Natl on Tour

  Dear Denmark,  It's me, the Austrian girl who weirdly calls you home.  I know that our relationship started problematically from my side. I was crying a lot in the beginning, overthinking and not knowing how to feel. I left everything to come to you and to be honest, I regretted it right after I did it. But you gave me time. Time to find myself in you, which luckily came pretty fast. You gave me all of the time I needed to finally call you 'home'. By being with you, I could leave a lot of struggles, anxiety and pain in the past. There were so many things I just could not understand, could not comprehend. You know best, how hard it was for me. But you also know, that you basically opened up my eyes and heart for the wild, wide world and everything it holds. Through you I found myself - and I accepted her. I found confidence and beauty and love from within, everything I barely experienced before.  And now, we both know I will have to leave you soon, very soon. From t...

  The power of songs Music has always been one of the biggest parts of my life. No matter where I walk to or travel to, I have my headphones with me. Therefore, I want to capture some songs in this blog post, which I particularly connect to my Danish experience. There are, in fact, a lot of them, but I tried to collect the most powerful ones.  Call it a mixtape .    Marilyn Manson - The Nobodies Before I came to Denmark, I listened to his best of album all the time while driving my grandmother's car. It just reminds me of that feeling of freedom and excitement before coming here.  Volbeat - Lola Montez This is a special one. We heard it on my Goodbye Party and my childhood friend, Jenny, brought me a flower to put in my hair. "You look just like Lola Montez in the music video!", she said. It was a feeling, I guess. (And I later on learnt that Volbeat is a Danish band??????????????) Naked Lunch - Military of the Heart I just really love the song in general, but n...

  Learning and growth - that's the motto I live by here in Denmark. One of my tasks lately was to create a Facebook-Update-video for Kontakt mellem Mennesker's Facebook page. That's exactly what I did! For some unknown reasons I unfortunately cannot upload the video here. But I will put the script for my video (which is a little different from the spoken one) here and try to add the link to the Facebookpost. link to the FB post :) in Danish Hej, my name is Natalie and I am 18 years old. I am from Austria, but I am now living in Ollerup with a host family and I am working voluntarily at Frivilligcenter Svendborg.  But you know that jazz already. I mean, I have been here since September. What a crazy and short time it has been, filled with new experiences. My mentor Gry asked me to make a video as my next update. So I found myself thinking about what I want to say and how on earth I should do that. And then I thought: why not just talk? A question people ask me really often i...

What do I even expect from my months abroad? I expect to learn a lot from my voluntary service abroad, like coping on my own, gaining work experience and developing better social skills. I think of it as a new chapter of life, a new experience, in which I will grow as a person and come out of my comfort zone. I also want to use it as an opportunity to move on from things that were ballast for me throughout my years of highschool and as a chanco to grow into to the person I genuinely am and want to be. Every one of my friends told me, that those ten months away from everything will help me grow and move on so much. Of course, I am also really keen on meeting new people from all over the world and having international friends. I want to broaden my horizons and think way more internationally and cross-boarders. I think it will be an experience of a lifetime, as I hope to learn so much more about not only myself and my abilities, but also other cultures and lifestyles. Another thing is tha...

About me and what I am even doing Hej, I am Natalie from Austria and I just turned 18 in July 2020. This is my dissemination project for my organisation, but also a way to help you guys get familiar with volunteering abroad and what comes with it. There will not only be monthly updates, but also reflections and stuff for future volunteers. Don't worry, I will be updating here a lot, so there's much more to come. Have a look at the labels in the top left! I have graduated from the highschool BORG Kindberg and got my, in Austria, Matura. The question, "What do you want to do after your Matura?", has always had a clear answer to me: I want to go away. I really didn't care where exactly I would end up, I just wanted a break from all the studying and therefore develope my personality, go abroad and do something totally different. That's why I started searching for opportunities here in Europe. My mother was actually the one to introduce me to the ESC, as one of her...