Sunday, December 30, 2012

PICTURES

Hey all!

I realise it's been ages since I last posted - but I have a legitimate excuse for not being able too. Which I'll wait till tomorrow to tell you all! I'm sorry, I'm just a horrible person and have to leave the few people that aren't aware of my little adventure, in suspense. Until then, here's a heap of pictures from around Denmark :)

I think it might be interesting if I don't try to make a witty caption for each picture, and shall let you all make up your own little stories about each picture - if anyone thinks of anything interesting or amusing  please do comment. Now, time for me to stop rambling and show the pictures...
So, Merry Christmas everybody - this is my belated present to you all!

















Tomorrow I swear I shall update on absolutely everything that's happened since my last post (almost two weeks ago...) and shall have another separate post for more pictures!

Zoe xx 

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Trying To Remember Everything

Hey all!

So, as I said I'd try to do - I'm posting in a shorter time interval than normal. I was smart enough to write down little notes of everything I did, as I must be getting old - I hardly remember anything I do any more...

So, Saturday - After of course having come home on the train the previous day, I got to sleep in which felt utterly incredible. As the cold weather (well, it's not so much cold, but more so it changes by a couple of degrees, which feels like ten degrees to me - so my body's a tad messed up) messes with my head. So, Asta and Kristin went to the hairdressers - and I got hot chocolate  I didn't have to buy it, the hairdressers just gave it to me! And supposedly this is 'normal' here? If it's normal in Australia I'm going to have to hide in a hole a pretend I knew this whole time, but that's such a hassle. So let's all just play along for my sake and think it's incredible and should be implemented in any shop I enter from now on? Anyway, here I am again talking about food.... Followed by this, we went - you guessed it - FOOD SHOPPING! Of course there was other shopping, I managed to get a few presents for some family back in Australia, so I was very happy. Of course I got myself a pig shaped cookie cutter, so I'm going to have to bring gingerbread or something delicious to school when I get back, all to be pig-shaped. As shall all sweet bread like things I make from now on...  When we got back, I posted something back home (hint hint to someone in particular who I suspect still doesn't read this - 'cause this has got to be helpful to them, right?) while walking the two gorgeous dogs. It was quite fun, I enjoyed just being outside and walking - I've missed it a lot actually, even if I don't do it too much at home. But wait, there's more. I 'helped' make some food for a party/get together that happened Saturday night. I'm quite pathetic in the kitchen, so I just cut bread and put oil on it - skill right there people. So when everyone came I got to meet a heap of new people! After a while I went typical 'Zoe' style, and was given Harry Potter and proceeded to crawl up to my room and watch it in bed - 'twas a night well spent! That pretty much summarises Saturday.

Sunday was just as good - we went  out around noon to Max's (host Dad) Mother's home. It was just a lovely home and she was such a kinda lady, I really liked her! Anyway, a heap of family showed up - one guy (Asta's cousin) and I eventually found mutual ground that identified to be the IB (I have no idea if this sentence makes grammatical sense, but no squiggly line so I think it's okay!). After lunch - which was a typical Danish meal, very similar to the one's I have had in England around Christmas - Asta's cousin and I started talking a great deal about the IB, it was great! I learnt that regardless of where you learn IB it HAS to be taught in English - how cool would that be, because you could do English as your second language, when really it's quite easy because you use it in every subject. I thought it was incredible really. Anyway, I had a great time, and had incredible conversation. Then of course Asta and I and numerous other's made the long train trip back to Rantz. Sadly, this will be the last I make - as this is my last week at Rantz, as it's their winter holidays for two weeks, then I am spending my last week here going to Scouts and other similar stuff. Which I think will be great! This was all decided on Sunday, so I thought I should add it in here.

Monday! I pulled a sicky! But because I was actually sick, I felt absolutely awful. I ended up spending the whole day in bed, and watching the first two Harry Potter movies, so it worked out fine. Supposedly I scared a few people with my random sleep talking about owning land and the pain in my neck. Yep, that's me. Messed up in the head even when I'm sleeping - I'll happily take any award anyone has to offer? I love awards...

So Tuesday - Tuesday was an utterly wonderful day! I woke up at 8am and swore everyone was insane because everyone was still sleeping (breakfast is at 7:30am) - but I wasn't told that breakfast had been pushed back till 10am. So after my mini freak out, and after breakfast. I was told that we were going ice-skating! Now I've been ice-skating once or twice before while I've stayed in England, so I thought I had some idea and I wouldn't make a complete fool of myself. I feel that I sound really stuck up saying that I think I was good at it - but I really did. I enjoyed ice-skating a lot indeed, and considering the amount of time I spent on the rink, I think I did pretty well! And I only fell over once, which was only when I was trying to change from skating backwards, to going forwards - yeah, bad mistake.  After ice-skating for about two hours, Asta, Maria and I went walk-about into (I have no idea how to spell the town's name) a town that spelt the way it sounds to me, almost resembles 'Svenbow' but I really have no idea how to spell or say it. It was lovely - I found myself a Lady and The Tramp jumper, which I still feel utterly ecstatic about! After that we went to Maccas, and I finally got a picture of the McSwag burger! Next post I'll just upload a ton of pictures, I cant find them at the moment. But just think - it means another post really soon! I was really awkward (as you'd probably guess) ordering anything. It always goes along the lines of "Ummm, I'm sorry do you speak English?" then I feel evil glares "why must you make me think so much harder silly girl! Why can't you learn Danish!" - I know they're terribly nice people, but I still feel incredibly awkward ordering anything. I eventually got a Happy Meal! Sadly I didn't get the toy... I don't even know if they do the toys here actually.. But after this, we went walk-about just around town. And there was this man playing the most beautiful Christmas carols on the accordion  It was magical, it was freezing outside, dark (even though it was only around 4) and he just sat there playing. A bunch of elderly gentlemen stood and listened - gosh it was lovely. It really made it feel like Christmas. We caught the bus back, and then I basically talked to people, and slept (exciting stuff hey?).

Now for today! It's mostly been a heap of cleaning today - lots of it actually. I'm proud to say I swept and mopped two full stair cases. One of which was one of those windy ones, and it had awkward walls on angles, so I kept hitting the wall - it was a pain! So lots of cleaning, and eating. Oh, everyone today kept mentioning that this week was my last week, so it's gotten around school some how. But that's okay, I'll be sad to leave everyone, but so many more adventures and epic *cough cough* blog posts await me!

So guys, I'm too lazy to proof read this one as I'm incredibly eager to get back to watching Dumbo! He's about to learn to fly! That's from what I remember last time I watched it, knowing my luck it'll turn out he can't fly and I'll just look a little special, but that's cool! I know elephants can fly, really they can.....

Hope you're all having a great week! Stay safe,

Zoe xx

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Belated Week Overview

So, hey all! 

I have been a victim of time-mismanagement and disorganisation yet again! So, basically, I left boarding school for the weekend, and didn't take my laptop with me because I'm trying to be skillful bringing everything back home. Because it's a ridiculously long trip on a train (3hrs or something?) to get to school and home. So I didn't want to have everything left to the last day and not be able to bring everything back in time. So, without my computer, I was unable to blog. Which I had planned to do Friday night. But just think! This means you may get two posts today!


I'm being incredibly skillful and typing this all on a Danish computer (difference keyboard), so I apologize in advance if I have any major spelling issues, auto-correct actually hates me.Anyway, what's been up since Monday, well, A LOT! So I think this one will be a big post…

Anyway, starting with Tuesday. Tuesday was really quite a normal day, nothing out of the ordinary happened. Except I'm now kind of hooked on horror movies. Normally this wouldn't matter, but I'm one of those people who really can't handle scary things. So I'm now constantly petrified of everything - especially small children. So I'm walking around a little like a lunatic because I'm scared I'm going to die. What did I learn from this? Absolutely nothing, I keep watching them anyway. I'm half way through The Shining, at the moment it just seems messed up - so knowing my luck I'll just start having messed up dreams. But as long as no-one kills me, I'm quite content…

Wednesday, I started playing with Photo Shop! And guess what? I suck at it! (no surprise there) But it's fun, and I'm generally quite hopeless with computers, so I was very happy to be able to do basic stuff. Like insert a picture… Go me! But yeah, that was the morning. In the afternoon we had Spanish! Oh I really love Spanish, it was a really fun lesson as well. We didn't really learn anything, just made a heap of Spanish food. The desert was sweetened condensed milk, cream and lemon juice. Mash all that up (technical terms used here…) and put it on a biscuit. I swear it will be the best thing you've ever tasted. Oh! They don't have sweetened condensed milk here in Denmark. It's incredibly strange, so the teacher was really surprised when I said I knew what it was. I feel sorry for people here for not having it - everyone should experience the joys of SCM. All those time's I've gone and shared a jar with my brother, eating it like Nutella. Or is that just us? Regardless… nobody can disagree with that fact that it is delicious. So, I just realized how much I've written about sweetened condensed milk, I should probably move on…

Thursday, 'twas a fun day indeed! I continued to watch movies that creep me out, and did random stuff in class. But when it turned dark (at 4….) everything started to happen. The (pre-allocated I think) 'group' I sit in for meals, had a party type thing. We got 3 pizzas, but this pizzas were MASSIVE, like wow! I have no idea, they may have had a 50cm diameter? They were just massive, I had two pieces, and I literally couldn't eat any more. They were the best pizzas ever as well. After the food aspect of the party. We played this (Danish?) game, where everyone had to bring in one or two small gifts (under 20 Danish Krone, so 2 to 3 Australian Dollars). They all went into the centre of the table, and then two dice and a cup were passed around, basically if you rolled a 1 or a 6 you could take a present. So we went around, everyone had numerous presents, and this other guy and myself were still waiting to roll a 1 or a 6, and then all of the presents were gone. So we continued playing, but you could 'steal' a present from someone else. I finally got a present by the way! So we kept going around and when we decided the presents were shared fairly enough. We could open our presents! I got two boxes of chocolate (1 present) and a bottle of Head and Shoulders shampoo…. I traded one box of choccie for a phone case, so WIN! I'm very happy with that. After that party (yes, there's more…) all the girls got together to do this Danish Christmas tradition. Basically we wore white, had a thing on our head (you know those circle things that sit on your head funnily and normally have flowers? One of those, absolutely no idea what they're called….) with, it is holly? I think, I don't know… But we also got a candle, which I was ecstatic about since I absolutely adore fire, as I'm sure many of you do, if you know me you have to have some slight pyromaniac tendencies at times. If not, pretend you never read that… So we got together with the teachers, to keep this a secret, and then we organized for all the guys to come into the, what I think of as a mini lecture theatre. And there were candles all around that. At this point there were about 10 girls squished into a tiny bathroom, I mean, we were packed in tight - so funny. And there's one bathroom near each door, two doors by the way. So from there, after many phone calls to the other girls to try and make sure everything was synchronized. We came out and were singing a Danish Christmas carol, and all the guys were cheering (it had been kept a surprise) and it was just great. Something really simple, but it was heaps of fun, I really enjoyed it - and I got to keep the candle...

FRIDAY - Well we started the morning by going for a walk, with me rushing to get there in time. I managed to fall down the stairs, and I'm pretty sure the back of my leg is bruised. But if you're going to do something you may as well do it well! We were hoping to watch the sun rise but sadly it was too cloudy. But it was a nice walk regardless, I couldn't feel my ears by the end of it, but it sure woke me up. That's pretty much all that's happened today. Apart from me freaking out trying to pack everything and make it so I have enough clothes for next week and blah blah blah. Tactics and I don't work well together - but I think I have something worked out. But yeah, that's it. Woo.

Oh, I'm not sure what day I did this, but I put a little 'daily puppy' thing in the blog! It's next to the link to my Google Plus profile thing. I really like puppies, but who doesn't? So yeah, I thought it was cute, and decided to point it out for no apparent reason. Yep, I'm normal like that.Oh, I apologize for all my sentences starting with and. But I think that would be better than run-on sentences that last the entire paragraph, but believe be. It's frustrating me too.

So I hope you all had a great week, and continue to do so :)
Zoe xx

Monday, December 10, 2012

2 Weeks Today, I Believe *mind blown*

Hey all!

It's me. Yet again. With another post. Whose excited?! Don't worry, I don't blame you if you aren't - but I certainly am!

So this post is just an update on what happened over the weekend, since last time I blogged was on Friday. This is the shortest interval between posts yet I believe?! Celebratory chocolate it is! Anyway, since it was the weekend, we didn't get up to very much. Friday we finished with the weekend song - I don't understand it, but it's to the tune of Hey Soul Sister, so I automatically loved it. It's much better than Friday, I assure you.... But the rest of what happened on Friday is in my previous post "School Time!".

Saturday = Massive Sleep In. We normally get up around 7:30 for breakfast, but Saturday we got to sleep in till like 10?! I'm a bit special and can't sleep in, so it just meant I had to starve for a while, but that doesn't matter too much. We got really good food. During the day it was a constant streaming of LOTR (Lord Of the Rings). I've never actually watched any of the movies before - shameful I know - so it was really great for me to be able to watch it. I'm not sure which of the movies I watched, but I enjoyed it regardless. After lunch we went for a walk down to (I've forgotten what it's called) the place where a heap of boats are kept on the water (see below).



It's a beautiful place regardless, and I had a heap of fun there. Some crazy guys decided to jump in the water, and I'm pretty sure they ran the entire way back to school in their dacks. So that pretty much concluded Saturday! Oh, it also snowed a massive amount overnight. So yeah, but I'll put those pictures under Sunday pictures so it looks like I did stuff on Sunday (smart idea Zoe).


So Sunday, I remember attempting to make stars, for a long time. They're like Christmas decorations, made out of paper, incredibly similar to origami - they look beautiful. But I failed numerous times. I also played around with 'pearls' - I relate them to Bindiz or Beados, except instead of using water, you iron it (?!). They look really cool!  And here's some pictures of snow.






















You guys like how I'm trying to be artistic by putting one picture on the left and one on the right? I thought so.

So today (Monday) it seems to be German all day, sadly I haven't managed to learn anything, but I'll have the opportunity to later. We sung what I assume to be 'O Christmas Tree' in German, which was fun. But I've mainly been writing CAS journals all day (I swear they're the devils form of fun), and getting no-where because they're so boring, so tedious. I mean, how are you supposed to be so reflective without being overly sarcastic with it? Or maybe that's just me... But anyway of course I've been writing this aswell, which I keep stopping and starting so has really taken me all day to write. Andddddd, that's it so far today. I'm determined to make a snow-man later, regardless of how numb my fingers go, I WILL DO IT!

I just wanted to say to you all, that it's been 2 weeks since I left home - making an utter fool of myself at the airport (why did no-one else cry?!). And it really has been an incredible trip so far. Those of you who have talked to me will know I struggled to begin with, missing home, being hungry at 4am because my body clocks been out of wack... But this marks the first third of my trip - and I'm incredibly excited for the rest! I miss everyone at home terribly, but I'm loving it here.

Also just a quick shout-out to Bethany - thank you for saying you like these posts, it really means a lot to me! I'll post again soon guys - I hope all of you had a great weekend, and continue to have a great week!

Zoe xx


Saturday, December 8, 2012

School time!

Hey all!

So again I seem to have lost track of time - but thankfully not by much this time, so this post shall be rather short. Basically everything that's happened since Monday is school - Woop Woop?! yeah, anyway...

So Tuesday first up - I was asked to present to the school about myself and Australia, being an incredible Scout; I fully understand the motto "be prepared" and had the presentation ready. Thank you SISEP! I'm grateful you made me conjure up a presentation then, I would have frozen on the spot being asked now. Anyway, my presentation was on nothing spectacular  just Australia (well of course that's the exception), myself and Scouting in Australia. For those of you who are lucky enough to know me (cough cough), then you'll be aware of my fear of public speaking. I realise a ginormous mount of people share this fear. But regardless, I think I presented pretty well for my standards. It was videoed, so as soon as I have it I'll put it on YouTube and get a link here for anyone interested :)

Wednesday was nothing out of the ordinary - apart from Skyping home. Oh, and I re-started reading Dracula.

Thursday - I managed to find myself a cake shaped like a pig at the local store. It was one of the most memorable moments of my life I believe. It tasted amazing also. 

Yesterday I had a wonderful day. I had had hot chocolate with one of the teachers and we spoke about Australia and Denmark and everything and anything, and it was all in English! I had a wonderful time with that. Then instead of having the last lesson of the day, we had a fire. It was just wonderful - so much hot chocolate and 'Santa' told a story (I'm assuming a Christmas one) in Danish, and threw lollies at us all. Afterwards the guys started a small snow ball fight, but it didn't last long. To finish off, everyone that's staying here at Rantz over the weekend watched The Nightmare Before Christmas in the main 'theatre' (that's what I'm calling it anyway). It was great from what I remember! Though I don't remember very much, I assume I fell asleep. That was the conclusion of the school week.

Let's put in some pictures, everyone loves pictures. Though all I've really seen is snow, so that's all most of the pictures will be.




I'm proud to say I tricked you! *insert childish laugh* I didn't add any pictures of snow, because I found I haven't taken any - unless of course you count the snow around the fire, which doesn't count by the way. So I hope the pig cake shall suffice. 
On a completely unrelated note, look at this great picture of the QLD SISEP gang at Singapore Airport on our trip over. Yes guys, we are now a gang - let's find a massive dog and go solve mysteries and stuff.


Thanks for putting up with me guys! I hope you've all had a lovely week, and have an incredible weekend filled with sunshine (for all of you in Australia) and smiles :)

Happy Birthday to one of my bestest buddies Olivia! 16 tomorrow - try not to run anyone over when you start driving, have fun :)


Zoe xx


Monday, December 3, 2012

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow....

Hey all!

So a lot's been happening since I last posted (I think), I went home for the weekend and forgot to take my computer. So it was rather difficult for be to be able to post anything - but anyway! I'll do it now!


As the title of this post suggests - IT'S BEEN SNOWING!! I love snow, like I mean I really love snow, a little too much really. I ran outside like a child as soon as I saw it, really showed that I wasn't from around here (if anything showed I was in the first place?). But it was only a little bit - on Wednesday/Thursday.

Then on Thursday it was "grandparents day" at school, so in the afternoon we played Bingo Bango (i.e. Bingo...). I'm proud to say I won three times! Twice of which were consecutive - gaining a giant salami, foot massager, pair of socks, some Danish film and a few other random things. 'Twas a good day.

Moving along to Friday, and really the weekend - it all blurred together. But to randomly interrupt this thought process -  that Friday was Josh's and mine 18 month anniversary <3 Just thought it'd be a great idea to include this, because for one, it made me very happy, and I still am happy - I believe I always will be with him in my life. But also, I want to see if he reads this at all, lets see shall we? But on Friday Asta, myself and a trillion other people took buses and trains home for the weekend. There weren't any spare seats on the train, so we sat on the floor for about an hour (yay...). But Asta and I went straight from there to the camp! This is where all the days blur together. I believe some meat dish was cooked that night. Actually I should probably describe where we went before I start talking about what we ate. It was a beautiful cabin in the woods, only had a fire for heating - so I froze. But it was good! We like, did HEAPS of cooking, planning, more cooking, built chairs from little trees we cut down (well attempted to make one anyway...), then more planning and cooking. It was lovely to see Scouts, I instantly felt incredibly comfortable with them all, and really hope I can see them all again before I leave. It snowed a lot that night! Friday night, it was beautiful - beautifully cold. We came home Saturday afternoon from here.

Now for Sunday! I managed not to blur everything together too much - over the weekend anyway! I didn't realise how much I'd done, I thought this would be a rather small post - but I guess not.. So we left for lunch and Bingo Bango around 11 or something in the morning, lunch with Kristin's (my host-Mom) Mom. Then yeah, Bingo - I won again! I actually won like 6 beers, because it's legal for 16 year olds to drink in Denmark. But I managed to trade them for Christmas cups instead, which was nice. It snowed again Saturday night, so there was fresh snow all day also. That was basically it for the weekend.

And today (Monday - 4th Dec) - well apart from travelling on a double-decker train (OH MY GOSH IT WAS AMAZING! No picture sadly), and managing to make my first purchase (the cashier speaking Danish) without any assistance! I know how lame that sounds, but I'm very proud to say I bought a doughnut in Denmark by myself. Well yeah, I learnt that if you type '241543903' into Google, you get heaps of pictures of people with their heads in freezers. I don't care how old this is, I'm highly amused. That's been my day! 

I hope you all excuse my run-on sentences, it's a horrible habit of mine. I hope you were all able to follow this post regardless, it's been a dreadfully un-organised mess :)
Hope you all had a lovely weekend.

Zoe xx

P.S. All the photo's are just in my Facebook album! A link was in my previous post - you don't need Facebook to access it.