Esbjerg Gymnasium – Denmark - March 2015

Our trip to Denmark was fantastic. We had a wonderful time and met great people. None of us knew the country and we enjoyed every aspect of life there.
Here are a few examples of what we saw, of how we felt, what we found surprising, stimulating or just strange !

 School

The first time we went to school with our partners, we were very impressed . We found this high school very modern and huge ! There’s a large hall with a lot of tables and chairs, they use this place as a canteen.
Sports facilities are numerous and of very good quality. Thre is a little cinema, a stage for concerts and parties. There are sofas everywhere, a telescope… It’s very different from a Fren ch school.
The atmosphere is also very different. Once a month there is a big party for all the pupils. People are always smiling, there is no stress.
Lessons last 1 hour and 30 minutes including a 5 minute-break.

 Music

At Esbjerg Gymnasium there are many places and things to play music. The first place is a huge room with a big stage where students can organize a party each month (the last one was for Carnival) or where the highschool music bands can perform.
On Tuesday, it was our first day at the Esbjerg highschool and to celebrate it , Frederick performed with his band. They played a songs which deals with a French girl, so it was played especially for us. This was great !

 Trapholt Museum

Trapholt Museum is a design and modern art museum. The guide explained the evolution of chair design in Denmark. It was the first country to start thinking about the combination of aesthetics and comfort. Little by little the idea developed and Denmark became a very famous country for designers, well-known for their chairs and various furniture.
Jacobsen, a famous architect, imposed himself in this field by creating the ‘Ant Chair’ and ‘Chair n°7’ which became very famous and which we have seen everywhere in Denmark (for instance there were more than a hundred of them in the high school).
The museum was very interesting : we learned about the origins of design and interesting information about daily objects.

 A different way of life

During our trip to Denmark, we discovered Danish food. We were very surprised the first day, because Danish people have dinner much earlier than we do. In fact they are used to eating around 6 :30 p.m.
We also saw that Danish people ate between 5 and 8 times a day. Their teacher, Marianne, explained that Danish people are never hungry. They eat when they feel like it. At first it was strange , and during our trip we got used to it.
We discovered specialities : we ate a lot of Danish bread named ‘hooper’ (it is black and full of cereal). Then we discovered a dish composed of potatoes and grilled bacon. Danish food is very heavy but delicious.

 Swimming pool

The swimming pool in Esbjerg is one of the biggest pools in Denmark. There are many areas and different types of pools - there is a sauna, jacuzzi, a pool with cold water (15°C), apool with warm water (+30°C), a waterslide, waves …
However we were very surprised by the locker-room : we quickly realized that there were no cubicles to get changed, so that you had to undress and take a shower in front of everybody else. In Danish pools, hygiene is very important so that there are specific instructions to follow before putting on your bathing suit

  RambØll visit

We were invited to listen to a presentation by a structure engineer, M. Klaus Petersen, working for a consulting company called RambØll. RambØll is a company with worldwide activities in a large range of domains such as buildings, transport, environment, energy, oil and gas, management. M. Klaus Petersen described to us its activity in Esbjerg, mainly the designing and engineering development of wind turbines foundations.

Esbjerg is a small town by the Northern Sea, on the West coast of Denmark. In the last century the town lived mostly from fishing but fishermen have almost all disappeared. Since oil and gas were discovered in the Northern Sea an offshore related industry has developed and nowadays, as Denmark turns to green energies, the port provides most of all wind turbines in the world.

Branly’s students listened carefully and had plenty of clever questions. They could discover what the work of an engineer consists in. They were very impressed by the English fluency of M. Klaus Petersen and grateful that he spent one hour of his time for us.

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