Opened doors to Europe...

Last week everything had changed, because we opened our doors to Europe...We had fourteen students from different European countries for one week. Magdalena and Daniela from Austria; Cindy from Holland; Christina from Germany; Ine and Sarah from Belgium; Victor and Aleix from Spain; Duarte and Joana from Portugal; Marie, Karina, Marit and Laila from Norway. So there were 12 nationalities together with us and the host country: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Holland, Hungary, Germany, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Turkey.
First it was strange there are so many people, but we had lots of ocasions where we could getting know each other and finally I felt so sorry when they just go away...

Let's see what happened during the week!

MONDAG - March 9th: A very long day...

We started to intoduce ourselves and learnt about the program for the week. After we had a music lesson where we sung the 'Hej, goddag, hello,...song' and the Head and soldiers, knees and toes-song and the 'Are you sleeping brother John?' -song. The latter is a very common song, so eveybody had to sing it his/her own language, so it was funny to hear the different languages with the same melodic.
After music we helped in Danish lesson, but I think we still needed help as well, but it was fun, anyway. We learnt Danish people usually make fun foreigners to give these words: rod, grod, med, flode; because these words are really difficult to pronunce.
Although it was raining, we wandered around the highlights of Haderslev with our favourite History teacher. We heard lots of tiny stories from the past. The best one was about a man, who was born in one of the old house in the centre of Haderslev. Later he met with Mozart's widow and they fell in love with each other. In her reminiscences she wrote that she equally loved the two men.
Then some of us went back to the dormitory or their hosts and the rest was inveted by Micha and Vacek to their flat. We just drunk vanilla tea together, and played funny games, like tik-tak game and we were chating each other.
Later we had a get-together-evening with nice dishes and sweets. My best memory is when we started to sing the "With a little help from my friends" song. But - of course - we sung other songs as well.
After this almost everyone went to a pub, where we also sung, drunk and have fun together.
So it was a really long day, but I enjoyed it very much...

TIRSDAG - March 10th: Visit to the oldest town of Denmark

In the morning we had a lesson with Jette about the stereotypes. First we had to work on our own about what is typical in our country. Then we were diveded in groups, and every groups had a country to think about it, make a brainstorm. I was with Tina - Danish buddy - and with Duarte - Portuguese guy - and we had to discuss what we think about Poland. After the discussion we made a drawing about our thoughts and we represented as well.
It was really exciting and funny to see what people think about each countries.

We had to hurry, because our coach had already waited to take us to Ribe. First we went to the seaside to see the dike, which was built to protect the town of Ribe. From the bus we saw the lots of starlings in the sky. This is one of the attractions here, and it called 'black sun', because lots of starlings take wing in the same time and you can see only blackness. In the coast we joined together and some photograps were taken of us.
First we visited the Cathedral, which is really old, but - surprisingly - the paintings of the altar are very modern and the stained glasses as well.
After we walked along the historical, cosy streets of Ribe with the old and small houses. I took some pictures about the unique doors of old houses (You can see above! :))We had an hour free time in the town so we could spend more time in the riverside. There was a pole which shows the level of the water during the centuries, becuause Ribe was flooded by the sea in several times. Then we visited the Viking Museum, which shows the way of life of vikings: the stucture of tribes; the houses, where they lived; the activities, what they had and the crafts. Ribe was a merchant place before so lots of beautiful glass pearls were found in the old marketplace. We saw a film about how the vikings thought the creation of the world. The exhibiton also shows Ribe in the medieval time. Lilla, Vacek and me dressed up as sisters/a monk, it was really funny...:). We were really tired, so all of us were sleeping on the bus the way we came back...

Onsdag - March 11th: Special music lesson

In this class we learnt about how we can use our body and our voice in different ways. The class was diveded to three parts:

1. Associative listening
2. Formal listening
3. Composing

1. At first we learnt a song - Slap and clap... - , then we were diveded to groups and we had to find out a movement, a coreography to this song and represent it. Then we listened a two pieces of music from Mussorgsky and during this we had to draw about our feelings, thoughts. Then we had to put our drawings in two lines like in an exhibiton and after that we had to discuss what is the different between the two lines of drawings. Everyone drew nice, soft and colourful things to the first drawing, because the music was so soft. The other drawings were so different with dark colours and thunders, dinamism; because that piece of music was dramatic.

2. In this part each groups got an envelope with pieces of papers in it. On the pieces of papers there were graphic notations. Then we listened a piece of music and we had to find the correct order of the pieces of papers by the piece of music.
3. After this task we got a piece of paper graphic notations on it and we had to compose a piece of music in groups. I have never seen such well-equipped classroom. We could use all kinds of instruments such as drums, piano, rattlers, violins...etc.
Then we needed to compose a piece of music without notations, but we also could use our voice and movements.

Finally a short story was told about a winter landscape and everybody has to join together and use that instrument which was chosen before. We had to decide which instrument fit to the story, which is the right time to use it.

Although I can't play any instruments this lesson was really exciting for me. It showed me music lesson is not only about sing a song, it's about feel the music in different ways!


Torsdag - March 12th: We are the Champions...

In the morning the 'international students' had a school practise, so we had classes just after this. The main event of the day was the Eurovision Song Contest, so in the afternoon we had a rehearsal with Lilla, Noémi and Máté. We chose a Hungarian underground song - "Hajolj bele a hajamba"/'Lean into my hear' - , and after that we found out the coreography. In the evening we had pizza first, then then the main part of it had started...
We had different types of performances with different categories. I was really nervous in before our performance, so I was suprised when the judge announced we are the winner of the evening.

But I could say everybody was a champion that evening, because we didn't have that much time to prepare and all of the perfomances were really funny, colourful and charming.

Fredag - March 13th: Farewells

In the morning we had to do our portfolio about what we learnt during the week. Noémi and Máté made a poster about the week drawing the Ejsberg's statues onto a piece of cardboard, and in each statues all of the happenings of the week. Lilla prepared an artistic vidio about the events of the week. To tell you the truth I didn't particpated in the work, because I couldn't really help and I went to bed too late, because I baked an Hungarian apple pie during the night for the international lunch.
All of the presentations were really creative and funny. You can see below! :) We also get our certificates for this week.

After this we had to go outside, because the principal of the College celebrated his 60's birthday and he inveted everybody for a Danish hotdog and beer as well. Thank you for your hospitality and TILLYKKE!:)
Then we had the farewell lunch: every country had to prepare a speciality, which is typify the certain country. We had Portugese sausage and wine, Holland waffel, Mozart kugler, Pilzner beer, Turkish Helva, smoked salmon, Hungarian apple pie (I will attach the recipe later!)...and so on.
After this it was difficult to get on my bike. Unfortunately some of the international students had to leave - girls from Belgium, Cindy from Holland - , so we had a farewell night our Danish teacher, Christina's flat without them. It was really a 'hyggeling together - night', I enjoyed it very much. All of the candles, tealights, little lightings were on - so it was cosy, indeed. We had a big dinner together, we chating together, some of us played games. That was the time when I started to feel we became a really good group during the week. I had a long conversation with Christina - German girl - ; she was interested in about everything, but we spoke a lot about taking photograps and we found lots of common things in each other. I also chated a lot with Daniela (Austrian girl) about learning English and about being an Erasmus student.
It was really nice from our Danish teacher - Christina - to let us celeberate the last night in her place; MAGNA TAK!

The time was running away very fast; one week just gone immediately.

I wish we could spend much more time together! What was the message of the international week for me? If people would live together the way we did, we would have a more peaceful world...