were saying
At 9:00 most of us made our way out of bed, got changed out of our party clothes, which we had all slept in, and started cleaning the mess and restoring the house to order. Around 11 O'Clock Natacia and I went home, had a late breakfast with the family, showered and cleaned up the bedroom, before going to the train station at 3:21 to pick up David, the other Queensland Scout on exchange, as he was going to stay with us for a few days.

On Thursday we slept in really late, all of us recovering from New Years Eve. We had a late breakfast, then Natacia had to go to the Dentist, so I took David into Slagelse to go through the shopping centre and look around the city. At one point we went into a lolly shop to have a look around, and of course buy lollies, David went first and explained he was an Australian on exchange in Holte, but was visiting a friend in Slagelse, unfortunately the cashier though I was a Danish friend, not Australian, so I got spoken to in Danish. When finished at the dentist, Natacia joined us, but David and I had had enough looking around and were ready to go home, so we did. At home we lazed about, not really doing anything for the rest of the day.

On Friday Kurt, Susanne, Natacia, David and I went to Møns Klint (The Chalk Cliffs) to look around. The sights were truly spectacular, the cliffs were a bright white and dropped off down into the ocean, we walked along the top for a while, before climbing down a hundreds of stairs to the beach. On the beach we used the chalk from the cliffs to leave our Australian mark on the stairs, then walked along the rocky beach to the main set of stairs. Once we'd had enough of a look around we started to climb back up...354 stairs. David and I got to the top in good time, the Australian landscape preparing us for the steep climb. Both of us thought that the cliffs were magnificent and are extremely grateful that we got the opportunity to see them.

Saturday was a day unlike any other. Kurt works with one of the blacksmith's from the Viking village, so he agreed to come out and show us around, even though the museum part was closed for the winter. Both he, and his daughter, dressed up in their Viking apparel and took us on a spectacular tour of the King's fort, and all of the viking buildings and history around the place. We learned a lot about the Vikings, and I discovered that I'm short enough to be Viking size! and I fit nicely onto the benches they used to sleep on, so I would have been fine, while David was too tall to fit on the bench. At the end of our tour both David and I got given some cool handmade viking necklaces! It was awesome. Our next stop was the viking ship museum in Roskilde. This was really cool as it contained remains of actual viking ships, as well as ones they'd reconstructed using the tools, wood and other materials, exactly as the vikings would have done it... and the ships were perfectly sea worthy and made a trip on an old viking route, and worked! The museum was really cool, ignoring the part where we went into the cinema to watch a clip about the the discovering and restoring of the old ships, and I thought there was a chair behind me, and sat down (rather hard) only to land on the floor...
Once we were finished at the viking ship museum we headed over to the Roskilde Cathedral, the church where the bodies of all the Royal family lie. It was, by far, one of the most beautiful church's I've ever seen. and the caskets were so ornate and decorative. I did however have an odd feeling walking through there, as there's something that seems off to me, about the idea that we were walking around looking at coffins that contain the bodies/skeleton's of the Danish Royal Family. We even saw a section that had been excavated, removing the bodies of a previous King's Children, to make room for the current Queen and her Husband, when the time comes for them to be laid to rest. When we were finished at the church we took David to the train station, where he caught a train back to his family in Holte, and then we drove home.

Sunday was a rest day, filled with a late breakfast and æbleskiver for lunch. We just lazed around all day, while Oliver packed his bag to go back to boarding school on Fyn. Before he left I gave him a gift of Timtam's and a 12 pack of clip on Kangaroo's and Koala's. It was nice to spend the holiday's with and get to know Oliver, as I hadn't seen him very much in the first few weeks of being in Denmark, because he was away at school.

The Past week has been fun-filled and It's sad to think that I only have 1 week left in this Beautiful Country.

Photo's will come... eventually

No comments:

Post a Comment