Life is Full of Experiences

These past months have been the most eventful of my life so far. When I look back on everything I’ve experienced I can’t help thinking – has it really been only 3 months? When I think back on when I full of anticipation stood in Copenhagen Airport it seems like ages ago.

A thing I haven’t talked about yet on my blog is religion. I go to church twice a week. Yes, friends in Denmark, twice a week and I enjoy it. My church here is nothing like church at home. We are a big youth group that worship together each Wednesday. The first 7 months our theme was, literally, “GoodSex”. Yes, church is very different here. The lyrics for the songs (all of them written after year 2000) are shown by a projector, while accompanied by a guitar. At the service on Sunday there are even drums and piano. I go to a non-denominational church.

I have spent two wonderful weekends with my exchange student friends. The fall weekend in St. Augustine was so much fun. It is really interesting suddenly to see your own city from a tourist’s perspective – that was exactly what I got the chance to do. We went on one of the many trolley tours, visited the alligator farm among all the other tourist stuff. I love spending time with all the exchange students. We in district 6970 have really gotten to know each other very well.
Last weekend a bunch of us helped out with the interviews of the maybe future Rotary exchange students. 36 applicants got interviewed during the 3 days. The interview process is much more challenging here than what I went through in order to become an exchange student in Denmark. I only had a 20 minute interview besides the home interview (which was more just information about the program and not an interview). Here the applicants went through 6 different rooms, each 15 minutes, and were tested on different areas. Our, the inbound’s, job was to either inform the parents, make the exchange students feel comfortable, or actually evaluate the students in one of the interview rooms. It was very exciting for me to be a part of the whole process, and get to meet the students of some soon will become exchange students. I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that my two good friends, Orion and Aly, will be selected as two of the 25, who get the spots.

It is amazing how huge Halloween is here. Almost all the houses are decorated with “scary” things like pumpkins and spider web. Sam and I “found” some kids in the neighborhood and took them trick and treating – of course not so we had an excuse to go trick and treating. Even though we have Fastelavn in Denmark, 

Halloween here is somewhat different. The whole street was full of kids high on sugar going from door to door and parents were sitting outside the houses to give candy out. During the Halloween weekend I also got the opportunity to go to Warehouse 31. It’s a haunted house, which was really fun to experience. I was scared, but not too scared, haha. :p Great fun.

I continue to become more and more grateful, that I chose to be a part of the chorus program. We had our first performance a while ago. It went really well. I performed the Star Spangled Banner with all chorus students and 3 other songs with my class, Women’s chorus. It was amazing to be part of something sounding so beautiful. We have now started to rehearse our songs for Disney. I’m actually right now typing with my iPod plugged in, so I can memorize all the songs before Disney. There are quite a few! It is going to be such an amazing experience and I want to be prepared, so I can enjoy it and not worry about remembering everything, haha. Most of my friends are a part of the chorus family here at SJCCA (St. Johns County Center for the Arts), which is why Disney is going to be so amazing. The environment in SJCCA is fantastic. Last weekend I went to “The Drowsy Chaperone”, the fall musical that the musical theatre class performed. Some of my friends from chorus was a part of  it, so it was so much fun to watch it. I’ve got some very talentful friends!

Even though I’ve only been an exchange student for 3 months, I really feel that it has had a huge impact on me already. I wouldn’t say I was shy or anything, when I came here, but I am much more outgoing now. I guess you have to be outgoing when you go to a foreign country without knowing anyone. I feel I’m much more open minded. I talk with everyone and see different parts of the society. Last week I helped out with a project at church in downtown St. Augustine, where we fed almost 100 homeless.

Plans have gotten changed, when it comes to host families. I will be staying with the Paxton’s until January/February, so I will get the chance to experience Christmas in Virginia, which I’m really looking forward to. After that I will be moving in with the Mortons, who I already feel I know quite well. We will be going to the Virgin British Islands together!

Life is full of experiences – you just have to grab them.