Home, sweet home!

I've been waiting for this day for so long. Finally coming home for Christmas.

When I was sitting in the bus, driving to the airport, everything felt quite unreal. I felt like I've been away from home for far too long. And I could hardly remember what my life in Germany looks like. I just wanted to come home and stay as long as I wanted. I knew that it would be hard to be back home and then leave again but on the other hand not coming back for Christmas seemed to be even harder. The bus seemed to drive way too slow and the flight (which took only 1:15 hours) felt like it lasts forever. When I finally arrived in Frankfurt I was almost running into the arrival hall where the first thing I saw was my sister smiling at me. It took me exactly five seconds and three hugs to feel like I've never been gone.

Julefrokost!

So guess what we were doing this evening.... Celebrating Christmas again! And yesss...of course we were playing Banko as well. But appearently we are not the only ones getting tired of all the traditional Christmas partys, so this time the "Julefrokost" was a mottoparty. The motto: Octoberfest. Yes, you read it right: OCTOBERFEST. Please don't ask me how you connect Christmas with the Octoberfest! I don't know and it was definitly not my idea, but it was a looooooooot of fun! Of course we were all dressing up accordingly, wearing our "Dirndl" and had "Schnitzel mit Kartoffeln" for dinner. Danes know how to party. And that's all I'm telling you haha.

Julebanko!

One thing is for sure: Danes love Christmas. And they love to celebrate, eat together and on Christmas it is usual to play Bingo (here: Banko) together. So that's what we did today. We were had traditional Danish Christmas food, played Banko and danced afterwards. Most of the students don't know the numbers and need help. I know the Danish numbers now, but under this pressure of time during the game it was a big challenge for me to fill out my own and some student's bingo plates.

The traditional Danish dessert for Christmas is called "Risalamande" which means rice with almond. It is basically made with milk, a special rice and cream and you mostly eat it with a warm Cherry-sauce. When you finished cooking "Risalamande" you throw one or a few whole almonds into the mash. So at least one of the people eating the dessert will find an almond in his or her bowl. The person finding the almond in his/her bowl get a present. So actually everyone eating it is searching to find it. If you find an almond in your bowl you are supposed to hide it from the others until everyone is finished eating, so everyone - besides you - still thinks the almond could be in their own bowl. Afterwards you show that you have it and get your present. Today I was the lucky one:

Connect group

This evening I finally managed to join the connect group that I was invited in. The group consists of nine girls who meet every second week. We talk about the 'ups and downs' of the past weeks, pray and worship together, have some cake and coffee and enjoy a "hyggelig" evening in one of our homes.

It is pretty complicated for me to get there since all of the other girls live in Aalborg. It takes about 2 1/2 hour to get to most of their homes by bus. So I am at home around 24:00 / 00:30 o'clock.

Anyway, I will continue to join the group. I'm so thankful to be able to be part of it. I really missed spending some time with friends like this...

Dinner in Aalborg

After work I took the bus to Aalborg to meet a friend of mine (one of the girls from church). We went for a walk and then had dinner together at a Chinese restaurant. Afterwards we took the bus and went to her connect group. I had to take my bus home very soon so I didn't spend a lot of time with them but anyways it is so nice to get connected to Danish people.


It's so easy in Denmark to get to know people from all over the world - but (in your privat life) you hardly spend any time with Danes (sounds so weird but it's true). So once again I am so happy to become part of their church community.


Although they might not be mentioned in any trip-advisor you seriously have to visit Bethelkirken when you come to Aalborg!

Tour to Vejle

Tania, me and some other Volunteers spent this weekend at Sara's house (the house of her host parents) in Vejle. We were seven girls from Italy, Spain, Austria and Germany.


On Saturday Sara picked all of us up at the train station. She had to drive twice to take us to her home. In the afternoon - after we had talked for hours - we went to buy food and drinks for the weekend. We had some Spanish omlette (made by Tania) for lunch and Italian pasta for dinner. Afterwards we had a good time talking and watched a movie together.


One of the best things about the European Volunteer Service is that you will get to know a lot of other volunteers in the country you go to. Thereby you meet people from all over the world (even if you don't have any roommates). The camps that I also wrote about earlier are mandatory and part of an EVS. It might sound boring to be forced to go on camps, but it is actually a lot of fun and soooo easy to make new friends since all of the people attending have something in common. You're in a foreign country, you may miss your home, you may find certain things strange, you might have some problems in your project or host family and so on....... but I can guarantee you that whatever it might be: you will not be the only one. And the camps are a great opportunity to share and talk about your experiences (and get some advice if needed).


We've had such a nice time during this weekend and I'm sure it's not the last time we visited each other!

(The picture above is a screenshot of a video that we were recording earlier. We were singing "happy birthday" in our different languages at the same time and sent it to Fatou who turned 25 today)

Æbleskiver!

Today the Music class (the class that I work with in the moment) was visiting our apartment. We were making a traditional Danish dish from the old days and ate them before we had to go back to the school.

Æbleskiver are traditional pancakes in a distinctive shape of a sphere. The name literally means apple slices in Danish, although apples are not an ingredient nowadays.  In Denmark it is common to eat them at Christmas and over the days leading up to it. It is easy to make the dough but you need a special pan for their shape. I enjoyed learning how to make them and of course even more to eat them in the end. :-)

Christmas lunch at Bethelkirken

Today I was taking part in the "Julefrokost" (Jul= Christmas ; Frokost = Lunch) of Bethelkirken in Aalborg. We had a lot of awesoom food and fun games. (As I wrote before... The Danes are crayz about Christmas and their Christmas parties haha!)




I  really enjoy to be part of this loving community and I am very thankful for today.

French Food

Today we had some of the students visiting our apartment. Fatou was cooking Ratatouille for us so we could taste some French food. It was awesome!!