"We don't even have to try, it's always a good time!"

I'm realizing my summer is very different from the winter I had here in Denmark. My mood is changed and now I feel more grounded, also thanks to the routine I'm in, I made friends I value a lot, and my personal growth is progressing well. If in the beginning everything felt like a dream, I'm now aware that Denmark is truly my everyday life and I feel even more grateful for that.

Sometimes I still have to cope with my random lacks of energy that don't really fit with my will to do as much as I can, and that's a bit sad, but since in May I wasn't good with my sleeping schedule lately I tried to give more importance to my body and mind needs. But of course I got busy anyways, that's what I'm here for in the end! :)

At the Royal Run I worked at a concert in the harbour, together with Ronni. At some point Guna joined us, and we went for a little walk to see where our art piece of the graffiti workshop was hanged. Wow! After that I went to Marielyst with some danish friends, and I was so surprised that they actually had a bath in the sea even if it was only May 29th and to me it was absolutely still too cold!

Then June arrived and we started it by having dinner at Guna's place - I've been looking for it for long and I'm happy that we could plan and make it. We had a hyggelig night also with Soumia, Ronni, Emil and Tobias: the boys grilled some delicius meat that we ate with different salads and potatoes and then we watched some skate videos on tv.

For me, summer officially started with my last dance class and the end of the art course I helped Susanne with. In both occasion we had ice cream all together, so we could say goodbye with a sweet taste.

With Soumia things are going great: we are sharing lots of experiences and our apartment is always open for friends, I'm enjoying it so much! I still need my time to rest and have peace on my own sometimes, but it's nice to "go crazy" with friends in the summertime. Also, we finally brought our bikes to the bike shop and all the little problems we had are fixed! As you can imagine, now we're going everywhere with them and we feel so lucky.

And since we also have been offered car to borrow for our cultural trips, once we went together with Soumia's friend Virginia to Møns Klint, a big white cliff on the cutest island of Denmark, Møn. We had so much fun all together, and we saw amazing places we already would like to visit again if we will have the chance. Soumia has an analog camera and she loves to take pictures so we're going to have lots of memories.

On June 9th we hosted the concert we all enjoyed the most: Los Fuegos, a spanish/danish band made the audience (and the staff!) dance the whole night. The band was very good in entertaining, they were telling stories about the songs and people really felt involved and energized.

I'm so happy to announce: I did my danish exam! YAYY! I feel so proud of how many things I learned in danish. Of course, I only know the basics, but now I can grasp the context when I hear conversations and honestly I didn't really see that happening when I began going to school. Mostly I use it at the supermarket (it's so nice to be able to share with the cashiers some little conversation without asking to talk in english!) and at the cafe when kids sometimes are just too hyped from skating they forget to talk in english (cuties).

This Friday Soumia, Guna and I are finally hosting the movie night I mentioned you about. I'm looking forward to it! Some youngsters already applied and now we're waiting for the last minute participations. We are also preparing some italian crostini with them before the movie -  everybody knows that when the food is involved the coziness increases.

Biggest discovery I had about Soumia: she can make homemade pizza! So from now we decided that every week we're having pizza nights, and I couldn't dream of something better :) also because I tried some frozen pizzas here, and I'm not the biggest fan... you can see it from the picture of me at the supermarket trying to decide which one could be the less disappointing one hahaha.

Another typical food I think I'm going to have quite often this summer is the koldskål, some special yogurt with strawberries and sweet biscuits. I tasted it once and fell in love! Ok I'll admit, not in love like I am with the Cocio - but you know, first love is different. But I have to say that also the bun with butter and palægschokolade made me doubt about my loyalty to the Cocio.

Last week I was in Copenhagen with some friends for the CPH open, the biggest skate event and contest I've ever been to. Some of the pictures you're seeing in this blog are from that day, and you can imagine how happy/excited/overwhelmed I was!! Soumia gave us the best advice: to rent bikes, so we were quickly in moving from one skaterpark to another (where the main skaters were). I also bought a new skateboard online (I'm totally in love with it) and it arrived right before the event, but I wasn't feeling confident enough to bring it there and look like a poser (lol).

The day after I went to the capital again to attend the Midterm Evaluation with the european volunteers I met during the Arrival Training. Compared to the first meeting, this one was more about reflection/sharing thoughts and experiences. I found it very useful to see at what point my project is, also to collect some ideas of how I'm improving as a person, and it was interesting to talk with my friends to understand how they're feeling after some months in the ESC. The last night we had the chance to have dinner at Absalon, a renovated old church where people gather to meet new cultures. And we also had a special guided tour in Christiania by a lady who has been living there for 45 years: such a great opportunity!

On June 23rd I went with Soumia, Christian and our new friend Tash to Marielyst to celebrate Midsommer. We had dinner on the beach waiting for the bonfire to be lit (such a nice tradition, I loved it!), then we moved to the city center where we met Emil, Yevhen, and also some of our skaters who were celebrating their graduation, and we all danced together to some old danish rock under the main stage.

What else? I have some future projects that are work in progress, one of them is the Aktive Sommer with Guna where we will create cute pots for plants and also an art masterpiece with colorful trash - but some others must still be a secret, so shh! And you know I don't like spoilers: let's just wait for the right time to spill the tea.

Let's update asap then! :)

- Deb