LEGOLAND!

nb: PHOTOS OF LEGOLAND WILL SHORTLY FOLLOW- just have to load them onto my computer :) 

If I ask any of you what comes to mind when I say Denmark, I'm sure that many of you immediately think of the Little Mermaid, Princess Mary or the yummy pastries that local bakeries sell posing as 'Danishes'.... Some may even ask the question "is that a place in Germany?" or the best one "they speak dutch right?!" 

Having lived in this country for nearly 8 months now these superficial ideals are now far from my mind. When someone asks me what comes to my mind, I think of home, music festivals, ice cream and loving people who have made me feel so welcome in this tiny land. I have also learnt a lot about Denmark, and realised that many of the things that I use in every day life were thought up by the minds of great danes. The viking land holds the  inventors of Skype, pandora and of course the small  toy that all children young and old encountered at least once if not multiple times during their childhood (maybe also their adulthood). Yes thats right, LEGOOOOOOOO is a proud invention of the Danes. (I am quite embarrassed to say that I was not aware of this fact before arriving here.) 

DID YOU KNOW?! 

Lego is a Danish invention that was first invented in 1934. The founder called his company "Lego", deriving from the Danish phrase leg godt, which means "play well". This little piece of general knowledge made me love Lego even more! 

Enough with the general knowledge.... Last weekend, I was lucky enough to go to a theme park totally made of Lego with one of my nearest and dearest Aussie friends Beth. This theme park is a lego lovers dream as everything in the park is made of lego- from lego made trains to a tiny lego village depicting look a like landmarks around the world. This only holds 90 million lego blocks!

This amazing theme park is the largest tourist attraction outside of Copenhagen, located in Billand. (This is about a 4 hour train ride from Roskilde) so naturally I have been wanting to go there ever since I arrived in January! 

I was in Legoland last Sunday. I went with Beth's host mum and two host brothers who have been to the park as many times as I have been to Tivoli (which is pretty impressive and hard to beat!) We arrived at opening time and left at closing time and a little bit of rain was not going to spoil the fun that we had. Due to the on and off showers that we encountered throughout the day, many people decided to stay indoors, which gave us the perfect opportunity to try all of the rides at least 5 times. Some of my personal favourites- the polar express roller coaster and the mini car roller coaster that took us on a lego construction adventure. Legoland was just awesome and i wish that Sydney boasted such a wonderful tourist attraction. One of the coolest things I have ever seen was the Lego Village. This place was HUGE and I think it had about 30 displays. My favourite was a depiction of Nyhavn- my favourite place in Copenhagen. Others included a depiction of Los Angles and a figure of the Statue of Liberty! Legoland was very very family friendly- having not too many scary rides but just enough to keep the big kids interested. The lego made train that drove around the park was a highlight , I mean how many people can say that they have ridden in a Lego train?! I had a really really fantastic day and hope that one day I can take my family to Legoland so that they too can experiance this awesomeness! 

I made the most of my time in Jylland (Jutland) staying with my friend Beth. I travelled up on Thursday afternoon, and came home on Monday afternoon. Our schedule was pretty jam packed and we both had a really wonderful time! 

On the Thursday after I caught the train up, I went to Beth's Rotary Meeting. This was held in Vejle which is the next town over from Beth's... so about an hours drive. Her Rotary was hyggelit as we had a tour of a hotel owned by one of the members in the club. We then ate a lovely dinner and drove home. Beth was picked up by a Rotary member, and he took us on a little tour on the way home. The destination was to the little town of Jelling, which holds the Viking Stone- aka the stone that recognised Denmark as a country from the 10th century. The huge stone is completely carved in Viking runes- so it was quite a site! It is the writing of a King of Denmark, and it is the first written record of Denmark as a country... pretty cool right?! I was so glad that I got to see this stone... It was a surprise of my tour til Jylland! 

With the Jelling Stone! 

On Friday we spent the day at Beth's house, busily preparing a cake for a competition. Her little town of Guld was holding a little show (similiar to Cobitty Markets) so her host mum asked us if we would make a cake. Well, we took this task very seriously making three deliciously decorated cakes. The masterpiece was Beth's monster cake, and I made flower cupcakes and piggy cupcakes to go on the side. The pig theme was very fitting, considering Beth lived on a pig farm. This in itself was a different experience for me as pigs are one of the main aspects of the 'farming country' that is Denmark. Beth lives in a beautiful Farm house situated on a hill surrounded by golden wheat fields and a bright blue lake at the bottom of the valley. This picture perfect scene was my home for 5 days and it was very very beautiful. Beth also lives with a family of 5 kids, 2 kittens, 30 pigs, 2 dogs and 15 chickens. Of course there is a mum and a dad to keep the house in order. This big family was very different to what I am used to, and I'm so glad that I got to experiance this and saw the innerworkings of this Danish industry! The view was spectacular and it was defiantley a mini holiday for me- just what I needed! 

On Saturday, Beth and I enjoyed a little cheeky sleep in because we were both so unbelievably exhausted from getting up at 06:30am every day for school. We then caught the bus into her town to see the movie 'The Mortal Instruments' which is VERY good and I would really reccomend seeing it! I am also keen to read the books, and can not wait to get my hands on them in English before I tackle them in Danish because reading Harry Potter in Danish is hard enough :P 

After the movie, we walked across half of her city to go to the Horsens Medievil Festival which was held at the old jail on the top of a hill. This was AWESOME and the festival had an amazing atmosphere that I dont think you would find anywhere else in the world. I think Beth's whole town had turned out for the event and all of the workers were dressed up in costume and some of the local towns people also decided to get in costume for the occassion. This was really cool to see, and they even had demostrations such as the walking through of the prisoners or the king and queen reception by the marching band. It was like stepping back in time! The food reflected the era and there were bands to entertain the audience. This was really really cool, and I was so lucky that I was on a visit to Beth when this occurred! 

When Monday rolled around, it was time for me to catch the train over three of Denmark's islands and arrive back home in the space of just 3 hours (strange right?!).  Beth and I enjoyed one last cheeky sleep in and then took a little tour of Horsens. I arrived home very tired from my awesome weekend! 

My busy schedule is now in full swing again! This week on Tuesday I went to language school. Wednesday night was Rotary where my host brother from my first family who just arrived home from India gave his speech on his experiances. It was so nice to see him and my host mum again because I have missed them so much! On Thursday I ate sushi after school with two of my friends from school and finally this afternoon, I'm heading off to a summer house with my 3rd host family who I am moving in with very very soon! The weather forecast looks so good so im very much looking forward to seeing their house in the sunshine as oppossed to the rain and snow :) 

Other than that, of course I have had school which is now a little hard as sometimes I start school at 08:10am and finish at 16:00! So they are very very long days filled with maths, chemistry, biology and physics- omg. One of the funniest things though about school now is gym. My class is doing something called an ø løbe which in english means an orentiering run. So literally every gym class for two hours, my class is split into groups of 2, given a map with the location of 'points' and instructed to locate the points. This sounds easy, however it is held in the local forrest so on Wednesday I ran through cow paddocks past not so happy cows and through patches of stinging nettle! Danish PE is quite funny and very very different to the indoor sports we had. Oh and another thing- it was raining and we did not stay indoors! No more PE in the EHS gym! hahaha but it is very fun and rather hyggelit to complete the o lob! I have found it an experiance that I would not get in Australia. 

So plans for the next few weeks 

-Summer house with family number 3

-Tivoli concert HC Anderson

-Rotary Get Together with other exchange students

-Moving host families

-School party

-OCTOBER VACATION- TRIP TO SPAINNNNNNN WOOOOO HOOOOO 

Vi ses snart Australien! Jeg savner dig alt så meget

Kuns xxx