My Super Awesome Visiting Family!!!

Since I live do not live in a host family, DIS offers students the opportunity to have a "visiting family" in order to get more involved with Danish culture. I finally got in touch with mine and was able to visit on Sunday. They were amazing! Karen and Ebbe, and they live in a town about 20 minutes outside of the center city called Herlev. I met them a the train station and they took me a tour around their town and we eventually made it to their local library. There we looked at a small art exhibit by local artists and there was also an exhibit on their town. It depicted the town about 80 years ago and how the town looks now. So much has changed! Learning all about how the farms got turned into cities was very cool, and also happened very quickly. This exhibit made me want to learn more about the history of my town. I also saw the tallest building in Denmark: The Herlev Hospital. I hate to say it does not compare with New York City. After that we continued to walk to their house where we had lunch consisting of traditional Danish foods. Finally!!! I had my first smørrebrød and several more after that! I had the herring, and the curried herring and it was all delicious. They also had me try some Snaps and we chatted about everything from traveling to American politics. After lunch we enjoyed some pastries and tea and some good conversation. They were just as curious to know about me and where I came from as I was about them.

After our pastries we continued to talk, I learned about their former DIS students, I met their cats and birds and also learned about their family. Around 7:30, their oldest daughter arrived with her husband. We then had some delicious steak and potatoes!! And finally we had ice cream for dessert! It was a fantastic day. I ended up back at Keops at around 11, full and exhausted.

Monday was an equally tiring day. I had class all day and then I met with my Hans Christian Anderson teacher because I am a class representative. This entails being a liaison between everyone in the class and the teacher, informing the teacher of things that people like, dislike, or need more information on. I really like this system and wish we did something similar in the United States. It allows for anonymity when informing the teacher of issues and also allowing the class to progress, just in case it needs some improvement. We went to a small cafe and had tea and Hans Christian Anderson cake. Fortunately this class has been good so far and we just had nice conversation.

Today was an easy day, my paper that was due next Monday got moved to next Thursday which is awesome considering I will be in Berlin this weekend most definitely not working on that. I also have no field studies tomorrow for once, so I will probably sleep in and then head to the library to work on some other papers and study for my exam Friday. I am so excited for this weekend it is unreal!