Macy Bisset is now more than halfway through her Rotary Exchange year in Denmark.  She sent me a report last week.  What an amazing time she is having.  
Check out what she has been up to.
Hi Glenis!                                                                                                                

Great to hear from you!

It’s been amazing so far. Definitely taking advantage of Europe. I’ve seen so many beautiful countries and cities. I’ve also met heaps of people and now have friends from America, Brazil, South Africa, Australia, Denmark (of course) and heaps more.

Danish is difficult. But I’m slowly progressing. I can flow most of a conversation and speak enough Danish to hold a decent enough conversation. But there is DEFINITELY room to improve. It’s difficult to get motivated regarding language because everyone already speaks English so well. And I will never use Danish again so... Also everyone speaks English to me just because it’s easier for everyone. So getting people to actually speak to me in Danish is difficult as well!

I’ll tell you briefly about some of the things I’ve done so far.

I think the first thing I did after arriving in Denmark was starting in school (which has a very different system). I also went to the other side of the Denmark for a language and introduction to Danish culture camp.

My first host family took me to Italy on a ski holiday. We stayed in Canazei. It was so beautiful and I’ve never been skiing before so it was definitely a new and fun experience. And thankfully I picked it up pretty quickly. That was such an amazing trip. We drove there too. It was about 12 hours! It’s crazy the lack of security or anything really at country borders.

The next big thing I did was a school trip to Rome with my class for a week. That was also so much fun. Admittedly we stayed in a pretty bad hotel but during the day we saw so many things. Did lots of walking. Lots of shopping. Everyone in my class was spending so much money buying clothes and bags and everything else because it’s so expensive in Denmark.

I went to my host families summer house near the beach over Easter for a few days and saw another part of Denmark. I’ve been invited back again now that it’s warmer.

Of course in between I’ve been site seeing around Copenhagen and doing heaps of different things there. The zoo, churches, river tours, museums etc.

My school had their Gala which is like formal. It’s mostly for the third years (graduating class) but everyone can go and there’s traditional dancing, music, food, etc. They serve alcohol there which I found weird.

Rotary organised a sailing event for us where we went out in the ocean and sailed these sail boats. We had races and everything. That was really fun. Especially because my team won!

I went to Comic Con and met some famous actors that I know from the tv series and movies I watch. One of them was Manu Bennet who is a New Zealand actor. He was in the Lord of the Rings.

I also did a 10km run! Which was pure torture but very rewarding. We got tshirts and a medal. It was to celebrate the crown prince of Denmark’s 50th birthday.

Then in May and June I went on Eurotour which was AMAZING. It was incredible. We went to Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Vienna, Lido Di Jesolo (a beautiful beach city in Italy), Venice, Verona, Mondovi, Nice, Avignon, Paris, Amsterdam, and Brussels. We saw so many things. Such as Disneyland Pairs, a concentration camp, all the big touristy things, a classical concert and more. Lots of driving around in the bus. It was exhausting but amazing.

Then I changed host families. They took me to Sweden on their annual canoe trip which was actually really fun. Sweden is beautiful.

Summer has been amazing and hot. Especially in Copenhagen which is actually quite unusual for Denmark!

I went to a big music festival and saw Bruno Mars live which was really really awesome. He’s a great performer.

I also went on a Rotary Summer camp to Hungary for two weeks. That was also so so amazing. The first week we spent at this farm that had horses. The first part was a horse riding thing. So we did that. They had a lot of corn and watermelon and it was so nice and warm. We also did other things during that week; archery, dragon boating, swimming, horse carriage riding etc. I met lots of people from mostly Europe but also Taiwan and the USA. The second week we went and stayed with a host family for a week. It was so lovely. They’re the nicest people. We saw so many things, went swimming, went shopping. I bought quite a lot because Hungary is even cheaper than New Zealand which made it basically 3X cheaper than Denmark. Their family was so nice and I’ve been invited back to their place to see Budapest. I had to leave the camp early so I didn’t get a chance to see the city. And I definitely plan on taking up their offer if possible. And if I’m allowed. The district here is very strict about any kind of travel. It’s a little annoying but I guess I can’t complain, and I can understand why they are so strict with it. Anyway I ended up liking Hungary a lot more than I thought I would. It was such an amazing two weeks.

And now I am in Spain with my second host family for about two and a half weeks on their annual summer holiday. We’ve been up in the mountains and in little cities and are heading to the beach the start of next week. It’s really beautiful! But it’s actually been a little bit colder in Spain. Denmark is warmer right now (which never happens) and we’re not there! It’s been great so far. The scenery actually reminds me of New Zealand a lot. That’s something I’ve discovered. A lot of the landscapes in Europe I could also find in New Zealand.

Ok so that wasn’t very brief... but you get the idea!

Hope the winter isn’t too bad over there!

All the best
Macy