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