Shopping and the North Carolina beach!!!

My weekend in Wilmington was so much fun! Saturday I went shopping with my host mom and sister. My host Ellen Tootoo was going to play a volleyball game with her team from early morning, so she was not able to come with us. First we went to shop at the Independence Mall, I was looking for some new shoes but I couldn't find any, but of course I bought a lot of other nice things. After that we went to a big store with a lot of cheap stuff Walmart, I bought a lot of gifts to my family and some things to my self of course :) After we had been shopping for 4 hours, we went home to relax. One hour later my host came home, and we went downtown Wilmington to eat dinner with Ditte and her host Becca. It was sooo cozy and the food was very good! Sunday we went to church. It was very different from what I had imagined! It looked like a café. After church we went shopping again - this time in a "outdoor" mall. The weather was so good, so after we was done with shopping, we decided to go down to the beach. As you can hear, I had a really great weekend with a lot of shopping and good food!! :D

See you! Julie Friis 2.a

Battleship - USS North Carolina

Battleship – North Carolina!

The last day of our trip to “the states” we went on a field trip to the USS North Carolina Battleship. The battleship is a huge ship opened as a kind of museum. After a short trip around an indoor museum we were led out to the ship itself. USS North Carolina was used under the Second World War and she was an important player in the bombardments in the pacific. The ship was designed to carry 1,800 men, but under the WW2 she was home to over 2,300 soldiers. Going on the tour around the ship we saw the bunk beds stacked five tiers high. The life on the ship must not have been a private place to be. There were no doors, not even in the toilets! Even the showers were open, so you would have had no privacy at all!

 

The ship was interesting and we could have used a lot more time. But the fact that we all got a bit claustrophobic going around in the small narrow hallways of the ship, got us all looking for a way out – which took us a really long time! We could just imagine how it would have been to be a soldier living on the ship. When we finally found our way out of the ship we saw a big sign saying “DO NOT FEED THE ALLIGATORS!” what a great ending of a great trip to the battleship of North Carolina!

Written by Jannie and HenrietteJ       

Dick's and a concert church

Suddenly weekend! 

I've been looking forward spending the weekend with my host, Emilee, for a long time now. When we found out that we both loved shopping, we decided driving to Myrtle Beach to go shopping. Christine and her host Erin and Sophia and her host Caroline and Emilee's friend Sara joined us. It was an hour long road trip. On our way to Myrtle Beach we decided to go eating at a restaurant called Dick's. The girls had told us that it was a very special restaurant and the waiters were mean, but that was just their job. They really act like dicks. At the same time we walked in the waiter said: "Welcome sluts, sit down". My host prepared us about the hat the waiter would give us when we had ordered our food, because the point of eating at Dick's was that everybody gets a hat with a mean and strange comment. I think it was awkward sitting at the restaurant with a hat saying: "That fishy smell isn't coming from the kitchen", but we have been told by the girls not to take it personally. So we didn't and we just had fun. We all wondered what very old people did at the restaurant, because really mean things were written on the hats. It was a funny experience. To give you a better insight of the weird restaurant the comments on the hats are shown under this. Pictures in the bottom. 

                                     Line's hat: That fishy smell isn't coming from the kitchen. 

                                     Christine's hat: If dicks had wings my mouth would be an airport. 

                                     Sophia's: This is not the first bag put on my head. 

                                     Emilee's hat: My "cat" smells like fish. (be misunderstood)

                                     Caroline's hat: I hump her pillows --> (pointing to Sara) 

                                     Sara's hat: X-mas wish list - Boobs, boobs, boobs. 

                                     Erin's hat: I stand when I pee. 

After a long day of shopping and other funny things yesterday, her mother wanted me to go to church with her and the whole family. She told me that is was a very unconventional church and that it was funny and exiting. My first thought was: How can a church be funny and exiting? 

The church didn't look like a normal church and it was definitely not a traditional church. It looked more like a new and modern museum. We came inside the church and people walked around with coffees and hot chocolate. I was sure that we were the wrong place, but we went to the big hall filled with people. Suddenly people stands up and the lights turned down. The band on the stage started playing and people sung with them. All the songs were about Jesus (of course). When the "concert" was over people sat down and a man called Mike began to speak on the stage. Her mother told me that he tells about different kind of things every sunday among a lot of themes. For example: Love, death, freedom etc. It was very exiting and he knew how to get our attention. The ceremony ended with songs from the band. Another great and different experience from my weekend with my host. After church we found a restaurant where we eat some lunch. 

                         

                                  

Panic Attack and Halloweeeeeen!

When I first arrived at my wonderful host family's house, the mother said to me that she had not decorated for Halloween because she was afraid to scare me. Therefore, when I told her that I would not be scared but think it could be cool, the father started decorating the house Saturday morning.

To follow up the Halloween theme we went to a haunted house “Panic Attack” Saturday night (when it was pitch dark). I was frightened when we got there! The haunted house was inside a huge farm and outside the farm, big bloody monsters with chainsaws walked around. When we stood in line to buy tickets I could hear screams from inside and I saw people running out crying and I thought: “Well this is fun…”

We were let in six at a time and my family pushed me in front because I was the tallest and I said, “I don’t really think this is a good idea and grabbed my host sister who is only 150 cm…”

We went in and my host parents walked behind me and every time I screamed they had a laugh, apparently because they thought I was kind of a joke ;-)

When we came out I was totally pale, relieved that it was over and glad that I had experienced it.

The added pictures are from Saturday night with my family at “Panic Attack” and a Panic Attack poster 

School life

John T. Hoggard High is a big highschool compared to Ikast-Brande Gymnasium. Hoggard High has almost 2200 students while Ikast-Brande has around 700 students. The schools are totally different. At this school there's a special dresscode - girls are not allowed to wear tops, shorts and short dresses that show our skin above the knees.

Every class is with different people and every day is the same. They have the same four subjects every day through the whole semester and then they have to pick four subjects in the beginning of the new semester. At Hoggard High they have four grades (9,10,11,12), whereas in Denmark we only have three (1,2,3).

As you know there are a lot of rumors about the American cafeteria food and we can now conclude that they're all true. The American cafeteria food at the school sucks. It's fat and full of cheese. Even the cookies have a taste like cheese! All the people are very friendly and outgoing and because we are from Denmark they call us "The Danes". The fact that we're from Denmark makes people look at us like we're from another planet. Compared to the American people we're very tall and blond. They are not used to having people like us around, but they treat us very well and we feel welcome.

There's a lot of school spirit and this week is homecoming week. Tonight (Friday) is the big homecoming game - American Football. Before the game there's a pep rally at the stadium so all the students can feel the school spirit. School life at this school is amazing (wish we could say the same thing about the food) and it's been an unforgetable experience.
Have fun - bye bye.

- Line and Julie 2.aG

The Capitol building visit

On Saturday morning, the day after we arrived in Washington D.C., we went to the Capitol visit center to get a guided tour inside the building. We were all handed a headset so everybody would be able to always hear what the guide was saying.  Steve, our guide, took us to a room that was originally the main entrance of the building. Slaves built almost the entire building by pressing sand into bricks. 

It was the only room that didn’t burn down in 1814, and all the original stonewalls were intact. 
The whole building was very prestigious and chandeliers hung from the roof in almost every room. 

We entered a round room with a high ceiling that was painted with people from different times and on a banner it said “E pluribus unum” which means “out of many, one”. It was probably the most interesting room in the whole building. Steve told us about the building being divided into two houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives and in that room we should imagine an imaginary line crossing through that separated them. Abraham Lincoln was the one who decided to build that room, but interestingly enough, he was the only president to never step foot in the room. 

There were paintings of the history of America and especially how the Americans took the land from the Indians. That’s not how they portrayed it, though. Among the paintings were some of Pocahontas; one where she was protecting John Smith from being killed and one where she was being baptized so she would be able to marry John Ralph.

Steve said something interesting about the Lady of Freedom (she’s the woman on top of the Capitol building). What he said was that no statue can be taller than 19 feet because nothing should stand taller than freedom.

Even with the amazing tour of the building, what we noticed the most was all the asiens running around with high tech SLR cameras.

Christine's weekend!

I experienced a lot of great things with my host this weekend. Sunday we went to the beach with some other Danes and their hosts at 12 o'clock and the weather was just wonderful. It was smoking hot and the sea had a perfect temperature to go swim. The sand burned my feet and we played volleyball, soccer and American Football which was so much fun. Everybody was having a good time when someone came up with a crazy idea: We should try the go-kart park at a place called Jungle Rapids. We all really wanted to go so when we had got our stuff together we all went there. At first I was very nervous about driving because I knew that all the boys would drive like maniacs and compete from the very first moment. I was let out as number two, but already after 30 seconds every single go-kart had passed me. I drove a little slowly, but after a couple of minutes I felt more comfortable and started to compete like all the others. It was so funny and exciting at the same time. It was definitely 8 dollars worth!
In the afternoon my host, Erin, Sophia and her host Caroline and I went to Caroline's house to go canoeing in her "backyard". It was getting dark and lots of bugs were flying around annoying us. The canoe was kind of difficult to control, but we got better and better. The area was beautiful and we saw both swans and fish in the water. I had an amazing time, and it was definitely one of the best days ever!

- Christine