Declan Goldenbogen's Fantastisk Exchange in Denmark: November 2015

Wow another blog post! And I didn't even put 3 months in between this and the last one this time! Just a quick update. Been a busy week or so. I've been a bit sick and missed a few days of school but I'm mostly better now. Last Tuesday was the Rotary "Thanksgiving" show which I played 3 times for. Shoutout to my fantastic partner Veronica for being the second half of a wonderful performance of "Train Song" by Feist and Ben Gibbard. I think we truly nailed it and can't wait to see what else we do together this year. Also my school gala happened last Friday. It was a big party and I got to eat together with my class. I even won "Years best male exchange student" in my class, an award that I will truly cherish the rest of my life. Other than a delightful dinner there was traditional Danish dance that we have been practicing in gym class for a couple weeks. It was a chaotic mess but it was a super awesome and incredibly fun chaotic mess. And through all this wonderful business I also changed to my second host family in Denmark. Though I am very sad to leave my first family who gave me an incredible introduction to Denmark and Danish ways, I am also extremely happy so far in my second family. I will have many more chances to see my first family again especially one of the host sisters who is in my class and who I see pretty much every day at school. Pictured below are all my new families. District 1470 exchange students, class 2m in Virum Gymnasium, and my first host family. Also an excellent picture from the performance.

Exchange Students in District 1470

Class 2m in Virum Gymnasium (Plus 2 not currently in the class and minus 3 who weren't in the picture)

First host family (Minus host sister Anne-Katherine)

Rotary performance with Veronica

Hello once again everyone! I would like to begin this blog post with my sincere apologies for the lack of posts. It has actually been several months. The last thing I posted about was my experience at intro camp and now I am quite a bit more oriented and grounded in Denmark. Such a fantastic amount of things have happened that I can hardly think of where to start. I have been a terribly busy bee. Over the past few months I have become somewhat less of an outsider among my classmates, have been attending Danish language school, and have been reveling in my good fortune of being so close to Copenhagen. So much has happened in fact, that I find it difficult even to remember everything. I have been to Christiania, attended 2 concerts, participated in several school events (to the extent that was possible at least), and done a lot of walking and biking that has ultimately resulted in a somewhat tremendous loss of weight. Though I take very few pictures in an effort to experience the world around me without being tethered to a device I have a few pictures to upload here to give some of an idea of my day to day. I can go into no great detail of the past two months honestly because it is quite overwhelming but I am able to update about my recent movements. In the past month or so I have been playing a lot of music. The exchange students are putting on a performance this coming Tuesday for Thanksgiving in which I will actually be playing 3 times. Once as a soloist, once as a duet, and once as accompaniment. That has required a tremendous amount of time, energy, blood, sweat, and tears but I have enjoyed continuing to play a lot of music with friends and on my own. I am also involved in my school musical as a renaissance bassist for our production of Robin Hood with the movie of Robbie Williams. I am featured on a grand total of 3 songs but it has been so very worth it for me to get to know many of the other musicians and just generally really great Danish peers that I have. I feel as thought deciding to be a part of the musical was the best decision I have made this year socially because it has led to spending many long hours with some of my classmates and many of other students at the gymnasium. There is currently two more showings of the musical tonight and tomorrow night and I will be quite sad when they are over since it has been such a positive experience. Other than that the exchange life has become fairly normalized. I've become accustomed to hearing Portuguese all the time, riding public transport everywhere, and having a flexible and rather inconstant school schedule. All things I never would have envisioned for myself when I started high school. For everyone that has been wondering because of a lack of blog posts, I am wonderfully happy here. I think Denmark was a perfect pick for me and this has truly been the best year of my life so far. I could not be a happier chappy.