Climbing my way to Sweden!

Alyssa went rock climbing!

I went on a day trip with DIS to the coast of Sweden for a lovely day of climbing some sea cliffs! It was an amazing experience, the weather was spectacular, sunny and warm, and the view of the sea was breathtaking! Probably one the most beautiful and exciting days of my life :] I had one of those "I can't believe the world is so magnificent moments" while I was climbing, just the way that the rocks could be formed over millions of years to be so perfect for me to climb on them :] The water was a gorgeous blue green color, if I knew we weren't in Sweden and the water would feel like ice, I might have jumped in, unfortunately I still have some sense left and realized that I would be wayyy to cold!

It was a lot of fun to see this group of students really push themselves to the limit and accomplish something amazing. A couple of the walls were really hard to climb, and I mean really hard, like some girls took over half and hour to reach the top, but no one gave up, not a single person. It was so inspiring! I tackled 3 of the 4 walls, my arms were just way to tired to attack the beast of all rock cliffs, so I left it be! I felt alive scaling the side of the rocks, because I pushed fear out of my mind as much as I could. Its weird, I know that I won't fall and hurt myself but there is still the  psychological "but what if I do!" I got over it pretty quickly, but I think my friend Avery might be scarred for life lol. We learned how to belay the other climbers ourselves, so my friend Alana was the main belayer and I was the anchor for our friend Avery. Avery was belaying down the rock face and Alana let the rope go too fast, so next thing you know Avery scrambling against the rock screaming "TOO FAST ALANA, TOO FAST!" Alana immediately grabbed hold of the rope while the rest of us just burst out in laughter, Avery included. After that every time Alana was the belayer we'd say something along the lines of "okay Alana, now try not to kill us too!"

We left Sweden and stopped at a restaurant for dinner back in Denmark...once again ground beef and potatoes, I am getting really tired of beef and potatoes! The rest of the week I had absolutely nothing to do so I spent my days lounging around the house and relaxing--I needed to de-stress from the weeks before!

Tuesday I met Christina at her work in Hellerup to have lunch at her canteen....fantastic! It was like a buffet lunch restaurant with delicious food and an amazing view of the city! After the lunch I went into Copenhagen to meet up with Sierra and we went to Tivoli, the amusement park in the city, to meet our host sisters. Their class went to Tivoli for the day so we met up with them after they broke off from the group to have our own fun! Tivoli is wonderful, its beautiful inside with lots of trees, gardens, flowers and ponds, and the rides were AWESOME! Think Puyallup Fair on steroids...and Tivoli is still better! Sierra and I went on this insane swing ride. Its like normal swings, in the sense that you sit and they spin, but the swings were like height of a sky scraper and the rose up and down and up and down while you were spinning fast enough to make you sick! I could see over the whole city! Thomas and Christina met up with us after work and we hung around until 8:30 then went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner...yummi :]

Thursday night Amy and Sierra came over for dinner with my family, it was fun and sad at the same time! Its so weird to think that soon we will be gone, my life for the last 4 months will be over and I have to go back to my old life. Sierra basically forced me to go out with her that night lol, I agreed only if we would come back at a decent hour! We got into the city at like 11:30 and hung around for a while, she took me to some of the popular DIS bar spots. Sierra told the bar tenders that I was a friend of hers visiting from America in hopes that they would give us free/discounted drinks...it worked lol! We ran into a few of her friends and hung out with them for a bit. We left around 1:30 and took the night bus back to Birkerod...I was really tired so I told sierra that I was going to nap on her and she should wake me up when we need to get off lol :]

I spent the night at Sierra's and we got up in the morning and made pancakes then went to our host sisters' school up the street to meet Benedicte and Maria. Benedicte took me on a tour of the school and made me play some weird game which I was AWFUL at! It involved a tennis ball and some jumping...no no no! We lounged around the house because it was raining...it made me miss Seattle! Amy came over last night and spent the night...we watched a movie with Thomas and Christina and went to bed...sometimes I think we're not really college students lol!

And now as soon as I finish this blog I am going to start packing....ahhhhhhh! I feel like I want to go home, but at the same time i'm not ready to leave yet....ugh my emotions are quite torn :\

Set sail for an adventure!

Adjusting back to real life after an almost 2 and half week break was a bit tough for me...all the sudden my life wasn't focused on reading a map taking pictures it was back to commuting and homework.

I got through the first week back with minimal difficulty...minimal brain capacity as well lol. But last weekend was fantastisk as the Danes would say! I went on a sailing trip with DIS. It was a spectacular weekend, with a bit of crazy thrown in, but nevertheless, it was a memorable experience! We took the train out to Holbaek where we would get on the sailboat. The sailboat was gorgeous! It was exactly what I pictured it would look like :] The crew was great, this old danish couple and a young mate who did all the grunt work.

The crew talked to us for a bit and the we set sail! Well actually it wasn't very windy so we used the motor lol. I felt alive being out on the water, I was amazed that I was really sailing in a Danish fjord, it was ridiculous :] We anchored near a little island took an inflatable raft thing to the island. The mate's name i think was soren...not sure, Danish pronunciation=not so good! Soren took us on a little trek around the island--turns out its a training base for Navy Seals...but we didn't get to see any, bummer! At one point Soren went barging into some brush and caught a snake with is bare hands! And then he freaked out and threw it back because he couldn't remember which of the two types of snakes that Denmark has was the poisonous one lol.

We went back to the sailboat and my group made lunch. We prepared quite a spread for lunch, I was impressed at the capabilities of us college students lol. After lunch we set sail again...I was really hoping to hear someone shout the stereotypical nautical saying  "weigh anchor" but no such luck :[ maybe the captain said it in danish? It was the perfect afternoon--the sun was shining, there was a light breeze that smelled wonderful, the water was a deep blue and the islands around us were covered in bright green trees! We all took a little afternoon snooze in the sun on the deck...never thought i'd say I did that while in Denmark lol.

In the late afternoon we finally began to sail, like real sailing this time, Soren assigned us all jobs so we could pretend to be useful. I did a lot of rope pulling and ducking, then I climbed on top of the wheel house...its a scary climb up there...to tie down one of the sails. We made our way to frederickssund where were docked the boat for the night, we couldn't sleep out in the water. We were parked in front of an apartment building so all the tenants came out on their balconies to take pictures of us and the sailboat lol, it was kinda fun being a spectacle lol. We walked around the town for a bit, and saw this ancient viking boat they keep on display in the water...pretty awesome! Dinner was delicious, it was also very hygge, for those of you who don't know hygge is the word Danes use to describe an atmosphere that is cozy or warm and inviting...it actually doesn't have a direct translation because its 100% Danish!

We each had to take a night watch slot, meaning you sit on the top of the boat and make sure that there aren't any fires or strangers that try and get on the boat. I had the 1 am time slot, the night watch went smoothly and then I went back to sleep at 2. That is when the weekend got crazy! Around 4 in the morning the girl in the bed next to me started to scream and cry, so naturally everyone wakes up and is trying to figure out what is going on and where the noise is coming from. Once I told everyone who it was, the intern and her friends went over to help her. Turns out she was asleep and screaming and crying. Like a zombie sleep! People threw water on her and physically moved her and she still wouldn't wake up! At times she started responding to questions but we figured out that she was just sleep talking then too. It was so scary! We had no idea what was going on with her, if she was okay, if she would ever wake up and there was nothing I could do to help. After about an hour we finally got her to wake up completely and her friends took her up on the deck to see if fresh air would help. She started complaining about shoulder pain and then about an hour later she like passed out from the pain or something and our intern rushed her to the hospital. We found out later that she had somehow dislocated her shoulder...in her sleep! What an interesting way to start the day off lol.

We were two sailors down but managed to get through the day and sail back to Holbaek. It was still beautiful out and a little windier so we got to sail more! I found out that I am remotely decent at being on back sail crew. We tied down that back sail with the best of 'em :] Unfortunately our crazy sailing experience was over and we all headed home to prepare for the coming week of torment! I had so so much to do and very little time to do it :\

This past week was like a 6 day long nightmare for me...but hey I made it through and now I can relax for a few days. Monday night involved powered through two papers and going to Sierra's house to study for our test in history the next day. We stayed up till 2:30 studying to go to class and not have a test! He taught for half the class before a student went up to him and asked when we were taking it, to which he replied angrily that the he told us the test was friday...except he didn't! Basically there were 25 really really pissed off students for the rest of the day lol. Tuesday and Wednesday I spent writing my core paper and researching for my history paper. I finished my core paper....well "finished" it lol around 3am wednesday morning when I literally fell asleep on my laptop...oops! Thursday I had a meeting at 6 so I hung around DIS for 4 hours after class doing research for my ten page paper due the next day...why do I procrastinate so much? I got home at 9:30 and still needed to finish researching and write that 10 paper before the next morning :\ I got down to business and started to wrote, I watched the clock tick and the sky get lighter as I came closer to the end of my paper. The sun came up and I still wasn't done lol. Eventually I finished a pretty poorly written paper around 6 am and took a two hour nap before getting up and putting the finishing touches on my final papers and heading to class.

Turning in the papers wasn't accompanied by the typical sigh of relief this time because they were just adequate papers at best, not quality work of any kind lol, but hey my grades from this semester don't affect my GPA :]

My host family is gone in Jylland this weekend so right this minute I am sitting in the dinning room looking out over the beautiful yard and wooded area and sipping a cup of cinnamon hot cocoa...aahhh this is what life's about :] Tomorrow I'm off on another Swedish adventure! I'm going on a DIS rock climbing day trip with my Alana friend :] Watch out Sweden...we're a comin!

Czeching Out!

CZECH TREK!

So now I will tell you all about my second week of travel break! I went on a trip called the Czech Trek with DIS.

We left Sunday evening at 6 from Copenhagen, we were taking a bus all the way to Hruba Skala in the Czech Republic. For those of you who don't know European geography, Denmark and Czech are not right next to each other but fairly close. We had a 15 hour bus ride ahead of us! We got on the bus and drove for a few hours and then got on a ferry that took us from Denmark to Germany and then continued until about 9 the next morning, when we finally reached our hotel in Hruba Skala.

We stayed in a castle!!!!! It was AMAZING!! No other way to describe the area other than the words spectacular and gorgeous! And the weather was wonderful, warm and sunny...hooray :] We arrived and got checked into the rooms to stash our stuff then went down to breakfast, which was yummi! Then we started our day, which was not the easiest thing to do since we were all basically zombies. There was just over 40 of us so we split into two groups for the activities. I started with Ice Breakers! After 3 years of college and being on RHC, ice breaker games are getting a little old, but these were uhhh new and a little strange lol. During the 3 hours of ice breakers we played the typical name games, and line games and what not, but then we moved onto some trust games. Okay I thought "here come the trust falls", ohhh no... what we played were trust games on steroids! We started out with someone standing on a short ledge, and we created a line behind them so they could fall back and the whole group would catch them. That one was like "eh okay" a little more than the usual falling back with a partner, then we moved on to the extra sketch one! The next one was a person standing on a wall like 7 feet high and then falling backwards into people's arms. I thought "alright, a bit scary but no problem!" That was all good and dandy until our guide decided to take the first turn, WE ALMOST DROPPED HIM! I was just a little nervous after that, so when it came to be my turn I squealed the whole time I fell lol :]

Time for lunch! Now during the orientation meeting we were told that while in Czech we would be served meat, meat and more meat. So I was interested in seeing what lunch would be...they came out with fish sticks and french fries! I was like uhhh thats not meat lol. It was also funny because that morning when we got to the hotel and met the guides they asked if anyone had any food stipulations other than being vegan/vegetarian and two people said they can't eat seafood, to which the guides laughed and said "well were in the Czech Republic so you don't have to worry about that hahahaha" and then the first meal we have is fish sticks!

We switched activities in the afternoon so it was my turn to attempt archery...great idea...give a clumsy and uncoordinated person a bow and arrow! I was actually doing well for a bit, I had a good mix of arrows that didn't even make it on the board and arrows that almost hit the bullseye...strange I know. The string on the bow did hit my forearm a few times but I figured it would be alright. Unfortunately my confidence didn't last long! During my last two shots the string attacked my poor arm! Within about twenty minutes my arm looked like it was beaten with a brick...purple and blue with red marks where I was nearly bleeding! Leave it to me to get attacked by a bow and arrow without even trying...I know I know, it takes talent :]

After archery I went with a few girls on a short walk around the area, we ended up walking in an area I don't really know how to describe, it was like a forest but with huge stone columns everywhere. It was quite magical, I was in awe of my surroundings and I felt so small compared to the rock structures around me. We went back to the hotel to get in a small nap before dinner! Dinner was quite delicious, it was like a dumpling and meat thing with a creamy sauce and lingonberries on the meat. One of our guides had to give us a short intro to the dinner before we got it, she told us that dumplings were a traditional Czech food meant to be eaten with a fork and knife not your hands...I definitely felt like I was back in Denmark when she said that lol! We were all wondering why she was so adamant that we eat it with a fork and knife until we got our meal, the dumplings came out like slices of bread...I am still kinda confused about what a dumpling is supposed to look like since I always thought it was a ball lol. We hit the sack early that night since no one got much sleep on the bus!

The next day I started with repelling and the high ropes course, such an exciting morning :] The repelling was some 40 or 50 meters, it was so much fun, I did it a few times!! There was also a zip line across a gorge, which was SOOOOO fun :] I've never done a zip-line before so I was ridiculously excited, I felt like I was flying! Once you landed, you crossed back to the other side by a rope bridge suspended over the gorge, which was actually kinda scary! You couldn't feel the tension in your harness the way you could when you repelled or did the zip line, so it made me nervous for the first ten feet. Eventually you get over it and just try and cross without falling lol. I did the zip-line and rope bridge a few times as well and then I just laid out in the sun until lunch :]

Lunch was as expected...delicious, but I was still awaiting the large plate of meat we were warned about lol. After lunch was the guided trek. It was awesome, we walked through the forest and up a few cliffs to some great picture spots, you could look out over the whole countryside and had a great view of the castle. I think I could have lived in that forest forever, it was so fantabulous...yes that is a made up word! We learned that the rock columns were sandstone and they formed the amazing columns because that area was a sea hundreds of thousands of years ago and the columns are the left over sediments from the sea floor. After the guided trek was another great meal and then a break before our night activity.

We waited until it was dark outside and then met with our guides for a candle light orienteering activity. We split up into groups of 7 and given maps and candles, we had to go find twenty something clues spread out on the castle grounds which were numbers and words. We had to go back to the meeting point to write down the numbers and words, we couldn't take the paper with us so we had to back a few times. We could only use our candles for light, which was not easy because the wind kept blowing them out and the wax kept dripping on me...ouch! Also not smart to make people traverse a cliff side castle in the dark...I tripped A LOT! After we had all the clues we had to put the words together and figure out what they said. The message was that there was something in the tallest tower of the castle and the key to the door was around the knights neck. We got the key and found the right door but we also had some competitors trying to get in the door with us, we ran up the tower and went outside to find the prize, turned out the prize was actually inside. So even though we were the first team to reach the prize we didn't see it and ended up fighting for second place, in that process I just about got squished by an oversized athlete, consequently we lost that prize too but got the third place prize, which was a ton of chocolate and cookies which I was more than happy with :]

The next day was a really early start, we had breakfast at 6:30 and then got on the bus to drive to our next activities. We dropped off half the group at the river to go canoeing, and then the rest of us continued to a forested area where we would do some rock climbing and more repelling. We climbed up a hill/cliff to get to the rocks we would climb up and repel down. There were three levels of climbs, most everyone did the easy and medium but only a handful did the hard cause there wasn't a lot of time for it...I was bummed cause we ran out of time before I could have my go at it! I haven't done any climbing for a few years so I wasn't good but it was so much fun! The repelling actually gave my heart a little jump at first, which is generally hard to do lol. It wasn't the repelling that scared me at all it was the first step back because you couldn't see where you were going at all! Once I saw where I could put my foot I was fine again and had a great time on the way down, the rock caved in about 25 feet before the landing so you were just in a free hang which I found very exciting!

We walked to a town after climbing for lunch at a cafe, where we had more dumplings shaped like bread slices and meat. There were three goats attached to a tree next to my table, they were so adorable, but it also made me sad because I didn't know if they would be eaten later or not and they didn't seem to have any food or water. After lunch it was my groups turn to go canoeing, I partnered with my friend Allison, and we had a few problems trying to keep our boat going straight lol, we tended to do circles often but hey it was fun :] Within about 50 meters of were we started there is this little man made waterfall situation that we had to go down, not very hard since there was a passage in the middle made for small boats to maneuver through. They told us to just go fast down the slide and not to grab on to the sides of the boat and we'd ve fine. Now I know what your thinking, I had already fallen in a canal why not also fall into a river in Czech, but a miracle happened and my boat didn't tip over! Actually we nearly did but apparently our screams were enough to keep us upright lol. Two boats did capsize, but the water was shallow so the only problem was that people got wet, no big! The funny part was that one of the boats that tipped was the leader and a student! Chupec was our leaders name, and he hadn't ever fallen in the river after 7 years of leading the canoe tour...bahahaha, so he got made fun of like crazy by the other guides!

We went back to the castle for our last dinner and to pack up, we were leaving for good the next day. My roommates and I thought we'd finish packing after dinner and then go to the hotel bar to socialize for a bit...too bad that never happened, we fell asleep lol. The next morning we had our last breakfast and then loaded up the bus to head to Prague where we would spend the day before starting our 14 hour journey back home. The ride to Prague was two hours so I thought it would be a good time to take a nap :] We got to Prague around 10am and were on our own, they gave us 300 Czech Kroner for lunch, about 20 dollars, but we had to pay for dinner on our own. I went off with a small group at first, we walked with two friends to find their hostel, they were staying in Prague for longer instead of coming back on the bus with us. And then we went on a journey to the Prague castle. We crossed the famous Charles Bridge, which is quite beautiful, it had statues all over it and had a great view of the castle up on a hill. It was really warm in Prague and I was not wearing the proper clothing lol so walking in the sun to the castle was slightly miserable, but the castle was worth it! Allison and I didn't stay at the castle too long, just wandered around it to take some photos and then we separated from our friends to go find some lunch.

Allison is a vegan so we actually had to scout out a place where she could eat the food and settled on a nice cafe where they served pasta. We sat outside and both ordered pasta with tomato sauce, we had a waitress who spoke english so she understood when Allison told her that she couldn't have cheese so not to put any Parmesan on her pasta. A little later we were served our food and what did Allison's pasta have on it...cheese, not very good listeners are they lol. Since Allison hasn't had dairy in so long she will get sick if she has any, so she called the waitress back over and told her that she asked for no cheese on her pasta because she couldn't have it. They apologized and took her plate away, they came back a little too quickly with a bowl of unkempt looking pasta. We were wondering if they just flipped the pasta upside down and added more sauce, Allison took a few bites before coming across a ton of melted cheese. Yes, they did just flip the pasta and added more sauce, again not very good listeners! Allison went inside this time and handed over the bowl of pasta and said "I CAN'T HAVE CHEESE, IT MAKES ME SICK!" This time they understood and eventually brought her a fresh bowl of pasta, cheese free!

After the lunch debacle we took a tram over to Petrin Hill and took another tram like think up the hill to get to the observation tower so we could climb up. We got a student discount so it only cost like 3 dollars to go up the tower and we had the most amazing view of the city! There were beautiful houses, bridges, hills and parks everywhere you looked! It started to get a little crowded so we climbed back down and walked around the park at the top of Petrin Hill for a bit before catching another tram thing back down. We took another tram over to Old Town and walked around for awhile before going to the Old Town Square, which is like a small market place. It was very lively and fun, I think there was a festival going on because there was a stage with bands and other cool stuff. We checked everything out and watched the super amazing clock tower while it chimed 6pm, it has this procession of the twelve apostles and then a guy plays a tune on the trumpet from the top, every hour. We walked on to find another market, which wasn't nearly as impressive as Old Town Square, but was worth seeing and wandered around looking for something to eat for dinner. We settled on Subway, since they have a veggie sandwich. After dinner we did more wandering, we went to the Jewish quarter to walk around and then sat by the water for a bit before heading back to Old Town Square. We ran into some kids from our class in the square so we chilled with them until it was time to go back to the bus.

We changed into sweats on the bus and prepared for the long haul! We were supposed to leave promptly at 9, but someone hadn't shown up yet. We had a girl from China on the trip who apparently had gone off by herself that day, probably not a very good idea! They called her a few times before she answered and asked her where she was, it sounded like she didn't know she needed to be back at the bus so we had to wait another twenty-five minutes for her to find her way back. Eventually we got her and then took off for Denmark. I had a very restless sleep, its hard to get comfortable in bus seats! When I finally did start to fall asleep we reached the ferry, about 6 am, and we had to get off the bus. I got home about 11:30 Friday morning and my host family was in Milan for break so I was alone, i took this opportunity to veg out for the rest of the day. I couldn't focus or do anything productive so I decided to just enjoy the sunshine and watch movies :]

Saturday morning I slept in and then called my friend Sierra, cause she was home too, to hang out. I went over to her place and we said we'd do homework but really we just watched some movies and made dinner. She wouldn't let me leave lol, she said it was way to cold outside and too dark for me to walk the 6 minutes it takes me to get home, and that I should just spend the night lol. I didn't put up much of a fight, especially when she said we could make french toast with raspberries for breakfast :] So I spent the night at her house, her host family was gone too, and the next morning we made breakfast and then I went home to clean and attempt to do some homework, that didn't happen. Sierra called me again to come over for dinner, without her cooking for me I would have eaten cereal for dinner lol! My host family got back late last night, so I woke up this morning to a delicious breakfast again lol.

Right now I really should be writing some papers that I have to turn in next week, but the weather today told me otherwise :] It was too gorgeous to do anything productive so I decided to hang around the yard and tell you all about my life instead!
But....you should all pray that I find the will power amongst the 60 degree weather to write my papers!

Mountains, Canals and Pasta!

SPRING BREAK!

I think I will have to split up my two weeks of break into two blog posts, because otherwise you would all probably die reading it lol.

Amy and I left for Zurich Friday night, we took Swiss airlines, and boy did they spoil us! Free drinks, a free sandwich thing and then to top it all off we got free chocolate :] Our hotel had free airport shuttles so we didn't have to spend 10 bucks on a train ticket. Our hotel was nice, though it was out of the city, but our room  had a balcony! The next day we booked a trolley tour and short boat cruise online, so we set off to find our way into zurich and find the meet point. We had some issues with public transit as usual but we made it to the tour!

We rode in this cute little trolley and went all over Zurich, then we took an hour and half cruise around the Lake Zurich. It was probably the most beautiful boat ride I've ever taken. It was sunny outside and the mountains looked spectacular in the skyline. After the boat ride we went on a ferris wheel ride by the lake. It was gorgeous! We could see the lake and the canal leading from the lake, mountains and all the hills surrounding the lake, and a beautiful garden near the ferris wheel. Zurich was so spectacular that Amy and I came up with a new saying: "We died and went to Zurich" :] We spent the rest of the day wandering around the city, I love when we wander, just going where ever we feel like it. We went into a few churches and we found a cute little park were we sat and ate some food then back to the hotel for us!

The next day was fairly uneventful, we went to store our luggage in the train station and then took off for more wandering. More gorgeous parks and good food and cute little side streets and also a delicious muffin! We went wandering through a residential neighborhood and found the cutest park with a ton of locals, kids running around and people playing chess, it was so freakin' ridiculously swiss I couldn't help but laugh at my luck :] The best part of the morning was when we were walking around and talking with these three ladies behind us. We stopped to look at this vendor and the three girls walk past and I hear them say "Am I trippin or were they speakin english?" We burst out laughing and were like uh yeah we are speaking english lol. We headed back to the train station to catch our train to venice. On the way to the train we encountered a large group of kids outside a storefront wearing these funny costumes and the store owner was giving them things like oars and sponges shaped like ducks. I asked one of the adults if he spoke english and then asked if he could explain what was going on. Apparently its some annual festival thing that has to do with the professions/guilds from the old days and stuff. I didn't really understand it but it was cute :]

The train ride to Milan was ridiculously spectacular! Gliding through small towns and under swiss alps in the train was postcard perfect. I mean I fell in absolute love with the Swiss country side! I was ready to pack up and find the nearest for sale sign and just move right in. The funny thing was that there were no signs telling us when we had crossed the border from Switzerland to Italy, but we could just tell. No offense to Italy or anything, cause God knows I love ya, but in an instant you could just tell that it was a different country, the buildings got less "grand" and put together and it just looked like a different place. We got to Milan and only had 15 minutes to catch our connecting train to Venezia. No prob we thought! Wrong lol! The Milan station was insane....people EVERYWHERE! It took us nearly ten minutes to get to the reader board to find out which platform our other train was leaving from. We finally figured out that it was on the other side of the station and the train was leaving in a few minutes. So basically we ran and tried to avoid running over toes with our suitcases, no promises though, people just didn't understand "EXCUSE ME!" Basically the second we got on the train it left...best timing ever! The train ride to Venice was also beautiful in a different way, farms and fields laid around us until it got to dark to see them anymore. As we got closer to Venice I could smell the saltwater and it made me smile :]

We set off to find our hostel, not an easy feat because street signs in venice really suck lol. The directions to our hostel were more like "cross the big bridge, then continue to a square, then cross a second bride and then keep going until there is a third bridge, but don't cross it go right until you find this square" We felt a serious sense of accomplishment when we found it :] We were staying at a  place called the Venice Fish, it was kind of a disaster! Don't get me wrong it you want to share two bathrooms with like 50 people, and have unidentified liquids gunk on the floor of the bathroom then please please go there!

It was a really good place to meet people though, and its definitely a party hostel, but we just weren't feelin it when we were exhausted. The first night we were there, we were getting ready for bed and the rest of our roommates come in when some hostel employees, they went out drinking, and started having a cheeseball fight, and then a toilet paper fight oh and there was more...a nutella fight. This all lasted over an hour, so half of the room had gone to bed but the fighting continued, I woke up the next day with cheeseballs on my bed and suitcase! Sometime around 1:30 or 2 am one of the drunken cheeseball fighters began to contemplate if he wanted to jump out the window of our room into the canal below us. For an hour I listened to "come on guys how many times will I be in Venice" with various profanities intermingled in that phrase. I considered getting up and pushing him out the window, but being charged with murder would really put a cramp in my travel plans :] Eventually someone came to yell at him and get him out of the window, which allowed the rest of us in the room some sleep.

The next day we explored Venice. We got lost trying to find the Rialto bridge, Venice isn't great for someone as directionally challenged as me! The Rialto bridge is so pretty, and there was a ton of little shops...copenhagen is too expensive for my blood, so all my shopping happened in Venice :] After the Rialto we went to San Marco square, very cool looking! We went up the clock tower to get a better view of the square and the islands. It was such a spectacular view of the city :] I have a thing for viewing cities from high points apparently! Venice is interesting from up high. You couldn't see the canals anymore from that high, it was just red, the red roof tiles, mixed with the blue from the sea. It was fantastic :]

We continued our shopping/getting lost adventure for a bit while eating some gelato :] then we set off to go to this pretty church on the point that we could see from the piers by San Marco. We decided to take the long way back to the hostel, which put us in some neighborhood areas, which were amazing. I loved listening to real people, not the tourists, and the volume level dropped significantly because we got out of turistmania! We found this awesome park that was definitely a local park, I loved it :] We saw a ton of college age kids doing homework and some old people having a cute picnic! Also it was next to this hotel with a ridiculous name...hotel Papadopolis! I couldn't say that name with out cracking up lol. We got free dinner at the hostel at 8 so we decided to head back early because our feet hurt. We spent the night talking to this girl named Ali from our hostel. She was traveling Europe during her R&R from the military, she's stationed in Afghanistan.

Our next night was far less eventful, involving quite a few hours a sleep! The next day our plan was to hang out with Ali and just wander around and get lost more. We had a great morning. We walked to the Venice ghetto, which was really sad but very powerful. I was kinda surprised that there were a ton of tourist shops in the ghetto. It was a little depressing, seeing this beautiful and powerful memorial being turned into a tourist trap. We ate lunch at this adorable little cafe on the bank of a canal...PASTA! After lunch was the most eventful part of the day....I need to build the suspense, so the story comes with it!

I bought one of those oh so typical tourist Italia zip-up sweatshirts in the stand out blue lol. I was oh so happy with my purchase swinging in a plastic sac in my hand, so we stopped for some gelato, only the second of the day. We went to sit on some steps by a canal and eat our gelato, it was just so Venice, eating gelato by a canal...this is when it happened! Were just chillin' there and a small breeze blows, the next thing I know, my plastic sac with my brand new jacket gets knocked over and is falling down the stairs. What happened next came in slow motion. I saw the bag fall...step by step and then I hear myself scream "NO NO NO NO NO!" I go to reach for and then I slip...can you guess what happens next?? Its basically what ever tourist in Venice hopes that they can see happen...I FELL IN THE CANAL! The next thing I know I am sitting in filthy stinky water squealing! Ali saved my jacket and Amy helped me out, so there I was standing on the bank of the canal with a priceless expression according to my friends. Did that just happen? No...no way...I could not have just fallen in a canal in Venice! I also managed to take my purse with me into the canal so we start pulling things out of it trying to make sure my camera and phone are still working and that nothing floated away. I was still in a slight state of shock so Amy and Ali kinda took the reigns and took me back to the hostel. I took over one of the two bathrooms and for nearly an hour rinsing the nasty out of my clothes and washing myself off. That canal was the most disgusting thing I have ever been in, there was a thick layer of puke green scum covering my cardigan where I tried to catch myself on the steps!

After the shower I started to feel a bit better, but my clothes still smelled like a dead fish. I went to talk to the hostel employees about doing laundry, I told them what happened and their first response was "ohh my god you're going to get hepatitis" boy did that make me feel better! We found a laundromat over near the train station so I could wash my clothes. It cost me 15 euros to do laundry...thats over 20 dollars, and then I had to go buy a cheap purse since mine went into the canal with me, that cost me another 5 euros! That freakin jacket! It ended up being way more expensive that I thought lol, it had better last forever! With all that drama behind us, the three of us walked to the train station to say bye to Ali, she was taking a 12 hour train Paris. Even though we just met her the day before I was sad to see her go, she was definitely a fun girl! And she made the whole canal situation a little easier because she kept laughing at me lol :]

We went back to the hostel for one last free dinner and a drink from Frulala before catching our night train to Rome at midnight. My phone stopped working when we got back to the hostel, I was really pissed at that canal by this point :[ We were thinking that an overnight train wouldn't be too bad, especially after our nice trains from Zurich to Venice. Oh so wrong were we! We were sitting in a box like 7x4 feet with 6 seats, 3 on one side face 3 on the other side. Our box was full so you couldn't move without hitting someone or something, not exactly how I wanted to spend my night, especially after the whole falling in a canal and feeling ridiculous thing.

We arrived in Rome about 7am and found our way to the hostel, which was super super close, we were really lucky! We couldn't check into our room that early but he said we could store our luggage and eat breakfast if we wanted, free breakfast was included! We realized that the bathroom on that floor was free so we thought hey why not use the shower before breakfast! After we got cleaned up and our bellies were full we were in much better moods, but still exhausted! We thought that we would avoid doing anything too big since we were tired, but somehow that didn't stop us from getting in line to see the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps! It was culture week which usually wouldn't mean much to me except that it also meant that anything historical owned by the city of Roma was....FREE to the public! Can you say fabulous! I love not spending money on things :]] The Trevi Fountain never ceases to make me smile :] Its just so beautiful, I know its crazy touristy but i like to think that its kinda magical. We were also told about this great gelato shop called San Krispino, so we went on a mission to find it! We did find it and it was DELICIOUS...I love gelato :]  The Spanish steps were great, I hadn't seen those before so finally something new! There were definitely more steps than anticipated so we had to stop half way up for a "gaze at our surroundings" break, I really love those :] The church at the top of the steps was beautiful so we went inside and sat for a bit watching some prayer time for all the priests and nuns in the church.

After a full exhausting day we went back towards the hostel to find some deliciously cheap pasta for dinner. We settled on this cute little cafe with a kinda annoying host guy. We both had pasta that reminded me a bit of american food, mine slightly resembled the double cheeseburger macaroni from Hamburger Helper and Amy's pasta slightly resembled Chef Boyardee ravioli. Back at the hostel we checked in and found our room, we had 4 roommates who were settled in but not in the room. Like any nosy traveler I examined the stuff they had laid out lol, I had a theory! I said to Amy "I think they are adults!" she didn't think so though, she's like but look at these clothes and this goofy umbrella...I still thought they were adults. Upon further examination I had another theory "They are asian!" Amy also didn't agree with this statement, but I could just feel it! Twenty minutes later and asian woman in her fifties walks in and talks to us, Amy asked her if she was travelling with the others staying in the room...she said yes! Bahaha my intuitions were correct! Score one for Alyssa :] I'm not sure if I should be proud of the fact that I can guess who people are by their belongings lol! Amy and I were hoping that we wouldn't get roomed with any crazy party girls that stayed out way late cause we were EXHAUSTED...but I guess we need to be more careful about what we ask for, the asian ladies went to bed at like 9pm. We ended up chilllin in the hallway for a hour or so cause even my exhausted self couldn't go to bed at 9!

The next day we did the Vatican, we attempted to get a semi-early start, but that didn't work out lol...there were a ton of little shopping stands on the road to the Vatican and being girls, well, we had to stop :] Amy bought two shirts and I walked away with nothing, now that takes some serious will power! We got in line at the Vatican and were bombarded by people trying to sell us tours..."ladies ladies you don't want to wait in this line, its so long, come with us and we'll get you in now, you don't have to wait two hours!" We turned down everyone and only waited about 20 minutes to get in....take that pushy people! And we got a student discount on the entrance fee, half price :] The Vatican was beautiful but packed full of stuff, we wandered everywhere staring at random statues, neither of us were particularly history buffs so much of the contents meant little to us, but it was still nice to look at. We eventually made our way to the most important part lol the Cappella Sistina! I've seen the Sistine Chapel before but it is still beautiful, the intricacy and precision of this masterpiece is simply amazing. We sat down along the side of the room and stared for half an hour just trying to take it all in, eventually we moved to the other side of the room so we could see the whole thing. We left the Chapel and went to find some food, I got a slice of pizza with the most interesting ingredients...cheese, salami, black olives and hard boiled eggs! Strange concoction yes, but also surprisingly DELICIOUS!

We left the Vatican and went to St. Peter's Basilica, which was insanely beautiful inside! Stuff everywhere, paintings, statues, people, altars, candles and so on. It was so grand and spectacular I can't get it out of my head! We walked out and looked at the guards in funny outfits, they made me giggle! We walked farther away and tried to take a picture of ourselves with the Basilica in the background, I am pretty good at the "outstretched arm picture of yourselves" shot but it just wasn't working lol, this nice French lady just walked up to us and goes "ahh no no no I take! Un. Deux. Trois...Viola! I loved that she was so friendly :] We went back to the hostel for a free "pasta party" which in my mind means free dinner :] They pasta wasn't spectacular but it was filling and we met a group of cool australian girls so it was a good mingle time. We wanted to go see the Trevi Fountain at night so we left around 9 to make our way over there...it was a bit sketchy but we just kept walking! The Trevi is so magical at night! It was all lit up and golden, if it wasn't raining it would have literally been perfect! Then we went to get more San Krispino and ate it next to the fountain before heading back to the hostel.

The next day we went to the train station to try and mail some postcards, I'm not a fan of Italian post workers lol! The guy at the counter tried to tell me that I couldn't mail my postcards, which didn't make any sense and I could barely understand him so I was like uhh whatever and we left to go to the Roman Forum and Paletine Hill. I found a Tabachi shop on the way and I bought some stamps from there and mailed my postcards....so to all of you who I mailed postcards to I really hope they got sent lol! Roman Forum and Palitine Hill were also free, thank you culture week! We wandered around there for a few hours and then were starving so we found this little cafe on the hill above the Colosseum to eat lunch...tortellini! We went on to find the Pantheon, but got distracted along the way by pretty churches and gelato, when we finally got there it wasn't all that impressive so the distractions were worth it to me! I had to pee so badly so we started fast walking in the direction of a train station and ran into a McDonalds on the way, so we stopped there to use the restroom. This McDs was HUGE! Three stories and a panoramic viewing area, the only downfall was the horrendous line for the bathroom, it was about twenty minutes, but either way I got to use the bathroom! We went on a muffin hunt on the way back to the hostel, settled on a good lookin' chocolate muffin from a bar, and then had some free pasta at the hostel. We left after dinner to find a canoli, I've decided I love canolis :]

The next day we stored our luggage at the hostel because we were both leaving Italy later on, and left to wander the city more. We found a slightly sketchy park where we ate our muffins, and then continued our wanderings. We went back to the cafe where we got a canoli the night before to get our last bowl of pasta for lunch...ravioli and tortellini! Unfortunately it was time for me to leave! I got my luggage and Amy walked me to the train station so I could catch the express train to the airport. With my track record there was no way I could escape Roma unscathed, I almost got pick-pocketed on the train by a teenage girl! She didn't get my wallet or camera so I was happy, and then I got to the airport and made my way back to Copenhagen to stay the night and pack for my next adventure to the Czech Republic!

Last surprise of the vacation...my phone started working again! I guess it just needed 4 days to dry out cause it finally starting working again right before I left for Czech!

How many times will I go to Sweden?

I spent the weekend in Sweden again....you'd think I like it or something lol

This time I went with DIS on a weekend trip to southern Sweden, to hiking and canoeing. Its seems like I can never have a completely normal adventure however, something always seems to come up lol. The group met near DIS and took a bus north to Helsingor to catch a ferry over to Helsingborg, just across the water in Sweden. Since I live North of Copenhagen it made more sense for me to just catch a train up to Helsingor and meet the group before the ferry. I sent the leaders and email and I was told to meet them outside the ferry, seems  simple enough. I got there Saturday morning about 8, so I chill around the station for a couple of minutes waiting for them to call me, I run into two other people who are meeting the group at the ferry too. We get a call and the leader tells us to go over to the bus, in the car lanes, only problem is that there was a LONG security fence in between us and the bus. We told her that and she told us that we might just have to buy our own ferry tickets and meet them on the ferry, not gonna happen! We had all already paid for this trip and were not gonna pay more! She sent another leader out to try and find us, her solution to our problem was to climb the security gate, so guess what we did...we climbed a security gate at a ferry station and ran to get on the bus. Quite an interesting way to start my weekend off lol, I kept thinking that someone was going to come chase us down and arrest us for doing that lol.

We got over to Sweden and set off for the Ronnes A, the river we would canoe down. It was such a beautiful day! Slight chill, but its Scandinavia what can you expect. We put our life vests on and grabbed a canoe and paddles and took off down the river. I went with this guy Noah who I know from a class and we paddled near our friends Kara and Jen. Noah and I were both left handed, how is that of the entire group two leftys ended up in the same canoe lol. We had some directional problems which landed us in some trees a few times, and crashing into the bank a few more times. That poor canoe lol! We connected with Kara's canoe and rafted for a bit while singing a little Pocahontas..."Just around the river bend!" After awhile Noah and I got really lazy so we connected with a third canoe and rafted more. Me and Noah were in the middle of the three canoes so our job was just to hold onto the other two and keep us all connected....such grueling work :] I was in the back so I just laid down with my arms stretched out so I could keep hold of the other two boats. Then we swapped places and let Kara and Jen be in the middle, then after awhile the third canoe had its chance in the middle. Rearranging canoes is like playing leap frog in a river lol, i'm sure it would have been interesting to watch!

It took us a little over two hours to canoe down the river, I was quite thankful when it was over, plastic canoe seats do a number on your rear-end! One person was crazy enough to go swimming, he jumped off a bridge into the freezing cold river....like I said crazy! The river was really beautiful, the banks were full of trees and there were ducks everywhere, we also saw shopping cart lol. The Ronnes A runs through a neighborhood so there were pretty houses and docks along the sides and we saw lots of people, one older couple standing on a bridge tried to talk to us in swedish, we just yelled "hey hey" back at them lol. I would not mind moving to Sweden if I could live on this river! After our canoe adventure we got back on the bus and headed for the hostel. The hostel was sorta in the middle of nowhere, there were farms all around us but it was nice scenery. We had lunch at the hostel, which was DELICIOUS! I have no idea what it was, some sort of stew or beef soup or something, but I was more than delighted to have a second helping :]

After lunch we went on a hike to Nimis. Which is this fantastic complex of wooden structures, like a castle made out of drift wood, the walkway to it was an enclosed wood tunnel and then there are sets of tall towers made of driftwood that you can climb up. Basically the guy who created this was insane and amazing, I think they go hand in hand sometimes lol. So the artist who created Nimis made the pathway to get there ridiculous and long, because he was hiding it from the Swedish authorities, who after two years finally found it. They sued him for building a structure in a national park, so he declared the area surrounding Nimis to be the nation of Ladonia. So basically I got to go into another country while I was hiking, pretty awesome :] You can go online and become a citizen of Ladonia for free, and if you're feeling royal you can pay twelve dollars to become some sort of Ladonian royalty! I contemplated becoming a duchess, how cool would that be on a job application "well I graduated from PLU and I am also the reigning duchess of Ladonia" no big deal or anything lol :]

Since Nimis is on the beach we had to hike down to get there, so after we were all tired and what not we had to hike up to get back to the bus, I was definitely huffin and puffin the whole way up lol.
We got back to the hostel and were exhausted so the girls in my room and I just headed straight for our beds and passed out until dinner. Eventually we got up when we smelled the food :] It was like a Swedish version of an american barbecue, grilled chicken and brats with pasta salad and potato salad and then a scandanavian version of smores, I was just a little happy! We spent the rest of the night just hanging around the living room and chatting before we headed off to bed.

The next day we headed to the coast to have a day of repelling and orienteering. Saturday was beautiful, but apparently we didn't get to have a repeat, Sunday was fairly awful, rain and wind and thunder and what not. I can usually handle wind, rain and thunder, its a typical day in Western Washington, but I've never encountered such elements when repelling of the side of a cliff lol. We repelled two cliffs, a baby and a momma, a big momma! The long one was something like 30 meters or something. I was so excited to get my repel on! Nobody wanted to go first for the short repel so I was just like "I'll do it" when really inside I was screaming "Let me at it!!!" The short one was just a teaser I couldn't wait to get at the longer one. Sitting on the mountain waiting to repel the long cliff was almost unbearable, because it was just pouring rain and hail on us! But in the end it was totally worth it, It felt so surreal to be bouncing off a cliff side next to an ocean!

After repelling we headed back to the bus to eat lunch then we took a shot at orienteering. So we had a little trouble navigating but had a lot of fun on the way because it finally stopped being so miserable outside. We didn't make it to all the points because we were trying to be responsible college students for once and show up on time...we shoulda been irresponsible! We got back on time and no one else showed up for another half an hour, but the adults said we couldn't leave :[ Oh well we got to sit on the bus and sleep for an extra half and hour lol. Once everyone got back it was time to leave Sweden and travel back to Denmark. It was a long bus ride back to the ferry but I got some good rest in :] When I finally got home that evening I had a delicious dinner at home with the family...I love having a host family :]

More to come about my exciting travel break!

Mishaps and Sunsets

This weekend I went to Stockholm with my friend Amy from DIS.

The weekend started out pretty crazy, Amy and I accidentally booked the wrong flight, I guess that is what happens when you are annoyed and want to just book the stupid flight! We meant to book an 8:35 am flight friday morning, but booked a 7:00 am flight instead. No problem you'd think, except public transit doesn't run extremely early. So me and Amy got up at 3:30 and my host dad was nice enough to get up ridiculously early, like 4:30, so he could drive us to the Kokkedal train station. We caught a 5:02 train towards the airport and arrived a little before 6, we busted our butts to check-in, and we got through everything in time!

Our flight was not even half full! I felt soo unsustainable I wanted to cry :[ We got to Stockholm and decided to walk from the central station to our hostel, according to some lunatic online it was only like twenty minutes away. Wrong...it was about a 40 minute walk. With a suitcase it wasn't so fun, and it was freezing, but that walk was a wonderful way to see the city! We eventually found out way to the hostel and stored the suitcase and decided to take off and explore! First stop...buying a train pass! We were not going to do that walk everyday lol, we would be doing enough walking around the city!

We got back into the center of the city and just started wandering, wherever the cold wind blew us lol. We found a kebab place for lunch...mmmmmm :] I'm starting to realize that half of my enjoyment of traveling is eating different foods :] We went over to the Old City and walked through their tiny streets, saw the royal palace and went on a hunt for a Dala Horse for Amy. We headed back to the central station area to do some more wandering in the tourist shopping district...I love me some good shopping :] I didn't buy anything though, just stared at what I couldn't afford lol. We walked along the waterfront and got completely lost, it was totally worth it though because we saw the most beautiful sunset on the face of the planet! For dinner we went to a texmex place, man have I been missing burritos :] We took the train back to the hostel, we were exhausted from being up since 3:30!

Hostel did not equal a good place to relax :[ We were sharing a room with 3 spanish girls and 3 russian/not really sure where they were from girls. The common room was full of people until the wee hours of the morning, and guess where our room was? Basically in the common room, you had to walk into the common room to get to our door. So trying to sleep involved listening to a thousand different conversations in a thousand different languages! Eventually I got to sleep but woke up a lot because it was HOT! My bed was against the heater so it felt like I was in a fire, I decided to turn it down the next night...sorry girls :]

The next day we got up while all the other girls were sleeping, I guess when you stay up till 3 am you don't want to get up at 9 lol. We took off to book a winter boat tour around the canals in Stockholm...EXPENSIVE! Like 25 dollars, I guess its not that bad, but I'm a poor college student so basically I wanted to cry when I handed over the money lol. The tour was great though, we got to sit and be warm, the most important part lol since it snowed the day before! We saw some pretty islands and heard some local history of Stockholm, it was pretty great! After the boat tour we found some lunch and then headed to the Vasa Museum. The Vasa was a great battle ship sailing out of Stockholm in 1628, it was quite magnificent, but sank within half an hour of its maiden voyage, can you say embarrassment! They recovered the ship in the 1960s and it was actually mostly intact, the water in Stockholm is good for preserving wood apparently. They fixed up the ship and did some stuff to it so that it would last and then they put it on display in the museum. This ship was HUGE! It was so amazing to see, it is so old and sat on the bottom of a canal for over 300 years and it is still so beautiful. We were so exhausted that at one point we just sat and stared at the ship for like twenty minutes lol. We left the museum and decided to take the train to Sodermalm, one of the islands of Stockholm, to walk around. We walked along the water for a bit and went into a photography museum, we didn't see any exhibitions, it was sooo expensive! Sodermalm was also great to see the sunset from, open view of the clear sky and the shades of pink and orange were reflecting of the building windows, spectacular :] We went back to the train and took the train farther into the middle of the island. We walked around some more and found a grocery store, so we bought some snackage for the plane trip the next day :] We went into this local mall place and found a pizzeria....PIZZA!! It made me soo happy :] It was nice to be at a local place, it made me feel less like a tourist! Then we went to a burger king and got some ice cream and talked, they turned of the lights for earth hour :]]]]]]]]]] I was just a little happy!

We headed back to the hostel to attempt to get some sleep, the possibly russian group had left but the spanish girls were still there, but they were gettin' all dolled up to go out, so they left pretty soon after we got there. It was day light savings the next day so we reset our cell phones, missing our plane would not be fun! We hit the sack around midnight, the spanish girls came back around 4:30 and woke me up, so I was slightly grumpy the next morning lol. We packed up around 10:15 and then checked out of the hostel, we took the train to the central station to store the suitcase in some luggage lockers so we could go explore some more. Who woulda thought that dealing with luggage lockers were so difficult lol, but we managed and took off again to see the Stockholm City Hall.

We took a guided tour of City Hall, it was spectacular, the building was very grand and inside was even nicer! We saw a grand meeting room, where they host a big ball for the Nobel Prize winners. We also saw the "gold room", it had scenes on the wall made of gold tiles. The portrayal of the queen was actually really ugly lol, she looked like medusa. When the mural was made the citizens of stockholm actually wanted to tear down the wall because they thought the queen looked so UGLY! They kept the wall, which was pretty smart because now it is quite the tourist attraction! After the tour we walked around the city hall building and took pictures with the Dala Horse statue and looked at the frozen water, it is finally starting to warm up in Copenhagen so I was quite sad that it was so freezing in Stockholm still.

We went back to Old City to find the Ben and Jerry's shop that we saw the other day :] We ate some ice cream and were very happy! Our time in Stockholm was coming to an end so we headed back to central station to get the suitcase and took the Arlanda Express to get back to the airport. We got there two hours early and were extremely bored! It took all of like twenty minutes to check in and get through security and there was not adequate seating for everyone at our gate! Eventually we found some seats and ate some cookies while reading and practicing our Danish!

Our flight back was basically harmless, though when we were taxiing to the runway we saw the remnants of an old plane that looked like it had crashed and caught fire, not exactly what you want to see when you take off! Back in Copenhagen we were! We took the train back to Birkerod station and more fun began! We had just missed the bus and it was like 25 minutes to the next one, so we got on a different route that I had taken once before and asked the bus driver for help, he said he would tell us when to get off. It was going according to plan and then the bus driver told us to get off, he had already driven away when I realized he was WRONG! We were definitely not at the right stop. We had no idea what to do or where we were so we decided to just walk back the way we came, unfortunately while we were walking the few kilometers back to Birkerod station the wheel on the suitcase I borrowed from my host family started to break! I am just a mishap magnet when it comes to travel lol, but we eventually got back to my place so Amy could get her stuff out of my suitcase, then she headed home to relax! I made myself some Top Ramen and a bowl of cereal for dinner and dug into my homework!

Back to classes I went! I got my grade back from my oral midterm in Danish....A- baby....ohhhh yeah :]] I am also working on a debate for my human trafficking class about victims of trafficking seeking asylum in other countries, it is going to be very interesting! Today I didn't have any field studies so I slept in...9:30! And then leisurely ate some breakfast, watched a little tv on my computer and did some homework. Then I went to Sierra's house to chit chat and eat :]] We had avocado and mozzarella with oil and vinegar, then some top ramen and then we made banana bread! After the delicious afternoon we went and jumped on the trampoline in the backyard and then I left so we could be productive on homework! That didn't last long lol :] Now i am clearly writing this blog and facebook chatting with my lovely roomie Kristen :]

Farvel!

Crunchy times :]

Sorry all but this is going to be a long post! I just have too many exciting things to tell you about, and it is just impossible to condense, so lets get started!

Well you heard about my fun arrival day in England, don't worry the trip was exponentially better from there :]

London with Mom:

My mom, and two ladies from Boeing also working in Bristol, and I took the train into London, beautiful scenery I can't even describe it! We had a few problems getting to our hotel, which was outside of downtown London, because they are working on some of the tube lines. We spent like half and hour trying to figure out what to do and eventually we just walked a mile or so to the hotel, which was pretty nice if you ask me. Up to the rooms we went, freshed ourselves up and headed to downtown London. First stop.....Hard Rock Cafe :] We did a bit of shopping, mom got me a HRC London sweatshirt :] and then had a late lunch, very late lol like 3 pm late! After delicious food and music time we did the sights!

We saw the Welllington Arch, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and Parliament, walked along the Thames, then took a boat trip down the Thames to the London Bridge. The London Bridge is actually not impressive at all! Its only cool in the old nursery song. The really spectacular bridge in London is the Tower Bridge, that takes you to the Tower of London. The Tower Bridge is so beautiful at night, with the glow from the river walk lights it really looks grand :] After crossing the bridge we wandered around the Tower of London, which was closed, and found a...Starbucks :] Yay!!!!!! So we had a nice leisurely sit down and drank some coffee. After our yummi coffe we thought we would walk along the Thames back to Big Ben...boy did we underestimate that distance! After probably 45 minutes of walking mom and I decided we couldn't take anymore! So we told her friends that we were going to catch the underground and set off on our journey to the hotel. We ate some dinner at like 10:30 pm, i don't think I have ever eaten that late before and i'm not the biggest fan lol. The next day her friends caught an early train back to Bristol, but mom and I did some more exploring! I packed up all my stuff and we traveled into London to store my stuff at the hotel I would stay in that night and set off for the London Eye!

Oh the London Eye, how fantastic a ferris wheel :] It was amazing to see the city from hundreds meters up, the view of the river and Big Ben was spectacular. I think if I had the option I could just rent live in one of those capsules and go round and round all day and night. We found a cheap chinese buffet for lunch, I just can't seem to stay away from chinese food lol :] More wandering around the city and we found our way back to my hotel. Mom came with me to check into my hotel, and then we had to say our goodbyes. I didn't realize until she was ready to leave that I was a little homesick for the people I love, not so much the place but the people who are around me everyday. I realize now how hard it can be to be thousands of miles away from friends and family.

Class Study Tour in London:

Monday morning I met up with my core class at a place called Transport for London. We had our first academic visit there, which I enjoyed alot! We learned all about London's public transit and the congestion charge and low emission zone. I learned quite a bit and am excited to see if any american cities can take note and implement some of their ideas. After the visit we went to the hotel and to lunch, then the Tower of London. We had the rest of the night as free time, so 12 of us set off back to the hotel, we managed the underground but got lost trying to get to the hotel from the station, it took almost an extra hour lol. I've come to realize that we are pretty directionally challenged when dropped into a new place! We saw the theater production of The Lion King, which was pretty fantastic, the British accents were a little strange though lol. I feel like the rest of London was kind of a blur to me, I was just too excited waiting to get to Devon, I really needed to be in the country side!

Study Tour in Devon:

We left London from Paddington Station and a three hour train ride later we were in Totnes! The train trip was beautiful, we went past an estuary and I sat in awe as we rolled by. We arrived in Totnes and met Hal, who works for Transition Town Totnes as a tour guide and workshop leader. He took us to where we were going to stay, Sharpam Estate, which was probably the most beautiful place i've ever been :] Sharpam Estate was like a mansion, the building is extremely old and was bombed in WWI, so they had to fix some of the bricks on the front of the mansion. The mansion is on a hill top surrounded by rolling hills and overlooking the dart River. Picture a postcard of the england countryside...got it? Well this view was better than that! The estate has their own dairy farm, a vineyard, some sheep and a small wool mill. When we arrived I stood outside and had to make sure that it was real, could I really be that lucky? Oh yes!! We had dinner, which was completely vegetarian and mostly local and organic, I was in food heaven! After dinner we had an evening academic session with Hal, he is super funny! Now that the academic junk was out of the way, Hal took us to a local bar to see another part of the town. It was a cool little local place with local and organic beers. We all had a good time just relaxing and hanging out, we learned a lot about our teacher, she used to live in Devon many years ago.

The next day we had more academic sessions but we also did some walking and touring, which was great! We took a small tour of Totnes, saw some sustainability, or resilience as Hal calls it, in action. After that we went to a woman named Lou's house to learn about the Transition Streets project they do. Transition Streets is a program where neighborhoods get together to promote sustainability amongst their community. Its actually an intense program with a handbook and professional workshops. Lou is one of the leaders in the program, so she had a lot of interesting stuff to tell us! Next we saw some smaller projects in action, we went to this small farm which is run by a school program, and met with a guy who grows organic mushrooms in an old shipping container, a little strange I know but he was a funny guy! Last we took off up a hillside to see an old farm and this beautiful place called Dartington Hall. Now i have to admit I don't really remember why Dartington Hall is significant, because I was paying to much attention to the spectacular view I had and not enough to what Hal was saying....oops :]

After all the exploring and learning we headed for a local pub called Albert Einsteins to meet with some more employees of Transition Town Totnes so we could ask questions and what not. After that we had some free time, so of course we went exploring more, found an old church and walked along the wall for a bit before setting off to find some food. A group of 8 or so of us decided on an asian restaurant, which was delicious :] It was fun to just eat food and hang out, we did have a mishap with my friends dinner, she is vegan so she ordered vegetarian pad thai without any egg...all good and fine until her food comes out, she starts to eat it and it tastes funny. Another girl from our class had a bite of it and sure enough it was chicken pad thai, so we got a lady over to the table and said this pad thai has chicken, to which she responds "not chicken, vegetarian" and my friend holds up her fork and says "then whats this?" and then the woman was apologetic lol. Allison got some new food, but felt a little sick afterwards from eating that little bit of chicken. After dinner we met up with the big group again and headed back to the Albert Einstein Pub again to relax, we played some old music on the juke box and listened to the bar owner crack jokes for awhile. Hal came to pick us up in the bus and we headed back to Sharpham to get some well earned sleep :]

The next day was wonderful! We started off the morning with a short walk around Sharpham Estate and then set off to explore Dartmoor National Park. Man what I would do to live in Devon! Dartmoor was spectacular, awful in the actual meaning of the word, I was full of awe. Everywhere you looked there were hills and mountains and rocks and sheep and cows. I felt like I was in a movie, when the close up on people walking along some grass lands and then the camera zooms out and you see that they are walking on this vast hill top, that was basically what we were doing! We walked towards a cliff side and then stopped for a quick academic session, we learned about Gaia Theory, but more importantly we sat on these magnificent rocks and watched the river below us shimmer in the sunlight. I don't know if I've ever felt so invigorated, I felt so lucky to have the opportunity to look out over this amazing place, I couldn't have asked for anything better. We left Dartmoor and set off for Riverford Organic Farm, where we would be eating lunch, they have a field kitchen which is basically a restaurant that serves you the best organic and local food in the entire world, or at least thats what it seemed like to me :] I mean I love my grandma's cooking, but this was like grandma's home cooking on organic steroids! After we were stuffed full, and I mean that literally I think we were almost leaking pureed parsnips lol, Hal made us walk up a hill so we could see the whole farm. This task essentially turned into us walking up said hill and then literally collapsing in the grass because the sunshine was so fantastic and we were just so full!

We went back to Sharpham for another academic session, but this time we met outside on the bank of the river, it was probably the best "class" i've ever had to go to lol. We did some talking and then we had to have a solo assignment, we all had to take 20 minutes and go somewhere nearby to sit and sense nature and be silent, we were supposed to just slow down and really notice and feel where we were. Basically the best assignment ever :] I went walking along the river and took my time to notice what was around me, I listened to the birds sing and listened as my footsteps crunched on the soil, leaves and branches. Nothing had called to me yet so I just kept walking. Eventually I found a giant fallen tree that was in the river bed, it was low tide don't worry I didn't go swimming lol. So I climbed out on it and sat, I just sat there and watched the water flow and listen to the birds, I watched the birds swoop into the river and fight with the other birds, I felt the bark around me and looked at the old spider webs down the tree trunk. I closed my eyes and smelled the river water and felt the wind on my face and listed to the popping sound of the water and the sand. I think I could have sat there for hours, listening to the birds and feeling the wind around me, with that aroma of fresh water and trees. I honestly felt like Pocahontas when she sings Color of the Wind, I didn't hear any wolves crying to the moon but I felt alive and like I was a part of that place, I felt like the tree I was sitting on somehow could feel me too, it know that I was there taking in the feel and smell of the bark. I was a little sad to leave my tree when Hal called for us to come back, but I think it will remember that I was there, I know I can never forget my twenty minutes in that spot.

We shared our thoughts and then said goodbye to one of the facilitators that was helping Hal, Inez, because she had to go home to her son. We had an hour of free time before dinner so Allison and I went walking along the river bank, it was nice to see another part of the river. Then we headed for the house, but got distracted on the way up by the most adorable sheep! We went inside the pen with them and spent some quality time with their fluffy little selves. When we went to leave, they ran after us, it was so cute :] Then as we walked on towards the house we had a conversation with them through "baaaaaaaaahhhhhs". Literally! I would "baaaahhhh" and they would respond to me and that went on until we reached the front door of the house. I can communicate with sheep, yes!! We went inside for dinner and met the owner Sharpham Estate, he told us a bit of the history and asked if we were enjoying ourselves, there was a resounding "YES!" to that questions :] We had our last night session, and went upstairs to start packing up our stuff, we had to leave the next morning at 8:45 :[[

All good things must come to an end, it sucks! We got ready to leave and you could feel the heartbreak that was happening to everyone in my class, we really didn't want to leave. You could see it in our faces and hear it in our voices, we couldn't part with this place happily. But we had to, Denmark was beckoning. Hall took us to the train station, it was also hard to leave him! But we left him with a parting gift, we taught him the word "crunchy" meaning like very hippie and environmentalisty, yeah i know thats not a word! He used that word like a thousand times over our three days with him lol. We waved goodbye to him and spent the next four and half hours on the train back to London. We got to airport and had a few hours to roam, I discovered that if you buy things from the stores after you've been through security the 3 oz. liquid rule doesn't apply! So I had a little party in the pharmacy :] In Denmark everything is expensive, and they don't have any american brands of anything! So I stocked up on some more shampoo, conditioner, floss, toothpaste and chapstick :]]]] And I got all that stuff for cheaper that what it would cost me to just get the shampoo and conditioner in Denmark. Score for Alyssa! We got on the plane and said our final farewells to England. A few hours later we were back in Copenhagen, back to familiar places and people, and back to not understanding the language! I caught the metro, then the train and then the bus and then a bit of walking and I was home again, greeted by a leaping hug from Benedicte, she missed me :]

So now I'm back in Copenhagen, but watch out Totnes I'll be back, I promise you that :]