Culture chok in your own country?

Today I've been in Denmark for two weeks.

It's weird, & I find it hard to describe it in another way.
It's weird thinking about I just spent what feels like a week or so but what really was 10 months in the US.
The people I met, the things I saw, tried & last but not least, ate.

I warn everyone who's reading this, as it is about to go from normal writing mode,
to ultra-nostalgia-cliché-let's-talk-about-our-feelings-I-can-so-relate-to-this mode. (with a bunch of random pictures from the last 10 months)

The first thing I thought when I arrived in the Airport, when I saw all these Danish people everywhere, speaking Danish & doing Danish things, was:" Holy Cow, I'm a stranger in my own country!"

I still get that feeling from time to time. Most things actually come in waves. Some days I'll be jumping around looking forward to this & that, while other days I might sit on my couch thinking about the past year and reminiscing like some old man.

I feel bad for my friends when it comes to talking about America so most times I just stop myself right there before I start blabbering.

And all the changes that ocurred while I was gone.
To see how old playgrounds have been redone and I remember passing an old park that had been cut in half for the benefit of some new subway system. I don't approve.

Most of my friends and cousins have also changed, some more than others. Either they've grown taller or broader or they've gotten deeper voices or they've become more aware and mature compared to what they were when I left.

All in all it's a minor culture chok. It was for me. I'm not saying every single exchange kid reacts this way, I've heard of people who went up in the plane, arrived in the airport, came home and just went about like nothing had changed. Others have experienced coming home to the loss of a family member or a dear friend. Every single experience is annoyingly unique but in a way the same.

I met a Norwegian guy in New York 10 months ago who had just lost his best friend in the Utøya massacre & couldn't attend the funeral because he had to leave.
I knew a Russian guy who had to go home for two weeks for a funeral and I lost a family member myself during the past year.

But I can't complain, I've come home to a sweet girl and some good friends & a loving family.
Of course I miss Judson & 'Merica and most things about it & I'd strongly consider it, if I was offered a scholarship to College (Only God knows what they would sponsor me for).

I don't know if this is the end of this blog. Maybe I'll change it into something else it really depends on what happens. Thanks for reading my posts and supporting me through this year including the competition a couple of months ago I couldn't have done it without you guys! (the king of clichés!!)
















ps. If you have any questions about returning to your home country or just interested in anything related to this blog don't be shy to contact me or comment I'll do my best to answer your questions.









And I leave you with a picture of mi familia.

- Niels Brandt Højlund Hansen

When you find yourself in a new situation

That's what happened Monday night for me.

During school that day, one of my good ol' pals Grant came up to me and asked if I wanted to go see his brother perfrom with his band "Kellam" at a mini-concert with a few other bands.

Well, the kind of music they play is not really my type - it's like a delicate mix of screamo, indie rock and hardcore. (Sorry, if I'm incorrect)
Me being more into other genres, everything but that kind of music actually, made me kinda doubt if I wanted to come.
But being an exchange students is all about pushing limits so I thought: "Screw it"

After Track practice I came home, changed my clothes and was picked up by mi amigos and we were on our way to Chesterton!
In my mind I pictured the place as an abandoned barn with loads of emo's, punks and that type of kids.
It wasn't like that. At all.



First, the place was a coffee shop.

Second, the people looked like this.

Now, I thought we'd taken the wrong turn somewhere
because this did not even closely
look like what I had in mind.

But as the night moved on, the bands were getting ready and Kellam was first to perform.

The music was actually pretty good. Music, in general, always sound better when it's live.
People went semi crazy already with Kellam. They started pushing eachother and screaming with the lyrics
and I'm pretty sure one guy fell down to his knees and started punching the floor to the music.


Then a band called "chinxup" came on to the little stage and this time people went a little bit crazier than before. At first I thought it was pretty lame to see how people bashed up against eachother and going nuts but when the third band "Droughts" came on I had the so called "Screw it"-feeling and decided to join the crowd.
Best decision ever.
From the first note to the last all I could think of was "Holy crap, this is awesome!" I don't know what happened but following the rest of the crowd and being so close to the singer was an amazing feeling and everything would've been perfect if not for this one fat kid who kept on trying to crowd surf.

Now, I'm glad I went to the place and I'd love to go one more time before I'm heading home.

 Next time though, I gotta remember to stuff something into my ears because I had tinitus for two days afterwards.

That Awkward moment

So errybody's had awkward moments before right?

Well this one is definitely in the top 10 of awkard moments of my life. You know what, I'm just gonna call it an AM from now on.

Here it comes.

Sunday, I had a family gathering, a rather large one and distant host family relatives were everywhere to be found. Well, at least 3 times, people came up to me and my family, consisting of my host dad, host mum, host littlebro and me.

"Oh my goooodneeess!! They've grown so much since I last saw them!! You better put bricks on their heads (something they all say)!!"
Then they'd look at me: "And Oooh myyyy, the last time I saw you, you were just a toddler!"

My brother and I looked at eachother, then at the person.

We just smiled. Waiting for some kind of miracle to dissolve the AM.

2 months

With an internet speed that beats snail speed by a jiffy I've finally gotten into my blogspot account (took me about 40 tries, pushing the "refresh" button) and I've decided today's update is going to be about the mixed feelings of departure one experiences when one travels abroad for a year.

It's weird. It's really weird because, personally I'm looking forward to it, and dreading the moment at the same time. I mean, on one hand it's flippin' awesome!! You're gonna see your family and friends again and reconnect and talk about the past year (even though I doubt people are gonna be half as excited to talk about America as I will).

On the other hand what about all the people you barely just met? They're obviously not gonna freeze up and wait for you to come back and you gotta go home no matter what..
I feel like there's so much left to talk about, to do, to go see and to experience.
It's like giving a hundred teddy bears to a baby and then ripping them away from the poor kid after a minute.

Speaking for myself I have 3 weeks off school before it actually ends in Denmark so I have plenty of time to just stare into a wall, trying to realize what just happened because this whole thing kinda feels like a dream.
Not a Wee-I-can-fly-look-at-me kinda dream. It's just unreal.

I don't know about other fez-kids but dropping into a whole new life where you're constantly getting blasted by new stimuli and suffer from culture shock in the beginning, just to acknowledge that you have settled down but not really is somewhat surreal.

And it's over in 2 months.
It feels like a week ago I had 5 months left.

The 5 golden excuses

I sat in class this week thinking about what I was suppose to answer when my teacher asked me where my vocab was. I didn't answer. Therefor I thought this might be helpful for other exchange students in future cases you do something stupid and need to get out of it fast:

5.
When your host family is freaking out because you served them food for dinner that made them all sick.
- No, no, no. In (insert country) "Best Before 1-11-2012" means "Best Before 1st of November, 2012"

4.
In school when you curse out loud.
- In (insert country) we all have tourettes.

3.
When you were supposed to be home 7 hours ago.
- I was running on (insert time zone in your original country) time.

2.
When you haven't done your home work.
. Oh, in (insert country) we never turn it in. We just... ehm.. make our home work and burn it?

1.
When people ask you, if you did it.
- ¿Yo no hablo Inglés?

When things need to be done

You know that feeling when you're looking at your dirty clothes and really aren't feeling the whole cleaning process with washer, dryer and hanging up and ironing... I never heard of it.

Of course I have and it sucks big time! There's dirty clothes around me everywhere and I have a 100 other things that needs to be done... I have letters to be sent, people I need to talk to, things I need to sign up for, money I need to make.

Okay the last one wasn't true but it sounded pretty gangster so I'm gonna stick with it.

But wait! There's help for those in need of it!
I have one advice and one only. Because it works with a bit of will & discipline.
I got it from my dad when I was 6 years old:
"You might as well do it now, because later on, you'll regret not doing it."

I usually just sum it up to the Nike motto: "Just Do It"

And it's so funny because it's true!!

Next time you look at your pile of dirty clothes and have an extra hour of nothing - do it.

I dare ya.

btw this goes for decision-making too.

No doubt, the weirdest day of my life

So going home from Hawaii was sad, bad and depressing...
But the sadness quickly got replaced by weirdness.

It all started when we arrived in San Francisco airport - my home for the next seven hours - my Danish room mate and I decided to see if we could leave the airport to go see the city.
Unfortunately we found out that driving there would take two hours back and forth.

Very depressed, we went back in again. This is where the first really weird thing happened: We were going towards my Victor's gate on those weird flat escalators (they're pretty funny if you're bored, which I was)
And I saw the sun just above the mountains to which I uttered: "Look Victor, the sun's going up!"
He then went silent and said: "Niels, it's going down..."
At first I just laughed because I was confused but he just kept looking at me with this face and I realized my inner clock was messed up bad.

At this point I was pretty uncomfortable with myself. I knew, if I closed my eyes I would wake up an hour later... You know that bad feeling you have right after an unexpected nap? Yeah I had that a couple of times during this trip...

2 hours before my departure from San Francisco I was waiting for one of my Swedish friends to come in from Hawaii and after some small talk he took out a pair of used underwear and looked me in the eyes: "Hey dude, we found Victor's underwear and since he's Danish we figured you're gonna see him again."
So that's how Niels ended up with another guy's used underwear in his bag...

When i finally arrived in Chicago airport I was waiting for my bags when this little kid started crying... I thought: "poor guy".
His mother then walked over to him and the little "bad word for a kid" started pointing at me?!!
I then established eye contact with the mother....
I swear, if eyes could kill...

As if that wasn't enough, on the way to the train station I had to pay 5 bucks for gas and when I walked into the store that's when the big finale was waiting.
First the lady handed me a receipt to which I replied: "Where's the pen?" After some awkward silence I realized it was a receipt and not one of those papers you sign after you pay with card.
Then I quickly said: "Have a good night"
It was 5 o'clock in the morning and I was telling myself: "fail, fail, fail..."

And that's not all! At the train station I had to wait two hours surrounded by homeless people.. I mean I was sad because it was harsh to look at but them but then two old guys starting pointing at me and my suit case mumbling stuff and the empathy quickly turned into mild fright...

For sure the weirdest day of my life... 30 hours of transportation, never again.

Beautiful Hawai'i

With a large portion of jetlag and a tiny bit of depression I'm home again from an amazing trip to the island of O'ahu.

We were around 10 boys and 50 girls. Not unusual for exchange students since, for some reason, there are always 5 females for each male exchange student.
I lived in room 1404 with the Dane, Victor and the two Swedes, Oscar & Erik.
Awesome guys, we fit well together. I could sense that after about 2 hours when our room already looked like sh*t and we just laughed instead of trying to clean up.

During that week we surfed on the beautiful beach of Waikiki, hiked to the top of the Diamond Head mountain of O'hau, ate at all kinds of places, trying all kinds of foods, got to know eachother better and a whole bunch of other things.
On Valentine's my room mates and I gave our guides (they prefer to be called monitors but who says that?)
Valentine's cards and it was fun especially because they decided to tatoo our names on their arms 2 days later!

We also visited Pearl Harbor - I remember when I saw the movie when I was like 8-years-old - it's a very beautiful place to mourn the dead and to remember what happened December 7. 1941...

But what made all these things even more awesome was the people I was doing it with! I'm trying to keep this
as non-cheesy as possible but to be quite frank I must say I'm already missing you guys.
Done, no more of that schtuff, it's a blog not a place to whine. I got a mom for that.

I'm putting pictures in a new window since there's too many and it seems more organizable than just throwing them in here randomly.

Aloha guys

Hawai'i

Just a brief post to sum up for the past days

First I wanna say thank you guys for the support and for getting me on the top 100 list!!

When I received the mail saying that I was on it I was literally jumping from bed to bed yelling: "YEAH"

THANK YOU!!

Then I'd like to tell you I'll be doing my first Vlog on Hawaii. That's gonna be... interesting...

Jokes aside I have a couple of ideas on how it's gonna go.

Third off - Hawaii is beautiful!! But I won't give you guys too much info on it - you're gonna have to wait for the Vlog to come out once I get home.

Last but not least, my Danish roomie and I wrote about the first day in a blog that's hosted by our organization and there's a bunch of cool pics and scthuff so check it out, link's down below.

Aloha and Mahalo (bye and thanks)

Link for Hawaii blog:

http://belousa2hawaii2012.blogspot.com/

Niels' List of Music 2012

So I thought it could be pretty fun to share my music with you guys based off my Itunes "most listened to" so here it is, enjoy:

1. Baby Good Night - GD & TOP

2. You and Your Heart - Jack Johnson

3. Kool Aid & Frozen Pizza - Mac Miller

4. Kids - MGMT

5. Green Lights - Aloe Blacc

6. Seek Bromance - Avicii/Tim Berg

7. Drop - Tyler, the Creator & Earl Sweatshirt

8. New Frontier - Donald Fagen

9. The Girl from Ipanema - Frank Sinatra

10. Provider - N*E*R*D

11. Piger med Pistoler - Flødeklinikken

12. We All Try - Frank Ocean

13. Tequila - The Champs

14. Kick, Push - Lupe Fiasco

A top 14 just sounded right in my head and they're all equally good.

My criteria for each song was that it had been played a thousand times and could be played a thousand more without getting boring. 

Hawaii!!!

5 days till I'm heading to Hawaii - the land of Hulu dancing and ukuleles!

Actually it's a funny story how it came to be in February that I decided to go.

It all started on the Danish exchange-student facebook page where students can talk about experiences and problems and see if others relate.

See, I wanted to go in March but then one person wrote she would go in February. A month later we were like 5 people going from Denmark! I've met all of them back in Denmark and some in New York so I'm excited to catching up with them again after 6 months!

I'm really looking forward to the whole thing!! The weather, surfing, the environment, the people and when I come back I will make a song called "Teach me how to Hula"
Trust me. It'll be a one hit wonder!

                                 Me when I'm old and have become a world known Hula legend.

The Campout

Sorry for no promised updates but I've been out in the woods...
Fighting bears with my bare hands. Blindfolded.

Jokes aside - I wasn't blindfolded.
My youth group had organized an only-men/boys trip to a forest nearby for the weekend. It was killer! I really enjoy my youth group and the people in it! I mean it's one of those places where there's only nice people - you can speak your own opinion and some may oppose it but they still respect it. Too mature!! And then there's times where we just fool around, attack each other and tell bad jokes.

Inside the deep forest we had devotionals and talks. We had 'em a couple of times a day and we would talk and discuss subjects concerning being a Christian and following God.

Me being Danish, God's never been a very big picture in my life (no offense to those Danes who disagree), but seeing how serious these people take their religion fascinates me.
On the last night we were arranged in small groups with a leader in each. The leader asked us different questions about dreams, things we would do before we died etc.

I remember one of the last questions were: "What's your favourite color?" I answered "Blue".

He then asked me what I felt when I looked at the color and I said that I felt things like loyalty, tranquility and discipline.

Ask yourself what your favourite color is and ask yourself why.
What would you say if I told you that what you feel about your favourite color reflects what you feel about yourself?








Anychase it was an awesome weekend and it's weekends like those that makes me feel so privileged to experience different cultures in America and learning to understand them.
Someday I might be living here.

10th of June

That is the day I shall return to my home land. The ancient kingdom of Denmark.
What a weird and awkward feeling in my stomach.
On one side I look forward to seeing my family and my friends but there's something wrong in the equation.
What about the people here?!! My host family, my friends, my school and my cat?!!

It's like it ended before it even got to start... I know I still have 4 months left but if I'm right, they're going to fly by and feel like 4 weeks... *bad word*, it's like I feel I'm waisting my time if I'm not doing something every freakin' second. So much to see, so much I'm going to miss...

Anyphase before this gets too emotionel and I start whining, I just wanted to express this probably was the best decision I've ever made in my life. Better than that time when I chose to stay home and watch Disney movies instead of going to a concert. Yeah. Way better than that decision.

This is not my testament. Oh no, there's gonna be one, and it's gonna be loooooaooooaoaooaoaoooong. and emotional. Like "the Vow" emotional.

So basically I'm just whining about my departure date and the panic following.

And what the heck about the seniors I know? They're all going to college and I know I'm going back to Denmark so it doesn't make any difference, but I feel like they're leaving me and not the other way around!

That is all. :'( 

American Influence

See, now why do people on my own age have to go ahead and get tattoos and drive cars and do all the things I can't do for another year? I can't help it but sometimes I imagine I'm driving the car when I'm sitting next to the driver...

And then there's the army. At first I was like: "Heck no, you get killed and stuff!"
But then I thought about it and it seems pretty awesome! I wish I could just go ahead and do it like my peers but no, no, no. I have to wait. and wait. and wait...

One of my friends just signed up for the next eight years and another doing it for the next 4 years and I don't know what people think about that but I think it's pretty dang bold to just go ahead and do such a thing!

And then there's the tattoos...

Dang it they just look so freaking cool and awesome and I could go on forever. My Mom would probably freak out but when I turn 18 it doesn't matter (unless she tells me to move out if I get one. Then I'm screwed...)

And there's a bunch of other things I'd like to do but these two are the one's roaming my head for the time being.

I just hope the next thing won't be the desire to joining the Circus.
All though it seems pretty interesting now that I think about it...

It's on!

For those of you who have read the comments probably have an idea what this is about.

A website called http://www.lexiophiles.com have an annual contest where the top 100 exchange blogs are nominated, voted and chosen. Someone chose to nominate me and I have no clue who it is but thank you alot for nominating me!

Anyrays the fact that I got nominated made me think I better do my best and honor the nominator and everybody who feels the same way. That's also the reason I made some re-designs and improvements. That being said let's get this thing going!
I'll post every single day of the competition to give you a better feeling of my blog and what it's all about. If you liked what you read and you want to support me click the picture below and vote for my "Blog of Niels" or even subscribe to this channel if you like.

On the website you just click on my blog, then go down and click the "vote" button it only takes like 6 seconds.

I literally tried to see how fast I could do it.

Btw I've made a "videos" page where videos of all sorts of things will be staying and I just uploadet a new one from Florida and if this is you're first time what are you still doing here? start scrollin'!

Florida, Baby!

I just got home from a one-week trip to Orlando, Florida and it was awesome!

At first I wasn't even sure if I wanted to go because that would mean I'd be really broke but I wanted to so badly I decided I was better off broke and brown rather than pale... and still broke. A month later I was all packed ready to go. Just going to the airport was a one-day trip haha. First my host-dad drove me halfway there to a French exchange student's house where I played Halo and slept for the night. The next morning his host-mom drove me to a random Best-Western where the shuttle bus picked me up and after a tiny nap I was at the airport. After I finally found the freaking meeting spot I realized how much I'd packed for the trip. Nothing. I had one small piece of luggage and my STS-backpack (black & yellow swagger).

We checked in, walked through security without any trouble and before I knew it we were on the plane on the way to sunny Florida! Gosh stepping off that plane was so weird?!! I could smell the warmth and I felt like we'd jumped right into Summer. I was dying to get outside and after much impatience and a tiny bit of whining we were outside driving to the hotel. Since I've never been to Florida my mouth was wide open most of the time in the start. The palm trees and the sunny weather and allright I'm gonna stop talking about that now.

The crew was starring two Germans, a Brazilian, one Tawainese, a Belgian, some Thai guy and I the Dane.
As it goes for chaperones and guides - they were all American haha. everyone were awesome but my room mate - the Thai guy - was kind of weird. Like scary weird.
Like: "Hey I'm from Bangkok, you know the hangover part 2?"

Anyshade we did all kinds of things and saw all kinds of stuff. We went to NASA Space Kennedy Center, Universal Studios (Harry Potter ftw), a minigolf course with a huge volcano in the middle that would go off every now and then (I did not jump up and scream like a little girl, releasing laughter from a bunch of retired people the first time it went off) & loads of more places!

I remember at one point we were at Clearwater beach and Ice, the Thai guy, decided to run around with food in his one hand making all the birds on the entire beach following him and it was hilarious until he started running towards me...

During the week we enjoyed learning interestin sentences in each other's languages. We would scream: "Você é gostosa" At all the Brazilians in Universal Studios. Explain our devotion for meat in Thai: "Gou Lak Saigon" Or something close to that I would rather not write it in Thai leaving it to the 0 people from Thailand reading my blog.

Long story short, awesome week, just plain bagel awesome. Thanks to the guys that went, you're awesome and thanks weather for not being crappy.

Recee's Piece!

Haha That's Denmark!

So I was told yesterday that, on NBC there's a show called: "Parks & Recreation." The latest episode is called:" The Treaty" and basically the show's plot is about the model UN which is a project alot of American high schools do in which different students represent different nations of the UN.





Well, in this episode one of the main characters plays her role as Denmark and she gets kind of aggressive...
It starts off with her declaring war on her ex-boyfriend, Peru. From there it just gets more and more twisted and... Hahah you know what I'm just gonna put a link down below with the full episode.


http://www.nbc.com/parks-and-recreation/video/the-treaty/1367759
follow the link to see the violent side of Denmark and a small sentence in the end saying "We destroy all/ vi ødelægger alle"

Just want you guys to know, that what she's saying about Denmark is 100% legit and that if we wanted to, our huge army consisting of not even 1 million soldiers would dominate the world in a matter of seconds...
because we're that awesome.

Chicago, Mac Miller and hook ups with exchange kids

Last Saturday I went to a meet up with the other exchange kids and wow. So weird seeing how people have grown in two months. Another thing I thought about was the connection we shared - we are all together in this whole exchange thing and it's like being part of a small family with no parents. I'm the grand dad though..

Asians, Africans, Europeans, and South americans!

Two days later, that's right!! Monday I got off school and on the train to Chicago, Illinois!! A little bit too early but I guess you can see that on our faces.

American graffiti

Tall buildings

That tunnel was too fun to yell in!

Shedd Aquarium

Entre dish for 4 persons!

Andy and Andrew with the Chicago pizzza that we couldn't eat up haha.

Bicycles <3 I've missed you

8th of November was a day filled with realease! MW3 and Mac Miller's new album Blue Slide Park!! Ive been waiting for that dang album forever! Anyglaze it's really really really good! A couple of the songs were already released but especially "Diamonds & Gold", "Missed Calls", & "Under the Weather" are really good songs!

Lazy Sundays with Black Ops

Haha so my brother and I were talking about "Black Ops"
and next thing this movie was created!
Basically it shows the reactions of our poor gaming...
Enjoy:)

Basket Ball

So first day of Basket Ball! It's awesome - I'm getting slaughtered - but in a good way! Our school's varsity team consists of beast and beasts only! I might make it to the junior varsity but it really doesn't matter what team i get on as long as I'm just playing! My brother is trying to make me play video games and I really want to... But I got homework... Stupid temptation... All right half an hour couldn't hurt!

dang it...