Odense and Bronderslev, Denmark

Yesterday was our last day in Odense, Denmark. The group again split in half and half of us went to Olav’s school and the other half went to Johnny’s school for school visits. At Olav’s school we got to visit a kindergarten classroom and then play outside with them. The picture on the left is of some of the girls from the kindergarten class playing outside. We got to see a performance by Mr. Larson, Olav’s parrot (who lives in his office). The parrot was able to get the door on his cage open and then he danced to some music for us. After the school visits we had to get to the train station and leave for Bronderslev, Denmark. When we arrived in Bronderslev Karla, our professor’s, relative met us at the train station. He brought us out to his house where we were served a very good homemade Danish meal.

This morning started with a school visit. Each of us was set up with a group of three to four 10^th grade Danish students. These students took each of us on a tour of the school; we were able to ask them questions and they were able to ask us questions. One think that I have never thought about until talking with students at different schools in Denmark is that many people get the wrong impression of Americans because of our movies and television shows that they watch. The students were also interested in talking about the difference in age regulations. We discussed things such as the youngest you can be to get a job, the age you get your driver’s license and the smoking and drinking ages. In the afternoon Karla’s relatives took us for a little tour of the area out to the coast. The coast we went to has been washing away about 2 meters a year, so there are houses close to the edge now. We were able to walk on the sandy beach and touch the cold water of the North Sea. We then went on to a place where there once was a functioning lighthouse that is now being surrounded by sand dunes. The sand from the sea has created large sand dunes which has destroyed the buildings around the lighthouse and made it unusable.The picture on the left is of the lightouse, sand dunes, and the North Sea from on top of one of the sand dunes. We were able to climb to the top of the dunes and look around at the area. It was rainy and very windy so we were all full of sand, especially our shoes. The last stop in our little tour was a tourist town where we were able to see boats that they still pull up onto the beach instead of using a harbor. We ended the evening and our stay in Denmark with a very nice group meal.