Amsterdam

I know it's been a while since I've last written, but I just came back from a study tour to Amsterdam with my class (Human Trafficking and Prostitution)! I was there for a full week and it was a great experience - I got to know a great group of people and got to explore a new city. Amsterdam is full of canals and picturesque bridges like this one...

We went to the Anne Frank house, which was so powerful to actually see in real life. It was hard to believe that she had stood in the same place that we were standing, had eaten in the kitchen we were looking at and had written her diary in the same place that we were reading parts of it in. We couldn't take pictures inside the museum, but here is me outside of it.

We also got to the Van Gogh museum, which again we couldn't take pictures in. Here is a copy that I found online though of my favorite painting from the exhibit. This photo doesn't do it justice at ALL - the texture was so rich and there were subtle hints of pink and flowers on it.

Our class spent a good amount of time exploring the red light district both during the day and at night. It was certainly a unique area, with window brothels mixed right next to restaurants, shops and churches. I have many stories from this part, but you'll have to ask me on your own..! Something I also loved was there was a ton of shopping, both high end and (finally!) cheap flea markets. There were beautiful tulips for sale everywhere, but apparently US customs won't let me bring back bulbs to plant in my garden next year.

I can't believe how much I missed Copenhagen while I was there. I loved the trip to Amsterdam, but am so happy to be back in the city where I actually understand the transportation system and know places to eat. Being away made me realize how much of the language I actually understood! Of course I got the obligatory picture in front of the "I AMsterdam" sculpture before I left - for those of you who haven't seen my profile picture on facebook yet here it is..

While I was in Amsterdam, my brother Michael graduated from high school! He gave a speech at graduation, which I was so sad to miss. Thankfully momma Fisch put a video of it up on facebook, and I watched it proudly as soon as I could. And in classic Michael style, I have 2 papers and a quiz due in the next 48 hours and haven't started on any of them. Time to do work..!

The Little Mermaid and exploring food!

As per the suggestion of my father, I will now be blogging more regularly. Today my friend Kelsie and I took a trip to the Little Mermaid statue - a major tourist spot here in Copenhagen that neither of us had gotten to yet. It was underwhelming, to say the least... but Kelsie got a pretty good sandwhich out of the overpriced tourist shop, so I guess it wasn't a total waste. Here is a picture of the statue...

Later on some friends and I went to a really great restaurant called Den Lille Apotek (translated as The Little Chemist), which is the oldest restaurant in Copenhagen. It was SO cool - everything inside (the decorating, paintings, etc) were the same as it was when it opened in 1720. Something else really cool that we learned from the menu was that the restaurant used to be a favorite of Hans Christian Anderson (author of The Little Mermaid and Snow White) in the early 1800's. Here is a picture of the restaurant...

For dinner I had a meal of "Oven-fried Duck served with sugar-browned and boiled potatoes, gravy, pickled red cabbage and prunes", and for dessert I had "homemade apple dessert with whipped cream" (might have stolen this description from the online menu).. It was unbelievable. Pictures below...

Birthday festivities and my new class!

As some of you know, Monday was my birthday, so we went out to dinner and then to a really nice bar downtown on Sunday night. We weren't expecting it to be crowded (it was Sunday night, after all) but it turned out that all drinks were 1/2 off and the bar was packed. Also, there was a live band that was surprisingly good. They played everything from Tom Petty to Gavin DeGraw (the Danes really, really appreciate outdated music). My favorite part though (I'm not sure if it is clear in the picture) is that the really hardcore, long haired guitar player was wearing very non-threatening rosary beads as a necklace and just really wasn't as hardcore as he was trying to be.

Here is a picture of Eszter and I at the bar... obviously it's not the best lighting situation but I'm pretty sure that's the drink that I had at midnight on my birthday! Also, I can't waittttt to come home and get to tell waitresses that, no, I do not want a juice or a soda, I will have a real drink like everyone else. That will be a nice birthday gift in itself!

The band also played another song in Danish that the whole bar knew and started singing along to (except us, obviously). Eventually though we caught on and learned the tune and a few of the words, and couldn't stop singing it for days. With countlesssssss google attempts on the lyrics, we almost gave up hope that we would never find our new favorite song. All we knew was it had the word elske in it, which we found out elske means love, which really didn't bode well for finding a unique song with it in it. Luckily we found a Danish person who wouldn't judge us and we COMPLETELY embarrassed ourselves by singing it for her and she knew it!!! Turns out it is a song from the 70's or 80's and is a classic. Obviously I wouldn't talk about this without adding a link to the song!!!! The part where the bar went crazy and started singing is at about 1:12 in the video.

Then the next day we went and explored Amager Beach, which was very windy and a little cold but we had a good time anyway. I obviously missed everyone from home very much, but overall my birthday was great.

Tuesday we started our next "semester" of classes, which is really only a 3 week term... I am in a class called Human Trafficking and Prostitution. My professor (who insists on us calling her by her first name) is super cool and well respected in her field of anti-human trafficking.  Next week she is leading us on a study tour to Amsterdam from Monday morning til Friday evening, so that should be really fun. There are about 30 kids in my class - I haven't talked to all of them but most of the ones I have are pretty cool and it seems like everyone will get along well. So far we have had a TON of class time (I feel like I spent a ton of this week in a classroom) but we've also done really cool things such as tour of the red light district of Copenhagen. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures (cameras weren't allowed)..

The rest of the days are kind of a blur (a sign that I should really be blogging more regularly?) but I spent a lot of time reading and hanging out in the many parks here and shopping all around the city. Also, I went into my favorite Shwarma place the other day and the guy looked at me and was like "oh hey, falafel with hummus?" and now I think that this many be a sign that I go there a bit too often. I'm off to go see a few friends, but will write more soon!

Still bad at this titles thing..

I'm not sure if I've mentioned the disregard that Danish people have for driving laws here, but here is a picture that made me laugh. We were walked on the sidewalk when someone in a car decided it would be a good idea for him to drive on it.

So anyway, Friday night some friends and I went out to a few bars and a club, which was eventful and interesting, to say the least. Later the next day (read: muchh later the next day) I went to the botanical gardens with a girl from my floor. There was a whole room full of cacti, which made me happy because it reminded me of the plants on the windowsill of my kitchen at home (a living version of them, anyway).

Then we stopped by a convenience store, bought ourselves snacks and set off to picnic in the Kings Gardens. We ended up seeing some people we knew there and about seven of us spent like 3 hours lounging in the park, reading and playing frisbee (PS Martha and Kate!!! I learned how to throw kinda well!!).

My roommate and I took a trip to the town of Roskilde today, which houses Denmark's Viking Ship Museum. Gotta say, not my favorite subject, but I did have a good time with Eszter. Plus there was a place where you can dress up like a Viking so that was enjoyable. Here is a picture of Eszter and me in traditional Viking attire. I think we look pretty legit.

I suppose I should also include a picture of what we actually went there to see, the Viking ships, which were interesting to see (ish) because they were built in the 1000's and remained relatively well preserved.

I'm off to go take a nap before tonight's activities (tomorrow is my birthday!!) but I will write more soon!

My first suture, cast and street crepe!

Yesterday for class (after our presentation and test, of course) we had a lab where we learned CPR, suture and cast making. The suture part was very cool, we sewed up skin and my instructor said I did a good job. My first suture:

Then our instructor taught us CPR.. So instead of learning it agaaain, I counted the times that I had learned it before (seven times - shoutout to EST..!). After that we learned how to put on casts, so I got my first cast from someone in the class! I don't have a good picture of me getting the cast put on, but here is a picture of me getting it taken off. I'm not sure how well you can see from this picture, but I was not pleased that scissors this big were this close to my arm... like at all....

After the lab I went home and went on a run in the park close to my building, which is always full of cute Danish people picnicing with their friends and playing soccer. There was a 5K race that must have gone on earlier, but the signs were still up so I ran that course! And by ran the course, I mean jogged the course, slowly.. Anyway here is a picture of the park that I took:

Today after class I went to the National Museum with my friend Nadia. Although I have to admit I don't know much about Danish history (or any history at all for that matter, let's be real), it was still interesting. Here is a picture of my favorite piece - it initially looks like a painting of a blur but if you look at the cylinder in the middle, you can see a picture of King Frederik III and his wife reflected in it!!

Obviously fatigued from being so cultured and educated from 2.5 hours at the museum, Nadia and I picked up some nutella and banana crepes and went shopping. The crepes guy was actually kinda crazy (telling us about how he would kill someone.........this was less creepy at the time but looking back on it I realize how alarmed we should have been...) but anyway we went window shopping on Stroege and ended up at the huge department store in town where we happily got lost for a few hours. As usual, I am now procrastinating for my exam tomorrow, so I should get to studying for that.. More soon :)! Oh, and a crepe pic.. of course. (PS - brunch bunch - not the same without you guys at Crepes Etc!)

"I better be at the top of this island right now."

SO MUCH TO TELL. I'm pretty bad at this storytelling business, but I'm going to try to start with the beginning.

Wednesday night, we left Copenhagen around 11pm and took an overnight ferry to Bornholm. This was the start of a very fun and sleep deprived weekend (we got to bed around 1 and got up at 5:30?), but the cabins were very clean and I roomed with Jaclyn. I wish that I could have seen more of the actual trip but we passed out pretty early in the night..

When we got there, we checked into our hostel that we were staying it. The hostel was pretty nice (for a hostel)... They provided us with both breakfast and dinner, which was very nice of them. Here is a picture of one of the rooms... There is Jaclyn looking pretty fly on the top bunk..

We also picked up our bikes (only a small ordeal because neither Jaclyn, Sam or I fit on the "normal" sized bikes) and set out to do the "Killer route." We realized pretty quickly that the killer route would not be 60km of flat land, and instead found that Bornholm is filled with picturesque but painful hills. We made it to the nearest city and everyone I was with got fish from a famous smokehouse. I went for a personally better option and got Ben and Jerry's (ice cream #1 of the day).

We also found a bunch of rocks out by the ocean to climb on and spent a while there. Then we all biked back to a glass-blowing factory where we sat half mesmerized, half trying not to pass out while we watched women make all sorts of glass thing. By the end of the day we probably went around 30km (18 miles), came home, ate dinner, got ice cream #2 and fell asleep by 9pm.

Friday we woke up sore. And I mean sore. But we decided to power through and do another bike trip... We ended up biking to Denmark's largest waterfall. Maybe it was because it wasn't peak waterfall season, but it wasn't thaaaat big. The four of us actually arrived in a forest COVERED in these beautiful, white flowers (pictures below). About 1/4 of a mile in,  at the bottom of the waterfall and decided to be adventerous and climb up it. It was relatively tough, and there were definitely some slippery and hard to grab onto parts of the waterfall, but we finally got to the top and were covered in dirt. Then we looked up and saw an older couple and I thought to myself that it was impressive that they, too, climbed the waterfall. We then quickly learned that there was already a path paved to the side of the waterfall (and needless to say we took that route on our way down!)... but it was fun anyway! Pictures below.

We took a ferry home around 7pm (after we got ice cream #3, of course) and this time we took a speed ferry to Sweden. First of all, the ferry was going SO FAST that when we stepped out on deck it was hard to even walk quickly. Then we arrived in Sweden about 2 hours (and some great bonding time) later. Even though we were only on the ground of Sweden for about 60 seconds before we got onto the bus to take us home, it was still exciting!! Here is a picture of the crazy, crazy wind on the back of the boat.

This brings me to now, where Jaclyn and I are sitting in a little cafe pretending to do homework (but really we are drinking wine, beer and blogging..). We are in a little place that Lauren recommended, and it is so pretty that I just had to take a picture!