My 18th Birthday!

Today was one of the most memorable birthdays of my life. I have now experienced a lot of different traditions and also a real RCN birthday all for me :)

It all started a little before midnight when Sam and two other guys kidnapped me and blind-folded me. After getting me through small challenges they finally carried me to the Boat House where they took the blind-fold off and a bunch of people were yelling "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!" A little while after Evelina, my neighbor whom I am happy to share my birthday with, arrived and the same happened to her :) Lots of birthday songs and hugs lead me back to my room where my roommates had prepared tea and fruit salad and a cozy evening. All this before Sam brought over a couple of my birthday presents and I could go to sleep full, happy and loved.

I think one important thing to mention is my unbelievable dislike of birthday songs. It is not that I don't like the songs or the sweet thoughts behind it; it is the fact that I have absolutely no idea what to do and where to place myself when people start singing to me! A lot of my good friends here knows that I had nicely asked a couple of weeks ago to not make my birthday a big deal and not let everyone know, so I could just spent it with good friends and avoid all the attention. But traditions are traditions and apparently there is no such thing as a low-key RCN birthday.
(For all the Danes out there: the weather was AMAZING! åhjaåhjajaåhjaja! <-- watch!)

This morning, as the traditions mentioned in Birthdays followed, I was woken up by singing Danes and "I dag er det Mettes fødselsdag..." and a clear message that I had 2 minutes to be in Kantina (I didn't manage). In Kantina I was met with pancakes, buns, chocolate buns, chocolate, "rugbrød" and more Danish singing ("Mette har fødselsdag og det har hun jo og det er i dag... I chose the sounds/instruments: cow/muh, banjo and trumpet)

In English, after yet another birthday song, that my sweet friends made sure would come, because they know "how much I love it" (# 5 of the day) Pete (Britain), my teacher, thought he should also do some cultural sharing, so with a little help from Alonso (Peru), Olve (Norway) and Diego (Bolivia) they each took a leg or an arm and lifted me up and down 18 times! So I went to lunch and told my table about this, which just lead to Nikita (Russia) sharing their culture and pulling my ears upwards 18 times - the last time pretty hard! After that I was pretty happy to be Danish :)

After school I had Leirskule (which I just posted about) and I had a great group of kids; 7 girls and a boy. I had of course introduced myself as Mette from Denmark and after a while one of them asked if today was my birthday. I said yes, and asked how she knew and she said the she'd seen the card in the Kantina and remembered it being for a Mette. (The Danish flag probably also busted me a little). In the end, the girls decided to sing me a Norwegian birthday song (#6), and they all wished me happy birthday before they left. :)

After this I went back to my room with my second year Kathrine and opened presents. Nothing less that earrings, american dollars and a drivers licence! My family must be crazy! I did not see that coming :D So watch out on the road now, because I can afford taking the licence now. (Big thank you to Bedstemor, mor, far, Mads, Klaus+family, Laura, Mette and Sam for the presents! - And everyone else who made the day special of course! For all the baking, hugs and wishes!) 

At dinner, my friend Ahmad (Palestine) announced my birthday to the whole Kantina and as the tradition goes everyone stood up and sang for me (song #7!) and once again my awkward, blushing, "can I dig a deep whole now and jump into it, but still awwww thank you guys" face came on :)

Later, Sam picked me up to go for a walk, but when he suddenly told me that he'd forgotten his gloves in A-building (this coming from the boy who'd been wearing a t-shirt and no jacket all day) I realized that something was going on and I was right. A surprise birthday with my closest friends from here including way too much cake, games, and some of those moments you will always remember!

And after finally Skyping my parents, I was more than exhausted from a long day and when the date changed to April 20th, I could go to bed with a big smile on my face, feeling extremely lucky to have friends and family like this.

(And yes mom, I did wear the mouse socks all day, because I guess some names you can never run away from)

P.s. I think I reached a total of 10 songs!

<3

Leirskule

I just realized I haven't explained the concept of Leirskule, so here we go.
Leirskule (translated: Camp school) is a Nordic tradition, that though varies from the different countries. In Norway Leirskule is focused on outdoors and what better place to go then, than to Flekke? Therefore, for I think 16 weeks a year (from April-October) we have a group of children coming and each day a different small group of students do different activities with them, depending what they've signed up for. (Here's a link for Norwegian understanding people: RCN leirskule) Myself and three other students do diving with a group of them (normally about 4-10 children) in the pool, but we have only been going for two weeks so far.
So basically we learn them how to dive with a snorkel, masks and fins and play around with them for a while and it is usually a great amount of fun!
Other groups do things as kayaking, climbing, archery, adventure runs, cultural sharing activities and so on..

Here's some pictures from some of last week's activities: http://www.flickr.com/photos/leirskule/sets/72157629828369045/show/

First Years

Long time, no writing.
Things are getting more and more busy here with first year exams coming up in a couple of weeks and lots of studying to do before that. Last week we (the 1st year Danes) finally got an e-mail from UWC Denmark with our new 1st years. In one way it was really exciting! Exciting writing to them and welcoming them to the Danish RCN family. We had a nice brunch meeting this weekend, deciding how to approach them and I am now in contact with all six. This year they are four boys and two girls! I am still very excited to get to know them and a little sad that I won't get to go to their intro-trip this year. In another way it is weird, because it seems like yesterday that we got the e-mail, that we were accepted. To hear their excitement and impatience for coming here was amazing. Gave everyone a reminder of why WE are here. But this also means that our second years are leaving. The ones who took our hands for a while. The ones who had a shoulder to lean on. The ones that always had time for a talk and a cup of tea. The laughs, the good times, the not-so-good times, but most of all the memories we've made together, that will stay with us forever. It is sad, but we cannot take time for granted. It is all about enjoying what we have, which today is 1 month and two days and the new memories to come!

I also had a very nice talk with Astrid, my Danish co-year, this weekend, talking about how we are a family. We do come from the same place; a very liberal country. We are used to 'living our own life' and we are noticing our friends starting to move out. At the same time as we are living this dream, we are trying to deal with authorities telling us what we can and cannot do and it is strange coming from our background. Another thing with being a Dane in Norway is the mutual feeling between our friends and family that we are "just in Norway." In a way it is hard for co-years to understand that we can also be homesick, even though we geographically are closer to home, because we too have to communicate over Skype and e-mail. Norway might seem close, but it is not just that easy going home. And this is where we must stand together as the Danish family and understand each other and I think both Astrid and I realized during this talk that this spring had taken us through the exact same thoughts and feelings and we hadn't used each other. So don't worry first years! We will be your family here. We will take good care of you :)

Life vs. Good Times

While walking to Flekke today, to pick up the key to the apartment my parents are staying in while they are here (from tomorrow :D) I couldn't help but think about one question that I've gotten a couple of times now: if you should choose one, would you have went on exchange or UWC. And really, it's like choosing between the two best decisions I've made in my life, how can I?
I think my UWC experience is so much different, because I went on exchange first and I wouldn't take that back. I went on exchange to find myself. I didn't want anyone from Denmark to visit or interrupt this process and it sure was a good thing for me, but that's not why I went to RCN. I applied for UWC because I was hungry for more. I wanted new experiences, I wanted to learn about the world, the people, the cultures. I wanted a different kind of schooling and I wanted to experience 'on my own' again. But then as I was walking back to College today, I looked around me at the amazing nature, considering writing yet another blog about how beautiful it is here, and realized that what I really wished for, was for the people I care for to come here and see it for themselves - share these moments with me! And that is probably the reason why I am so incredibly excited to have my parents come here - so they can understand what I'm experiencing better.
Would I want to chose one experience? No. I chose exchange in a time of my life, where I'd barely heard the word UWC. In a time where exchange was right for me. I don't know where I would've been today without that and I never will, and I honestly don't really care, because so far it's given me experiences for a life time!
If anyone is wondering, just do what you feel now. As an economics students I have to mention that there is an opportunity cost on everything, but I also strongly believe that we will all get the chances in life, that are meant for us :)

Americas Day

Saturday, March 31st was the Americas (North and South) Day and like the European Day it is all about cultural sharing. During the day there was different workshops and activities, not to forget the Bazar.

All this was followed by the Americas show at night.
Kornelia (Sweden), Helene (Norway), Kathrine (Denmark) and I, who all have Latino boyfriends had mad a sketch making fun of them. The four of us, all in black, switched between being ourselves and part of another couple, as we had printed big pictures of heads, which was the only thing indicating the character. We kept it as a secret until the night, so only very few backstage people and so on knew that it was in it. It was a lot of fun and a great success. After the party we did though make a cozy nachos-night for them, to apologize :)

The show was based on the movie "Up" and in between acts, clips from the movie, as well as the main characters acted out on stage gave us the story of Carl, Ellie and Russel.

I was as well in three music numbers

and got pulled up on stage for a sketch (I did not volunteer for that!) :)

Some more pictures:

Show:

Canadians

Football vs. Football