Scouting About

Hey all – long-time no see!

So, let me start by saying HI JOSH! You should be happy, I mentioned you in two sequential posts – woop woop. I'm going to start talking about what I've been up to. Though I should warn you all now, this post will pass as maybe vaguely interesting as it only really covers a few days of my overly exciting life abroad…

Friday – I got to meet up with some of the other lovely Australian Scouts! Gosh it was just incredible; I swear Brooke and I didn't stop talking. We ate crocodile and sat around the fire singing and had a blast!

Saturday – well this was an utterly incredible day. I visited three castles, only one properly, but that’s beside the point. I saw from the car window and was told a lot about Fredensborg Castle (gosh I hope I spelled it correctly), it was incredibly pretty. Then we drove to Mary’s Castle (the 'Aussie princess for those of you who aren't sure), though sadly she didn’t come out to greet me which was rather disappointing. I managed to get two pretty pathetic photos because of the low sun and my inability to not squint – but it was pretty. The best of course was Kronborg castle, also known as the Castle of Elsinore or Hamlets castle! This was incredibly exciting; when I got there I found that I could see Sweden. Yep, Sweden the country! It was so surreal that I could see another country! I don’t know if I'm just a bit slow or easily impressed, but it was crazy. Hopefully I’ll be going to Sweden on Saturday (fingers crossed) but back to the castle! We saw the ballroom and the royal quarters which were lovely. I also discovered I’m still small enough to get away with getting into the kids play castle/colouring room through the crawling section (success!), but really haven’t really improved in any of my observational skills since I was that age – since I failed to see there was a full sized doorway entrance to the colouring room. But I did see the massive fire-placed and didn't fail to try to go to Diagon Alley (didn't work guys). After we went down into the dungeons which of course were pitch black! It was insanely creepy; supposedly a bat (a real one, not a projection or anything) flew behind me and outside. Like, wow! They go to such efforts to make it so realistic… Then in the gift shop I so wanted to buy Yorik's skull but it was equivalent to about $100 AUD, so I couldn't… Instead I bought a heap of other useless stuff included magnetic Shakespearean insults.

Then (yes, there is more to the day) – I went on a mini hike/geo-caching activity with the Scout Group. We found one, which was fun, but it was really cold! One person there thought I was from America, then another said I had a typical Australian attitude (what does that even mean?!) – so I'm even more confused as to how people perceive Australia to be. After the actually walking part we all went back to the Group leaders house-y type area (it had a kitchen that’s used for the little community since they live in terrace houses) and ate, fish.. For the first course anyway, so I just had a ton of Fanta. While waiting for main and dessert these little kids starting singing and dancing to Gangnam Style – it was so cute since they had no idea what they were singing (the English bits) since they don’t speak English yet, it was adorable! They then proceeded to run outside without shirts and light fireworks – totally normal. Oh! They still have Cartoon Network here! I'm so jealous…

The only majorly notable event of Saturday was me attempting to eat spare ribs. Now, by now everyone should know I'm an utter clutz, but this really tops a lot of what I've previously done to make a fool of myself. I was eating a piece, and it slipped out of my hands, and landed straight into my glass of water, a perfect landing. I was just looking into my hands for a bit completely baffled, then realised how talented I am. That’s pretty much Saturday.

Sunday – I didn't do much for most of the day, other than make Josh talk to me… We (Kristin, Asta and I) took Asta back to Rantz in the late afternoon, so now I won’t be seeing her till Friday. We then made the long trip home and then I slept (surprise surprise!).

Monday – today I've been pretty lazy, again spending all day writing this. I've also been over-thinking Semi which I realised will be this year – I'm so excited it’s actually ridiculous. This evening I had dinner just like my Nan used to make! A very typical English stew – at the community dinner house (that’s the best I can relate it too…). It was quite nice actually.

That’s it for now guys! Hope you all have had a great weekend, and continue to have a great week. This time next week I’ll be in London, so hopefully I’ll have internet and be able to post while I’m there. But expect one or two more posts from me before then.

Zoë xx

Everything Since Norway - Picture Edition

Hey all!

So here's the second lot of pictures - everything since Norway really. Most of these are from a recent trip (HAMLET) which will be spoken of in a post which I'm still in the process of writing.. Which should be up tonight (Denmark time). But everything else is just from walks with the dogs, Scout meet-ups and of course New Years Eve.

Enjoy!

Zoe xx

P.S. Sorry they're not in chronological order, my computer doesn't want to co-operate with me!

Norway

Hey All!

You're in luck, hopefully you'll be getting three posts today if all goes to plan! I only just realised that I still hadn't uploaded pictures from Norway - so here they finally are!

Enjoy!

Zoe xx

Everything & Anything

Hey all!

So I decided instead of waiting until tomorrow to start writing, I’d just start now – then those of you who might look forward to these posts (I’d have no idea why) could have two average length posts instead of one ginormous one. I have no idea how much I'm going to write, it may end up being the entire week if I get into it – but then again, it may turn out just to be a day. Or I may quit before then and blame it on being lazy. Who knows...? SO! I believe my blogging should re-commence from Thursday the 20^th – I have been taking notes of what I've been doing each day, but I'm a little bit clever and accidentally moved them all around without realising. Hence they’re not in chronological order any more – have no fear, I’ll work it out!

Thursday 20^th – Sadly I can’t remember much of the day, but the evening was utterly brilliant. It was the Christmas breakup party – we had a lovely dinner, a traditional Danish Christmas dinner.  I didn't have a dress or anything nice with me, so I was fortunate enough to be able to borrow a nice shirt. All the film students shared what they’d made over the semester, quite amusing! One of which including me “thinking” and saying things like Kangaroos and Croc Dundee – it was quite funny! I made a presentation saying to everyone that it was my last night at Rantz, and how grateful I was to everyone for putting up with me – I was proud to have everyone stand up and clap and cheer. I smiled like an idiot; I've seen it on the video. Anyway, I then presented an Australian flag to the teachers, and had a massive group photo – which I should be getting back soon, in the beginning of the school year I believe. We stayed up past midnight, and didn't die. As it was the 21^st (doomsday)…

Friday – I actually slept after the party believe it or not! It was quite a sad and exciting day for me – saying goodbye to everyone at Rantz was quite strange. Even though I only really went there for a month, I still can’t imagine leaving. But there was a lovely celebration with Champagne (of course I had water) but it was nice non-the-less. I also got a lot of people to sign an A5 (just to be unnecessarily specific) sheet of card – all the little messages on there are lovely. I also got a ‘medal’ from some of the girls that said ‘Rantz loves you!’ – It was a great day!

Saturday – well I flew to Norway! Was a great flight, apart from the landing which was absolutely petrifying! It went down faster than on any flight I've ever been on – and I have flown a fair bit. So yeah, it was quite freaky – but the scenery as we were descending was absolutely breathtaking. I really cannot describe how beautiful Norway is. You’ll hear this a lot from me for the rest of the post, and I apologise in advance, but I really do love it – I’ll be certain to go back there one day. But after all the organising and stuff that just has to happen when you enter a new country, going over what we planned to do and so forth. I got to meet some absolutely gorgeous dogs – Svale and Garby (it took me ages to remember the names), and also tried Elplemost, which has turned out to be the best drink in existence in my opinion. It’s like apple juice, but fizzy and not as sweet – it’s incredible! After this Asta and I went to Alise’s house, which is where we would be staying for the week. I met her daughter, Michelle. She’s 3 or 4, and of course only speaks Norwegian – the issue being that she really liked me, and wanted to play. You could not possibly imagine the issues I had trying to follow her thought process when she was speaking at me in Norwegian. IB is nothing compared to trying to play with a little child who speaks a different language to you. But she ended up sticking pink clip-y things in my hair and throwing stuff at me – our first game… But she was gorgeous and we made things work out! Then dinner – in Norway they eat a lot of fish, and I don’t eat fish… So I ended up having to try these mini fish, I mean they were about 5cm long and 1cm wide – It was so gross I sculled my eplemost. Fish, eugh. But the rest of dinner was great! After we got back we watched a heap of ‘girly’ movies and ate a ton of junk food – it was good.

Sunday – Massive sleep in, I mean like 11am – which is probably the latest I've ever slept in. I also realised how incredibly creepy the Hunchback of Notre Dame is – I don’t care if the audio was in Norwegian, the evil guy is completely messed up. How did I not see this when I was younger?! But anyway, I should move on from this... We then went Christmas shopping, as it was the 23^rd and lots of presents still had to be gotten – we went shopping at the centre called Kvadrat I believe (can’t pronounce it still…) That night I was lucky enough to go and see The Hobbit in 3D with a few people, which was incredible I might add!

Monday – was of course Christmas Eve! We watched movies in the morning and in the afternoon went to the first ‘official’ family gathering at Kristin’s parents’ house. In Australia we generally do the whole ‘Christmas’ thing over Christmas Eve and Christmas day, presents and all – while here they celebrate primarily on the 24^th, the first day of Christmas. So we sung carols in Danish/Norwegian (I attempted at least), presents were given out, we had an incredible dinner and ate way too much. I was also lucky enough to find the almond in the dessert! I realise that sounds like the weirdest thing, but it’s a tradition in both Denmark, Norway and possible other places. It’s basically a cream-based dessert with chopped almonds in it, there’s one whole almond placed in the mixture –whoever finds it wins a prize! I got a nougat bar, so was quite content. Michelle also decided to start calling be Zoey Foey, sadly I couldn't come up with any name that I could call her that was remotely funny – so yeah…

Tuesday – Christmas day! Sadly the day didn't feel so much like Christmas as it’d be celebrated yesterday, so it was incredibly different for me. So there was another gathering of people at Kristin’s Sister’s house – we watched movies and walked the dogs in the snow, my shoes were soaking. I kept getting offered more wine – as people drink at 16 here, it’s so, so, so weird. People here think it’s so strange that we’re not able to drink till we’re 18, but think it’s crazy that I could drive legally on the road if I wished. So yep, that was Christmas for me this (last) year!

So I just realised how incredibly long and boring this post is. So the next few days I write about shall be quite vague, just so this post isn’t TOO long!

Wednesday – So I remember the showing breaking, so that was rather awkward. We went to another family gathering/dinner and again I ate way too much (go me!). On the way home I was lucky enough to see the Three Swords stature – which was utterly incredible. Sadly the photos are pretty dodgy since it was dark outside, so all you can see is a white blob which is me. I fell over as well, so my pants were muddy and gross – that summarises Boxing day!

Thursday – probably my favourite day all up, we did so much! We went to this beautiful place called Byrkjedalstunet (it looks like I just face planted the keyboard huh?) – Which is essentially a café and shop inside the mountains! It was so beautiful I just loved it. I made friends with a billy goat, and saw heaps of native stuffed animals. Trolls are also a big culture here, so I saw a massive amount of troll based souvenirs and statues. We had lunch at the café, which only really consisted of traditional Norwegian cakes, which taste incredible! Then we went back, on the way saw frozen waterfalls in the mountains, gosh – I cannot explain how beautiful it was. I absolutely loved it.

Friday – was yet another incredible day. We went to what I believe to be the restored huts of Vikings – okay my explanations are terrible, it was called an Iron Age Farm. Now, before I went my hair was lovely and curly, it was just a good day for the mass which I call my hair – and it was incredibly windy. So my hair looked like an afro for the rest of the day, which was great. I realise how irrelevant this may be to some people, but gosh it impacted my day hugely! After we went to Old Town Stavanger, and saw the entrance of the Sardine ‘museum’, it’s not really big enough to be a museum, but it’s essentially a museum. Then walked around a lot and I bought a few presents including this brilliant Rubik’s Cube! I was way too excited. Anyway, I saw cathedrals and old buildings and all sorts. After another lovely café which used to be a significant persons house (don’t remember who) we found a chocolate shop and I finally tried chilli chocolate fudge, which is incredible! They also have a partnership (this specific chocolate shop) with a band that’s really big in Europe at the moment, even though I've never heard of them. But basically they made this adorable CD and chocolate set! Gosh it was so unique and interesting, I thought it was great. But wait there’s more – after this we went to yet another famous shop I’ve never heard of, Moods of Norway, supposedly they have shops in Australia, but I’ve never seen any. But what’s so interesting about this store, is that they focus greatly on tractors. I mean there was a full tractor in the middle of the store! I actually found this shirt it said “Boyfriends come and go but tractors last forever” oh my gosh I fell in love with it (sorry Josh!). There was also line dancing steps on the floor and gosh it was just brilliant, I absolutely loved it – the clothes were pretty good too. One final noteworthy thing for Friday, the have chocolate coated crisps in Norway, and they’re amazing – that is all.

Saturday – turned out to be quite a lazy day actually. We watched the latest American Pie, which I think is a proud moment for me since I've never watched any of the movies and am frequently shunned by people about it, actually – it’s just my taste in movies in general. For dinner we went to an Indian restaurant, another first for me – don’t judge. But I loved it! We went back to Elisabeth’s house and had chocolate cake, and I tried taking pictures with the doggies but I scared them away. That was pretty much all of Saturday.

Sunday – We left Norway on a 10:20am flight, came back and had burgers. That was pretty much it. Oh! Going through airport security I left my phone in my pocket while going through the metal detector doorway think – proud moment for me…

So in summary over the course of the week I've seen many wonderful things and fallen in love with both Norway and mint tea.

Time to start on the next week! Don’t worry guys, it’s only Thursday for me at the moment, so it’s not as long…

Monday – We went to walk to the dogs in a forest, so they could be left off the lease. I have to say that it so reminded me of England, I felt rather homesick for England actually, even though I've hardly lived there at all. But I continued being my usual clumsy self during the walk – while walking the dogs managed to get my shoelace caught over a stick. As in the loop went over the stick so it was attached to my foot. I didn't trip once, no I tripped 3 times before I realised there was a massive stick attached to my foot. It was so embarrassing, but I started talking to this lovely American lady because of it. She started talking about all the female dogs in heat at the forest, and that’s where I left. She left too, we were in the car park, but yeah – started to get ever so slightly awkward. We came back and made Lefse, which is an amazing desert – I have some to bring back with me to Australia (thank you Kristin!) so people who put up with me on a daily basis at home (+ Josh) get keen!  And of course it was New Year’s Eve – I went to a party with Asta and what felt like 1000 other people (only around 400-500) in some place. It was fun, everyone jumped off chairs at 12 though, which really confused me.

Tuesday – After sleeping for the majority of the day, I sat around and did nothing all day, it was great.

Wednesday – Started off as being another lazy day, but around 2 I think I went into the shopping centre with Asta and a couple of her friends, it was so much fun . Afterwards we went back to Camilla’s house to watch movies. Did you know that there’s this really weird channel here in Denmark, where it shows recordings of the kid show characters sleeping? So the kids go to sleep at 8 or 9 at night, and they can watch other people sleep! It has the countdown for how much longer they have to sleep as well, it’s really creepy. Oh, we were thinking of watching “I don’t know how she does it” I got the Danish movie title to be translated to English, and they call it “Lady on jump”. WHAT?! I still don’t get it, how do they get that? But that was pretty much it.

Thursday – Today, I finally stopped procrastinating and finally wrote this post! I can see why I didn't want to; it’s almost 2,500 words long! Gosh I'm good at making very simple stuff seem incredibly long and complex. Oh well.

Hope you all had an incredible Christmas, New Year – and just a great couple of weeks in general! I’ll upload a post full of pictures soon. And as you can see my original plan of writing two posts went out the window, as did my plan about only writing a little for the past week... So enjoy this one (maybe)!

Zoë xx

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 

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

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

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

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

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.

Fist Day + Copenhagen + School

Hey all!
So updates on everything that's happened since the first day I arrived...
I was lucky enough to be taken into Copenhagen  by my host sister Asta, for the day the first full day I was here. We took public transport, woop woop! Their trains are so much nicer than Brisbane, they're pretty, comfortable and are just nicer and bigger in general. 
We started our day in Copenhagen with free coffee and chocolate - it was given out by people who I believe were raising awareness for a disease (I assume) that affects the neck. But I really can't be sure as the disease/condition was only written in Danish.

But anyway, from there we went heaps of places – the Lego shop, the outside of the Guinness Book of World Records exhibit, the little mermaid statue. Just walked around really, and anything that looked cool, we stopped and took a trillion tourist-y pictures, ‘twas amazing. Including a lolly shop! They have tennis ball gum! How incredible is that?! I was also lucky enough to be able to go up the Round Tower  - pictures of all these lovely things should be below; if I'm tech-savy enough to work out how to do that… 

If there isn't, here’s a link to my Facebook album! So, an update on what’s happened since my landing – the first full day of my being in Denmark, I was lucky enough for my host sister Asta to take me into Copenhagen for the day. It was lovely – first we were given free coffee and chocolate! I couldn't understand what the people were saying, but I think it was to raise awareness of this disease (I assume) that affects the neck – they only knew it in Danish, so I’m really unsure of what it is…

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.522562837754689.126408.100000029335081&type=1&l=0adc4ef765

Facebook Album

Either of the two links above should work :)

On top of the Round Tower

Den lille havfrue - The Little Mermaid (Thanks to Asta for the translation!)

I'm assuming he's the tallest man, or possibly the most plastic? I didn't read the sign, it was in Danish...

Nothing more to be said.

I love Lego - - my alum has many more pictures!

  

Something completely random, Asta pointed out some Australia Ribs – I was proud.

"Australsk" means Australian or Australian in Danish - so yeah, AUSTRALIAN MEAT! ( I really shouldn't be this excited)

Also on the topic of food – there’s a Maccas burger here called “McSwag” I literally laughed! Sadly I didn't get a picture...

Now, away from this topic – after this, on the same day,  we headed off to school….. (Next chapter)

So it was a 3 hour drive in the car to the school, I think I fell asleep, I have no idea how long for either. But I remember we had chocolate.
Anyway, we arrived at school it was really dark, but I think only around 8pm at night? It was really cool, and it was here that the idea of people using a different language continuously to communicate hit me. I had prepared myself for it, but seeing people my age talk freely in a language other than English was really weird, and I still find it quite incredible. You may think me silly for saying this - but it really was a shock. But I do love it - and for some reason I have the strange urge to speak Spanish instead of English most of the time, regardless of the fact that I really know very little Spanish. Maybe because it's a language other than English and as is Danish? I really don't know, but I find it interesting.
Anyway, the lessons here are very different, incredibly casual compared to QA, but I like it. It's a boarding school for those of you who might not know. In the morning they listen to the news, and discuss it, then have class, then lunch. Yesterday the afternoon lesson was Spanish, so I really loved it - I also learnt stuff. How to say what your'e doing currently - I am eating - Estoy comiendo. As opposed to what I had learnt - I eat - Yo como. Also parts of the body - I can't remember it, but it was good. Overall, school has been really welcoming and heaps of fun.
So that's all I have to say at the moment, thanks for sticking with me everyone! I'll update again soon.

Zoe xx