New Hostfamily

So, as the title indicated, I have switched host families as of last weekend. And let me just say, I absolutely LOVE it here. This family is wonderful to me. My host parents, Dennis and Lena, have two children- Anna, who is 14, and Emil, who is 10. Both seem to be very interested in attaching themselves to my hips.
Dennis reminds me SO much of my dad. Intelligent, highly sarcastic. We get along very well. He was also an exchange student when he was younger, to Japan. We're interested in a lot of the same things, good literature, psychology, etc. He gave me a few books from his personal library to read, and I'm anxious to get started. We always seem to be able to find a good conversation topic.
Lena is a very sweet, motherly type, but also very bright. She is kind and laid back ( not to mention, a very good cook) This morning, she packed my lunch for me ( because she had ' extra time' ) and when I got home, she settled me into the tv room, and brought me home made pebbernødder, juice, and crackers to make it more ' hyggelig' for me. I feel so spoiled. By the way, for those of you who don't know what pebbernødder is, theyre traditional danish christmas treats, like little sugar and cinammon cookies. They taste a bit like teddy grahams haha, but I've grown to love them.
Anna loves Greenday, and Twilight ( like most girls these days) She's a good student, and has a good sense of humor. I think she wants to be an exchange student as well.
Emil reminds me a lot of my brother, Sam, who is very close to his age. I was accepted by him as soon as he found out I liked Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. Not to mention my father being in the special forces, you should have seen his eyes pop. He likes to hang out in my room, see what I'm up to, and play the parachute game on my Ipod. And on weekends, you can be sure to hear the 'scratch scratch' of him searching through his lego box at 7 o'clock in the morning.
They also have a puppy, named Smut. ( To smut, or smutte, in danish means to leave quickly. Like if you have to be somewhere, maybe you're in a hurry, you can say ' Jeg smutte nu') Which fits him well, because he's a 6 month ball of energy. Always willing to play. Last night, he nudged open the door of my room while I was reading, took one of my flip flops, and ran back down the stairs. I had to chase him around for at least a few minutes trying to get it back. He's a quick little buggar.

Another plus is that, since Løjt ( where I live now) is only ten minutes from where I go to school in Aabenraa, I get to sleep in an hour and a half longer than usual (6:30), and I only have to take one bus! It's a very nice change.

Things are going very well for me. Granted, of course it's still hard being away from home during the holidays, and I still miss certain people like crazy, but I'm in a much better mood more often. It's not that my last host family was bad or anything, they were very nice. But they were older, more introverted, and I tended to be ignored a lot. Spent a lot of time alone in my room because there was nothing else to do besides watch TV. Not to mention, with my seemingly constant lack of sleep, I was almost always tired, which dampened my spirits a bit too.

Next time, I will take a moment to jot down some Danish christmas traditions. They celebrate a bit differently than we do =)

Take care everyone


-Sydney

P.S. The way my name would be pronounced in Danish is " SOOHL-nee" The family teases me by calling me that sometimes. =)