Summer in Denmark

 I like travelling. A lot. And as my father is a member of the Lions Club (a worldwide charity organisation), I got the chance to take part in a Lions Youth Camp. What is that, you ask? Well, it’s a camp organized by the Lions Club for teenagers from all over the world. These camps exist in many many countries, including Denmark, and that’s where I decided to go.

So, on July 13th I took the plane to Billund, a city on the mainland of Denmark. The first week, I stayed with a host family, together with a girl from Turkey, called Sibel. The family lived in Veflinge, that’s near Odense. Our host family showed us around the country and introduced us the everyday Danish life. We visited Copenhagen (which to me seems like a beautiful mixture between Amsterdam and Hamburg), went to Odense (where the birth house of Hans Christian Andersen, the great story teller, is) and went to the west coast of Denmark to relax on the beach, where I got the chance to meet up with one of my Danish friends, who I had met in Turkey three week before the trip to Denmark. It’s a small world, I swear you! All in all, the week I stayed with my host family was really fun and I learned a lot about Danish people (for example that they simply LOVE potatoes, drink a lot of beer, and are excellent English speakers).

Me and my host family

After that week, things got even more exciting: The actual camp started! The camp was is Hoerning, near Arhus, on the mainland. I arrived there on July 20th, together with 20 other teenagers from all over world: Hungary, Lithuania, Sweden, Finland, Georgia, Macedonia, Thailand, Italy, Mexico, Israel, India, Taiwan, Poland, Slovenia, Germany, Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria. These two weeks were probably the best two weeks in my entire life.

We did a lot of things together, like doing sports and photography competitions, visiting sights (like Sky Mountain – the second highest mountain in Denmark. Honestly, it wasn’t even a hill. 247 meters? Are you kidding me?!), shopping, dancing traditional Danish dances, recording a CD (we sound terrible!), doing Bokwa, playing games, cooking a dish from our country, sitting around a bonfire while grilling marshmallows and playing guitar, partying, and simply having fun together.

Me and my BEST FRIENDS!

We had a great mixture of people, everyone was so unique but still, we had an awesome community! I was surprised how much you are able to get to like people within two weeks. Leaving the camp after two weeks was so hard, for each and every one of us. We cried a lot that day, especially because we weren’t sure if we would ever see again. My best friends in the camp were from Mexico and Taiwan – that’s really far away! We already planned to meet next year in Amsterdam, but still, I’m not sure if everyone will have time.
I miss my Denmark-friends a lot and I think about them every day – and the fantastic time we had together!

Tak for alt!