Autumn Break

Students in Denmark have a week off from school. I assumed, before my autumn break began, that I would relax during those 9 days, and that I didn't have many plans. By the end, however, there was not a single uneventful day that went by. It's amazing how many exciting things I did in a week.

-> I found out about three weeks back that I would be shifting to my second host family in the last week of this month. It was a wonderful day that I spent with my host family.

Denmark Open finals

-> The Yonex Denmark Badminton Open was being held during the autumn break, and as my host family had such great interest in badminton, we went to watch a match. My host father and host sister were selected to play in different categories, but my host sister couldn't play because of a sprained ankle. We saw a lot of matches that day, including two matches with Indians (Saina Nehwal and P.V. Sindhu) playing. It was the first time I had seen a professional badminton match in person and it's an experience I will never be able to forget. My host mom won three 'best seat tickets for the Denmark open finals. She gave me her ticket so I could watch the finals, and that's how I got to see the Denmark Open finals sitting as close to the court as possible. It was such a great day.

Harry Potter festival
The Forbidden Library

-> On Friday, I attended the HARRY POTTER FESTIVAL in Odense. I am a complete Potterhead, so this festival, was a dream come true for me. It was probably more fun for children, than teenagers, but there were a few things for people my age. The organisers arranged for so many things, and recreated a lot of the Harry Potter scenes. There were people dressed as Harry Potter characters walking all over the city. They had some really delicious candy at the Honeydukes shop. In short, I had an amazing day.

Harry Potter festival

-> I also went for a Harry Potter concert on Saturday. It was an orchestral concert, but I never expected it to be that great. They involved the orchestra in a little play that they had prepared with six main characters from the Harry Potter series.

A statue of H.C. Andersen

A room that brought H.C. Andersen's
most famous stories to life

-> On Tuesday, I visited the house of Hans Christian Andersen in Odense. H.C. Andersen was a famous author born in Odense, who wrote many popular children's tales, including The Ugly Duckling, The Princess and the Pea, The King's New Clothes and The Nightingale. It was a strange feeling, knowing that the storybooks that I had read as a child, were originally written in Danish.

I had an amazing week, and for some reason, that one week felt like so much time. I did so much more in this one week than I did in a month.

It's beginning to get dark earlier and the sun rises and the first light in my area is at around 7:15 in the morning. It's steadily getting colder, and there is a chance of the temperature reaching freezing point at night this month. Next week, the people in Denmark will set their clocks back an hour (I don't understand why) so it's probably going to be quite dark when I leave home.

Language check: I could understand about the first 10 sentences that the teacher said today. That counts as something, right? I can also speak slowly but fluently now, and reading and writing is becoming easier by the day.

Anyone living in my sponsor district in India (Dist. 3140), who wants to apply for the Rotary Youth Exchange Program, can follow this link to the preliminary form: Click here! People living in any other district or country can contact their local Rotary Club.

Have a nice autumn!

Month 2: Danish food!

Week 6, 7 & 8

The highlight of my sixth week in Denmark was the Rotary 1461 District Conference held in the town of Middelfart in Fyn on Saturday (19th September). District 1461 consists of Southern Jutland, Fyn and some surrounding islands. I am the only Indian in my district. It started early in the morning. We were instructed about the regular Exchange related problems and rules after breakfast. Later, we entered the conference room with our flags and banners, to the applause of the audience. We went onto the stage and held our flags and banners while a Winter 2015 Exchange student delivered a speech. We placed our flags on a stand on the stage and left. We went bridgewalking in the afternoon (yes, second time within one week for me). However, the weather was better this time and it was a different kind of fun doing the same thing with friends, so I didn't find it boring. We went back to the hotel after bridgewalking, entered the conference room again, but collected our flags this time, and exited. I felt really proud to be holding my country's flag. It oddly made me feel like I was really significant in the world. It was great fun meeting my friends again. Dinner was as 'normal' as it gets - burger and french fries.

District Conference

My seventh and eighth weeks in Denmark were nothing out of the ordinary. I joined the school choir, which was pretty fun, because I experienced learning a kind of music that I have never learned before. I made a few Indian dishes for my host family during this period of time.

An Indian dish - Chhole

Danish Food

Who doesn't like tasting food from a different country? Of course, being a vegetarian, I'm not able to taste a majority of the dishes, but they have a lot of vegetarian food as well!

1. Æbleskiver: It literally means 'apple slices'. They're basically mini pancake balls, but sometimes, they don't have apples in them.

2. Flødeboller: Just like the name suggests, they are 'cream balls', but with a slight twist. It's basically really soft cream, put on a thin biscuit, and coated with chocolate on the outside, which results in pure bliss when you bite into it.

How tempting does that look?

3. Rødgrød med fløde: It literally means 'red porridge with cream'. But before you move on to the next item, know, that it is much more delicious than porridge. You basically take some sstrawberry crush, and then pour cream into it. Lækker! (Delicious!) Rødgrød med fløde is also a very popular Danish tongue twister.

4. Tzatziki: It is actually a Greek dish, but it's eaten a lot in Denmark. It's quite similar to the Indian raita. Basically you put shredded or cubed cucumber and shredded garlic in yogurt and voila! Tzatziki is basically the spiciest thing I've tasted in Denmark.

5. Brunsviger: It's a special kind of cake eaten almost only on my Island (Fyn). It's a coffee cake with a layer of sugar coating on the top.

6. Remoulade: It is not a dish, but a sauce/Salad dressing. It's like a cross between mayonaise and mustard sauce and it's absolutely delicious.

6. Risengrød: It is a 'rice pudding' that people eat mostly during Christmas. I don't particularly like it, but it is a sweet rice pudding with cinnamonpowder sprinkled on top.

7. RUGBRØD: There is no way I could forget this Danish 'rye-bread'. It is the nightmare of every Exchange student in the beginning, but the Danes live on it, and apparently, Exchange student like it in the end as well.

Last but not the least...


8. Lakrids: Lakrids or 'liquorice' is a candy that every Danish person loves. Most Exchange student dislike it, but I love the taste! They have so many different kinds of lakrids - salty lakrids, sugar lakrids, lakrids tea...

That was almost all the Dansish food I have tasted till now (there are some things that I can't remember the names of). The Danish food is vastly different from Indian food but amazing in it's own way. In India, I thought that meat, rice and mashed potatoes defined Danish food, but it is so much more than that!



Language check: I'm able to read and frame quite a few whole sentances now. I can understand some things that people speak.