I am Lucy, a 17-year-old Santa Fe High student who spent a year with a singing, sausage-eating, black-bread devouring, welcoming host family in the suburbs of the biggest city in Denmark: Copenhagen.

The first days of my stay were stressful, mostly because I couldn't understand anything. Soon I learned there were more challenges to overcome — having to translate whole history texts from Danish to English, baking chocolate chip cookies metric style (and without chocolate chips), partying without understanding my comrades and biking home in the dark, in the wind, in the snow — even when I was so tired that I thought one more pedal might be the end of me.

To a Santa Fe local like myself, Denmark is basically equivalent to another planet, and Danes were almost as foreign as the beings I imagine still lie in Roswell.

The experiences were aplenty. Even breakfast was an exciting adventure at first.

Danish life included many things not part of my life here. Drinking was an unavoidable component of Danish life. Family gatherings, school dances (where teachers served alcohol), school trips and outings with friends were all followed by a hangover (or "the carpenter," as it's called in Danish, referring to the hammering feeling in the head) the next day. Yet, some of the world's leading politicians and scientists come from this land.

The openness and freedom of school, politics, religion and sex on this side of the ocean is a little unnerving when you find yourself suddenly quite alone and separated from your values. Teenage pregnancies are few in Denmark, but abstinence is even more unusual. It's difficult for me to comprehend the fantastically open minds Danes have about religion, sex and orientation, yet they stick up their noses at any new type of food. Think of a country united against peanut butter, and a land where mac and cheese is unheard of.

In Denmark, schoolwork is much more voluntary, and far fewer students challenge themselves to rise above average. I was in a class of 20, and though we switched subjects every day, we stayed together as a group, which caused me to have a much smaller social group than the one I had been accustomed to in the United States. Homework was never checked, but students received oral and written grades. Teachers received little respect (perhaps because they are seen more as bartenders at the school parties).

As a young'un, I could never imagine spending such a long time away from my parents. Being utterly immersed in a new life tested me in every way imaginable. My downs were just as common as ups. I missed my other life, of course, but the life that I had in Denmark was too good to spend time being homesick.

It was eight months and a lifetime until I was able to sink my teeth into a green chile breakfast burrito. Now, my hair curls naturally, I have strong biking thighs, my alcohol tolerance is high, I can speak a language I'd never heard nine months ago, and I may have forgotten how to drive a car. The life of an exchange student is, well, something to write home about.



Lucy Ohlson is a senior at Santa Fe High School. You can reach her at limefreak44@cybermesa.com.