I love DK!

Danish and Belgian people are sometimes really different as far as the culture, daily life, tradition, etc are concerned. Some facts I have observed:

Ecological!
- Denmark is a "green" country: it has the most amout of windmills but they don't sort the waste out or use different bins for plastic, glasses, paper, etc. But in the shop we can find a place where you can put your old plastic bottles (you get 3 DKK for each!) and there are some big bins in the town where you can just throw your glasses. Compared with Belgium, Denmark is not so polluted. I have the impression that Danish people don't leave their bins in the nature, etc as some Belgian people do!
- They also cycle a lot to be eco friendly and ...
- use small bread for their hotdogs: they don't care about bread, the most intersting is the sausages ... but instead of using a napin and throw it, they use a bread they can eat!

Not macho!
- Some girls attend "men" lessons such as carpentry and there are more feminine bus drivers here.
- Men and women are equal and have the same rights: it's really great BUT we girls have to pay our food at the restaurant...

Caring for each other!
- Spring comes slowly and slowly but don't worry: if you want to drink something while sitting at a terras, you can just use the car rug standing at your chair!

Traditional!
- Danish people use DKK and not Euro
- They put the Danish flag in the middle of the table while celebrating someone's birthday
- They are really proud of their Queen Margareth
- Teenagers are not allowed to drink alcohol until the age of 18
- Don't say "sorry" or "thank you" in the streets, look at strangers in a very strange way

Safe!
- Mothers just leave their babies outside when they are in a shop/café/restaurant/etc and these ones have also to sleep oustide the kindergarten. And nobody steals them...

Nudist :)
- At the swimming pool, there are no single rooms but a big one where we can see everybody! Hopefully, men and women are separated but we have to take a shower and go to the sauna naked! I don't feel really at ease...

Close to their family!
- "Hygge" is a Danish expression that illustrates the fact that people love to be together and enjoy their life.
- For special occasion such as a birthday, Christmas, Easther, etc, they also love to be with their family and friends to have a good time and eat together.

It's nearly Easther !!

Like in Belgium, Danish people have a longer weekend for this event and they spend some time with their family, especially with children who have a week off. Parents just hide some chocolate eggs in the garden and children have to find them :)

It was surprising to me that some shops are open and some people such as bricklayer, etc work this day.

Fun in the kitchen

How can put on weight in one hour? Welcome in the cooking lesson: everybody laughs, prepares some traditional food together, tastes new flavour, discovers new dishes, (and Danish ones as far as I am concerned :)) etc.
In one word: AMAZING! It was so interesting to eat different courses and compare our culture/food habit.

I am proud to have tasted the herring because now I can say it: I really hate it ;)

10.00 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> 11.30

But the other dishes were just perfect and eco-friendly!

Thanks everyone for this morning ... (and my arm is ok;))

Different interesting lessons

Globalization

Plato was a Greek philosopher. He divided the society between 2 groups:

- egoistic = individualistic
- altruistic= collectivism

Now, we can find this way of division in our own society with the different political parties for example. Being aware of this is interesting: we, as citizen, can think and have a reflexion about what is really important in the society: the person? the citizenship? our relation and unity with the others? etc. This is a topic that we can discuss in our lesson and ask the teenagers what they think.

WHY?

- To make them aware of their beliefs
- To make them becoming independant
- To illustrate a political landscape
- To make them realise that it doesn't matter what they think but that the most important is to have a democratic behaviour



Physical Education

During this lesson, I had the impression to be a pupil at the primary school: it was so fun!

At the end of the module, each erasmus student from the different countries had to present a typical game.

Although I am a future languages teacher and that I will never teach PE, I have realised that students can really learn something through movement. For example, I know that some teenagers need to see or hear the new stuff to remember but there is also these students who need to feel, touch, experience, move, etc to learn. That's why it's important to vary our material and activities to satisfy all the students and to give them the possibility to learn in the best appropriate way. Making games and activities where teenagers can stand up, move, walk, etc can really be a benefit for these ones!

Music

I was so afraid of this lesson : really, I can't sing!! :D But it was quite funny and relevant for my career.
Actually, students have to learn a new language that is sometimes different from their mother tongue. They need to have some knowledge about vocabulary and grammar but also about the melody of the language, the stress pattern, etc. Using activities related to music such as a song, clap in their hand, etc can really be useful for them. And more, music can be use for the melody of the language, the vocabulary, the structure of the sentences but also some culture when the students are able to understand the message and the lyrics of a song.

The "pocketfilm"

During the international week, we had a lesson called "movie". I am satisfied because now, I can create a film using some music and pictures on my own (see video about the international week below)
The aim of this was to create a pocketfilm together with 2 other students (Ania and Dieter). The topic was about something we thought strange in Denmark and of course, we chose these typical hotdogs...
Actually, why is the bread smaller than the sausage?
Look the video to know more...

The International Week...

Thanks a lot for this week: it was so great to meet new people and work together!

Some interesting things that I have learnt for my future job:

- Internalization --> Using the language (Dutch and English) to integrate and teach some culture / how important it is to be open-minded or to organize some contacts (through letters, cards, internet, skype) or trips between schools with pupils who speak different languages.

- How can we work together despite our different culture? -->Just be open, aware of the differences but ALSO the similarities!

- How it can be good to use books and stories to bring a message: anti-racism, stereotypes, etc.




The three things I prefered:

- The excursion to Ribe
- The Eurovision contest
- Cooking together and discover typical food from all over the world

Hygge

"Hygge" is a Danish phenomenon! It is often inadequately translated as "cosiness" . But it is much more. Actually, it has more to do with people's behaviour towards each other. It's the art of creating intimacy.
Hygge helps us to comprehend the true spirit of the Danes: as far as their love for candles is concerned, for example...

On Friday 26th there was a costume party at school and I really enjoyed it! It was a bit complicated to get a costume here, maybe it would have been better to be aware of this party before coming here... But I finally managed to find some accessories and and disguised as an Hawaiian.




At 8 p.m. we began the party at Ania/Marta/Joanna/ Katka/Ondrej/Esther/Zeliha's place and then we went to the party together. We danced a lot, it was really fun to see the other people's costumes: Bob the Sponge, devils, angel, superhero, Lady Gaga, Amy Winehouse, a Chinese, a nurse, etc.



After the party, we went to the Friday Café: the café of the students at the university. Actually, it's now nearly an habit to meet the Erasmus students and other Danish people at this place: there we can drink Black Birds (A Danish beer from the brewery Fugelsang... The bird who sings in English), play table football, talk together... Have a
good time together in a word :D

Some music of the Friday Café:
- Kings of Leon, Use somebody
- Cityowl, flierflies
- etc
When I will back in Belgium, I will certainly listen to this songs again just to remember good memories :)

But we don't go to the Friday Café only on Friday... also on Wednesday for special activities. Actually, international evening are organized where we can talk about our countries. Last weekend, Hungary and Belgium was in favour. It was an opportunity to learn more about different foreign places, taste some typical food or why not, learn a new dance :)

We made a quiz about culture and then, other Erasmus students could taste Belgian beers Jupiller and some chocolate Côte D'Or :D
Congratulation to the Polish girls who won the game!

After that, Viki presented a Powerpoint about Hungary. There were plenty of pictures and she explained the buildings in a few words.
I have never been in Hungary but through her explanations, I found it really interesting and I just wanted to be there!
Then, she taught us a traditional Hungarian dance, we joined her and tried to do it all together.It was so fun !

All these moments are really great: learning and living together while having fun at the same time... it's THE sentence and the main idea of this Erasmus!

Last week the sun appeared and snow was gone: we were so excited! The landscape was so beautiful...



... But unfortunately, there was a snowstorm on Friday evening and since that moment, it's all white in Haderslev :s ... I just look forward to seeing sun again even if we enjoyed the weather while sledging near the lake :)