It’s been a very long time, since I wrote my last blog, but here I am again.

We are slowly getting closer to christmas and also to the new year. We are buying presents for people we love, and decorating our houses, baking and much more. Maybe christmas can be (a little) stressfull, but it’s also a lovely holiday, with christmas lunches, Julekalendere (24 episode series with christmas touch), that helps children count the days until christmas in a exiting and cozy way. Christmas eve is to be spend with family, good food, a for many people nicely decorated tree, and some present under it, and maybe dancing around it and singing songs, if you’re not the kind who doesn’t like christmas. (Maybe) you’ll get the most, of what you’ve been wishing for, and give somebody what their been wishing for, and see a big smile on their faces.

Then there is also new years eve, where people spend the time with family or friends in a cozy time at home or at a big new years eve party. There will be a lot of fireworks at midnight to celebrate the new year, and then be looking back at the old. What did you do this year, good stuff or something you regret? What is your plans for the new one?, if you have any.

My christmas will be spend with my dad and my brother, and new years eve will so far be spend with my mother and my brother.

My plans for the new year is, that i’m going to study in Esbjerg from february to become a pædagog/educator, probably with children, but I have to decide that about halfway in my study. then I’m also going to find a place to live in Esbjerg, I don’t know when I’ll be moving to Esbjerg yet, but I’ve signed myself up for the Kollegieforening/student association in Esbjerg, so when my number is up, they will send me letters with available kollegieværelser/boliger/ student accommodations, and then I can deside. I’m looking very much forward to that, it’s going to be so good to study again, meeting new people and be working with people when I’m finnished.

Wishing you all a Merry christmas and a very happy new year.

xoxo Sara. :)

In denmark and maybe a lot of places in or all over the world, we have many holidays which includes a lot of eating, the mijority of people like to eat, so we maybe always find a occation to gather as a group and eat together.

At christmas we have pork roast, duck or goose with potatoes and sauce/gravy and then ” risalmande” or rice pudding with cream as you maybe can call it in english and a lot of candy, and at easter we eat lamb or something else, and then we eat chocolate bunnies and chocolate easter eggs, and in summer we eat a lot of icecream, and have barbecues with susage and stakes etc. and we have something in southern jutland called “sønderjysk kaffebord”/ southern jutland coffee table, with a lot of cakes and cookies, and the tradition says that you have to taste them all. Just to mension some.

And then there is an other danish tradition called “fastelavn”.

Yesterday I was out for a walk with Vibeke, and we was walking to the plantation in Løgumkloster, and when we were there, we just walked and walked, even though we didn’t knew exactly where the path/road would lead us, but all ways lead to Rome, so we knew, we would get back somehow. On our walk we talked and suddently we remembered, that it was along with valentines day also fastelavn. We talked about that it would be around this time, when kids would dress up and go around town to knock on doors and collect candy of money by singing some danish fastelavns songs, kind of what american kids do at halloween, then they just say “trick or treat”, a example on the food, and then we agreed on going to the baker to buy a special bun, that danish people make around fastelavn called a fastelavnsbolle in danish. Vibeke bought one with cream and jam and custard and i bought one just with custard. Our reasons for going out for the walk was, that the weather was really nice, and when you are at a folk high school, maybe you tend to be inside a lot. When we had bought the buns, the healthy aspect in going for a walk to kind of execise maybe died, cause there is a lot of calories in that type of bun. But we also agreed about, that when it is fastelavn, it is tradition to buy a fastelavnsbolle, and there is something really cosy about it, and it tastes very good, so we agreed about, that we kind of “had” to buy one each. When we came back, we sat together in the temporary dining hall and ate them. the same place where Nikolaj had just finish some execises, when we walked in with our cake. and it’s funny that we kind of celebrate the end of the heavy eating of christmas by eating a lot more at fastelavn, not long after christmas.

we also normaly have costume parties around the country to celebrate fastelavn, and that is what we are going to have the coming weekend.

Saturday the 30th of january Denmark tv-broadcasted a show to collect money for two causes; women in Africa and because of the recent earthquake in Haiti, then also to collect money to help the people there. All through the show you could call or text message to make your donation; 150 kroner or more. Many people and companies called or texted in with donations, some very high about one million or even two, and some small. A auction webside called Lauritz.com had recived many things from people, and then uploaded pictures of them on the webside, so people could bet on them, and then the highest better would get the thing(s) and the money would go to the two causes. A creative way to collect money, so people could contribute a little more personal, and the people ending up with the things could think, that they got a nice thing and at the same time gave money to a good cause, like if you buy a bracelett or something else in a store, and some of the money goes to a good cause.

A lot of times durring the show there were shown some video clips with a little bit of information about the causes. The videos were kind of manipulative, because they were very emotional, apealing to peoples emotions; showing africa and pictures after the earthquake in Haiti, and make them think ” it’s good it’s getting better”, ” it can get better” make them feel sorry or think ” if that were me” and something like that. The first entention of the videos could be to inform people about, what they were to make the donations to, and that their donations were spend propperly, so maybe people who could tend to think or say ” I don’t want to donate, because the money never gets, where they say it will.” could want to donate then. The second reason could be just to create emotions, so more people would donate. Maybe people would donate anyway, if they didn’t show the videos, because of the knowledge they had from tv or newspapers. It all worked very well, because there was collected over 130.000.000 kroner.

A show like this just with another cause is held every year. The year when they also collected money because of the tsunami, there were collected even more than this year; about 340.000.000 kroner. At that time it was somehow closer to people (in Denmark) than Haiti, because many people knew someone, who was on holiday in Thailand and servived or died, or maybe they knew someone, who knew someone.

Saturday they maybe collected that huge amound of money because their were two causes, but even if there were only one cause, I think there would be collected a lot of money, cause people are somehow always willing to donate to a good cause.

20/1-2010

I came to Løgumkloster højskole on the 10th of January, and a lot of other people came too. The snow in the southern part of Jutland (Denmark) where I was heading wasn’t as bad as the northern part of jutland (Denmark).

In the northern part of Denmark schools were closed for some days some time ago, and it was and maybe still is difficult for busses or cars to drive around. Here in Løgumkloster I don’t think the snow is that bad, but it snows a little every day, so it would probably be here for a long time. Some of the students talks about, how they are not used to so much snow, and how cold it is; fx: we have two from palestine here, who is not used to so much snow. Sometimes people are too lazy to get out in the snow, because it’s so cold, and sometimes they go outside for a walk into town or for a snowball fight etc.

Snow is common in Denmark in the winter, but some years there a more than others, and this winter we got more snow than in a long time.

We went for a trip to the wadden sea a week ago, and because of the snow, it was a little dificult for me or maybe others to see, that we were actually at the sea. It was a good trip, and we had to be carefull when we were walking, so we didn’t slid on the ice, there were on the path we were walking on, but some used it to do a little ”ice scating” for fun.

We had also been out on a small walk in the snow around the area of Løgumkloster sunday. We walked for about an hour or so, and we saw some graves from world war one, and the nature. People somehow walks slower, when there is snow, and there was a group of people in front, and a group of people way behind. And then some in the middle, and there I was walking; not as fast as I normaly walk, but not extremely slow either. When we came back, we had some hot chocolate. I normally don’t like snow that much; better looking at it from inside, than walking in it. Sometimes when you really have to go somewhere, it can be okay, or if you have someone to walk with, and the hot chocolate I think somehow tasted a little better after a walk in the snow. 

That’s all for today.

Sara.