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Published: June 20th 2009
OK! I've finally worked up to writing a new journal entry! Everyone breathe a big sigh of relief with me...
I see the last time I wrote was on the 22nd of April, and my plan is to write an entry that brings you right up to date. So get ready to read!
On the 26th of April (it's so strange to be writing about this - it feels like it was an age ago now) I went to Belgium with the Rebel family. These guys are my second host family, and they're absolutely amasing. There's Julie, who is a preist but is not at all the way you are thinking of her - so stop thinking that!; Johannes, who is a banker and is very nice and friendly; Elisabeth, who is ten years old, is very sweet and love to sing; and Eric who is six and is... Well, a six year old. He's very cute and very noisy :D.
We went to Belgium with Johannes's Dad's side of the family. They're Dutch, which meant that we all spoke English most of the time.
On the first day Elisabeth and I took a long walk in
Berlin Wall
With Maddy, Ash, and Katethe mountains. It was fantastic, and I think that being with a child made it even more fun. It meant that I could run around and jump through little streams and stuff without feeling like an idiot. The forests their were beautiful. I don't think I've encountered any that I prefer in all of the countries that I've now visited. It was just so green and looked so rich and natural! I loved it 😊
While in Belgium, we also took a day trip to France. We went shopping (I spent too much money but I got some nice French clothes!) and we visited huge fortress. It was great, and the view from the top was breathtaking.
On the first of May we drove to Cologne, in Germany, to stay for two nights. I got my hair cut there in a really cool hairdresser's. The girl didn't speak any German but she seemed to have a bit of an idea what I wanted. I didn't
love the hair cut when I first got it, but it's grown on me now. We also visited the huge church there. It's probably my favourite of all the churches I've now visited
River
In Berlin (and trust me, I've been to quite a few).
We returned home on the 3rd and had a pretty relaxing week. Then, on the 12th I had my final Danish exam. It went pretty well, but I was nervous, which is strange for me. I'm usually pretty composed in tests, regardless of how ill-prepared I often am 😉 Haha. But I passed! So I must have been ok 😊
On the same day I went to check out a hockey club in Ny Elebjer, which is about 15 minutes away from my house by train. It was a bit strange - very informal and dissorganised - but I'd expected that as hockey is not a popular sport here at all. The girls in the team were very nice, and it was very mulicultural, so they all spoke mostly in English to each other. Since then, I've joined the team, and I've played two games wih them, as well as recruiting another Aussie.
On the 16th I had some friend over for a picnic in my host families beautiful garden. This plan failed dismally as it pored down with rain all day, so we spent the afternoon playing
cards and watching dvd's, which was actually quite fun 😊
Two days later, Euro Tour started. Basically, this entails 18 days + 56 exchange student from around the world + one bus. It was awesome! This will probably take a long time to write... :S ... Ok, here goes!
Day 1 and 2 - Berlin
On the first day we visited a church that was bombed during the second world war. It was still mostly intact, and the architecture was very impressive. On the second day we saw the Berlin Wall, the Reichstag and other important sites. It was so cool because these are the places I've been reading about all through year 11 and 12 history. That night Maddy, Ash and I went out to a bar and chilled too, just soaking in the atmosphere of the place.
Day 3 and 4 - Prague
I think Prague was a great place. It seemed like an up-and-coming sort of place to me, and I think it's really a city for young people. We didn't do a huge amount of site-seeing. Mostly we had free time to explore on our own. Maddy, Ash, Kate and I did some
good exploring, and had a really good nice by the river.
On the first night we held a little party for all the girls in our hotel room. We just talked and played games etc. On the second night most of the group went clubbing but I stayed in with some other Australians.
Day 5 and 6 - Vienna
Vienna was deffinitely my favourite city. On the first day we visited this amasing palace. I was complete awe-struck. It looked like the type of place I'd imagined when reading Jane Austen's novel. It's what I'd expect Rosings Park to look like. I was so fascinated by everything that I got completely seperated from the group, and spent about 2 hours wandering around by myself before it occured to me to go and find the others.
Kate and I spent the second day exploring the city. It was one of the only places that I started to really get a feel for. All of the people that we came across were very friendly and helpful, and the city is gorgeous. I'd love to go back there one day and stay for a while.
Day 7, 8, 9
and 10 - Lido de Jesolo (Italy)
We spent most of our time in Lido on the beach. It was swim and tan during the day, beach party at night.
On the third day we also visited Venice. I was so excited because it's one of those places that I've been seeing pictures of and seeing on tv and movies since I was really young. We were only able to spend one afternoon there, but we were still able to get a gondola ride! It was so cool, I can't even tell you.
On the fourth, we visited Verona, where we saw Juliet's balcony, and I wrote on the wall 😊
Day 11 and 12 - Avignon
Avignon was another beautiful city, but I think that walking around as a group of four girl is probably not the best way to view it. We actually recieved a lot of unwanted attention in France especially, and by the time we were leaving, we were kind of glad to be.
We went out on the first night at the club. It was great fun but when we went back to the youth hostel, we had been locked out.
We had to wait half an hour or so for someone to come and open the gates for us.
Day 13, 14 and 15 - Paris
Paris is another one of those places you see all over the tv and in movies, so actually going there was pretty epic. We saw the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, and the Mona Lisa at the Louvre, among other things. We walked all the way up the tower because we're too cheap to pay for the lifts. GOD it was hooorible, but it was worth the pain, deffinitely XD. We also had a river cruise which was great.
The third day in Paris was the 1st of June, which meant it was Austen and my 6th month :D Just thought I should mention. We manged to talk a little bit, that day too, which was nice.
Speaking of nice, we stopped in Nice at some point, but I can't remember where abouts. It was so beautiful, and the beaches looked great but we didn't have time to swim there. We also stopped in Monaco for a couple of hours sometime. That place is gorgeous. It's another place I'd love to re-visit.
I wish we'd had more time there.
Day 16 and 17 - Brussels
In Brussels we mostly chilled, but we did do a little bit of site seeing (well, we saw that statue of the boy peeing) and get some chocolates in town!
Day 18 - Hamburg
Really, we only stayed the night in Hamburg. During the day we were in Amsterdam. That was a really cool place. The red light district was very interesting! There really were girls dancing in the windows, and everything smelt of marijuana...
We got home on the 4th of June, and while the tour was probably one of the best experiences of my life, I was glad to go back to the house and get some rest, but in my current host families house, it doesn't really stay quiet for long 😊
On the 6th it was Eric's six birthday, so we had a big party. In the morning Eric's friends from school came over, and Johannes was in charge of keeping the entertained while Julie and I got ready for the adultd to come in the afternoon. The traditional cake at Danish birthdays is the layer cake, and I
The group in Prague
I was taking the picture! made about 5 or 6 of those, as well as two other cakes! I actually really enjoyed having all the little boys running around. They're all really cute and I was also able to witness Johannes running around with a wooden sword in the garden with them, which was pretty funny.
In the afternoon I talked a lot with Julies cousin, who's the same age as me, as well as (for some reason) Johannes's younger brother. Everyone was very nice 😊 And later I went with the kids to a near by park and we played softball. It was really fun!
I relaxed for about a week after, and then on the 11th I had Maddy, Ash and Kate sleep over. We watched movies and chilled and talked most of the time. Oh! I almost forgot, a few days before that on of the family cats, Luna, had 5 kittens! Julie and I were midwives and it was very exciting (albeit a liiitle bit disgusting). So us four girls did a lot of oo-ing and ah-ing over the kittens too.
On the 13th I played two hockey games, and the day after that my councillor and his
Guard
In Prague. I would hate to be one of these guys... Hahaha. wife took me and the other exchange student in my Rotary club (Jacobo from Mexico) to the zoo, and then out to dinner. My councillor is a hilarious guys, and I spent pretty much all day listening to "Hey, those are Mexicans, aren't they?" when looking at the Baboons, and similar jokes.
Two days later I was back at the zoo with Julie, supervising Elizabeths class. I was actually glad I'd gone on the 13th too, though, because I didn't have much time to look at things with the class.
And so finaly, that brings us to yesterday. Julie, Elisabeth, Eric and I went up north to Helsingor. We saw a couple of really nice churches. The first was the one in Julie and Johannes got married, and the second was the one where Elisabet was baptised. Attatched to the second church there was also a monastry. It had a beautiful, square court yard, with a huge tree in the middle - Julie said it's supposed to be tree of wisdom, like in eden. Apparently there's meant to be ghosts there too, from the insane people they used to imprison.
So know you are totally up-to-date. I
took so long getting around to writing in here, that I had way too much to report. Hopefully I will have learnt my lesson, and my next entry will come as soon as I'm back from Switzerland and France. We leave this Friday!
I hope everyone back home is doing well 😊
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