First Week in Denmark Pt. 1 – Jet Lag and Koldinghus

The story of my trip to Denmark will be told in my last Wave Column, which I will like in a post when it comes out. However, this is where the story of the first part of my first week in Denmark will be told.

I am now in Denmark, and very happy. As I write this, I have almost recovered from jet lag,  thanks to Melatonin. I head that jet lag would be the worst thing ever, but the truth is that it’s not. I felt a little off and was tired, but it could have been a lot worse. It didn’t take me a long time to completely recover, ever since Thursday night I have been able to fall asleep without Melatonin.

No, nothing has been the same since. Denmark and Minnesota are fairly similar places compared to say, Minnesota and somewhere in Asia, so it’s not terrible culture shock. However, I am now in a different life than the one I have lived for the past eighteen years, and I am ok with that.

My first day started at about 11 a.m. when I landed in the Billund airport. I had been awake since for about twenty one hours at that point, but I still had another six hours to go before I would get to bed. That day consisted of me eating lunch and dinner, petting my host cats Jersey and Rasmus a lot, and attempting to ride a bike with a rather tall seat.

Sunday was a similar day, this time with a run with my fast host mom. I was still adapting to the time change and everything was a bit blurry.

Monday was a fun day. Bodil (my host mom) and I traveled down to Sønderborg to attempt to get something done with my visa process. I believe we only needed to go to Haderslev, but that didn’t stop us from checking out the queen’s ship while we were there!

After that, I got to see Haderslev for the first time, and finish up the process of getting my personal number. We then had a delicious lunch. I didn’t really know what I was ordering – I only knew that it had avacadocreme – but I sure wasn’t disappointed with the result. I will post the pictures in my next post, when my phone will actually be working.

I then proceeded to buy clothes, and soon learned that clothes are made for tall slender people in Denmark. I was definitely not disappointed, and am very happy that there is an H&M in town.

That night my host sister Sara came home from her bicycle tour in Taiwan, and I was really happy to have met someone else my age! Sara is a former exchange student to the US, and it’s really nice having a host sister who has been through what I will go through.

Tuesday started out with a run, and then making a delicious orange chocolate cake. One thing that I really enjoy doing in this family is having cake with chocolate and tea, and this happens a lot.

That night I gave a presentation for my Rotary club in Danish. Most rotary exchange students give a presentation about where they live in the middle of the year, but I got the surprise of getting to do it right away. My Danish is decent for the amount of time that I have been practicing, but I still have a long ways to go. Bodil helped me with editing what I was going to say, and when it was time to present, it went pretty smoothly!

On Wednesday, Bodil and my host grandmother and I all went down to see Koldinghus. There was a special display there of the fancy jewelry of the Danish royal family there, and it was quite fun to see. Koldinghus is a castle also, so I have officially been to my first Danish castle!

This was the view when Bodil and I went to the top of Koldinghus. It was worth the stairs!

Our lunch was a new experience for me. There was a buffet of all sorts of traditional Danish food, including herring. That was definitely a new taste for me. However, the salmon was nothing short of phenomenal, and the pork was quite good as well.

We headed back from Kolding, and made a stop to pick up some flødboller. For those who don’t know, flødboller consists of a marshmallow creme within a chocolate shell. The traditional type is just plain chocolate with plain marshmallow inside, but as you will see in the pictures, they can come in all sorts of flavor like coconut, licorice, and raspberry. I chose a white chocolate raspberry one.

After a visit to a country church, my host mother and grandmother and I all had some coffee with flødboller. Both my host mother and grandmother are such kind and sweet people, and it was fun getting to know my host grandmother better. At the end my host grandmother even brought out her wonderful cookies!

And that, my friends, is what I will limit myself to for part one. The rest of the week was fun as well, but I cannot fit it all in one post. Until the next post, farvel mine venner!