Back in little Denmark July 16, 2008
Posted by Anders in Exchange student, Exchangeprogram, Feelings, Friends, High School, Hostfamily, Norton, USA.1 comment so far
A lot of things have changed back here, just as I predicted.! It was really weird being here, seeing people that I haven’t seen in over a year. Me and my friends had a party the same day I arrived, and I got pretty drunk, even though I didn’t drink very much. That’s because I haven’t had anything alcoholic while I was in USA. My friends have also changed. They have done a lot of stuff, gone clubbing, wild partying, that I even haven’t tried yet, since I wasn’t able to do that in the US. But they probably think I have changed too, though.
There has also been changes in the close family. First, my dad got a girlfriend. I was very excited to meet her, and I was not dissapointed. I can really see why my dad likes her. Before I met her, I asked my family about her, and they all liked her very much. I really do like her too. She is always happy and she always has a big smile on her face, and I like that. She even likes to joke around, and I have laughed a lot with her, even though I’ve only known her for a couple of weeks.
I am happy to be home, but I am definately gonna miss my American family, Norton High, my American friends, and overall the life in America. It has been fun to try and live as an American for a year, and I have definately learned a lot.
Going back soon July 2, 2008
Posted by Anders in Exchange student, Exchangeprogram, Feelings, Friends, Hostfamily, USA.1 comment so far
It is kinda weird.
In 4 days I am going to say goodbye to my life here in America, goodbye to my family, leave everything behind. I have already said goodbye to my friends, exchanged emails, addresses and what have you. I am completely booked up until I leave, since there is so much to do before I leave and so little time.
I wont say that I don’t wanna leave America, but on the other hand it’s gonna be really sad when I leave. The friendships I’ve made, my new family, will be with me forever. When I go home I will still be able to talk to them, and hopefully keep in contact for a long time. I love all my friends, and my family, and it is gonna be really sad to say goodbye to them.
On the other hand, I still have friends waiting for me at home, looking forward to see me, and it feels really good that there is people that actually care about me and looking forward to see me again. I can’t wait to see them either, and it’s gonna be so nice to see them again.
In a way it really sucks emotionally to be a foreign exchangestudent. First, you leave your family, friends and pets for a whole year, and miss them a lot. Then you create new friendships while you are away, create new bonds, which you have to leave after a year. I don’t say that I regret being a foreign exhcangestudent. I will never regret at all that I took this decision, but let me say, it is very emotional to be a foreign exchangestudent, especially now, when I am about to say goodbye to everybody, and they all want me to stay here. This leads me back to my first point.
It is very hard to leave everyone, and one part of me would give everything to stay another year here in Ohio, but the other part of me can’t wait to get home to see my friends, family, and of course my cat. I have missed that little furball so much, that it is not even funny. He was my buddy before I left, and I really hope he still remembers me when I come back. He would always sleep in my chair right besides my bed, and he was just overall my buddy, even though I could get really mad at him, like the time he had laid on my black shirt so it was full of white cat hair, or the time he had peeed on my pants, and I had taken them on when they had dried, and when they got wet again, it smelled like I was the one who had pee’d my pants.
This will probably be my last big post, before I leave, since it seems I have so much to do before I leave. I mean it is already wednesday today, and I leave sunday morning, and before that I have to squeeze in a Cedar Point trip (tomorrow), 4th of juli celebration, visit at the Vaill (really nice teacher couple), get family photo taken, use my giftcards, and a lot of more stuff. I am basicly completely booked before I go back.
By the way I am arriving at the Copenhagen Airport at 9:00 am monday morning, just so you know.
Vacation with my dad June 15, 2008
Posted by Anders in Baseball, Cleveland Indians, Exchange student, Exchangeprogram, Hostfamily, Niagara Falls, USA.3 comments
My dad is going home tomorrow, and it has been a quite busy week. We didn’t have enough time at all, and with me being bit by a dog the second day he is here, we have gone through a lot. Especially because the dog didn’t have its vaccinations in place, and we were worried sick that I might had rabies (hundegalskab). The family who owned the dog had already put it to sleep, and the vet had harvested some brain tissue, so they could test the dog for rabies. Luckily the dog didn’t have rabies, so I didn’t need to go through the extremely painful rabies shots.
We also showed my dad the Niagara Falls. We were supposed to arrive there at 4 pm, but for some reason we got there at 10 pm. As soon as we got out of the car, it started to rain really bad, though, and we all got soaked. It quickly stopped raining, though, and we took some more pictures of it. Then it started raining badly again, and we decided to go to the car. We were on the Canada side of the Falls, so afterwards we went up to the sparkling tourist city right next to the falls, and spent a couple of hours up there before we went home.
My family also had a big surprise for me. They actually took me to see a Cleveland Indians Baseball game. I was so happy to see them for real, and I had a really good time. I was the only one who knew what was going on, since nobody else knew much about baseball, but they were happy that I had a good time. I was really getting into the game too, even though they lost, but that’s okay, it was a pretty eventful game anyway. Especially when Grady Sizemore scored a Homerun and everyone was on their feet, including me.
I hope my dad had a good vacation here, I certainly enjoyed having him here!
New York May 28, 2008
Posted by Anders in Exchange student, Exchangeprogram, Hostfamily, USA.add a comment
I went to New York this weekend. It was one of the most amazing cities I’ve ever seen. First we took the ferry to see the Statue of Liberty. After we saw the Statue, we took a tourbus around Downtown Manhattan. We saw all the famous buildings, and drove through all the famous neighbourhoods, like Soho, Chinatown, Greenwich Village and Litttle Italy. I could really image myself living in New York. I really like the big city life. That’s why I want to have an apartment in inner Copenhagen when I get old enough to move out of my dads.
I got some souvenirs, too. Of course I have to have one of those I “heart” NY T-shirts, and I got myself a model of the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building, plus a little pen where there is moving stuff inside it. I have a whole collection of those!
Update May 22, 2008
Posted by Anders in Exchange student, Exchangeprogram, Friends, Girlfriend, High School, Hostfamily, Megan, Norton, Pictures, USA.add a comment
Short:
I broke up with Megan, I got my Letter for my Letterman jacket, school is almost over, and seniors are all gone.
Long:
Me and Megan are not together anymore. Since after prom she has been acting weird towards me, and I didn’t know why, still up to this day. She just started to ignore me, and I was always the one who had to text her, or start a conversation. It was like she didn’t care about me. Well this monday she came up with this stupid-ass excuse about her working all summer, so she wouldn’t be able to hang out with me that much, so we decided to end it. I was going to end the relationship soon anyway because I was the one keeping it going. Our relationship was weird in the first place, we didn’t really see each other that much after school and it just wasn’t like a normal relationship, but then how normal can it be when you know that I am going home soon. Well, I kinda think that the only reason why she went out with me was that she needed a prom date, but then prom didn’t seem very significant when we first started seeing each other, and flirt with each other during the winter play. I really don’t know what her real reason was why she broke up, but now she won’t even talk to my sister Ashley, whom she tutored in Spanish at one time.
Another thing that happened was that I got my letter for participation in band. A letter is basicly a big N made in cool fabric that you put on your letterman jacket, and I am really excited that I got that letter, because I wasn’t really expecting it. Now my jacket is at the tailor so they can put it on!
Wednesday was a very sad day. We said goodbye to all the seniors, since they get out of school early, and it was kinda sad since a lot of my friends were seniors! The next time I will see them might not be until my going away party.
This was just a little update. Got my prom picture of me and Megan too, even though we are not together anymore, and she basicly treats me like I don’t exist.
Prom May 14, 2008
Posted by Anders in Exchange student, Exchangeprogram, Girlfriend, High School, Hostfamily, Megan, Norton, Prom, USA.add a comment
I know that this post is a little late, but I’ve had a lot going on which I will come back to. First I wanna talk about Prom. Prom was last saturday and it was probably the best night I’ve had in a long time. I was kinda nervous about it, since the last dance I had been to was Homecoming, but it was with another date than Megan. First we started off by eating at her house. We had Chicken Alfredo and it was really good. After the dinner, we got pictures taken. Megans mom is a photographer, so she has her little studio in the basement. I still haven’t got the pictures yet, but I ordered them on a cd. The dance itself was at the University of Akron, and it was only for Juniors and Seniors. We got there about 40 minutes after the doors had opened, so everyone was alteady on the dancefloor. We immediatly began dancing and the evening was overall a blast. Megans parents were chaperones, they were there to oversee that everything was going well, and of course her mom had her camera with her, so she took a lot of pictures of us. I cant wait to see them.
After prom we went to the schools After-prom, which also was at the University of Akron. It was held at the Student Recreation and Wellness center, so there was a lot of stuff to do. They had a pool, there were 5 different gyms, a rockclimping wall, and a lot of other stuff. The only bad thing about it was that we had to stay there until 3:30 in the morning. At about 3 o’clock everybody was really tired and nobody really wanted to do anything. Even when they were announcing who got the grand prizes, which were iPods, Free Cedar Point tickets, Rockband, people were so tired that they didn’t really care that they won.
So I came home at around 4 o’clock in the morning, and I was completely smashed the day after. Not very good when it was mothers day, and I basicly had breakfast at some old country restaurant. No it was not old fashioned breakfast, it was mashed potatoes and steak.
I am very liberal!! May 7, 2008
Posted by Anders in Exchange student, Exchangeprogram, High School, liberal, Norton, Politics, USA.4 comments
Today we took a personality test in American Government. The test was called “How Liberal are you?”. You would answer yes or no on a lot of questions, and they would add up. The higher the score, the more liberal you are. I got a 47 out of 59, which was the second highest in my class. I would have gotten higher if I had understood a couple of the questions correctly, but people kinda laughed, since I have been known to express very socialistic views in class, like I have said that access to free healthcare should be a basic right, which my teacher Mrs. Vaill got really excited about that I said, because she also is very liberal. I like Mrs. Vaill. She is one of the good social studies teachers, even though a lot of people find her classes boring. Well at least I don’t have to copy 6 pages of tiny computer print into my notebook once every couple of months, like I do in my other Social Studies class taught by Mr. Weber.
Carnival Fish, mood, Nightwish, and more… May 7, 2008
Posted by Anders in Exchange student, Exchangeprogram, Feelings, Girlfriend, High School, Megan, Nightwish, USA.1 comment so far
The last couple of weeks have been very strange. First, I have been pretty homesick and really moody, thinking of my mom, just remembering her, and of course I got a little sad. I didn’t feel like I had anybody to talk to here, even though I think everyone would be more than willing to talk, they just all have a lot going on. That day last week, I think it was last wednesday, I was really feeling miserable. Everyone in the house could feel it, even though I didn’t say anything about it. Well I ended up calling my dad half crying at 9:00 PM Ohio Time, which was about 3 o’clock back in Denmark, so I kinda woke him up by that phonecall. We had a long talk, almost 2 hours long. The worst thing was that Vibeke was in the house, so luckily I didn’t wake her up. Vibeke (or Vivika as my american family says) is my dad’s new girlfriend. I haven’t talked to her, but she seems really nice by the way my dad has talked about her. I had the feeling she might be there, but I wasn’t sure, but luckily I didn’t wake her up, only my dad. I felt a little bad that I called him that early, though, but I just needed to talk to somebody who knew what I was talking about. We talked about everything under the sun, and it felt really good to talk to him. Another thing was that he told me that Nightwish is playing at this years Skanderborg Festival! He asked if Nightwish still was my favorite band, and he told me he would buy tickets for the festival. The festival is in August, and I can’t wait to see them. They were playing in Cleveland in October, but I didn’t get to see them, so this time I hopefully will be able to see them.
This weekend was also Cherry Blossom Festival in Barberton. There was carnival rides, food stands and most funniest of them all, a booth where you could win real live Goldfish. All you had to do was throwing in pingpong balls into jars filled with water. It is not as easy as it looks, but I managed to get 4 balls out of 30 into the jars, so I got 4 fish. Now they are in a little fish tank my family had in their house. It’s in my room right now. The sad thing was that one the fish died, so now I only have 3 fish left. I got told that Carnival fish never last really long, so I should be lucky if they last more than a week! I got them saturday, and it is wednesday right now, so they’ve lasted about 4 days now. Hopefully they will last a little longer than just a week. They are quite facinating aminals, those goldfish. They are looking at me everytime I am in the room, and they actually have more personality than most people think. They are kinda fun to just look at too. They will come up and look at you, then go on with their business, then look at you some more. Sometimes you are wondering who is the pet here!
A last thing. There is only 3 days till prom!! I am getting my tuxedo tomorrow, and everything is ready for the big day saturday!
Me artistic? April 29, 2008
Posted by Anders in Culture, Exchange student, Exchangeprogram, Feelings, High School, Pictures, USA.1 comment so far
I have this painting I painted in art class at school, and I wanna show you. First, let me tell about the assignment. We had to either paint something we had lost and never found, something we lost and had found, or something we will never lose. This is what came out of it.
Click on it to make it even larger
So let me explain a little bit. It took me about 3-4 weeks to paint it, where I had 5 days a week, 40 minutes a day. I chose the assignemt, what I will never lose, and I decided to paint something about identity and culture, since I am a foreign exchange student and I will never lose my identity. I decided to make the Danish flag with a little american flag inside of it (it even has 50 stars) to show how I always will have a little American culture inside of me, plus I have included something from the Danish and the American culture. I brought the Statue of Liberty with the American, although I decided to change the American Independence date to the Danish Independence date (or Liberation date). I included the Little Mermaid and Holger Danske from the Danish culture. A funny thing is the bridge. If an American look at this picture, they would say the bridge would look like the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. I originally intended to be the Great Belt Bridge since that is a huge achievement in Danish history and it was during my lifetime. In the end, I put a Danish farm on the picture to symbolize Denmark as an original farming nation.
I am very proud of this painting and I could probably work on it forever since I can find a lot of errors, but my teacher liked it. He gave me an A+ on it, or 392 out of 400. Not that many people got that in my class, only 2-3 others. So what do you think?
Two months with the girlfriend April 27, 2008
Posted by Anders in Exchange student, Exchangeprogram, Girlfriend, Hostfamily, Megan, Norton, weekend.2 comments
So yesterday was actually our two month day, but since she was busy and I was kinda busy too, we decided to go on a date today (sunday) instead of yesterday. I had told her friday night that I wanted to take her to the mall, rather have her drive us, since I can’t drive a car :S. She said she had to go to her grandma’s house saturday night, so we decided to do it sunday, so we would have more time. I was pretty excited, since I had already planned out where in the mall we were going. She picked me up around 1 o’clock, and we drove to the mall, where we found this italian restaurant where we had lunch. The food was really good, real italian, even with french fries that had parmasan spread over them. Not as bad as it sounds.
I paid for the food, and we went into the mall. The restaurant was built in the same building as the mall itself, except that it had a separate entrance, and you couldn’t just walk through to get into the mall. There I kinda lead the way. We were looking at some shops until we came to our destination, the Build-A-Bear Workshop. I had planned this out for a couple of days now, that I would take her to that workshop, and we would make a bear for her. She didn’t expect that, and she was very happy when she found out what was going on. She really loved it. We ended up making a monkey with a graduation dress on it, since she is graduating this year. It was really fun making the bear, and I could tell she was really enjoying it. After she made her monkey, we just walked around the mall, holding hands and looked at the different shops, until we ended up at Starbucks Coffee shop, where we had something to drink. We stayed there a little while just talking and having fun. After that, she took me home. She just kinda parked in the driveway and we said goodbye, but when I came inside, my mom wanted to see the bear we made. She already knew that we were going there, of course, so I called Megan and she turned around and came back and showed her the monkey, and we all talked for a little while.
This was a really good date, and it was our first real date, too. We’ve spend time together, and she’s been over here a couple of times, but this was a real date, and we need to do this more often. Just need to find a new idea of what to do. Maybe we could go to the movies or something…
My "crappy" life 
