Day One

After three plane rides, I arrived in Denmark on Friday morning along with the other Orange students.  Although I was completely exhausted from a major lack of sleep, I was beyond excited to meet Louise, her family, and all of the other Danish students.  We all took a bus from the airport to Herning Gymnasium and then took a tour of the school.  Herning Gymnasium is completely different from Orange High School. Students leave their belongings unattended all day and they are never stolen, they're given the freedom to leave class to work on projects, they get 15 minutes between each class, there's beautiful professional artwork in the hallways, and more.  Something I found really shocking is that the students are allowed to smoke on school grounds.  The aspect of their school that I like the most is how the students are trusted and given freedom, which I think is very important when it comes to growing up and being responsible.  Next year I’ll be off in college, yet I still can’t use the bathroom in high school without having to ask a teacher and taking a bathroom pass.  They're given much more freedom and responsibility, which reflect in their personalities as they seem much more mature.  After the tour, we all met up with our hosts and their families.  I was a little nervous to meet Louise at first because the majority of the other students knew each other from when the Denmark students came to Orange, but I wasn’t part of the program at that point so I didn’t know what to expect.  But, as soon as I met Louise and her family, everything was very natural and all of my concerns went away.  Louise and her mom picked me up and took me back to their house.  Houses in Denmark are a lot different from the typical houses in the Orange area.  They’re one story and very snug.  In fact, this house only has a single bathroom and everything was compacted into a single hallway.  They like to be very simple and practical.  Louise’s mom made salad, pork, and french fries for dinner which I thought was all very good.  Initially I was worried about finding things to talk about, but we talked for the entire dinner and we all had a lot of questions for each other.  Then, once we finished dinner, Louise and I headed to an outdoor shopping area because the stores were open later that night (they’re usually only open until six, but that night they were open until nine).  We met up with some of the other students there and went in the different shops.  Although I didn’t buy any clothes, I went into a chocolate store and bought this amazing chocolate with a fluffy, marshmallow-like crème inside of it which is a very popular dessert in Denmark.  After walking around, we went into a really nice café and drank hot chocolate, then went home.  Overall, it was a really great start to my stay in Denmark and I loved getting to know some of the Danish students!