22

It's my last 15 minutes of being 21.

I don't really like birthdays. I don't usually like being the centre of attention. Plus there's so much expectation surrounding them. But still, turning 22 seems like a big deal.

It's like I'm actually a real adult.

Birte asked me tonight if there was anything I wanted to do in the next year of my life. I said I wanted to travel more, which is true. But the question has kind of stuck with me for the past three hours and the answer just hit me.

I want to live without fear. And this seems far-fetched and deep and whatnot, but it's really quite simple.

There are so many things in my life that I don't do because I'm afraid. I don't dance in public unless I'm drunk enough to not care and even then there's a little voice in my head that tells me I look dumb. I sometimes bail out of a social situation that I know could turn awkward (like a date) because I'm too afraid. I avoid situations where I might have to be in a bathing suit. I'm usually the one behind the camera, not in front of it. I'm probably the most subtle person ever when I like someone because I don't want to come off as crazy.

I almost bailed out of this exchange because I was too afraid.

And when I think about all the things I haven't done because I was scared, I wonder. I wonder because there are a lot of thing I have done despite my fear that turned out great, amazing even. And so, I wonder what I might've missed.

There's now 8 minutes until I turn 22. And so, during this next year, I want to live without fear. And I know this isn't a turn-switch thing. I'm not automatically going to be unafraid. But, I can try.

Team 11 does Flensburg

*Note: The title is in the English this time! Woot! And this is because we had made a rule that everyone had to speak English all weekend, otherwise they would chug a beer. Score one for the native English speaker.


FRIDAY

After the most boring week of intensive courses ever, the week of amazing-ness has arrived. So I could've come up with a more creative name, but you get the jest.

First up on the block, Team 11 does Flensburg! As I mentioned before, a while back we decided we were going to spend a weekend in a house in Flensburg, a town in the north of Germany. So at 3pm on Friday we set off. We had three cars and I felt like I was in a caravan of soon-to-be-drunk-20-somethings. So much excitement.

But really.

Plus I was just excited to be in a car again. I miss driving so much, so being a passenger is like the next best thing. Plus the German countryside is gorgeous.

I was in a car with Nils and Victor and we were responsible for buying the beer at the border shop. Okay, let me put this in context for you. When I got to Denmark, I thought everything was so cheap compared to Canada, but all the Frencb and the Germans constantly complained how expensive everything was. I thought they were just being dramatic. No. They were not. The border shop was ridiculously cheap. We bought 17 flats of beer (each with 30 beer), 6 bottles of wine, 6 cigars and 3 quarts of Fisk for the equivalent of 300$. I was in shock. So so so cheap.

Behold. The end of my liver function.

We got to the house and discovered we were in the middle of farm land. Not a problem because we thought we would be loud and whatnot. The house was sweet. It has a ton of bedrooms, a pool and a sauna. However, we soon discovered that because of the wind storm a few weeks ago, the heating room for the pool had been knocked out so the pool was freezing. We were advised not to go in... But as some of you know, when I get drunk I have a tendency to jump in bodies of water.

After grocery shopping (again unbelievably cheap) we came home and started drinking. The boys had already gotten started while we were shopping so they were way ahead of us. By the time we sat down for dinner (spaghetti) everyone was a little smashed. So much so, that someone decided we should say a prayer before dinner. And guess who ended up saying the prayer... This girl. My extremely religious grandmother would be proud.

"We bow our heads and softly say, 'thank you God for our food today'. Amen"

After dinner we continued drinking and played a few drinking games, all the while  continuously pouring shots of Fisk. By 10pm we were royally fucked. It was at this point that Sophia, Birte and I disappeared for a while to take care of something that I will not disclose on this blog, but it might've been the funniest thing I've ever done. From there, Solene and I got the brilliant idea that we should jump in the pool. Of course.

My whole strategy for this was to not feel the water before getting in. I regret this strategy immensely. It would've been nice to know what I was getting into. 

We jumped in and I have literally never been in water that cold before. I'm 95% sure my heart stopped. For a second, I couldn't swim because I just seized up. It was horrible. The effect was that I was immediately sober. 

As soon as we got out, however, Jo came outside and wanted to jump in and convinced us to go back in with him. We did. It was so much worse the second time. After this the three of us all hopped in the outdoor shower room and warmed up. I swear to god, I have never loved a shower more than I did in that moment.

After drying off and getting changed, we proceeded back to the living room where the treats were being broken into. We all just gorged on chips and candy while playing "chip bag football" and Never Have I Ever. I think all of our friendships are on a new level now.

After that, the boys went outside to smoke cigars and the girls took the opportunity to do some pranking...

Bitches be on prank patrol.

At around 1am, I headed off to bed, which, for anyone who knows how well I fare at house parties, is a record bedtime. Unbeknownst to me, Maud had decided to have a bath in the boys' room in her bathing suit (they have a jacuzzi). Apparently she messaged Solene to come join her and then Victor happened upon them and joined in too. The picture is priceless.

"What's a French bath?"

"A bathtub with French people in it"

Direct quote.

SATURDAY

The thing that I love about these kind of parties is waking up the next morning and finding where everyone ended up sleeping. I found Maud and Solene in the living room dying laughing. Solene had lost her pants at some point, so we wandered around looking for them while checking out where everyone else was. We then cuddled on the couch while waiting for everyone to wake up. 

Then we had a "Bavarian Breakfast". This consists of pretzels, assorted cheeses and sausages. Overall it was pretty good. To make the whole thing as German as possible, Nils cooked in his leiderhausen. I was dying.

Om nom.

After breakfast, we hung around for a bit before deciding that we wanted to go to downtown Flensburg. So we piled in the cars and headed in. Flensburg reminded me of both Prague and Halifax, which seems like a weird combination. But it's because the shopping area is cobblestone streets with little boutiques and cafes and they were in the middle of setting up for the Christmas Fair, so there were cute little vendor huts on the streets just like there had been in Prague. Plus it just seemed to have the same kind of unique character as Prague.

"Character"

But the Halifax resemblance is definitely on the harbour. We went down and walked along the boardwalk and it felt like I was back at home again.

Despite the German flags everywhere.

We grabbed a cup of coffee at a little cafe called "Friends" (copyright infringement fo sho), did some shopping and exploring, then headed back to the house. I had a short nap and woke up in time for pizza and a continuation of Friday's drink-a-palooza.

While we were in Flensburg, we had picked up some supplies for beer pong and a tiny trophy and we decided to have a tournament. I'm pretty sure my team either lost pretty quickly or we became disinterested because the next thing I know I'm the referee. And apparently this is a serious job. No joke, I distinctly remember making calls like "Un-sportmanlike conduct, one ball penalty."

After the tournament, everyone kind of dispersed a bit. Again, the girls got the bright idea that we should all hop in the bath together. This is the end result.

But seriously, how funny is that? Who needs a pool.

After most of the water had sloshed out onto the floor, Solene and I got out to hunt for treats, but Maud, Sophia and Birte stayed in to smoke cigarettes. This is so suave, I don't even know what to do...

 Just stepped out of the Great Gatsby.

In our search for food, Solene and I discovered that the boys had ordered pizza while we were in the tub, so we gorged on that for a while before putting on horrible music and dancing around, Solene with a box of cereal.

Marge was out in full-force this weekend.

SUNDAY

Around 2am, I hit a wall and knew I wasn't making it any farther in the night. So I went to bed, only to be woken up by Soso snoring at 6am. I moved to the couch and woke up again in time for breakfast ("American" breakfast this time, as requested by me; eggs, bacon and toast). Then we cleaned up, took some family photos and left. 

Aww we're so cute. This weekend was probably one of the best that I've had here. Before coming to Denmark, my biggest fear was that I wouldn't make friends and I count myself pretty lucky that I've met such awesome people. It's weird to think I'm going to leave and four weeks and not know when I'll see them again. Love them all.

PS. Birthday in two days (weh) and then Copenhagen in three! Week of amazing-ness is an accurate title.

Nedtælling (Counting down)

I've been doing a lot of counting lately.

It's been 7 days since my last blog post, which is a long time by my standards, but it's been a low key week. No adventures, no ridiculous drunk times, one shift at Cafeen that was extremely uneventful and lots of homework.

So, yeah lots of counting.

The first thing I've been counting is pounds and reps. I made the horrible discovery that I've gained seven pounds since coming here, which I can assure you is purely alcohol weight. So the past three weeks I've been really hitting the gym and especially this week since I have so much time right now.

The second thing I've been counting is days. This week was kind of a lull in between my last adventure and my next one. The next one is a trip to Flensburg with Team 11. We rented a house that has a pool and sauna and is absolutely massive. So we're going to go and get drunk and go shopping since Germany is so cheap. It's going to be 12 of us, 6 girls and 6 guys and I'm so so excited. So that's six days away.

I'm also counting down the days until I go to Copenhagen. That number is ten. Dad and Mazy are flying into Florence for a few days and then they're coming up here and we're going to spend a few days there after my birthday (which is in nine days, something that I've been dreading. Mid-life crisis.) I'm really excited to see them. I've just really been needing a taste of home lately. It's not that I'm extremely homesick, it'll just nice to see some familiar faces.

And finally, I'm counting pages. Pages and pages of studying. Because I essentially didn't do school for the first half of the semester, I have a lot of catching up to do. It occurred to me that, even though I'm on a pass/fail basis, I still have to actually pass, so I'm kind of buckling down here because the next few weeks are going to pick up again.

So while I know I shouldn't be counting down time, or reps or pages or anything because I only have so much time left here, I do get bored easily and I need something to look forward to in order to get through all this work.

Give me a few days here, I promise I'll have more exciting things to write about.

PS. Went out last night and while we were sitting in Cafeen waiting for things to pick up, this film crew came in to film an ad for a program at the University. I got to talking to the director about how I'm interested in making a career out of film and he said his company in Copenhagen is always looking for interns. Anyway he gave me his card and told me to get in contact with him! Ahh, so exciting. The film career is something that I'd love to do but am always afraid to take the risk, but after last night, I'm thinking maybe I can actually do it.

En lille smule hvile (A little bit of rest)

Rest, in this case, is a word used subjectively.

After last weekend's Cafeen craziness, I thought it might be nice to have a week of working out, getting schoolwork done, overall just being a productive member of society.

Sonderborg had other plans.

Up until Thursday, this "quiet" week plan was going well. However Thursday was Halloween (side-note, is it really the end of October already? What...) and there was obviously going to be alcohol-related tomfoolery.

So one of the residences, HK, announced that they were going to have a small kitchen party. This kitchen party soon turned into a 40+ person gathering inside a room that was never meant to house that many people.

It was actually pretty fun just to have a night where we sat around and chatted with each other, plus I got to get to know a couple of people that I had really only met briefly before. Yes, I got too drunk. Shockingly, however, drunk Jessie was mildly well-behaved.

Cue J-Day.

Some background. November 1st is the day that one of the biggest Danish beer companies releases their limited edition Christmas beer. "Christmas" in Danish is Julen, hence J-Dag. (Dag, meaning day).

J-Day is essentially Denmark's version of St. Patrick's Day. Everyone goes buck all day long.

While some of the Danes started drinking early, I didn't actually start until 6 that night. The Germans, the Frenchies and I all headed out to a friend's apartment where we did far too many shots in too little amount of time, resulting in a pretty heavy buzz by 10pm.

From there, we headed out to Cafeen. The Christmas beer had been officially released at 9pm, so we all ordered a bottle as soon as we got to the bar.

After trying the beer, it became apparent that J-Day is purely an excuse to get all-day wasted. The beer was bad.

The night is kind of a blur to be honest, but there are some key moments that I remember from Cafeen.

1) Maud lost her phone at some point. I came out of the bathroom and she was full-on screaming at some girl who had knocked over her beer while she had put it down to look in the massive pile of jackets on the floor. Keep in mind that when Maud gets mad, it's a fine line between terrifying and hilarious. The girl literally gives zero fucks. Plus she has a tendency to switch rapidly back and forth between cursing in English and yelling in French. It's brilliant. Anyway, so I grabbed Birte and told her and Flo to look for Maud's phone in the jackets while Maud and I went and asked at the bar if they had found it. We quickly discovered that someone had turned it in (after having taken a picture of his treasure trail and setting it as her background image... ew.) and we ran back to tell Birte and Flo, who were, I kid you not, waist deep in jackets, digging around. I was dying.

2) The second moment I remember was more infuriating than it was hilarious. I was outside talking to one of the Germans when I heard a French guy refer to my accent as American. Jokingly, I told him it was Canadian. He argued that it was American. Still thinking he was joking, I said I'm from Canada, so it's Canadian. He shrugs his shoulders and says it's American. Getting annoyed and because I was too drunk to be a mature adult, I continued to argue. To which, he started saying that Canada and America are basically the same thing, Canada is hardly separate, blah blah blah.

Usually this wouldn't bother me, I've heard tons of generalizations like this before. And I don't hate America, I just like to be identified by my proper nationality. Maybe it was that he doing it on purpose to piss me off (for no reason except to be a shit-disturber) or that he had this stupid smirk on his ass-resembling face the whole time, but I was livid. The thing is, I try very hard when I'm here to respect where people come from, to remember which nationality they are, not offend anyone, pronounce names properly etc. And to have someone purposely try and offend me based on where I come from, for no reason other than to instigate shit, pissed me off so much. Maybe that's an over-reaction, but that's how I feel.

And so, due to this over-reaction, I came up with the most mature response to him that I could. I asked if he was dropped on his head a lot as a child, or if he was born naturally stupid.

Maturity.

Either way, it effectively ended the argument and ended the good time that I was having at Cafeen. We were on our way out anyway and so we headed off to Wunderbar.

The square was absolutely insane. People everywhere. I totally understand the whole J-Day craziness now. Definitely like St. Patrick's Day.

Anyway I woke up this morning with a pizza box in my bed and a few really horrible bruises that I have no idea how I got. I'm not sure how I keep getting injured when I get drunk, but it needs to stop. J-Day effectively claimed most of my memory and liver function.

Can we get back to taking it easy again now?

PS. Solene has been known to get drunk and pull stunts that sober Solene would never do. And so, we have dubbed drunk Solene as Marge. Just for future considerations.

PPS. I got home last night and promptly got a text from Birte telling me to come back out. From what I remember, I had changed into boxer shorts and a tank top and couldn't decide if it was worth the effort to get changed again and go back out. And so, logically I mass snap-chatted requesting people choose A) or B), A) being stay in, B) being go back out (but I didn't tell them that). Majority said A). Night over. Apologies to all involved, thank you for staying with me through my drunk antics.

Det var lidt bt blæsende (She was a wee bit windy)

*So this is a post that I written on Monday (the 28th) but apparently I never published it. So here it is...

As usual today, I biked to school in beautiful sunshine, the beginnings of a perfect fall day.

However, I was not surprised that by the time my first class was over, it was raining.

What was surprised though was how much the wind had picked up. Sonderborg is an ocean town and so it rains pretty much at least once a day, it's always windy, and the weather is seriously bipolar.

But this was different. Because the wind didn't stop.

It kept getting worse and worse. Outside, boats were being tossed back and forth on the pier and white-caps started to appear in the harbour. And it still kept getting worse. Soon, the tops of the white caps were being picked up the wind and it made the whole scene looked like a typhoon. The harbour water looked like it had risen and you couldn't go outside without being blown around.

It was crazy, so reminiscent of Hurricane Juan. People were starting to stop what they were doing inside just to look out the windows and watch the whole scene. The wind eventually got up to 120km/h.

Meanwhile, I had my bike and my laptop at school. And we were being told not to go outside and that it was too dangerous to cross the bridge across the harbour to get home. Not only that, but roof tiles (brick roof tiles by the way) were being flung off the roofs and people were worried about getting hit.

The lucky part of the whole situation is that, like I said, Sonderborg is an ocean town. And so, weather moves in and out pretty quickly. What looked like a dire situation at two in the afternoon, had all but died down by 5pm. So I got to bike home around that time. But three hours of wind like that had definitely caused some destruction.

There were roof tiles shattered all over the ground. There were branches down on the road. The city centre had lost power in the middle of a business day. Apparently it was the worst storm Sonderborg had seen in eleven years.

Pretty cool that I got to experience it though. I've always had a fascination but also a deep fear of the sheer power of nature. And so, for a while I was a little afraid, but it's still pretty crazy what a little wind can do.

PS. I mentioned a while back that my window had broken the night I got my stitches. It's still not fixed. And so I was really afraid that the win was going to rip it out of the frame. By the grace of God, this did not happen. Definitely getting on the janitor to fix it though.

Lad os få kreative (Let's get creative)

I hereby dub this weekend, the Three Days of Creative Drink-Getting.

Or something like that.

Well, now that we're all back in Sonderborg after the break, things are getting back to normal. And by normal I mean, doing school occasionally and getting shit-faced the rest of the time.

Thursday night Cafeen opened as a special occasion because a bunch of high schoolers were visiting the university for tours. Yes, it's that time of year again, when I have to walk through the halls past high school tours and resist the urge to yell "save yourselves!!"

Anyway, so we hit Cafeen at 7pm and were loady-pants by 9. This is my life. The night was spent, for the most part, trying to decipher which ridiculously built guys were from high school or from university and trying to convince the more "unique" high schoolers to do Shot-Up. Incredible influences on the next generation, I know.

During the night, a few of us got bored and resorted to playing foosball. My friend Joe and I soon figured out that we make an excellent team and we kept beating everyone. This is where Creative Drink-Getting strategy #1 was formed. Joe and I would challenge someone to a game of foosball. We bet them a beer for each of us that we would win. We kept winning.

There was a point when we started to get drunk enough that winning didn't really seem viable anymore. It was at this point that we started cheating. So whenever the other team wasn't looking, we would push one of their point markers back to make it look like they had less points. We also noticed that the dance floor lights made it really hard to see the ball sometimes, so if someone ever scored and the ball had moved so fast that we didn't see who it had been, Joe and I resolved to celebrate like we had seen that we had scored, when really, we were probably the least reliable people in the world. It worked.

Because Thursday was high school night, Cafeen closed early at about 12. Now usually, I don't make it to closing time at Cafeen. I usually get too drunk or head downtown. So I didn't know that they play "Closing Time" at closing time. I also didn't know that they boys wait around all night for the song to get on so they can drunkenly dance on the tables when the lights come on.

Exhibit A.

(Also, they are not about to kiss)

Moving on the Friday, which was significant for three reasons. 1) Creative Drink-Getting method #2 was implemented. 2) It was the Halloween party and 3) Because I am now a member of Cafeen, we were leaving at 2am, after closing, to head to an unbeknownst location for "Cafeen Weekend".

So let's start with Halloween. I'm broke and so I dressed in black, wore cat ears and called it a costume. Moving right along...

Creative-Drink Getting method #2 was actually developed and first implemented by Maud. We both ran out of money at about 11pm and still needed drinks. Cafeen was absolutely packed and there were crowds of people around the beer pong tables watching. Because of this, whenever the ball fell on the ground, it took a little bit of time to find it again. So, while the teams were searching the floor, Maud and I would steal a couple of the beer cups from each team's side. Given that there were three beer pong tables, this method was pretty effective until we got caught.

I don't really know why they were mad, to be honest. You could say we were helping them win.

At 2am, I bid farewell to Maud and the girls and ushered the boys out (while they belted "Closing Time"). The Cafeen members and I then piled into a massive van and drove 35 minutes to a lighthouse where we were staying for the weekend. 

The house itself was sick and absolutely huge. We played drinking games until about 5:30am and then I called it quits and went to sleep, only to be woken up 5 hours later for breakfast.

From there, we went outside and were split into two groups for "team-building" activities. Our team was called the "Winners from Behind"....... "Team-building."

Later on that night we drank a ton more, pulled a few pranks that involved chili powder, sleeping Cafeen members and a whole lot of Tasbasco, went geo-caching, entertained the idea of getting in the ocean water whilst drunk (we were quickly shut down), pulled more pranks that involved "caution" taping cars and tying tin cans to the underside, shutting off all the lights in the living room and having a makeshift dance party and making a stupid amount of nachos at 4am. 

Overall, it was a pretty great three days and an awesome way to kick off the second half of my exchange. If this weekend was indicative of how the rest of the semester is going to pan out, I think I'm in for a hell of a ride.

PS. Apparently I sleep with my ass in the air. No one has told me this before. I guess the way I lay, makes it look like I have a massive ass. Last night, Mette one of the girls, kept singing "face down, ass up, that's the way I like to sleep." I could not stop laughing.

PPS. Unbeknownst to me, Oh Canada is a pretty infamous national anthem. Every time I had to take a shot during the Cafeen weekend, everyone would start singing it. Canadian pride.

På skråning (On the downhill slope)

Yesterday was the halfway mark. Today marks officially eight weeks until I'm back in Canada.

How has it been eight weeks already? Has it been that long since I trudged through the Copenhagen airport, praying I would find someone who could speak English and could direct me to the train? Since I got lost in the middle of a town the size of Truro, just trying to find the grocery store? Since the first Friday I had here and started off my exchange with that wild night?

Pretty crazy.

Pretty crazy how much I've learned since I've been here.

Not just about being on my own (which I've found that I like), but about interacting with people and learning about them. About how to have patience and realize that everything will work itself out if I just relax. About how trivial my problems really are in the grand scheme of the world.

Today, I thought about where I was at this point last year. It now seems worlds away. And I realize it doesn't matter. There are so many bigger and better things going on in this world, that to spend my time dwelling on things that didn't go my way, is stupid and juvenile.

I mean, I was in Prague three days ago. I'm living in Europe. I'm actually doing this.

I've realized that what everyone tells you about being young is true. You can truly do whatever you want. I can hop a plane right now and go any place in the world. Everything is at our fingertips. For a long time, I've thought that I was held down by school responsibilities or the location of my family or my job. But those might have been excuses to stay where I was comfortable.

I will never regret the decision I made to come here. The leap of faith I took. Because at only eight weeks in, I feel like I'll be returning to Canada... not as a different person, but maybe with a different perspective.

Which was something that I definitely needed.