hello. i'm 1/8 Danish.

Greetings! This is becoming a common trend, but once again I am far behind on keeping up with this blog...

The weekend of March 20th-22nd I was in the country of Denmark! And it was absolutely fantastic...We started off on a school field trip to London for the day. We saw lots of great stuff, we went to the National Gallery and St Paul's Cathedral (which was amazingly beautiful!). At about 3:30pm, my friend Rachel and I ran from our group to Liverpool Street train station. From there we rode to Stansted airport for a 6pm flight to DENMARK! It was another Ryanair flight, so sketchy as usual:) But great, we heard our first Danish from the flight attendants, so that's always exciting. Rachel has a friend in Denmark named Mette, who stayed with their family through exchange last year. I was fortunate enough to be invited to go with Rachel and stay with Mette's family, which I appreciate so much because it was a great trip! We had little expectations for when we arrived, all we really knew was that someone was picking us up from the airport. When we got off the plane, there was someone holding up a sign that said Rachel's name, and sure enough, it was Mette's sisters boyfriend Mads (pronounced Mas) there to bring us to Mette's house. Naesbjerg was the town that we stayed in. We got lost a little bit in the country of Denmark, but eventually we picked Mette up from work (at the Shell gas station! ha!) and her and Rachel reunited. Then we went straight to her house, getting there at about 10, where we hunkered down for the night. We chatted, ate some pasta and watched a movie in Danish with English subtitles.

Trafalgar Square in London

St Paul's Cathedral, London

Inside of St Paul's (not mine...obviously...we weren't allowed to take photos)

Mette's House

Saturday morning we got up and had a Danish breakfast that Mette's mom prepared for us (we really appreciated everything they did, they were great to us:)). We had bread with spread, a hard boiled egg with a wet yolk (they had these little spoons to carve it out), some liver spread stuff that they made us try and then told us what it was (not that bad), and meat. Then we went to town and Mette showed us around a bit. We also go to explore her yard (with her dogs! i was so happy to see dogs!) which was huge and she had a man made lake in the back. It actually wasn't that different looking from a house that's in the country in the states. After that we played some SingStar (a karaoke video game), in which I attempted horribly to sing Danish songs I had never heard before. I failed miserably, but it was quite entertaining...then we got ready for the Disco! They had a birthday party planned at a club (or disco) for Mette's middle sister. I always think that I bring clothes that are fine to go out in, but the locals are always different in every country, so I borrowed a dress of Mette's to go out. It was very fun, but the Danish don't dance as much as I would have liked...:) We met some new people and had a great time.

One of Mette's sisters was doing a school paper on beer brewery's, so she asked if we wanted to tag along while she did an interview. It was a super cute little side street brewery...and they gave us free beer!

Hops? Yeast? I have no idea...I don't speak danish:) Apparently they leave the extras out and farmers come to get them and feed them to the animals

A Danish church

At a McDonalds in Denmark, Mette insisted we go in, and since this was our new favorite word (slash, the only one we could remember, and said in response to EVERYTHING), we thought we should take a photo with the rubbish bin

At the disco

New friends!

Rachel, me and Mette

Sunday we left around 8 or so to get to our flight which left at 10 I think? Once back in London, we took the train back to Grantham, and then a cab back to the manor. Overall it was a great weekend, and sure enough I came back saying that it was my favorite. But that happens every weekend:)

The landscape of where we were in Denmark was actually really similar to Minnesota. We weren't in a big touristy area so I like to say we saw the real Denmark:) Farming was a big thing in the area we were in, and it was really fun to see the local life rather than the tourism aspect. Those are my favorite types of trips by far.

I thought it was interesting too that seeing people walking down the streets, and passing by clothing shops, you can tell that the style in Denmark (especially for young people) is different than that of England. I think as Americans we think that European style is kinda all the same, or at least I sometimes do, and it's not at all. It seemed to be a tad more casual there, but perhaps it was the location of Denmark we were in too. The houses and architecture were also very different from England...I love how each country is a different style.

Mette explained to us how expensive it was in Denmark compared to the USA. We didn't really notice it because the exchange to the Danish Krone conversion is kind of hard to calculate compared to the Euro or the Pound. One US dollar is about 5.6 Krone, so everything seemed super expensive anyway. But Mette showed us that everything really is more expensive...a tube of mascara that would be $3 in the states was about $20 there! And Converse shoes that would be $40 in the states were over $100 there. It was very interesting...of course they get paid more so it doesn't affect them...but it's VERY cheap for them to live in the US!

The original Legoland was also in Denmark...close to the Billund airport where we flew in...just for the record, on behalf of my new Danish friends:)


This was a short post I feel, but I feel rushed for time a tad...Love to all:)