Intro Camp

These last couple weeks have been so hectic that I haven't had the time to blog about what I've been doing. But now that it is Tuesday night and I have nothing to do except some English homework (Yes, I have homework here), I decided to update my blog!

Last week I was gone at Intro Camp, which is a week long camp for all of the Rotary Exchange students staying in Denmark.We had 5 hours of Danish lessons every day, but that doesn't mean it was boring... It was quite the opposite. We stayed in a town called Bjerringbro, at a boarding school called Nørgaards Højskole. When we got there, we were given dorm rooms that we shared with 1 other person. My roomate's name was Anna from New Mexico, who I LOVE... (Anna I hope you are reading this!) We had free time throughout the day where we could play games, or just hangout and talk in this cool room with sofas and chairs. There was a pretty awesome rock climbing wall outside as well. I'd also like to point out that the staff at the school was ALWAYS feeding us. I got pretty good at saying the Danish word for bread: brød, because we literally had it in every meal. There's honestly so much I could say about Intro Camp, but I've decided I should probably just break it down into the days so it's clear for my readers to follow:

Sunday: We all  arrived in Bjerringbro, seperated into our Danish classes for the week, ate dinner and then took a walk to the river.
Monday: DANISH LESSONS begin... They were extremely long but helped me so much. As a freetime activity I participated in hygge, which is a Danish tradtions where everyone sits around a candle lit table, drinks tea or coffee, and talks about life. There's no directly translation of the word, but the closest you can get to it is "cozy".
Tuesday: More Danish lessons... then at night we all went to the grocery store to buy snacks (even though I don't think I was ever actually hungry once.... SO well fed!) Then we had a really neat bonfire where we were able to make homemade Danish bread on a stick. And of course, the 12 meter climbing wall was begging for takers.

Wednesday: Again, more Danish lessons.. Then our teachers surprised us with a concert held in the lecture hall. The band was actually quite good. They're called Mettro, and are a local Danish band. I got a picture with the lead guitarist if anyone was wondering :)
Thursday: Probably one of the best days at Intro Camp. It was our free day, so we all took a bus to the city Århus for a tour of this fantastic art museum. They had something called the Rainbow Room, which was this hallway that went in a circle at the top of the building. It was all different colors of glass, and if you stared at one part of it, you're eyes adjusted so well to it that you hardly noticed it was colored until you moved on to the next one. The artist is a contemporary artist, and his idea was to make it so each time you moved you got a different perspective of the city. After the art museum, we were free to roam around the city on our own. I had lunch and then went shopping, and then me and mmy friend Andrew (Andrew, you BETTER be reading this!) went exploring and found the cutest neighborhood. After that we all met back at the bus and went back to the school.

Friday: Danish lessons start again. Then Friday night we had a movie night with popcorn in the lecture hall, where we watched a movie called Royal Affairs. It was about Denmark's royal family in the 1700's and how the government was corrupted.
Saturday: This was our very last day of Danish lessons. After we had covered the last of the material, each class came up with some form of entertainment to show at the banquet that night. After lunch we walked downtown because Bjerringbro was celebrating 150 years of being a town. Because of that, the Queen of Denmark came to visit. She walked through the streets and waved, and I will admit I was within 3 feet of the Queen :) We all wore our Rotary blazers and brought our country flags. My class sang The Scientist by Coldplay, because a boy from my class knew how to play the piano. We also had the drums and some other instruments.After each class had preformed, we had a dance which was so much fun. The night ended with fabulous fireworks outside in honor of the Queen and also the 150 year celebration.

Sunday: The saddest day since I've been in Denmark :( We left at 9:45, and saying goodbye to these wonderful people that I've met was so hard. I made life long friends at Intro Camp, and I can honestly say that I miss them already.

So there you go. An entire week all summarized into a couple paragraphs. I couldn't explain to you all in enough detail to make you feel the way I did at Intro Camp, but let me leave you with a few choice words that might help: I felt loved, cared for, and independent. I felt the warmth of new friendship, and laughter in my heart every minute of every day. I never stopped smiling; I'm even smiling as I write this! I am so thankful that I got to experience this wonderful camp. I now know the joy that Rotary Youth Exchange causes, and I've experienced first hand what it is like to have a second family of Exchange students.

Stay tuned for more on my life in DK! xoxo