Letter from Kate Frederic
Posted by Steven Hackley
Kate has written us about her first month in Denmark. You can view the photos she sent in the
Photos
section.
Subject: First month in Denmark!
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     Hello everyone! Can you believe it?! I've already been in Denmark for a month! Everything has gone by so fast, but I'm having an amazing time! I had a very long and tiring trip here, I flew from Anchorage to Seattle, Seattle to Frankfurt (Germany), Frankfurt to Billund (Denmark), and then I drove from Billund to Odense. I completely love my host family, I have a host mom, two older host brothers and one younger host brother.
Subject: First month in Denmark!
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     Hello everyone! Can you believe it?! I've already been in Denmark for a month! Everything has gone by so fast, but I'm having an amazing time! I had a very long and tiring trip here, I flew from Anchorage to Seattle, Seattle to Frankfurt (Germany), Frankfurt to Billund (Denmark), and then I drove from Billund to Odense. I completely love my host family, I have a host mom, two older host brothers and one younger host brother.
My host mom's name is Joan and she is so sweet, she loves plants and has one of the most amazing gardens I've ever seen. My two older host brothers are twins and they are 16. The slightly older of the two is Mikkel, his english is very good. The other twin is Emil, he resently left on an exchange to Texas for a year (just like me), but he was still in Denmark for the first two weeks of my exchange and he deffinately helped make things easier for me. My younger host brother is Magnus, he is 13, he doesn't speak very much english but that doesn't stop him from being... well a 13 year old boy. My host mom's parents live about a block away, which is very unusual in Denmark, but they are so nice and they treat me as if I was their grand daughter. I feel completely at home. Not many people in Denmark own dogs, because they are very expensive to take care of, but almost everyone has cats. My host family has 5... and they all love to sleep on my bed.
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     My house (which is adorable) is about 7 kilometers from down town Odense, Where my school is, so I ride the public bus everyday (they don't have school buses in Denmark). My host family also owns a summer house, which is right on the ocean, and is unbelieveably beautiful. I thought I would miss the mountains and forrests of Alaska, but I'm really enjoying the change of scenery, Denmark is very VERY flat, with mostly farm lands. In Denmark there is a HUGE tax on cars, so when you buy a car you're actually paying the price of two and a half cars instead of one. This means that familys rarely have more than one car, and almost everyone has a bike or moped. But, this also means that danes have free health care and college! As for the language... Danish is hard... but I'm learning, my understanding of danish has inproved a lot and I just started language school, so I'll be fluent in no time! The hardest part of danish is the pronounciations, they have sounds that we deffinately don't use in english and danes love to hear foreigner attempt to say "Rødgrød med fløde" (red porrage with cream, a famous danish dessert), I still can't pronounce it right...
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     The food here is very good! It's very expensive to eat out so almost everything is home cooked! They eat a lot of starches in Denmark, potatoes and bread for almost every meal! But everything here is so much more healthy and natural, plus you can walk or ride your bike almost anywhere, which is how danes stay in such good shape. But I'm really starting to miss macaroni and cheese, it's impossible to find here.
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     I started school two weeks ago, my school is called Sct. Knuds Gymnasium. In Denmark you have all of your classes with the same 25 people, I really like my class, everyone is very nice. My school is for students 16 to 20 years old, so I'm the youngest in the school, plus I was put in a 2nd year class because there was no room in any of the 1st year classes. So everyone is my class is 17 and 18, but it's fun. My school is very old, but it's very beautiful. School here is very relaxed, there are no bells, comfortable swivel chairs in every class room, and you call all of your teachers by their first names. I have 11 classes, English, Danish, Spanish, biology, physics, social studies, history, ancient history, gym, religion, and media. Don't worry I only have 4 classes a day. But it's very confusing, because I have a different scedual everyday, and if a teacher is sick or doesn't want to go into work, there are no subsitutes, they just cancel the class. Gymnasiums are more like college than high school. I'm so excited! In March, for St. Patty's day, my class is taking a trip to Dublin, Ireland!
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     I just got back from intro camp, which is an entire week where we have danish lessons, travel around Denmark, and meet the other 170 exchange students in Denmark. It was so fun! our intro camp was in Bjerringbro, in central Denmark. We took a trip to Viborg and went to a catherdal, which was amazing! We also went to Åros (the second largest city in Denmark) and visited the museum and went shopping!!! We also learned about our euro-tour in May! We are going on a 18 day trip to Berlin, Germany! Prague, Czech Rebublic! Vienna, Austria! Amsterdam, Netherlands! Monaco! Brussels, Belgium! Paris and Avignon, France! Verona, San Remo, Lido De Jesolo, and Venice, Italy! 8 countries in 18 days!!! How can you beat that?
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     Well I just want to let you all know that I'm having an amazing time in Denmark, and I can't believe I only have 10 months left, I knows it's going to go by super fast! Please email me back, I want to know how eveyone is doing, and what going on in your life!
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With love from Denmark, Kate!
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     My house (which is adorable) is about 7 kilometers from down town Odense, Where my school is, so I ride the public bus everyday (they don't have school buses in Denmark). My host family also owns a summer house, which is right on the ocean, and is unbelieveably beautiful. I thought I would miss the mountains and forrests of Alaska, but I'm really enjoying the change of scenery, Denmark is very VERY flat, with mostly farm lands. In Denmark there is a HUGE tax on cars, so when you buy a car you're actually paying the price of two and a half cars instead of one. This means that familys rarely have more than one car, and almost everyone has a bike or moped. But, this also means that danes have free health care and college! As for the language... Danish is hard... but I'm learning, my understanding of danish has inproved a lot and I just started language school, so I'll be fluent in no time! The hardest part of danish is the pronounciations, they have sounds that we deffinately don't use in english and danes love to hear foreigner attempt to say "Rødgrød med fløde" (red porrage with cream, a famous danish dessert), I still can't pronounce it right...
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     The food here is very good! It's very expensive to eat out so almost everything is home cooked! They eat a lot of starches in Denmark, potatoes and bread for almost every meal! But everything here is so much more healthy and natural, plus you can walk or ride your bike almost anywhere, which is how danes stay in such good shape. But I'm really starting to miss macaroni and cheese, it's impossible to find here.
Â
     I started school two weeks ago, my school is called Sct. Knuds Gymnasium. In Denmark you have all of your classes with the same 25 people, I really like my class, everyone is very nice. My school is for students 16 to 20 years old, so I'm the youngest in the school, plus I was put in a 2nd year class because there was no room in any of the 1st year classes. So everyone is my class is 17 and 18, but it's fun. My school is very old, but it's very beautiful. School here is very relaxed, there are no bells, comfortable swivel chairs in every class room, and you call all of your teachers by their first names. I have 11 classes, English, Danish, Spanish, biology, physics, social studies, history, ancient history, gym, religion, and media. Don't worry I only have 4 classes a day. But it's very confusing, because I have a different scedual everyday, and if a teacher is sick or doesn't want to go into work, there are no subsitutes, they just cancel the class. Gymnasiums are more like college than high school. I'm so excited! In March, for St. Patty's day, my class is taking a trip to Dublin, Ireland!
Â
     I just got back from intro camp, which is an entire week where we have danish lessons, travel around Denmark, and meet the other 170 exchange students in Denmark. It was so fun! our intro camp was in Bjerringbro, in central Denmark. We took a trip to Viborg and went to a catherdal, which was amazing! We also went to Åros (the second largest city in Denmark) and visited the museum and went shopping!!! We also learned about our euro-tour in May! We are going on a 18 day trip to Berlin, Germany! Prague, Czech Rebublic! Vienna, Austria! Amsterdam, Netherlands! Monaco! Brussels, Belgium! Paris and Avignon, France! Verona, San Remo, Lido De Jesolo, and Venice, Italy! 8 countries in 18 days!!! How can you beat that?
Â
     Well I just want to let you all know that I'm having an amazing time in Denmark, and I can't believe I only have 10 months left, I knows it's going to go by super fast! Please email me back, I want to know how eveyone is doing, and what going on in your life!
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With love from Denmark, Kate!