International 4-H Youth Exchange

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to my vacation time. I hadn't planned writing about it but I got a request to hear about my vacation so I am going to make a newsletter about it. For my vacation, in case you didn't know, I toured Denmark, Norway, and Sweden with my mom and grandparents. It was great to see them after not seeing them for three months. The tour was with a bus and booked through Cosmos. Ok, enough background, here's the story......

Prior to my tour I had a week to spare. I spent that time with an exchange student, Elin, who was in my class four years ago at Clear Lake High School. She now lives in Vänersborg with her boyfriend and is going to school. After a week spending time with her and her boyfriend I traveled from there to Götenborg and from Götenborg through Hensingborg and Helsingor onto Copenhagen, Denmark where I was to meet my mom and grandparents the next day. When I got off the train I needed to find bus 11. I was just in time for it. I didn't have any Danish money at that point so I was hoping they would take Swedish money. Not a chance. Then all of a sudden a guy came up and said, "Here I will pay for you." I was really shocked but very glad. During this bus trip I had no idea where to get off so another guy, who was getting off at that same spot showed me where the hostel was. I couldn't believe all the help I got. This hostel was no more than really a dormitory with public bathrooms. I was able to stay there for $20. I highly recommend them if you want to keep the cost down. The next day I hopped on the city bus with all my luggage and headed for the hotel that we were staying with under the tour, dropped my luggage off and headed for the airport to pick up my mom and grandparents. We spent the rest of the afternoon looking around Copenhagen. The first stop was Tivoli Gardens. That is an all around place for amusement rides, eating, shows, etc. We managed to catch an elephant act while we were there. That was great. Those elephants are really trained well. Next stop was right next door to Tivoli Gardens at the Hard Rock Cafe. I had never been in one so we thought we would just look around a little bit. That was really cool. Then we wandered Østergrade street, their main street. There is no traffic down that street and there are small shops down both sides. There are also a lot of people doing things like playing an instrument, being a clown, a mime, trying to get people to ride a trick bike over a line, etc. That evening we got a chance to meet most of the other 51 people that were going to be with us for the next 12 days.

The next morning was pretty early, compared to what time I normally got up since I have been in Sweden. This was the first day on our bus, a 75 passenger double decker bus and our first stop was the Copenhagen harbor at a spot where a mermaid was sitting on a rock. We also visited the king and queen's palace and then headed for Odense to see Hans Christian Anderson's homestead. Hans was a famous, and still is, writer from the 19th century who wrote children's stories. One of the stories that we heard was Thumbalena and we also saw that statue in Odense. The next stop was Århus where we were to pick up our driver that was going to be with us for the rest of the trip. Our travel was complete for the day when we got to Aalsborg. That night we had a very fancy dinner on stainless steel plates and silverware. We also celebrated a birthday of one of the people who was with us

The next day, Monday, was a very lengthy travel day. This was our first, my second, opportunity to ride the ferry. We went from Fredikshavn to Götenborg, had dinner there and headed for Oslo where we stopped for the night and had supper. The supper consisted of a soup, salmon and fish, broccoli, cauliflower with a gravy, and chocolate mousse with fruit and a sauce. It was a good meal. That day each of our meals were in a different country -- breakfast in Denmark, dinner in Sweden, and supper in Norway. After supper it was then time for a little night tour around Oslo visiting the harbor, castles, and the downtown area.

The next day was another tour of the city but this time we visited the rest of the city. The main highlight of this tour was the Frogner park. This whole park was based on the circle of life. The next stop was the ski jump which is the oldest ski jump in the world dating back to 1861. We also visited city hall and an old Viking ship museum. The oldest ship was dated back to 815AD. I was really surprised at how well they preserved the old ships. They looked very nice for their age. Another spot that we visited was the Kinteki museum. This was a museum for the Kinteki ship that was used to prove a point in 1947 that you could go from Peru to Tahiti. It took them several attempts but they finally did make it to Tahiti. When we got done touring Oslo it was time to head for our destination for the night, Telemark region near Bolkesjo.

Wednesday, a very long driving day. Our final destination was suppose to be Bergen. In the meantime though we stopped at a Stave church, traveled the mountains, and visited an Industrial Museum. This industrial museum, was used during the time of World War II. The Americans were trying to bomb it because there was suppose to be heavy water, which could make the atomic bomb if combined with other material in the right way, at this location. It also provided electricity by means of sending water through a turbine. I was the lucky person who got to show how the turbines worked and after it was done I got a button making me the official engineer of that plant. Once we left this place it was some more mountain traveling to do. We couldn't go very fast because the road was narrow and when we met a car we had to practically stop. At one of the stops along the way was a huge waterfall. Mom had me climb up near the waterfalls to take a picture. We also got an opportunity to see a glacier that was coming down out of the mountains. They look really different from snow. A glacier has a blue tint to it. I would have loved to go up the mountain and see what it feels like but we didn't have the time to take to travel all that distance to the top. Next stop was another ferry ride across one of Norway's 1000 fjords. A fjord is classed as a "big river" coming directly out of the ocean We traveled four of them while in Norway. We finally arrived to Bergen. We ended up having an all American meal, McDonalds. After our supper we came back and took advantage of having my mom with me and had her trim my hair. The only problem we ran into though was that they clippers didn't work just right. They wouldn't go fast enough to get the hair cut because of the power having to be converted from 220 to 110.

The next day was a day to spend in Bergen. In the morning was an extra tour of the city where we got to some of the high viewing points in the surrounding 7 mountains to view the city. This is a neat city to visit. I kind of had a hard time imagining that a half million people were stuffed in this little area and they built houses where ever they could. One of the things that is neat about Scandinavia is that they like to repair their old buildings instead of just tearing them down to build new ones. Bergen made more roads coming into the central part of the city and decided to charge people by means of a road toll to pay for the improvements. The people complained at first but then after realizing how long it took them before compared to now they don't complain any more. We also visited the Hanseatic Museum, where the Germans lived during the war. These houses, or any of the houses in Bergen, were not heated because of the problems with burning down the city in the past. The rooms in this museums were really small, along with the beds. The beds they slept two people. I think actually that was a good thing because of not having any heat in the house this would allow the people to stay warm at night. The afternoon was for us to explore the city on our own. We had lunch at a pizza place down town and then visited the fish market. There were many varieties of fish on this market, some of which I have never seen before. This evening we had an optional excursion for our tour that we had to pay for. This was a really good one to do. It was called the Fana Folklore. We were to experience the typical Norwegian wedding reception. We had porridge which is also called romage and if you had three or more you were a Viking. I had three so I guess I am a Viking. We also had homemade flat bread, pretzels, apple juice, coffee, tea, and my favorite -- lefsa. This was really good lefsa. We also did some typical Norwegian dances.

Friday was another travel day but this time we only had about half our time riding in the bus. The other half we were on a ferry. We traveled down the Sognefjords. It is the largest in Norway and is 3/4 of a mile deep. There were little villages along the way. We didn't know how some of these people go anyplace. We couldn't find any roads to travel on. We got off the ferry in Lærdal which was also where hour hotel was. This town was not much. There was only about 900 people living here which is to be expected in this area. We had a buffet dinner and then took a walk because we ate too much. I also showed my mom and grandparents the pictures from the first two months of my trip.

Saturday was another long travel day. Mom and I had the front seat in the rotation so we could see quite a bit of sites now plus where we were going. Our first site that we saw was where the longest tunnel will be. Right now the longest tunnel is in Switzerland but next summer Norway will have the longest of 10 miles. Our final destination was going to Karlstad, Sweden. We stopped at the border to get our tax back on the gifts that we purchased. When you buy stuff in any of the Scandinavian countries, if you spend a certain amount or higher, you get the tax back when you leave. When we got to Karlstad we settled in and went down to a restaurant that our tour guide recommended. There we could get a two for one meal. We all ordered the salmon. That was good. My mom and grandparents got the first opportunity to see what some Swedes do on a Friday and Saturday night. The entire evening was very noisy with music and people in the streets outside of the bars. Mom and I finished the night changing suitcases because mine was "well used". When we got to the Swedish border I said "Ahhh, I'm home again" because it felt like my "home away from home". Something else about the Karlstad hotel was that when we walked into our room the television turned on and said "Welcome Mr. & Mrs. Fouks". I thought that was really cool.

Sunday morning we didn't need to leave too early because it wasn't very far to Stockholm. We got to Stockholm about 2:30 so we had the rest of the afternoon to tour the city. We had a tour guide who took us up to the Royal Palace. We had coffee and cake in the Chinese palace which is on the royal grounds. Then we walked through Stockholm's beautiful old city. We walked down the narrowest street in Europe. You could put your hands up against both walls and still have a little bit of room to stretch your arms. That was very narrow. Stockholm is built on 14 islands and the ground is mostly rock so whenever they build they need to use dynamite to remove the rock. Something that I found interesting was that the oldest daughter of the royal family is studying at Yale in the USA. I didn't know that. The tour guide told us that she is the next in line to the throne instead of her brother because she is older. They no longer go eldest boy. Instead it is just the eldest child.

Monday morning, everyone is off to work again. Swedes have a neat system with the way they work. The work day is shorter in the summer then most of ours allowing extra time for them to spend out on their boat or just relaxing at home. We were told that most people have a house in the city, a summer house, and also a boat. Today was a tour of city hall. It was much different then the one in Norway. The next stop was the Vasa ship museum. The Vasa ship sank on its maiden voyage in the 1600's. It sank because of being too top heavy and water filled the cannon ports. It was a very fancy ship intended for the king. Luckily the king was not on board when it went down. The afternoon was dedicated to the downtown area and shopping. I got most of my Christmas gifts during this time.

Tuesday morning, the last day to travel. We drove from Stockholm to Copenhagen through Hensingborg and Hensingor. We only stopped a few times just for a bathroom and lunch break. On the way to Copenhagen we had a short quiz to see if we were listening during the trip. We took a short ferry crossing to Denmark and then headed to the hotel that we started out at. That evening we had a typical Danish dinner with a special treat for dessert. It was almond tapioca pudding. Then they had one whole almond in one of them. Whoever got the whole almond got the Christmas prize. No one found the almond so our tour guide gave it to a person who was Danish.

Overall, this was a really good and fun trip. I really enjoyed the tour. I especially enjoyed being able to see my mom and grandparents. Our tour guide was a very good and very informative person. That allowed us to learn lots about the Scandinavian countries. I think all of us agreed that this is probably the best way to see the sites in most any country unless you are on an exchange like the IFYE program. The IFYE program allows you to learn more details about a country and tours allows you to see more countries.

Jason Fouks