EXCHANGE STUDENT, ASTRD SORENSEN

Chair Isobel Siebel introduced Exchange Student Astrid Sorensen as a charming 16 year old Danish girl, whose motto is “smile at the world and the world will smile at you”.

At home in Denmark Astrid lives on a farm in a rural area 3km from the small village where she attends school. She lives with her mum and dad and younger brother and the family’s Labrador dog.

At home Astrid rides her bike to and from school, she enjoys riding horses and is actively involved with a youth organisation called 4H at a local level and also at a national level in the Zealand 4H Youth Board. She likes Zumba and yoga, music and hanging out with her friends. Both of Astrid’s parents work some distance away and leave for work very early and return home late. She gets herself up and off to school without any parental supervision and home again in the afternoon.

In the past Astrid has done some holiday travel with her family to Iceland, Austria, Seychelles, Philippines, Norway and Sweden. A cousin came to Australia as an exchange student and that influenced Astrid to select Australia, rather than America as a destination.  Astrid is sponsored by the Rotary Club of Gorlev, population 2,433.

Astrid provided the meeting with a very interesting account of her life and family back at home in Denmark, and illustrated her presentation with lots of great photos. Astrid lives in a small village with just fifteen households near the town of Hoeng, population 4,500. Hoeng is about 100 km from Copenhagen.

Denmark is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, located southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. At 43,094 square kilometres (16,639 sq miles), with a population of around 5.6 million people, Denmark consists of a peninsula, Jutland, and 407 islands, of which only about 70 have people living there.

Denmark shares strong cultural and historic ties with neighbours Sweden and Norway. The national language, Danish, is very closely related to Swedish and Norwegian and all three can pretty much understand each other.

Denmark has a very old history with some monuments still there from Viking days and earlier.

Denmark, like Australia, is a constitutional monarchy, and the current head is Queen Margrethe II. Her son Prince Frederik is married to Australian Prince Mary from Tasmania, but Astrid does not follow politics very much.

Danes enjoy a high standard of living and rank well in many comparisons, including educational achievement, health care, protection of civil liberties, democracy and human development. The currency is the Danish Krone and $1A buys 5.17 KR, so Astrid needs 5 KR for each Australian dollar.

Danish winters can be as cold as Australia’s with plenty of snow but the summers are not as hot, averaging 16C in August. Astrid said she doesn’t know how she would cope with 40C in an Australian summer.

Astrid lives with her father and mother, both aged 48 years, and younger brother Carl Johan 12 years, and their brown Labrador dog. They also have their neighbour’s horses and rabbits. Her father Hans is a district sales manager with an agricultural machinery company and part-time farmer and her mother is Britta, a market and business development manager, with a large agriculture, energy and telecommunications company in Copenhagen.

Astrid attends Hoeng Private School and is in Grade 9. She cycles to school each day from the family’s farm about 3km away in Herslev, population 360. She could take the bus, but prefers to cycle. Her school is very small with just 250 students, and Brauer College, Warrnambool seems so big compared. She leaves home at 7:45 am to begin classes at 8:05 and studies Danish, German, English, physics, biology, history, math, religion, geography, social science, and sports. After school she may spend time with friends or visit her grandmother. Astrid also enjoys shopping, television, movies, computers (especially Facebook), being creative and cooking. She loves art, fantasy books and music and hopes to try Yoga one day. Her other favourite sports are Zumba, badminton and gymnastics.

Astrid has been riding horses, large and small now for about seven years. She has been involved in a rural organisation like our Young Farmers called 4H for eight years and participated in many agricultural fairs. As mentioned earlier she is a member of the 4H National Youth Council and the Regional Zealand Youth Board.

Astrid likes meeting new people and especially working with young people. She has many friends who talk about their problems, especially with boys and parents. She doesn’t like people who are unkind to others and she dreads big spiders!

Despite Astrid  stating  that she was not so good at English as she wanted to be, which is why she wanted to go to an English speaking country, her presentation was excellent and was understood and well received by everyone.  Chair Isobel thanked Astrid for a great presentation so early in her stay with us.