School, Scouts, and Christmas

Hello everyone, and Merry Christmas.

This is gonna be a long one, so here goes.
First, we had the last Scout meeting as leaders on Wednesday. We finished the Christmas presents they were making, and played some Christmas games, and generally had a great time. Scouts Australia could take a few lessons from the Danish way of doing things-it's a lot more organised, with more hands-on activities, and less paperwork.

Anyway, school.
The last few days of school were great fun. No one did much work, and it was very Christmassy.
On Thursday, which was the last day, there was a giant present game slash quiz, that involved the whole school. I couldn't understand a word, but it looked like great fun. I have roughly three days of school left in the New Year, and I will get photos with all of my friends.

On Friday, we all stayed home and relaxed, and Kristjan and I walked up the street to buy a Christmas tree. A REAL tree, which is something that I am not used to. When we got home, we left it outside, so the branches could fall down to normal places, after being wrapped up for ages.
On Saturday, we decorated the tree, with lots of beautiful ornaments, as well as some wood carved Aussie animals that I brought with me.

Eventually, Sunday came around, and it was finally Christmas. 'Santa' delivered a lot of presents. I should add that, every Sunday in December, the Danish 'Nisse' (elves-sort of) delivered a present for all the children in the house. Anyway, back to Sunday. Around 3pm, people started arriving, and we all started getting ready for dinner. Danish Christmas dinner is a very organised thing, and starts with roast duck, which was prepared the day before. I discovered that I really like the taste of duck. Next came the roast pork and pork meatballs, everything accompanied by a healthy helping of potatoes, gravy, and potatoes coated in sugar and fried (didn't like those). After we gorged,  we let that go down, and then came the next course - Ris à l'amande. It is a rice pudding with sliced almonds mixed in, and is served with cherry sauce. The Danes only eat it in  December, so I'm very lucky that I'm here now, because I love the stuff. I am definitely getting a recipie.
After all the food, everyone (roughly 14 of us) sat and talked for a while, before it was time for yet another Danish tradition-dancing around the Christmas Tree.

Well I say dancing, but it was more like walking, and singing out of tune, but it was still fun. I was forced to sing Aussie carols as well, which went pretty well. We all had a great time.
After that, it was time to open the presents. I got some exercise clothes, which will be very useful when I go home, for the gym.
My Sunday finally ended around midnight, when I went to sleep.

On Monday, we relaxed and recovered from all the food, and Tuesday was another day to laze around. I did have to pack for Scout Scoop, however, so I hope I didn't forget anything.
Tuesday afternoon was spent at Ivan's mother's house, an adorable little cottage in a small, quiet village. We had afternoon tea, which was biscuits and cake, and stayed for dinner, which was soup. All in all, it was a great way to spend an afternoon.

I haven't got much more to say for now, other than that we leave for Kolding, and Scout Scoop, tomorrow. I'm all packed and ready to go, and I promise to take lots of photos.
All the photos from the last few weeks will be uploaded on the second of January, in one enormous photo drop. I really don't feel like doing it now.
 I might do another post during the week, as there's apparently wifi at Scout Scoop, but I think we'll probably be too busy. We'll see.

Bye for now,

Jack R.

More Scouts

So, last night, we had Scouts for the last time. It was a great Christmas dinner. So, we got there, ate, and there were a few games. One of them was to get all the washing up done. Two people sitting next to each other rolled 2 dice, and if they got two fives, or sixes, they had to stand up, yell 'we failed,' and do the washing up. It was more fun than just making one patrol or group (of venturers) do it. Australia take note.
After that, we had the dessert, rice pudding with cherry sauce, as always, and the game was, if you had a whole almond in your food, you won.
After that, I had to bolt home to Kristjan's place to get the Aussie flag for the group, that I forgot to bring with me at first.
I made them do an Aussie scout parade at the end, and I had a great yap with the leaders, who are rover age. The Danish have a great program for youth leaders, there's even specific courses you can do. Also, Danish scouts has next to no paperwork (National, PLEASE take note). They just change the rules to make it harder to do an activity if something goes wrong.

Now for school.
It has been pretty uneventful, but today, I am being forced to eat Danish food by the English class I've been teaching. Just remembered, I forgot the Vegemite, and my Aussie slang dictionary. Ah well, I can improvise.
I biked back home quicly to get them, so the problem is solved.

Well, school's over, and I didn't die of Danish food. I had a great time with the class, and I will miss them.

There's not much more for me to say, other than that I'm having a great time, and I'm really excited for a Danish Christmas.

I'll blog again at the end of the week, with some photos (hopefully). Also, I've given up on my computer.
Lots of love to all my friends and family.

Jack R

Here's some photos, if my phone cooperates

Photos are of Den Gamle By, the museum town in Aarhus, and the separate bike lanes (Australia, take note).

My Weekend

Hello all,

So, here we are again, and it's nearly Christmas. Yesterday, we drove to a prison that is now a museum. It was still a prison until 2006, but the old part (built 1853) really reminded me of Old Melbourne Gaol. They had stories of some of the prisoners, that we followed around the prison.
It was really cold, the central heating was built as bad to annoy the prisoners.

At school on Friday, I taught some more English, we talked about national stereotypes. It says something about Australia when most of them are partly true.

So, today, we relaxed for the morning, and then drove to Aarhus to see a historic town/museum. They have buildings and artefacts dating back to the 1500s, up to the 1970s. Walking inside those buildings was really like walking into the era they were from, especially the 70s building. There was teak panelling everywhere.
They had a shop where I did buy presents, then, lo and behold, there was a band playing Christmas carols. It was great.

Afterwards, we drove home, and I've been relaxing. I managed to get some photos on my phone, including proof of the separated bike lanes, which I love.

Anyway, there's not much going on at the moment, I'm waiting for dinner.
Although I've been mostly too busy to notice it, I am missing home. Aside from family and friends, which is the hardest part, I really miss my violin.
It's also the little things, like the white noise of Australia-the wildlife, and the constant sounds of dad's guitar in the background.

All in all, I do miss home, but I'm too busy to notice it, which is great.
I think that's all for now, I'll update on Wednesday about school.

Jack R

P.S. I can't upload all the photos from my phone onto the blog from the app I'm using, so I'll take a chance with my computer tomorrow afternoon.

PHOTOS!!

So here is photo dump number 1.

Enjoy!

The photos are of a gaol turned museum we visited yesterday.

There are more, better photos on my camera, but that's not connecting to my computer for some reason.

Computer Issues and Snow

Hello Everyone,

So everything is going well on this trip, I'm having heaps of fun. Scouts this week was fun, and next week, we're having a dinner. School is pretty boring, but it's more interesting when you look out the window and see snow! I've been teaching more English, and today, I gave a crash-course in Aussie History, and did a pop quiz. The most important question was 'What is the best state?' The answer, of course, was Queensland (No bias, I promise!) We've had even more snow, which today, melts before it hits the ground, and freezes overnight, so everything is covered in ice in the morning. I've nearly slipped a lot. It is really cold, and getting colder every day, so I'm glad I have thermals.
 Now, the other half of the title: Computer issues. Every time I use my computer, the touch pad stops working, and then, a little while later, I get blue screen of death. I will cope, and do what I can to fix it, any suggestions are welcome. Even as I was writing this, it shut down on me. So yeah, I'm going to try and do what I can, but I'm not hoping for anything major.
The photos, I'll do tomorrow, computer permitting.

Jack R

Let it snow

So hello again,

I have some more things, about school on Friday, and about today.
At school, I did my presentation about Australia to a first year English class, and they enjoyed it. For the next few weeks, I'll be helping to teach them. I have settled in to school, finally, after being sick for so long.
Today (Sunday), we drove to Aarhus to a museum of Danish history. They had artifacts dating back to the stone age.It went through stone, bronze, and iron ages, the viking age, and medieval Danish history. It was amazing.
Not much else to say really, but here come the photos.

Jack.

Photos are of snow, Randers old town and Christmas decorations, the band we saw, and of the museum artifacts.