So I just thought that I should let you all know that I will finally have some pictures and news of some place other than Sweden as of Tuesday 10th March! This is because I'M OFF TO POLAND!!! Yes a group of exchange students are heading to Poland for the weekend...partly because the two Polish girls persuaded everyone to come and partly because the flights and hostels as so CHEAP!! So we're all flying out on Thursday the 5th of March from MALMÖ, which is a nice change and much closer to home, and we'll spend Friday touring Krakow and then everyone is due to fly home on the Saturday. However I've decided that while I'm in Poland I might as well make the most of it so Saturday I'm off to Auschwitz. For those who are unaware it's the one of the main and probably most famous concentration camps from the Holocaust. Then Sunday I'm heading to Warsaw where I will spend the day then fly home from there on the Monday. I will hopefully manage to get a chance to put up photos and write a blog here for you all the enjoy by the end of the week...free time is very limited these days as I have started placement at my school Bladins Internation School which is where I am every other day that I don't have uni. So my 2 days a week of only 6hrs has gone up to 5 days a week with just 21 and a half hours...but I'm not complaining. It's nice to have something to help pass the time...though I wish the time wouldn't pass so quickly as I only have 3 months left here in Sweden....no time at all really.
I will also hopefully get around to putting up some photos I took when I did a little tour of Malmö a couple of weeks back.
So until next time, hope you're all well and will fill you in when I return from Poland!!!
Puss och kram,
Alice
xo
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
The Latsest News From Downtown Malmö!!
As it now rapidly approaches 2 months since I left Australia, I have plenty of news for the last few weeks here.
Firstly, on January 30th I had my first visitor - my friend Julia who is currently on exchange for a year (July 2008 - July 2009) in Cambridge, England. She arrived on the Friday night and stayed until Sunday. It was great catching up with her as I hadn't seen her for over 7 months. On the Saturday we decided to head to Copenhagen for the day and see the sights. We arrived in Copenhagen at about 11.15am and headed straight to the Tourist Information Centre so that we could get a map and work out how we would spend our day. Despite it being a Saturday, many of the tourist attractions were open till 5pm so we didn't have to rush to try and see everything. After grabbing a map, we walked for about 20mins in search of a cafe so we could sit and have a coffee and work out what would be the best way to see everything. We decided to do the self-guided walking tour which included many of the popular tourist attractions in Copenhagen, which was supposed to take about 3 hours, and so set off. Despite the cool weather and cloudy day, it was quite nice walking around the small streets. We managed to see Copenhagen Cathedral, the old University, the Round Tower, Rosenborg Castle and the Crown Jewels, The King's Garden and the City Hall. Unfortunately, in the time we had before things closed and it got too dark to really see much, we'd only managed to make it round one quarter of the walking tour. So instead trying to finish it, we opted to abandon the walking tour and hit the shops, with the resolve to just come back again and finish it off when we had more daylight hours. Our destination, Støget is one extremely long shopping street - any girl's heaven and any man's nightmare! It was amazing how long the street was and the funniest thing was that after about 500m you passed the shops you'd already passed in the previous 500m. So why they need about 4 or 5 of each shop on this one street is still a mystery to me. Finally at about 5.30pm, when it was dark and cold, we decided to head back to Malmö, have something to eat, freshen up and then hit the town. We met up with a bunch of my friends from Sommarstaden and headed out to Kulturbolaget, one of the many nightclubs. It was a fun night out and we even had the luck of finding it snowing when we left. Sunday morning we woke up to find it was still snowing and rather cold outside. So instead of showing Julia around Malmö, we decided to stay inside where it was warm and watch a movie.
Since then I have spent many, many hours in my room (which is not as much fun as it sounds) just watching movies and TV shows on my computer, listening to music, reading my books for my course and just chilling out. Today, however, I went and visited the school where I will be doing my 3 weeks school placement, Bladins International School. I'm in with a year 6 class (which is the equivalent of our grade 5) who are about to do their last term before moving up to middle school. My teacher is really nice and is giving me lots of opportunities to teach the class which is nice. The students are also about to start their exhibitions which will take up all of the last term. Their exhibitions involve the students chosing a unit of inquiry, researching this and then putting together a presentation which they will present to their parents in April. So this will all be going on while I'm there and I'm really looking forward to having a look at how it's done as this is something that is being introduced to some schools currently in Australia as a new way for learning. So I think it will be a fun and amazing learning experience to spend 15 days there, which will be done as 2 days a week for about 7 weeks.
And finally, I have started to organise some travelling trips!!!! Firstly, I'm off to Helsinki (Finland) and St Petersburg and Moscow (Russia) over Easter with Julia on an arranged trip that is offered to exchange students. I arrive back from this trip on the 15th of April and then the next day I am off again but this time to spend 4 days in Amsterdam!! This should be really good and the one main attraction I want to go and see is the Anne Frank house and museum, seeing as we're studying it currently in our course here. I'm also in the process of organising a trip to Prague with Valerie, a trip to Berlin with Gerda (who lives in Berlin and so can offer me free accommodation and show me round), where I would like to do a day trip down to Krakow and Auschwitz, and finally a trip to Italy at the end of May, where I can go to Pisa, Milan, Venice and Rome. I'm also hoping to maybe do a weekend trip to Gotland, which is an island just off the coast of Sweden (it's still part of Sweden though) and I think Interact (the student international group who looks after the exchange students) is planning a trip to Oslo which would also be great. So stay tuned for details and photos from these trips. Hopefully I'm not making you too jealous back home.
Hope the weather isn't too hot for you all aback home and that you are all safe!
Until next time...
Puss och kram,
Alice
xo
Firstly, on January 30th I had my first visitor - my friend Julia who is currently on exchange for a year (July 2008 - July 2009) in Cambridge, England. She arrived on the Friday night and stayed until Sunday. It was great catching up with her as I hadn't seen her for over 7 months. On the Saturday we decided to head to Copenhagen for the day and see the sights. We arrived in Copenhagen at about 11.15am and headed straight to the Tourist Information Centre so that we could get a map and work out how we would spend our day. Despite it being a Saturday, many of the tourist attractions were open till 5pm so we didn't have to rush to try and see everything. After grabbing a map, we walked for about 20mins in search of a cafe so we could sit and have a coffee and work out what would be the best way to see everything. We decided to do the self-guided walking tour which included many of the popular tourist attractions in Copenhagen, which was supposed to take about 3 hours, and so set off. Despite the cool weather and cloudy day, it was quite nice walking around the small streets. We managed to see Copenhagen Cathedral, the old University, the Round Tower, Rosenborg Castle and the Crown Jewels, The King's Garden and the City Hall. Unfortunately, in the time we had before things closed and it got too dark to really see much, we'd only managed to make it round one quarter of the walking tour. So instead trying to finish it, we opted to abandon the walking tour and hit the shops, with the resolve to just come back again and finish it off when we had more daylight hours. Our destination, Støget is one extremely long shopping street - any girl's heaven and any man's nightmare! It was amazing how long the street was and the funniest thing was that after about 500m you passed the shops you'd already passed in the previous 500m. So why they need about 4 or 5 of each shop on this one street is still a mystery to me. Finally at about 5.30pm, when it was dark and cold, we decided to head back to Malmö, have something to eat, freshen up and then hit the town. We met up with a bunch of my friends from Sommarstaden and headed out to Kulturbolaget, one of the many nightclubs. It was a fun night out and we even had the luck of finding it snowing when we left. Sunday morning we woke up to find it was still snowing and rather cold outside. So instead of showing Julia around Malmö, we decided to stay inside where it was warm and watch a movie.
Since then I have spent many, many hours in my room (which is not as much fun as it sounds) just watching movies and TV shows on my computer, listening to music, reading my books for my course and just chilling out. Today, however, I went and visited the school where I will be doing my 3 weeks school placement, Bladins International School. I'm in with a year 6 class (which is the equivalent of our grade 5) who are about to do their last term before moving up to middle school. My teacher is really nice and is giving me lots of opportunities to teach the class which is nice. The students are also about to start their exhibitions which will take up all of the last term. Their exhibitions involve the students chosing a unit of inquiry, researching this and then putting together a presentation which they will present to their parents in April. So this will all be going on while I'm there and I'm really looking forward to having a look at how it's done as this is something that is being introduced to some schools currently in Australia as a new way for learning. So I think it will be a fun and amazing learning experience to spend 15 days there, which will be done as 2 days a week for about 7 weeks.
And finally, I have started to organise some travelling trips!!!! Firstly, I'm off to Helsinki (Finland) and St Petersburg and Moscow (Russia) over Easter with Julia on an arranged trip that is offered to exchange students. I arrive back from this trip on the 15th of April and then the next day I am off again but this time to spend 4 days in Amsterdam!! This should be really good and the one main attraction I want to go and see is the Anne Frank house and museum, seeing as we're studying it currently in our course here. I'm also in the process of organising a trip to Prague with Valerie, a trip to Berlin with Gerda (who lives in Berlin and so can offer me free accommodation and show me round), where I would like to do a day trip down to Krakow and Auschwitz, and finally a trip to Italy at the end of May, where I can go to Pisa, Milan, Venice and Rome. I'm also hoping to maybe do a weekend trip to Gotland, which is an island just off the coast of Sweden (it's still part of Sweden though) and I think Interact (the student international group who looks after the exchange students) is planning a trip to Oslo which would also be great. So stay tuned for details and photos from these trips. Hopefully I'm not making you too jealous back home.
Hope the weather isn't too hot for you all aback home and that you are all safe!
Until next time...
Puss och kram,
Alice
xo
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
COPENHAGEN
Photos from Julia's and my trip to Copenhagen....
A pretty coloured building opposite Tivoli Gradens
Another photo of the pretty coloured building!
The entrance to Tivoli Gardens. Unfortunately they close over winter so we couldn't go inside
City Hall at City Hall Square!
Some pretty building at City Hall Square
A random street in Copenhagen
Monument outside Copenhagen Cathedral
Copenhagen Cathedral where Prince Fredrick and Princess Mary were married!
Another picture of Copenhagen Cathedral
Inside Copenhagen Cathedral
The old Copenhagen University
The old university
More random streets...
The Synagogue
The Round Tower...
...
All taken from the top of the Round Tower...
The King's Gardens
Also the King's Gardens
Can't remember what special land mark or building you can see in this picture! It was something special at the time I took the photo!!
Copenhagen Cathedral
Just a petty view!
You can just see the bridge that goes from Denmark to Sweden...
and you can barely see it in this photo!!
The roof of the building attached to the Round Tower
Julia posing in one of the alcoves on the climb up to the roof of the Round Tower
My turn....Going for the Mother Mary look...didn't quite succeed I think!!!
Julia and I praying in one of the alcoves!
The old toilet....used by Hans Christian Andersen many, many years ago!!
The climb up to the top! It's a slope the entire way until you reach the very top and then there's steps that lead you up onto the look out.
Now you know why it's called the 'Round Tower!!
Pictures of the King's Gardens
The entrance to the path that leads you to Rosenborg Castle
Not too sure what this building is exactly...but I know it's part of Rosenborg Castle where you can go and see some of the old Crown Jewels!
A square where the's an ice rink in the centre - the white line is the ice!!
A slightly closer picture of the ice skating rink!
The pretty colourful lights on the buildings at the the end of Støget (one of Europe's longest shopping streets! And trust me it's long and every 500m the shops start to repeat!!!)
More colourful lights!
Sommarstaden! I thought you might like a picture of the outside of the building!!
Another photo of the pretty coloured building!
The entrance to Tivoli Gardens. Unfortunately they close over winter so we couldn't go inside
City Hall at City Hall Square!
Some pretty building at City Hall Square
A random street in Copenhagen
Monument outside Copenhagen Cathedral
Copenhagen Cathedral where Prince Fredrick and Princess Mary were married!
Another picture of Copenhagen Cathedral
Inside Copenhagen Cathedral
The old Copenhagen University
The old university
More random streets...
The Synagogue
The Round Tower...
...
All taken from the top of the Round Tower...
The King's Gardens
Also the King's Gardens
Can't remember what special land mark or building you can see in this picture! It was something special at the time I took the photo!!
Copenhagen Cathedral
Just a petty view!
You can just see the bridge that goes from Denmark to Sweden...
and you can barely see it in this photo!!
The roof of the building attached to the Round Tower
Julia posing in one of the alcoves on the climb up to the roof of the Round Tower
My turn....Going for the Mother Mary look...didn't quite succeed I think!!!
Julia and I praying in one of the alcoves!
The old toilet....used by Hans Christian Andersen many, many years ago!!
The climb up to the top! It's a slope the entire way until you reach the very top and then there's steps that lead you up onto the look out.
Now you know why it's called the 'Round Tower!!
Pictures of the King's Gardens
The entrance to the path that leads you to Rosenborg Castle
Not too sure what this building is exactly...but I know it's part of Rosenborg Castle where you can go and see some of the old Crown Jewels!
A square where the's an ice rink in the centre - the white line is the ice!!
A slightly closer picture of the ice skating rink!
The pretty colourful lights on the buildings at the the end of Støget (one of Europe's longest shopping streets! And trust me it's long and every 500m the shops start to repeat!!!)
More colourful lights!
Sommarstaden! I thought you might like a picture of the outside of the building!!So that's all my pictures from Copenhagen. However the walking tour Julia and I began around the city centre which takes in most of the main tourist attractions in Copenhagen takes longer than we had time for so we need to go back and finish off the 3/4's we still have to go. So more photos to come...but they wont be until at least the middle of April because I'm not going back until the Tivoli gardens are open which isn't until April 18!
Puss och kram,
Alice
xo
Puss och kram,
Alice
xo
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