give me your eyes for just one second.

ahh :)

i'm taking the time to write this now because class got cancelled for the day.
it's a relief, because i came home early from a party for benedicte's baptism last night
and was too unwell to even bike home!

i woke up this morning not feeling much better.
i took the hour long bus to class, to get to school and find out it was cancelled!
ah!
so  i got straight back on the bus and got home an hour ago.
i put put my pj's and eye mask back on and crawled on back into bed.

until . . .

i woke up at the sound of a knock on my door and a small thud.
...

i scrambled out of bed and found  ...

THIS CARE PACKAGE FROM MY SISTER!

i facetimed with her as i excitedly unpacked it all.
so exciting! 
i was too happy to fall back asleep, so figured i may as well  catch up on a blog.

just some highlights and other bits and pieces of things from the past week or so!

bridget moved out last week.

she has moved in with some friends before we go to italy on wednesday.

then she will not be coming back to denmark.

her semester ends earlier than mine. 

people have been asking me alot : "will you miss her?"

"how are you going to be without her?"

it will be different.

not better, not worse.

(i guess that's what saying goodbye to two lots of intense american summer camp friendships does to you!)

God knows i definately needed somebody to move here with

to settle into life here with

and to travel with.

somebody who is on the same page as me in almost every sense.

 and she has been the most incredible blessing to me.

but now i'm on my own two feet,

i very much look forward to being independent again!

... 

God has provided for me and sustained me this far through b,

i know he'll continue to provide and sustain me post b!

i've been biking everywhere recently.

i try not to use the buses too much now, 

and i'm really loving it.

biking is so much more fun, healthy and invigorating then driving or bussing. 

i actually realised yesterday that 

i bike between 20-35km per day...

going to school, the city, visiting friends, doing errands.

i think this might be why my immune system finally crashed and i've caught a flu!

but bikeriding is so much fun.

denmark roads are definately made for the bikers,

we even have our own set of traffic lights!

i discover new areas of aarhus all the time on my bike,
and i really enjoy getting lost in all the windy residential areas.

studying at how the houses are built, observing what play activities are set up for the children on the front lawn . . . "stranger danger" doesn't seem to be too big over here.

in fact, people can't BELIEVE that children would be kidnapped at random in australia.

it's so nice to feel so . . . safe . . . here.

last sunday there was aarhus' annual flea market.

oh. my. gosh. i got a little over excited.

and then my backpack was loaded too!

i'd come to denmark with only clothes suitable for sub-zero temperatures,
so i didn't have enough room to pack spring and summer clothes.

but the flea market took care of that :)

i think i may be decked out for spring and summer ...

and i haven't even been to italy's shops yet!

don't ask me how i'm going to take all these things home. 

a problem for another day.

ha! ;)

to make the most of bridget's last days in aarhus,

we've done quite a bit of bikeriding together. 

monday, we went for a bikerdie around the lake near where we live

but i don't have a picture of us together, unfortunately!

we had a picnic. 

me and my rye bread sandwich :

i just wannabe a dane.

oooh, and i cooked a roast dinner for myself at night! oil free.

  

 also a little flavour free.

i am always sticking things up and placing things around my room to make it more homely. i'm tryingggg not to spend money on things that

i don't ACTUALLY need,

but when in paris, one must buy things to remind
them of paris!


like this oil canvas which i am NOT buying a frame for just yet!

im practically saving myself money.

since it was such glorious weather all last week, helene
(

     )

bridget and i decided to bike into town for some ice cream.

i don't usually like ice cream, but i always like weird combinations.

so i couldn't resist a scoup of liquorice, and a scoup of apple cake ice cream. 

it was a delicious spring day.

speaking of spring!

we've been using the sun and all it's glories to bask, explore and meet with friends.

side note:
i just lost another battle with paint.

i wanted to paste a picture into this blog to show you where i live, and where church, school, the beach, downtown all are to show my territory! the places i constantly bikeride back and forth from!

i google mapped it, and had all the destinations marked!

but paint defeated me, hands down, once again ... this time by shutting down my computer into a black screen "disc check".

paint is the nail file to my impatient personality.

so i choose to thank you, paint, for being in my life. 


but  here is the link ;  you should be able to see my routes if you click onto the blue " here".

a is where i live
b is my university
c is church
d is downtown aarhus and near where most of my friends live
e is the beach
and
f is the queen's palace.

so as you can see.. i live out in the sticks! far away from everything and it keeps me fit, that's for sure!



but on friday, we visited risskov beach with our friend from school lea

risskov has it's own forrest and beach and has it's own residential area.

 it's really nice and i really like it!!

after walking along risskov beach with lea, we went to 'teater', a danish-specialty restaurant.

here, lea helped us to order all things danish. 

as a starter; rye bread with herring, capers, roumelade, onion and egg yoke.

then, for the main,

boiled fish, two fried fish, salmon and prawns with caveat . . . .

with a tiny piece of rye toast underneath!

bridget and lea then ordered this bad boy:

but i wasn't game enough to eat that! fried pork shallots, dipped into cream and parsely sauce with potatoes on the side. too musch.
i tried it, i can say that much.

:/

later that night as we walked back to lea's,

i felt so uwell at all the different flavours of fish in my tummy. 

so we kicked our feet up, put on 4 weddings and a funeral with danish sub titles, and chatted the night away.

and a cup of green tea of course!

this saturday just gone, 

i went to a seminar held by my church on prophesy. 

it was given by an american who lives in sweden,

so it was ALL IN ENGLISH!

when you haven't listened to an english sermon first hand in 3 months,

and you're somebody like me who appreciates long talks ...

well you really apreciate people who speak english as their mother tongue!

he talked about the biblical theology behind prophesy

 what it means and how it can be appropriately practiced today.

we then split into small groups

 and asked God to encourage one person at a time through the rest of us as we prayed for that person.

my friend anne and i sat in a small group of 5.

one by one, as we took turns getting prayed for,

we each recieved specific words of encouragement for that person we were praying for.

everybody recieved special encouragement that only they knew the full details about.

it was really cool,

and really encouraging.

God is such a loving father

and i'm thrilled to be so young and to have a whole lifetime of relationshop with Him to explore.

i love being a christian.

so that finished at 3pm, so i decided to go for a looong bike ride to the beach just to get air in my lungs.

i don't like being inside all day.

at the beach, i bumped into my friends anders and christian!

i stayed with christian my first week in aarhus, and anders tried to fix my bike to no avail, so then gave me his friends old one.

i like christian and anders. 

i told them i was just riding around on this wonderful saturday afternoon,

but while i was out and about - did they know where exactly the queen's castle was?

they did, 

and they took me there
:)

she isn't living there at the moment because it's only her summer home.

christian and anders left me to my own touristic devices, and i wandered around the castle.

she has her own DIVING BOARD

 

and if she ever felt like jumping in the pool and having a bbq lunch,
well she has the facilities for that too.

hello sneaky bbq

if we don't have plans with the girls from school or dorm mates, we are hanging out with the international cluster from church. 

i had just gotten home on saturday night when i got a facebook message to meet up for dinner and movies.

i don't have a phone and  i quite enjoy being out of contact. 

but sometimes it means i backtrack and bikeride ALOT more!!

 but these girls,

oh they have my heart. 

here, we were watching "pitch perfect"
since the boys left the cluster, our hangouts can turn into a bit of a girls club doing girly things. 

great!
and of course, loads of cookies and treats.
but hey. i bike ride a lahht ok!

there's this danish flower that alot of girls wear as jewellery.

it's a daisy.

they get daisy jewellery when they graduate and my friend even got proposed to with daisy earings!

apparently, it was the queen's favourite flower, and so daisy's are everywhere.

a nice pair of daisy earings can be up to 500 kk ($100),  but i found a cute pair in the supermarket for 50 dkk ($10).

bargain ;)

but they're one of those things where when i first saw them, i thought were kind of lame.
but now i have two pairs of daisy earings,
and my sister has a pair also.
ha!

i am yet to take a photo where you can fully see my daisy earings, but if you look out for general photos you can see i'll probably be wearing them.
but i saw that sign, above, and just wanted to include it in my blog!

and also because i bikerode past it this week and thought i should take a photo and compare it to a photo of me wearing the earings. i fought with the thought because i couldn't be bothered. i then turned back against myself and the traffic and took a photo of the sign. all not really knowing why i needed to take a photo of the daisy's at all.
so, you see. i had to include it.

my head is a mixed bag sometimes.

but moving on!

something else really cool happened this week.

my friend helene does this thing she calls "praying in the streets."

im a bit skeptical of activities with these kind of titles,

but

helene is one of the most gentle, meek, beautiful personalities i've ever met.

not "in your face" in all that means AT all!

so when she said she is involved with this group, 

i was somewhat intrigued!

she and a group of friends from church go downtown and ask people whether they would like them to pray for them.

since helene is one of my favourites here in denmark,

 i decided to see what it was all about.

 so on thursday, i bikerode to my friend anne's house

(by the way, i am friends with a million girls either named anne, anne mette, or mette. i CONSTANTLY get confused who i'm facebooking or talking about or to, so please bear with me. 

this anne is different to the one i spent saturday with).

where we had home-made pizza

and watched a documentary called "father of light" 

it followed 4 different "evangelists" in different countries and contexts around the world 

who all connect with God in different ways.

and then all evangelise in the unique way God leads them to.

but the common thread they each had was love.

they loved people first, and shared God with them second.

they loved God, and they loved the people they evangelised with.

so they never came to people with a rod and said "this is what you have to believe."

they loved them too much to do that.

they loved and connected with God first,

and then loved and connected with people second.

and when that happened, God moved powerfully and revealed himself to those they were talking to

people came to know Jesus Christ in amazing, amazing ways.

feeling somewhat inspired,

we prayed for the night to come,

and that people would simply know God's love He has for them.

we then headed downtown and i got partenered with helene.

 we stood on a bridge for about 40 minutes in downtown aarhus,

and as young couples, students, men and women walked past

we stopped them, introduced ourselves and asked whether there was anything they would like prayer for in their lives.

of course, some people thanked us for the gesture and kept on their way,

but there were a few that stopped and chatted with us before we were able to pray for them.

all of those people that we saw -whether they stopped or not

i don't know, i can't describe it . . .

i just felt this overwhelming love and compassion for them!

and so when we were able to pray for them,

just a short prayer for their needs and that they would know God's love for them,

oh it was the best, most powerful thing i've experienced in a long time.

i think the people we prayed for were so grateful, too.

they couldn't stop thanking us for "the gift"

it was such a beautiful time!

i think i will do it again. 

as i rode the bus home that night (my legs were too tired!)

my iphone shuffled onto  this song :

and oh i was caught up in a daze for a while!

as times with friends become richer 

and i continue to deepen my friendship with other new and wonderful people here in aarhus, 

there is much to be discussed over special treats

many new sights to see and photos to be taken from a new spring perspective

many more movie nights and coffee dates and feeding of the ducks on bikeriding picnics!

but i'm off to italy on wednesday, so i'll blog next in around 2 weeks. 

then hopefully my contact lenses will have arrived so i don't have to keep being four eyes!

addio! parlare presto!

psalm 3.5
"i will lie down and sleep; i wake again, because the lord sustains me."