13th March - IW - The Last Day with The International Students

On Friday we made presentations and porfolios about the International week. We were pretty free in a way how to make that and each group took it different way - which was great!
We had a crossword, a performance with pictures, presentations, drawings, a bow with stuff, an internet-magazine...

At noon a very special occasion was happening in the college yard. The headmaster had 50th birthday and you know what? He decided to open a hot-dog- and a beer-stand for all students and teachers of the college...Unbelievable :-)
Danish flags couldn´t be missing on the birthday-day, of course. :-)
And I managed to get a picture of me, hot-dog and the headmaster :-)

After these hot-dogs we had a "farewell international lunch" together. Everyone should prepare or bring something typical from their countries - chocolate, cheese, drink, cake...whatever. :-) We filled our stomaches pretty much and we enjoyed it even more :-)



















Later on we went with some schoolmates to the Haderslev windmill and museum, it was beautiful sunny afternoon and we enjoyed taking pictures altogether there very much. :-)


We wanted to spend toghether as much time as possible, therefore we had also the last party at Christina´s flat. We enjoyed it very much (Mange tak, Christina!). And on the way home, I must confess, I felt so sad that I am not going to see most of the people any more... We just get used to all of the international students so quickly and now they are going to leave... So, saying Goodbye and "See you" was pretty difficult...

9th-10th March - The Inte-nse Inte-rnational Week :) - Monday&Tuesday

Week 11 was very "intense time of Living and Learning Together". 14 more students from the whole Europe came to enjoy and learn for one week with us. Moreover, some Danish students joined us. All of them really quickly fit in our group, we became a big "team".


On Monday morning we, and especially the "intenational students", were nicely welcomed and introduced to the whole programme. We did some "get-acquainted" activities and then we had music with Annette. Then the international students had a Danish Educatoinal System lesson and Tour of College, therefore we had some freetime. After that we had a Danish lesson altogether. And then the walk through Haderslev with our History-teacher followed. Eventhough it was raining pretty much, nobody wanted to missed that. It was really interesting to hear more about Haderslev from such an educated (and also entrertaining :) )person.

In the evening we were all invited to the canteen for a dinner and so called "Get-together-evening". ...It fulfilled its name very well! :)
We ate a delicious dinner (frikadeller couldn´t be missing :), of course), spoke a lot together, had a lot of fun...Also time for quitar and singing came (we sang mostly Danish songs, sure...Our pronunciation was excellent :D ;)) And we spontaneously started to some games altogether, it was very good time...
And we didn´t want to go home too early, we just wanted to spend more time together, so we finished the day with going for a beer...:)

























On Tuesday we went together with Canan, Zep, Noemi and Máté to ESBJERG. The others went for a trip to Ribe, but we had unfortunately been there before, so we didn´t join them. Canan and Zep needed a stamp to their visas, so we traveled with them to the International Department at police station in Esbjerg. After about half an hour they finally got it - you can see their really happy faces! :)

Than we travelled to the Esbjerg´s seashore, where we could find four big white statues. Canan had a very good wisecrack - she called them "four men on the toalet" :D These men are pretty lucky - they can sit, relax and watch the beautiful sea all the time ;)

After we were thinking about going to the "Fish-and-Sea Museum" with a huge aquarium, but unfortunately it was very expensive, 80 DKK. Therefore we decided to go to Ribe directly. However, we saw a giant whale-skeleton in front of the museum...Astonishing!

That day the weather was beautiful, that´s why Ribe looked different, even nicer then last time. I took loads of pictures again. Unfortunately we didn´t spent so much time there, we just deliver Canan to the others and then we left...




Anyway, we stopped on the way home at the seaside near Ribe, the place, where enormous flocks of birds can be seen, but unfortunately we saw none :) Nevertheless, the place was very beatutiful and I could see about 3-or4-metres-high embankment, which protect the land from high water during sea-storms... There were also colourful Danish houses, in my opinion a lovely place where to live...

2nd to 6th March - The Fifth Week

On Monday 2nd we had a Special Needs lesson with three nice teachers. They introduced us a "Trivsel piloter" - a program for feeling comfortable and a prevention of bullying. We tried some "Telling circle" activities, which helps telling feelings and thinking possitive - for example : We have in common..., He is good at...
I think I can use some of them in English lessons with pupils.

I was surprised that some schools have a special "AKT" teachers (A.K.T.=behaving, concentration and wellbeing) who help prevention of bullying, do special lessons for pupils and work with special needs pupils.

Then we tried a "taktil massage", wow it was very plesurable. :) The point of the massage is " the one you touched you don´t bully" - very interesting. In my opinion this taktil masage can be used also to small children by their parents to support the relationship between them.

Then we spoke about special needs pupils at Danish schools. But I don´t think that the situation in Denmark is satisfactory enough. Special need pupils should go to normal schools, but for example the future teachers are not trained in special pedagogy at all. So the idea is good - not to separate the special need pupils, but the programme for them and realisation I didn´t found very complex.

On Tuesday and Thurday we had very interesting lessons with Tove - Comparative Education. We spoke about different types of educational systems in Europe - Encyclopedist(French), Humanistic (British) and Naturalistic (German-Scandinavian) approaches.

It was interesting to speak not only about the differences (aftefacts), but also things which are BEHIND (values), to go deeper. We also run into differences in having lunch at schools - canteens (e.g. in Czech), lunchboxes from home (Denmark) and lunch at home during 2-hour break (in Spain) - and which values are behind that. Therefore we get to question of maternity leave through that. For me it is surprising that in Denmark you have only around one year to stay at home with your child (insted 3 +1 optional in CR). I know - one of the most important values in Denmark is independence and equality - but also a freedom of choice.
However - if you want to stay at home longer than one year with your child (and I think it is important for the child) instead an immediate career, you don´t have a freedom of choice, because your maternity leave is over. And don´t get money from government, so you aren´t independent. One year seems to me too short. Strange. I found this attitude to children a bit similar to England - someone else takes care of your small child. Isn´t it cold?

Tuesday afternoon we had an Intercultural dimension lesson with Jette - we presented our videos - advertisements or dialogs about our countries. It was really good fun, every group did a good job! :) We also compared some customs of European countries - since this lesson I know that in Turkey it is impolite to blow the nose in public!;)

On Wednesday we had a wonderful Art lesson with Dorthe - we were making our own portraits. The interesting thing was that we didn´t start with the real portrait immediately - we did some different quick sketches (e.g. looking on the mirror and draw our faces without looking on the paper. Then the same with only one line...)- to learn how to see the most important things and shapes. Then we think how to make some parts of face more "real" - like nose and mouth and Dorthe taught us how to measure proportions with a pencil. And then we started the main portrait. And - I was shocked that I was able to draw what I had drawn. It was for the first time my face had looked quite like a MY FACE. Thank you Dorthe that you showed me the way of seeing and take down the things.
Then we did some "experimental things" - drawing face on the mirror with watery colours and then copy them on the paper (good "starter" for children before drawing the portrait).
At the end of the lesson we got some papers and crayons from Dorthe - to draw at home too - she wanted to support us in going on drawing. Many thanks.
(By the way - I have already used it once - for Eurovision song contest - to draw cows for our song. And they looked like cows (not horses, not dogs :)) for the first time in my life :)!

On Wednesday afternoon we visited Music lesson for Danish teachers with Zep.
To be honest - I was pretty surprised with the level of music skills of the students at the final year of their university studies. I know, they have much less time then Czech students for developing certain skills at university (we study 2 subjects for 5 years, whereas Danish students are trained to teach 4 subjects - in 4 years. And they have a lot of practice at schools too - therefore they spend by real studies of Music around only half a year altogehter. (We spend 2-2,5 years net time at Music department). I must confes, that their level of music skills is similar to Czech students at ENTRANCE EXAMINATION. That´s a reason why I have to say that am really happy that I study in Czech Republic - I can develop my music skills at Music department at University of Hradec Kralove.

On Friday we had a special "lesson" with Jette - about Danish films. First of all we spoke about "film language" - various ways of expression things in films. Then Jette introduced us most interesting and important Danish films in its history - and showed us many trailers or short passages from some films. Therefore we have a lot of impulses, which films we would like to see. Me for example Out of Africa, Babette´s Feast, Pelle the Conqueror, Dogville, Italian for Beginners and Heritage. Thank you, Jette. It must have taken a long time to prepare this lesson, but it was definitely worth, we got many impulses! :)

20th Feb - Carneval

We were all really looking forward to Friday evening, where the Danish February-tradition was to come - the CARNEVAL.
Last days my flatmates had been working in secret in their rooms, they didn´t want to say anything about - it was supposed to be a surprise :-)
And Friday evening the Danish queen (Zep), a bottle of beer (Máté) and an opener (Noemi) came out from the rooms. Wow! I was pretty surprised, how imaginative and skilled they were, really! :-)
Zep used her field of studies too - she sewed the dress on her own. You know - a fashion designer!:)

On midnight we saw a Danish carneval tradition - hitting a bag (filled usually with sweets) with a stick.

Unfortunately the party was a bit boring to us. Why? The two bands who were playing there were quite good for listening, but not for dancing. Erasmus students were almost the only ones who danced sometimes (when the music wasn´t too slow or too hard!), Danish people were only sitting, drinking beer and chatting. We were said that it´s quite typical for Danish parties. Oh, Czech (for sure Polish, Spanish, Hungarian etc. too) people can manage dancing too!
Nevertheless, I met with four more Czech people at the party - another Erasmus students in Denmark, who came to visit Míša and Vašek. Therefore we made a kind of Czech party within the carneval. I was glad to see so many Czech people after a long time, we enjoyed it a lot! :))

12th Feb - Danish Lunch

On Thursday we had a special Danish lesson. Firt of all our teachers thought us some basic vocabulary we need for shopping (the most important thing in foreign country is to be able to feed yourself, of course! ;) ).
So we learnt numbers until tusind (I am sure you guessed right that it means thousand ;) ) and a plenty of words connected with food - kinds of fruits, vegetable, mælkeprodukter ;), meat and the basic conversation in the shop.
Some of the words are similar to English or German, therefore the written form is not difficult in some cases. However - the pronunciation! Oops, completely different!!! I think that is the most difficult thing about Danish language. We have to practice a lot;)

And the practical part came. Every group got a list of a few things which to buy in the shop. For instance our group had a task to buy:

• rugbrød (dark bread - it´s the basic of a typical Danish lunch - because the Danes eat cold lunch, the main meal is dinner then)
• mælk - at least three kinds including kærnemælk (=kefir). ( You can find different boxes of milk in Denmark: navy blue (3,5 % fat) milk, blue (1,5%), light blue (0,5%), but also grey milk (0,1%)-which is the cheapest, but horrible, it´s like white water.)
• spegepolse (salami)
• tomat

We went altoghether to Fakta and then to our teacher´s house to prepare it and EAT IT :). The best way how to experience real Danish lunch and try their various stuff (e.g. leverpostej and frikadeller (Danish liver pate and meat balls), yum yum! :)
We enjoyed this day very much. "Tak!"

10th and 11th Feb - Excursions

Since other students in Denmark had holidays that week, we had less school and more travelling ;). On Tuesday we went to Aarhus (on the North of Jutland). We travelled by IC train (I enjoyed again :)!) We got some tasks in groups for the excursion - each group should plan and introduce us some part of the trip. I like that, because the excursion was more "ours" then. Some groups were finishing their teamwork during the travel...:)



First group led us from the train-station to the Old Town - the oldest open-air museum in the world. And they introduced us that we could find 75 houses brought from the whole Denmark to the Old Town - on from Haderslev too... Then he had 90 minutes to go on our own to see all the old beauty and experience the atmosphere of old way of life, crafts...

You can watch for more on the slideshow below... (also the Cathedral and Aros Museum, which the other groups introduced to us after...) Enjoy!;)


...OK, I am sorry, the programme for the video-making is always falling down. So the video is only on my computer, but I am not able to put it here now. I hope I can manage later. If not, for my family and friends it is in my comp for later...


On Wednesday we had a "buddy day", therefore we arranged a trip with Carsten. Nevertheless, we were quite tired after the previous-day trip to Aarhus, that´s why we decided to go to more calm place to relax a bit. We travelled by car to thee coast on the East. It was the first time in my life I had seen snow on the sandy beach. :) And also swans at the sea. (I thought they live only on fresh water (on ponds and lakes like in the Czech Republic). OK, that´s way a swan is the Danish national animal.

Then we went by car two or three more kilometres to the South - to Kalvo island. Kalvo is a tiny island, therefore we can walk aroud it in two ours. I enjoyed the walk very much because of the beautiful nature, calm atmosphere and sunny weather. We saw also a viking ship and we met only a few houses. In my opinion it must be pretty nice to live there. I found the landscape and nature rather similar to the Czech and I felt almost at home there...

Later in the afternoon we came home and Mate with Noemi prepared very delicious lunch for all of us. Afterwards, we played a card game "bohnanza" together. Since then we play the game very often with my flatmates, because we found it very enjoyable.
Anyway, the whole day was very enjoyable and we "charged our batteries" a little bit. "Tak, Carsten". ;)