This past weekend, I flew to Geneva to visit my good friend, Olivia, and her family. (I wrote this sitting in my host family's new egg chair. I feel Danish.)
Friday
I go to the airport at 3 pm and the kiosk says I need to talk to someone at the customer service desk. "Oh no!" I think to myself. The woman tells me my flight is cancelled! My mind starts going a million miles an hour. But then she says that SAS has rebooked me on a flight that leaves 3 hours later. Thank goodness. The flight was with Swiss Airlines, which seemed to be a classy more expensive airline because there were a lot of business people and they served really yummy food. They even passed out little pieces of chocolate at the end of the flight! Yeah it was annoying to sit at the Copenhagen airport for 5 hours but it could have been a lot worse. I was happy that I was able to call and tell my mom and Olivia about the flight change. I met Olivia in Geneva and we arrived at her home around 11pm.
Saturday
We went to Jet d'Eau (I kept calling it either "the fountain" or mispronouncing it as "Je t'adore") and it was quite amazing. It blends in with the clouds and you can get pretty close to the actual fountain. We bought (overpriced) sandwiches from a cafe Lena recommended and ate them by the water (because it cost more to stay there and eat.) We went to a really cool beach that had a playground of swings and stuff to climb on that was all made of recycled tires. We started the day with a fun game of Settlers of Catan. When we finished the game in the evening, Luke ended up winning. I tried my best, but he really knows what he is doing. Her mom made us ham and cheese omelets that were delicious. We went to the transportation place to get Olivia a yearlong bus pass and me a two day pass. Olivia got a new phone while Lena and I looked around in these shops. Just for fun, we tried on these outrageous traditional dresses. They were so hard to put on! Who knew dresses could be so complicated?
We took a boat to the other side of the lake where we saw the United Nations building and a neat giant three legged chair (symbolizing vetrans who lost limbs, I think). We explored the botanical garden and smelled some beautiful roses. We ran (literally) back to the other side of the lake so we could go shopping. I bought a cute top and hair clips from H&M.
We were all so tired and sunburned from a long day. Olivia's mom made a delicious dinner . Olivia and I baked chocolate chip cookies at night.
Sunday
Around lunch time, Lena, Olivia and I ate crepes at this neat cafe in Old Town Geneva. Guess how much it cost? About $10. Yikes! But it tasted really good. Olivia showed me around Old Town, taking me to the church, the canons, the park, the longest bench, etc. We went to the art history museum and both enjoyed the Monets and Renoirs. We came back and played another game of Catan (Lena won) and they taught me a game they call "Oh Hell" but I think it's also called Up and Down the River because I remember learning it before. It was really hard to say goodbye to Olivia and I was sad to leave Geneva. I am very grateful that she could show me around and that I got to stay with her family. Thank you!
Overall, I thought Geneva was a unique blend of French, Italian and German. Yes, it was very expensive. I loved the mountains always in the background and being near the Lake. It's an exciting city that's very alive.
This is my catch up blog post. I had an extended break and now I need to catch you up to speed. I won't be able to tell you the color of my underwear for each day of the week but I can give you the CliffNotes version of my week.
Thursday: Social Butterfly
Met Blake in the morning. We got breakfast at Cafe Pauldan. I got the Morning Special and loved it. That is the kind of bookstore/ coffee shop / cafe I want to someday open in America.
Met Miaja in afternoon. I ran into her while sitting at DIS. We had a lovely chat. I also chatted with my friend Liz.
Dinner with Cheng. We ate dinner at a sandwich place on Norregade and caught up. We had so much new news to inform each other on.
Friday: Debates and Explosions
Human Trafficking Debate: My group argued yes victims of trafficking should be granted asylum in countries. The debate went fine but it was a bit stressful preparing and organizing what each member in our group would say. Supposedly our professor wasn't pleased with the debate the class before us did, so maybe that lowered her expectations for our group. It was fine in the end.
Lunch at Sandwich Pigen. I had a 60kr coupon because I filled out a DIS survey. What what!
Iron Man 3: I could write a lot about this. Here is the SparkNotes version: I met a woman from Bornholm waiting for the bus, we talked and I really liked how enthusiastic and out there she was. When we said goodbye, she said "Goodbye future journalist" in her airy sweet voice. Best way to say goodbye ever. I get off the bus, and realize I'm fifteen minutes walking from the theater I get to the there at 4 instead of 3:45 like I was supposed to. The DIS group is inside, with my ticket I was supposed to pick up. I walk outside, defeated and call my mom to complain to her about how my life sucks (exaggeration). A girl runs up to me and asks if I'm with DIS. She says I have your ticket. Hallelujah So I do end up seeing Iron Man 3. So many explosions in that movie. It reminded me of Terminator, with the demon fire people roaming around. If you like action movies, then go see Iron Man 3. I won't go see it again with you.
I came home, and ate dinner and drank wine with my host family and Pernille's family. Story of my life: drinking wine. (exaggeration)
Saturday: Roller coasters and Light up floors
Flea market: I went to the Studenterhuset Flea Market with my friend Jen. I bought a pair of earrings, a ring and 2 bracelets. We got coffee and walked around Copenahgen and talked.
Bakken: I went to Bakken (the oldest amusement park in the world) with Jen. I had so much fun at Bakken. I wish we could've stayed longer / go back again. You'll have to tear my ride wrist band off me because I'm not cutting it off.
Went out to Night Fever: Jen invited me to go out in Copenhagen so I did. We went to this 90s / 80s club called Night Fever. Besides the older crowd that was there, it was a really fun time. They had the classic light up dance floor, like from Saturday Night Fever.
Sunday: Spring Picnic and Ice Cream
We went to the DIS picnic: Gitte and I packed up the picnic basket, picked up Cheng and Susan and headed out to the DIS sponsored picnic. It was cool to see so many Danes mixed in with the American students so seamlessly. I spent the majority of the picnic catching up with Miaja. We just had so much to talk about. After the picnic, the four of us stopped for ice cream by the ocean. I really enjoyed that moment. Not only because of the delicious ice cream, but because of the company I was with, our philosophical conversation and just watching the black Labrador jump in and out of the ocean playing fetch with his owner
Monday: Final Monday and Concert
Last creative travel writing class. At the end of class, he gave us a disposable camera and told us to take whatever pictures we wanted and then he would develop the film and send us prints.
Lunch with Liesje at Cafe Paludan
Last international reporting class.
Two Door Cinema Club Concert: I really enjoyed the atmosphere. It was a bunch of young hipster guys who knew how to have a good time. The music was so energetic and so everyone was jumping up and down and dancing. A fun time was had by all.
Today (Tuesday): Final Tuesday and Sunlight
Last photojournalism class- I'm pretty sure real photojournalists don't print their photos on normal paper and then use spray paint glue to stick them onto a piece of cardboard.
Last human trafficking class- today was the other half of the class debating whether prostitution should be illegal or legal. It got pretty heated and both sides brought up valid points.
Most importantly, it's sunny in Copenhagen. (Shout out to a special little yellow dog who would love this weather- Yeah you Sunny Bear! Wuv you.)
Switichin it up here. Pictures first and then my blog post. Enjoy!
Me with my purple shorts and my purple bike.
The cool windmill we found
At the beach in Bornholm
Me and Jenn
They had the great idea to buy little containers and put the sand inside for a souvenir. The sand is supposedly the sand they use for hourglasses.
A Jutland Horse we saw on the side of the road. He reminds me of Patrick.
Me and my new equestrian friends. Fun Fact: The fence is electric.
The forest part of our biking on Saturday.
Me at the beach area by our hostel. Note the sun. B)
The cool cliffs
Christina, Me and Jenn at the waterfall
Me inside the cave. Oooo
The town we stayed in: Gudhjem
Jenn, me, Colleen, and Katie.
Ice cream!! I got Banana Split with Oreo and Nut sprinkles.
I’m done with Strategic
Communication! We had our final exam today. I actually thought it was
difficult. Not because I didn’t study at all but because the questions were
very specific, not what I studied for, and used crazy double negatives (Which
of the following is not sometimes except never a part of this?) After I
finished, I treated myself to a Chai Latte from Baresso. The trick is to not
listen when she says how much it costs and blindly hand over the money. I had a
nice chat with the barista who told me Baresso is better than Starbucks. We’ll
see about that. She also admitted that Baresso is expensive and that it will
get more crowded when people get paid in the beginning of May. I appreciated
her honesty.
This weekend I went biking in Bornholm!
Friday, we met at 11pm to get on a
bus which took us to an overnight ferry. I was lucky enough to be able to buy a
cabin on the ship. It was a small two-person room but the other girl didn’t
show up in the room so I had a peaceful night’s sleep alone. At 6am, we got off
the ferry and took a bus to our hostel where we ate breakfast and got on our
bikes.
The group of girls I became friends
with decided to do the Killer Route. That was seriously the name. I give easily
into peer pressure so I joined them in the 65km tour. I’m not going to say it
was easy but it clearly didn’t kill me. It was a good workout and it gave us
the chance to really explore the island. The highlight of the bike ride that
day was reaching the beach where the sand is used for hourglasses.
I was amazed at how diverse
Bornholm was. We saw beaches, cliffs, caves, farms, fields, forests, small
towns, streams, hills, etc. It seemed to have every kind of landscape your
camera would want.
On Sunday, we were all so sore. It
was painful to sit back down on the bike seat. We biked maybe 5 or 6km and
hiked a lot instead. We saw a famous waterfall, some neat cliffs, and a creepy
cave.
After our bike rides Saturday and
Sunday we got ice cream at the shop by our hostel. They had a delightful ice
cream called the Gudjem Special which was one scoop of any flavor in a waffle
cone, vanilla soft serve on top and then your choice of sprinkles. I’m not sure
if I was just hungry or tired but that ice cream seemed to taste divine.
At the end of the trip, we took a
bus to the ferry which took us to Malmo, Sweden. Another bus took us the rest
of the way back to Copenhagen.
I knew I would say this in the end,
but I’m glad I went on the trip. I made new friends, got a lot of exercise, saw
some stunning nature, and had a once in a lifetime experience. Even though at
times it was an uphill battle (Literally.) it was good to prove that I can do
it. Throughout the day, it was a nice mix of biking next to and talking with
the other girls and biking alone with my thoughts. It’s sort of therapeutic to
be alone biking out in the country.
With finals happening and coming
up, I have more schoolwork than usual and am pretty busy. I’m using my train
commute to write this blog post now because I know when I get home and get
Internet, I’ll need to do my homework. (I’d rather be blogging.)
The highlight of this day was wine tasting. We did a blind tasting and I enjoyed the challenge of trying to figure out what grape the wine was from. Can I just say Riesling and Chardonnay can be easily mixed up? In my International Reporting class, we got to explore Copenhagen and describe the place we went to. This was in preparation for writing a feature piece. For Strategic Communication, we listened to a presentation by the Danish Forest Gump. His name is Jesper and he works with World Run . He explained to us about his corporate sponsors and how they helped him run across the world in 4 years. Very cool.
Friday
In photojournalism, my professor said he liked my pictures. I still don't like that class but I'm trying to kill it with kindness by working hard in the class, doing all the assignments, and following all the directions to a tee. In human trafficking, we watched a depressing film called "selling the girl next door" and it was a CNN special about American girls falling victim to trafficking. We finished writing papers about human trafficking in the state we're from so this was icing on top of the USA cake. I had no idea there was trafficking in Ohio, but boy is there.
I was walking to the Copenhagen Central Station after class, because I like going there vs Norreport, when I passed a protest in front of city hall. Me, being a little journalist, I asked a woman what her sign said and she launched into telling me how she and all the other teachers were protesting the government for locking them out. It was neat to hear her side of the story and see a real political protest (even though DIS specifically told us to avoid political protests. Whoops) I don't personally agree with the side of the teachers and so I asked her questions like "Well, some say teachers already get paid too much, how do you feel about that?" and she responded, "Sounds like you've done your homework. Good for you." This was a cool moment for me to casually talk to a protester and hear her personal side of the story.
In the evening, Cheng came over and we baked delicious brownies and watched Bridesmaids. It was fantastic to catch up and have a girls night in.
Parental units: This is a picture of our hotel. I found it.
Saturday
I made crepes in the morning. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to start baking when I was still half asleep because I accidentally added red food coloring, thinking it was vanilla. So the crepes came out pink. They tasted fine they just looked very feminine.
I went to a flea market at Studenterhuset. It was so crowded! I ended up getting a blue button down for 40kr and a black infinity scarf for 10kr. With my new scarf, I feel so Danish. Haha but no seriously, everyone has one of these. I wish I had more time and it was less crowded so I could've browed there more.
Shoutout to Emily May: Happy Birthday!! I made this smiley face for you.
At 1pm, I met a group of DIS kids to go kayaking in Copenhagen. It was a tour that we signed up and paid for ahead of time. Our guide took us on the metro but he took us on the wrong train. Thank goodness a woman on the train heard what stop we were going to and told us we needed to switch trains. When we get to the kayaking place, it was a lot of hurry up and wait. They made us wear wet suits, life jackets, and special jackets. I didn't understand why we needed these until I was in the kayak. Before we got in the water, we did paddling exercises, warm up stretches, and played a few games. By this point I was like can we please just friggin kayak? We finally hop into the water and I'm shocked at how low to the water we are in these sea kayaks. One wrong move and I'm capsizing. Thankfully no one did go in the water. It was a lot harder than I thought. I had trouble steering. Our kayak guide took us out into the open water where there were big waves and he had to clip onto my kayak and lead me back into the canal where we practiced. It was scary to be in a tiny little kayak out in the big blue ocean. Then we kayaked to another part of the water where we had to chop our way through a thin layer of ice on the water. What a workout. At the end, we played dodgeball in our kayaks and a game where we had to steal a clothespin from each other's kayaks. It was sometimes sunny but mostly cold and cloudy. I'm glad I went because I met some nice friendly girls and it was a unique experience but it was very cold and a bit embarrassing that I had trouble paddling. It was for sure unlike kayaking at Trapper Johns.
Me in my wet suit out kayaking
Pink crepes...hmmm. I probably should look before pour food coloring in the batter
Where we kayaked
Sooo coold. Brrr
Debbie trying to be Danish walking home in her new black scarf and blue shirt.
I'm wearing a lot of green today and I feel very strongly that this post needs to be in green.
This weekend, I had wide open and was planning to travel or do something but it was too last minute to plan things and it didn't work out.
Friday, I went to Miaja's birthday party and danced the night away. :-)
Saturday, we had dinner at Yen and Yeni's. Yen is best friends with Ulrik and Yeni is best friends with Gitte. They have two children who are friends with Signe. How perfect?
Today we went to Frederiksborg Castle.
It's a really cool castle, where the Queen goes to on her summer holiday. There were so many paintings there and because it was built by Christian the 4th in the Roco period, everything was very ornately decorated.
Before the castle, we ate a glorious breakfast of pastries, bread, eggs (made by me), bacon, coffee, and juice. I loved every second of breakfast. After the castle, we had herring! I love all fish, especially that one. We had it on rye bread with other various spreads similar to herring. Yum.
It was a nice lazy weekend. I treated myself to an episode of Parks and Recreation and watching the Lizzie McGuire movie (I wanted to recognize the places in Rome she went).
This is the church inside the castle. It's still used today.
The room when you first walk into the castle. You can see a lot of animals here because the castle was used for hunting.
Creative way to display antlers.
What a tiny bed!
The swan is the national bird of Denmark and they were looking for food in the water around the castle.
The famous postcard image of the queen, her son, and grandson. I bought a postcard of this painting. Fun fact: The queen is a chain smoker.
Me! In the ballroom, in front of a fake dinner party.
The grand ballroom.
Christian the 4th built everything. And was proud of it too. C4's are everywhere!
Perfect bed for St. Patrick's Day.
What the castle looks like.
Me by a viking ship.
Gitte, me and Julie in front of the castle.
Leaving the castle
Last week, my host dad helped me bake a traditional Danish cake, as seen above.
We had cake today! The right one is chocolate with peanuts and the other is a traditional Danish cake that has a coconut topping. Yummy!
I mailed all my postcards!
By Miaja's train stop, there is this statue of a man in a bath tub.
There is video surveillance around him, so no one can try anything funny. I thought about it.
