Danish food I'll be eating in America

I'll be updating this throughout my exchange with yummy Danish foods I'll be eating/making (if possible) once I'm back in the states. If you're ever in World Market look for these!!

Pålægschokolade

Chocolate on bread. For breakfast.

Remoulade

Dipping sauce for everything.

Frikadeller

Delicious meatballs

Rødbeder

Pickled beets

Vanilje Kranser

Vanilla "Danish Cookies"

Kartofler med brun sovs

Potatoes with brown sauce. if only American potatoes tasted like these ones.

Rugbrød

Rye Bread, only better

Rødgrød med Fløde

Translated directly + red porridge with cream. One of the most lovely things I've ever eaten and one of the hardest thing's I've ever had to say.

 Risalamande

A Danish Christmas delicacy (although it's not actually Danish)
Yummy rice pudding, almonds, Cherry sauce.

Risengrød

Rice pudding with cinnamon and sugar and butter

Gløgg

Christmas Cider
( can be made without alcohol! )

Kiksekage

"Cracker Cake"

Fløderbolle

"Cream balls"
Delicious marshmallow like cream inside a chocolate casing.

Øllebrød

"Beer bread"
Broken up peices of rie bread,is soaked in water and sugar, heated, and then served with milk (kinda like porridge)
It can be made with Denmark's Christmas beer- hence the name beer bread. 

15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th Week

Well, it has been a while! My bad..
In the last 5 weeks, quite a bit has happened! It's hard to sum up all that in just one blog post.. but I'll do my best!
In these short five weeks Denmark has gone from the beautiful Fall colors to the dark winter. The snow, however, makes it lighter.
Since I've last written I've switched host families. I will be with 3 families during my time here. My new home is much closer to school and is between two villages called Jerlev, and Ødsted. It is an old house that is in fact older than the state of Nevada. It is a cute home that is certainly very hyggeligt.

Taken from a glider

Taken when I first moved here

Taken this week

My new host family is really lovely and I'm looking forward to my next 3 months with them!
With the new winter weather, my after school activities have changed from walking around on the walking street and hanging out around the city to every snow activity imaginable. From ice skating, to snow angels, to snow ball fights, to sledding.  Many of the other exchange students haven't seen snow before, so they're definitely enjoying the snow. That is also why we all have colds right now..

trying to stay warm!

still feeling cold..

Exchange student snow ball fight!

Some of the exchange students and I going down to investigate a frozen river
(but holding on tight to the railing!!)

they found a piece of frozen snow shaped like Denmark!

oh snow wars..

enjoying looking at our breath!
(it's hard to see in the picture)
most of these were taken outside of our school.

The temperature yesterday was -20 (including the wind chill). The coldest it's been without the wind chill has been -15. Before those of you reading this in the states get too concerned for my well being, that's in Celsius! It's only about -4 Fahrenheit. I think it feels colder though. It's a very different kind of cold than we have in Nevada. For example, the other day I was riding my bike to the bus stop at about 7:15 in the morning. It's only about a 10-15 minute bike ride, and my hair was dry before I got on the bike. It was not raining or snowing, but when I got to the bus stop there was frost on my legs and the front of my hair was frosty and starting to freeze. And, as gross as it may sound, the inside of my nose was also frozen which is a very strange sensation. My host family takes good care of me though and has supplied me with some warm clothing and everything I need to survive the cold! Haha it's supposed to warm up a bit and get into the positive digits this next week, and the snow is already starting to melt. Needless to say I have more scarves and sweaters than I'll ever know what to do with in the states unless I move to Montana.. oh well :)

The local church, Jerlev Kirke
(Kirke means church)

Another thing that I've been enjoying is Christmas baking! Danes know how to celebrate Christmas. Some traditional Danish food consists of æbleskiver (balls that taste like American pancakes that are eaten with powder sugar, jam, syrup, etc), småkager (cookies) such as pebbernødder, brunkage, and vaniljekranse. Pebernødder are little cookies with cinnamon and pepper in them. Brunkager are gingerbread cookies. Vaniljekranser are the circular cookies we get in the Danish Cookie tins in the states with a hole in the middle. They also have many Christmas cakes.

baking!

Another Christmas tradition they have here is kalenderlys (calender candle). It's an advent calendar on a candle. You burn it every day and there are numbers for each day leading up to Christmas.

They're typically surrounded by wood, pine, and things from the forest. The one above is not the one from my house I got it from the internet, but you can see the numbers on the side.
We had an exchange student Jule Hygger at school with our counselors. (Jule = Christmas) It was really fun. We had a present exchange similar to a white elephant but it's called pakkeleg (package game).

There was also a Christmas party at school. I don't think I'll ever be able to get used to how different they are from anything in the states. This picture is at the party. I'm on the right side in pink photobombing.

We had our last week of Sprogskole (language school) this week. It was a little hard to leave because we have had so many great times there! My host Mom told me we don't have anymore because "now we can speak Danish!" The language is coming along and while at home I speak mostly Danish.

These amazing exchange students are from Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, The Bahamas,  The USA, Italy, Canada, Czech Republic, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, and China. 

Well, obviously much more than this has happened in the last 5 weeks, but I trimmed it down as best as I could! I hope this gave you a little insight on my exchange! I've been here for 19 out of approximately 48 weeks. So I'm basically 2/5 of the way done, which is pretty crazy! Everyone tells me that after Christmas it goes by really quickly, which has led to a few nightmares. Hopefully, though, it lasts! I'm having a great great great time and I can't wait for the adventures that lie ahead for me!
Glædelig Jul alle sammen!
(Merry Christmas everyone!)
-Mady

13th and 14th week

 Well, today marks 14 weeks in Denmark. It's been a crazy 14 weeks! I've made the best friends imaginable, become so much closer to my family back home, learned a lot about my self as a person, and it's barely been 3 months. I can't wait to see what lies in the weeks and months ahead. 

Last week not a whole lot happened. Just hanging out. But last weekend was really fun. Rotary had a get together planned, and all of the Exchange students in Denmark went to a city called Holbæk for a weekend. Holbæk is on Sjælland, the island where Copenhagen lies. It was about a 2 or 3 hour train ride there. They didn't have a lot planned, we just hung out much of the time. There were a lot of exchange students there, about 200.  It had the "oldies" and the "newbies." The exchange students that got here at the beginning of August are considered newbies. There are exchange students here that came in January from Australia, Brazil, and Argentina and are leaving within a month or two. It was the first time I met them. So when we got there on Friday we just spent time with exchange students we hadn't seen in a few months, and had a hyggelig evening.

Our group of exchange students from the sprogcentre are really close. While everyone was excited to see everyone else, we still just hung out with each other the whole time even though we see each other everyday anyways! We always play a card game that Cathryn taught us. She told us it's called Prime Minister, but I'm pretty sure that's just cause she's from Canada.. I think it's called President haha. When we play it becomes a battle of our countries. Poncho and Cathryn sometimes team up against Keenan and I in what they call the Sandwich plan. Mexico and Canada sandwiching the states out the picture. It gets pretty intense sometimes, but it's a lot of fun!

On Saturday we went into the city and walked around. We found a really nice area near the fjord where there were some nice paths and a fun park and a mill.

we didn't book seats so we had to shove together by the doors..

'MURICA

Brazil and the US trying to look sophisticated

craziest park ever

That night there was a halloween party and a show where we had to provide our own entertainment. Cathryn and I made a movie for it where we went around and interviewed people on exchanges and told them to answer with only one word. If you want to watch it the link is below :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWfxY4pE7k4&feature=plcp
We also were forced into doing a dance called "Los Gringos." I'm glad that there is no link available for you to see the video of it. Whenever people start dancing the Latinos always dominate and us northerners just look stupid when we try to dance. So we did a dance to white and nerdy where we attempted some moves that we learned from the Brazilians. Definitely a humiliating experience.
So for my costume I REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted to be captain America but I couldn't find the mask or shield anywhere. So instead I was an American cowgirl.

and cathryn was a Canadian bear!

It was very fun!! :) Afterwards there was a dance that went until around 4 AM, but don't worry I didn't last that long. When the clock turned to 12:00 it was my birthday! :) That was an exciting way to spend it. The next morning we packed up and went home.

at the train station

I came home and had all of my host families over for a small birthday party. We had traditional Danish cake- lagkage and kagemand. Lagkage is like layered cake and kagemand translates to cake man. 

That's the cake man and the table. In Denmark they use the flag on days of celebration. I'm really lucky to have such amazing host families. I love them all! My counselor and his wife were also there, and there was also a couple from rotary whom are like my host grandparents! It was a very nice evening.

I got a gym membership this week because I can't stop eating, nor do I really want to haha. I love the food and desserts here.. so good. So I thought that was a good idea. Another thing I did this week was sing at a ceremony at school with the school choir. The choir has 6 exchange students :) it's very fun!

Friday I had some exchange students over for a small birthday party. It was probably some of the most fun I've had so far! We did everything from Face the Cookie (if you don't know what that is look it up.. definitely worth trying :) ), to learning how to say things in each others' languages, to eating and eating and more eating. We had a traditional danish meal and danish dessert- Rød Grød med Flød, a danish tongue twister that all foreigners are forced to say at least 3,790,203,948 times.  We finished the night off with some tea (my mom sent my some herbal tea to drink!!), pool, and Mean girls. Everyone spend the night and left this morning.

I said, "I love you guys" and was attacked with exchange student hugs!
They gave me a sleeping mask because last time they were over my blinds broke, and they gave me a shirt that says kærlighed (means love), and cookies! And Jeremy gave me some coasters from Taiwan! 

I had no idea ♥

keep the balloon off the ground- no hands!

They made me a video with all the exchange students at Rosborg and one from Horsens wishing me Happy Birthday (in danish- Tillykky med din fødselsdag). It was the sweetest thing and I loved it so much! As soon as I have access to it I'll put it up so you guys can see how amazing my friends are. I love them so much ♥

I got two packages for my birthday, one from my family in Carson, and one from Casey and his family. That was certainly nice to receive :) I'm enjoying weekly letters from my amazing Dad, and pictures of the snow back home from my fantastic Mom! I sure do miss them, but I'm in good hands here :) Hope everyone is enjoying their fall, and I'll post again soon :)

I'm adding this on November 12th, because I totally forgot something so important!!!! November 8th was International Hug an Exchange Student day. So about 30 exchange students met up and went into the city with signs, flags, balloons, and free hugs!! We were surprised when most people didn't actually want the hugs, though. If someone would get a hug everyone would start cheering and swarm the person. It was great fun :)