take me to your best friend's house; i loved you then, and i love you now.

Mark, and a disgusting amount of candy;
note the price tag on just one bag

So, today is the second-to-last day of intro camp in Bjerringbro, and I'm a little behind on blog posts. Persecute me, please, but I've just been so tired and happy and busy that I'm finding it difficult to keep up on all the commitments I have. I've had a lot of fun here at this Danish-intensive camp, even if it isn't as intensive as I'd hoped and I didn't learn as much Danish as I wanted. It's really hard to ask any week to fulfill my thirst for knowledge of the language, though, so I'd consider this week a success, despite my misgivings before attending. I've made a couple of really good friends here (one of them, Mark, is from New York, and he is obscured by the obscene amount of candy he held up so I could get a picture of us being the epitome of obesity), and that's really all I can ask for. I did miss my first gymnasium party for intro camp, and that's really upsetting, but that's probably my biggest complaint for the entire week. I missed a couple of other things back in Aalborg, too, I think, but that's okay; I'm leaving here knowing more Danish than I began with, so at least I'm making progress.

I really enjoyed my Danish class itself; my teacher, Anders, was phenomenal, and a friend and teacher both, and I got along well with many of the people in class, sweet girls from Paraguay, Brazil, and the USA, great guys from the USA, Mexico, and Brazil, and more that I can't think of at the moment. My biggest complaint was that I felt stupid on occasion, and never because I was made to feel stupid by Anders or my friends. Rather, there were a few other students in the class who were much more advanced than I was due to their participation in language schools. My Aabybro Rotary Club has chosen instead to provide me with a private tutor, and he has been great, but these language schools have left my classmates clearly more prepared for the nuances of Danish. An ill-placed comment or two was all that it took to shake me; I'm so used to picking things up quickly at home, easily understanding things without them ever really going over my head. I still haven't cried here yet, and I hope I can keep that up a while longer, but feeling stupid is not something with which I've ever been comfortable.

Jaidan (Canada), me, and Cigne (Alaska)

I got to go to Aarhus with all of the other exchange students plus Anders and the rest of the teachers, and they showed us to ARoS, the art museum there, and afterwards we were allowed to wander around the city on our own. Mark, Cigne (a girl from Alaska who I feel like I've known for years despite just having truly begun talking to her a few days ago), and I wound up at Bruun's, a shopping center, and then we had a bite to eat at McDonald's before we met Jenny for a couple of hours. I was Jenny's host sister in the USA a couple of years ago, and it was wonderful to see her again; her, Cigne, Mark, and I all went to get ice cream together at Manu, which is arguably the best ice cream joint in the whole city. After that, though, we had to say goodbye to the city, and we piled back on a bus to Bjerringbro.

Since my last blog post, and before intro camp, I moved in with a new host family, and I couldn't be happier with them. They've welcomed me in with absolutely open arms; my mother and father, Marianne and Jens, have been trying very hard to make me feel at home in the family, and it's definitely working. It's just like I'm one of their kids; I have the same responsibilities and privileges that their children have, and I have a lot of freedom as long as I don't lose their trust. They have three other children (Martin, 17, who goes to my school and is just back from exchange in NY; Frederik, 16, who goes to a boarding school and whose room I stay in; and Matilde, 14, who goes to a different school in Biersted and helps me whenever I ask for assistance with the buses), and each one has been really welcoming to me as well, which I really appreciate.

I probably shouldn't be in here writing this blog post when all the other exchange students are out and about having fun, but I've been social all week, and, if we're being serious, I have quite the permanent headache. It's good to sit out and take a breather for a moment, especially when I've got so many plans once I get back to Biersted again. I have to go to the zoo sometime with Anne, Aida, and Johanne, and I'm supposed to spend some time with some other friends as well.

Vi ses! <3
-Lex