More than one month later….

I’m in Washington, D.C.   I’ve been somewhat out of communication, at least via computer, for the past 2 weeks, because my computer had been getting fixed at the apple store because something was broken with its ability to connect to the internet.  But… that now aside, I have working internet and can try my best to summarize the events of the past month, and anything else I left out before then…because I definitely left out a number of things.  Let me go back to before I left Copenhagen….

Alright, so the last thing I wrote about was our Trip to Jutland.  However, after than (I think, although admittedly it could have been before, but really the order isn’t important) I went to Frankfurt, where I met Jamie, who was on her way back to the states, from India, and had a 4 day layover in Frankfurt.

I admit from arriving in the airport it was a slightly disorganized trip, however disorganized in the sense that we weren’t ENTIRELY certain what our plans were for everyday, but had no worries that we would find some exciting adventures, because we have a tendency to always do that…and we did.  Arriving in the airport I somehow managed to exit the airport without going through customs, which I suppose since I was traveling within the EU isn’t that surprising, but it wasn’t such good news as I was trying to blindly meet Jamie, and I had no means of contacting her since she didn’t have a phone that would work in Germany.  She had my number, so if we couldn’t find each other she could contact me, but we were hoping to just meet where my flight was supposed to get out.  After about ten minutes of slight panic in not seeing her, I finally found my way to where my flight was supposed to arrive and low and behold she was waiting.  Now… I will skip over a few of the details here as it gets somewhat complicated but ultimately we ended up calling a guy who we had talked to via CouchSurfing, and it worked out WONDERFULLY.  Iwan was his name and over the course of the weekend he and his roommate Malte, and Malte’s girlfriend (I forget her name) took us in and cooked for us every night, and went to the bakery and bought us breakfast every morning!  We explored on our own for some of the time, but both afternoons Iwan and Malte took us to a barbeque they were having with friends in the forest, and the second day we went and did some painting around town.

After returning from Frankfurt, I spent the last few weeks in Copenhagen a) writing my exams b) spending time soaking in the nature and the city and, really most of my energy at least if not time was spent c) just being with the people I loved and cared about most.

I can’t begin to go into many details about the last weeks I was there or else I will probably start to get lost of reminiscing and missing it, but I can say that on a whole it was a wonderful few weeks.  The last night I was there Stefan and his girlfriend came over, and Ida came down and the three of them and Martin, Jesper and Daniel all had a really nice dinner and we just all sat around and drank (a fair amount) of wine, and laughed a lot.  The next morning Stefan came over again and we had a brunch and then Stefan, Daniel, Jesper, Martin and Ida all helped me bring my things to the airport and came as far as they could, to security, to say goodbye to me.

I know this is probably getting long its late here (in DC) and I need to be getting to bed so I will save the most recent excursions and trips for later.  I will say however that though I have left Copenhagen for now, this by no means concludes either the impact of that year on my life, nor does it change the fact that I will make every effort to return. I am immeasurably thankful to my parents for being openminded and trusting enough to support me in my deicion to stay for the entire school year and I hope they know how much it changed and benefited me to do so.  I’ll write again, sooner, rahter than later…

sometimes time stands still

I hadn’t realized how long its been since I wrote something new.  It’s been busy, incredibly busy actually, but somehow it feels like time has been passing more and more slowly.  Which is nice.  Three weekends ago I went to Jutland and on Thursday arrived around 10pm with Inge and Rebecca at Inge’s bedstemor’s (grandmother’s) house in what Inge described a small village outside of a small town called Skorping. We arrived after a 4.5 hour train ride from Copenhagen and then drove through the dark, but still visible landscape of relatively flat land, expansive fields, rows of trees used to block the wind and rows and rows of windmills.

This picture hardly captures the number of windmills that painted the landscape of Jutland

Inge’s Bedstemor was very sweet and the first thing every morning had berrie tarts and tea or coffee ready for us.  Even then she spoke no English, Rebecca and I were able to understand (often with a little bit of help from Inge) most of what she was saying, although our ability to respond extensively was….limited. It was a peaceful weekend, and we got to spend a lot of time just driving around, walking around the country side and the small towns intermixed between them.  On Friday, Inge, Rebecca and I drove into a small town to a church yard that Inge was baptised at, which was beautiful.  We walked around the town warf, down a lot of small streets, and eventually bought ice cream with some money that Inge’s Bedstemor had generously given us for just that purpose.

Rebecca... enjoying some good old fashioned Ice Cream.... with strawberry fluff??

Later that evening, we went into a somewhat larger city, Aalborg, about 30 minuntes from where Inge’s grandmother lives.  It’s a small city, though still among the top 10 biggest cities in all of Denmark…which really isn’t actually saying that much.

The next morning we woke up early, dropped Rebecca off at the train so that she could go back to Copenhagen and study… and Inge and I drove about an hour to Skive, the city/town where Daniel/Jesper/Martin are all from.  We met Daniel in the parkinglot to a flower shop (as that was the easiest place to meet him) said goodbye to Inge’s Bedstemor and drove with Daniel to his house to say hi to his parents, and drop off our things.  We sat in his patio which was completley beautiful and covered in flowers and had some water and talked with his parents for a little while, enjoying the beautiful sunny morning. Then Daniel took us on a walkign tour around Skive, and we saw a lot of the places he and Martin and Jesper hung out growing up.  We stopped for milkshakes along the way, which were excellent….. and then met Rasmus, Matthias, and another kid named Rasmus to play beach volleyball with them.

That was a ton of fun, though as Inge and I discovered we were ridiculously sore for about 4 days after, and I managed to rip two holes in the knee of my pants from diving so much in the sand.  After that we went back to Daniel’s house, showered, and then went over to Matthias’s for a barbaque.  Then we went out that night to a bunch of the places that they used to go to in High school, and it was a lot of fun, even though I somehow lost my scarf at some point during the night.

The next morning we woke up a little bit late, had some breakfast and then met Jesper, who had just gotten his motor boating liscene and was taking us out on his dad’s friend’s boat.  It was another beautiful day and going out on the boat was a lot of fun, Rasmus and this kid named Frederick both wakeboarded and waterskied, but the water was WAY too cold for me to even consider.

We spent the afternoon out on the boat and then after some time made out way back to shore.  We drove back

to Daniel’s house where we packed and then, as we were quite hungry actually by that time, sat down  and had a delicious dinner that his mom had made, with vegetarian lasagna, potatoes, lamb with mint jelly, roasted vegetables, some good wine, and later ice cream with fruit and macaroons.  Then Jesper came over around 6 and picked us up and me, Inge, Daniel and Jesper drove back to Copenhagen.

Gosh, since then still SO much time has passed… that was, to be honest, about 3 or 4 weeks ago now that we went to Skive.  But for the next week and a half (12 days that I have left) I’m trying so hard just to soak it all in before my time here is over.  So until I return home, I probably won’t be writing anything more.  Until then…

Easter Quiche and The Red Light District

Easter (monkey) Bunny

CONTINUING:

Okay, it seems to be working a bit better now, the picture uploading that is.  Anyway, here are a few last pictures of easter before I go on to explain our trip to Amsterdam.

Our Easter Brunch... Ham/Asparagus/Mushroom/Cheddar Quiche, Carros, Sausages, Chocolate Crossant Bread Pudding, Rice Pudding, Muffins. YUM.

OKAY…. so, now that you can see a bit of our easter (we also decorated eggs, but I took a video of that not photos and for some reason I haven’t figured out how to load videos up onto this yet, even though that would be sick if I could.  But… Amsterdam….

Taylor and I arrived on Sunday night as I said, and found out that our hostel was in teh center of the Red Light District.  But as sketchy as that sounds it really wasn’t, as I said before it is so touristy that it was never uncomfortable persay to be surrounded by prostitutes in little glass boxes lit with red lights.  Sunday night we arrived starved, and thus dropped our stuff off at the hostel around 10:30 and made our way to a nearby indian restaurant.  It was delicious and we enjoyed the meal thoroughly, but were exhausted and so when we finished around 12 we returned back to our hostel for the night.

One thing I should mention about the hostel is that it was SWELTERING HOT.  Literally like a sweatbox.  The vibe was cool and the place was pretty nice, but the room was awfully hot.  Monday we went early to the Anne Frank House which was an excellent exhibit and really amazing to think about when you were walkign through the rooms, knowing the story and having read her diary.  After that we walked around the canals and found a nice place to get lunch.  We got some really delicious sandwiches…

After lunch we wandered around the city a bit more, stopping to enjoy the beautiful weather and sunshine along the way.  Then we decided that a canal tour would be a nice way to spend the afternoon, so we found a place where they were running from, and hoped on a boat for the afternoon.

Taylor on the boat. I think we both actually got a little bit tan from this boat ride, which was excellent.

After the boat ride, we went back to our hostel to rest for an hour or so, and to see if new people had moved into our room.  After taking a late afternoon nap, we were getting ready to go out again when a boy our age came into our room.  Finally! Someone our age! Until that point the people in our room had mostly been older and not very social, but we started talking to this kid and found out that he too was an American International student, studying in France for the semester.  His name was Karl and he said that he was meeting three other friends that night and that we should come hang out with them.  And so we did.

Karl and Taylor taking pictures of the I Amsterdam letters

Cool Wall Art

Some Hip Graffiti

We dressed Karl up in Taylor and my accessories. The result: Uber Hipster Karl

Super Snazzy Jacket

The next day Taylor, Karl and I woke up, had breakfast, and set forth into the city in search of the Van Gogh museum.  Eventually we found it and waited in a long line until we could get it.  It was very cool, very expansive, and just all around great and what you would expect of a museum dedicated to Vincent.  However, I will admit that all 3 of us were a bit unimpressed with Starry Night, at least in comparison to one of Vincent’s earlier works hung in the same room.  The contrast was lacking and though it has become a staple image in the world of greater culture, we felt like maybe his other painting should have been picked for that novel position.

After the museum we sauntered around the city and found a nice place for lunch.  We sat outside and had utterly amazing sandwiches, and then cappucinos and then strolled around some more and took pictures.  Then we were tired and decided to go back and take a nap, but on the way (actually this is a lie, this happened in the morning but I forgot to write it then so I will just say it happened now) we were waiting at a stoplight and I hear my name called.  I turn and low and behold Mariel, a girl from BC studying in Amsterdam who I had written on facebook but since I didn’t have my computer with me hadn’t heard back from, was sitting outside a coffee shop drinking coffee.  We chatted for a few minutes, exchanged numbers, and planned to meet up later that night.

Tulips at the Tulip museum. Well, these were made of wood.

Taylor, Karl and I went back to the hostel, talked for a while while sitting in our bunks sweltering as if we were in a sauna, and then took another late afternoon nap.  Really, taking those naps was soo nice.  Then we woke up, regrouped, changed and set out in search of some food and coffee.  We stopped in a coffee shop and drank some delicious peach juice and then continued on our way to find some dinner and explore the center of Amsterdam.  Walking through narrow streets filled with tourists and the red lit rooms of prostitutes was definitely….interesting.  We ended up having dinner at a place called Wok to Walk… it was an EXCELLENT wok place, and I had a delicious wok mixture of chicken, mushrooms, carrots, onions, snap peas, some other vegitables, brown noodles and peanut sauce.

Ummm YUM!!?? These were in every window of every small food store and looked AMAZING. We finally got one to share on the last night and it was heaven.

After that we walked around a bit more and then I called Mariel.  We met up with her and went to the international student bar, which was pretty fun, VERY crowded, and interesting to compare to the student bar we have here in Copenhagen.  After that we went back, slept in our hostel, and in the morning woke up and said our goodbyes.  Taylor left earliest, then Karl, and then I spent the day walking around the city, sitting reading a book with coffee, and then I finally made my way to the airport.  After a quick flight home and slightly delayed train, I made it home, at last.