Sorry

Hej everyone! Please don’t kill me…. But I don’t think I am going to writing about Part II of my trip. ::runs away as people throw things at her::. I am just really swamped with work and it has been almost two weeks since I have even been in Paris and Vienna that I don’t even think I could write as well-written a report of my time there then I could have a week ago. I have pictures up on Facebook you can check out and feel free to send me a message or ask me about any part of my trip- I would be happy to tell you anything. My one or two (or three or four) sentence thoughts on each city:

Paris- The Eiffel Tower is beautiful, but this city is totally over-rated. The way Hollywood portrays Paris as some super wonderful, fairy tale land, in my opinion is not necessarily true. As I have been told, Parisians do not like Americans, and I felt that with most of the French I dealt with in my 3 days there. Also, two my friends were pickpocketed so that also has a big affect on my view of the city, too.

Vienna- Way less touristy than Madrid and Paris- reminded me of Copenhagen in that respect. Great metros, run 24 hours on weekends, which is really nice. The show we saw we saw was a total tourist trap (they made it seem like we were seeing a show in a huge theater), but it was still really good, heard some Mozart and some opera and saw some ballet.  Also, I got to see where Sigmund Freud worked and saw “the couch”. Very cool!

Anyway, I am now back in Copenhagen and back to a pile of work. I can’t believe I used to update this thing one every five days! I hope everyone has a lovely Thanksgiving! Tonight I am going to my friend Elise’s house to have Thanksgiving dinner. It will be really nice. Tomorrow I am going to London with my Literary London class! I am so pumped! I love British culture. I think it started when I was seven with my love for the Spice Girls and grew with Harry Potter when I starting reading that at age nine. I also really love British music like Kate Nash, Lily Allen, Oasis, Keane (well they are actually Irish but w/e), Katy Tunstall, just to name a few. I will write about that on my next blog so stay tuned!

I cannot believe that I have less than a month in Copenhagen. It has been such a wonderful experience. I wish I could stay another semester, but that wouldn’t really work since I am graduating in May. It’d be like oh yeah… Eastern University? I go here? Haha I almost feel that the traveling I have done has taken away some of the cultural experiences of being in Denmark. I was thinking about it- when this experience is over, I will have been traveling almost four weeks of my time in Europe. I am here for four months, so that means ¼ of my time has been spent outside of Denmark. I feel like I am just beginning to understand Danish culture and now it is almost over! I don’t know if this necessarily a bad thing, I just think that I never expected to feel that traveling around Europe may be hindering my cultural immersion into Danish culture. Just something I have been thinking about…

Well thanks for reading. Coming up next time- my whirlwind weekend in Londontown!

Portugal and Madrid: Travel Break Part I

Where do I even begin? So as some of you may or may not know, I have been gone for two weeks traveling Europe. It was such an amazing experience! I am going to try to post some pictures from my journey, but for some reason, my computer takes forever to load pictures, so I am not going to be able to post as many as I would like. Check out my facebook to see the rest of my photos of Portugal, Madrid, Paris, and Vienna.

I got back to Copenhagen around 8:30PM on Sunday. It was so nice to come back to my home away from home, though I miss exploring Europe terribly. The leaves have all fallen from the trees since I have last been home and it now definitely feels like winter. It is crazy to think about how I have been away for three months already and will be home in one month! Time flies...

To make this easier on me, I think that I am going to split my blog into two parts. The first part will include my week-long surfing trip to Portugal and my three-day trip to Madrid. From October 29th to November 4th, I was surfing the Atlantic Ocean in Portugal! I met with my fellow DIS students on the trip in the afternoon and flew to Lisbon.

After a 3 and a half hour flight, we finally arrived in Lisbon. We set off to have a group dinner, though got desperately lost through some very sketchy parts of town trying to find the restaurant. In one particular place, some men looked at me and Carrie, another girl from my trip and said evilly "Welcome to the jungle...". Ok thanks Lisbon. That's a great way to welcome me to your country. I suppose worth things could have been said to me.

The next day, we went on a bike tour of Lisbon. I loved it! The weather was beautiful and it was a great way to get a view of the city. Our tour guides had us try a typical Portuguese partry and ginjinha, which is a cherry like drink fermented in brandy. Loved the pastry, but was not such a fan of the ginjinha... It kind of tasted like cough syrup to me. I supposed I'm not a brandy drinker. The rest of the bike tour was amazing! We got to ride along the water and it was so gorgeous!  Here are a few pictures from the bike tour.

Apparently this bridge was made/ designed by the same architect as the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco. 

After the bike tour, me and three other girls Carrie, Charlotte, and Alex tried to find the oceanarium. Unfortunately, we got super lost trying to get there and never made it in time. Oh well! We had a little mishap where we got on a train thinking it was the tram, but it all worked out in the end. By the end of the day we were exhausted! Lisbon's metro stops were VERY spread out, unlike many other cities, which was a downside, but the city was gorgeous!

That night we left for the surf lodge in Ericeria, Portugal. During this week, Europe had gone through daylight savings time, while the US had not yet, plus Portugal is one hour behind Copenhagen time, so I was only 4 hours ahead of the US that week, which was very strange to think about.

The rest of the week was spent attempting to learn how to surf. First of all, let me just say, surfing is definitely NOT as easy as it looks. The surf boards are really heavy. I definitely gained some arm strength after this week. Attempting to stand up on the board is also not so easy. Some of the DIS kids in my group were able to do it, but most were not. You really need to have very good upper body strength to be able to stand up. The waves were really rough and kinda scared me. I probably would have enjoyed surfing more in the summer time, but c'est la vie. Yeah, I'm whipping out French here. You won't be hearing about Paris until next post, however.

Yeah, man, We're totally surfers.

Anyway, I had a really fun time surfing! Sure, it would have been awesome to have had better weather and calmer oceans, but now I sound totally cool when I say, I surfed in Portugal. You should see the bruises I got for mine/ other people's surf boards hitting me in the water. Be thankful that I don't have any pictures of that.  One guy from my group got a bloody nose and chipped his tooth. He's fine, though. I saw him in my Virtual Worlds class the other day so I guess he's fine now.

On Thursday, we went to Sintra, which was this cute little town near Lisbon. I think it would have been more enjoyable had the weather been nicer, but it was still neat to walk around the town. After that we returned to Lisbon. I got to go to the Oceanarium which was a lot of fun. It has been a while since I have been to an aquarium. After that, we were headed for the airport! Most of the group took the flight back to Copenhagen, but I took a later flight to meet up with my friends Victoria and Emelye (and later Rachel) in Madrid!

I spent about four hours in the Lisbon airport waiting for my flight. I read some "Velvet Elvis" by Rob Bell (definitely recommended if you a Christian like me who is trying to figure out where I fit and what I believe in this world), tried to get some Wi-Fi, and generally was very bored for hours.

Finally my flight left. I met a very nice Chinese man who was telling me of his travels around Switzerland and France. I had to try to explain that I was an American who was studying in Denmark. My flight was nice and short flight (I almost wonder if I could have taken a train to Madrid in the amount of time I spend waiting around in airport), I made it to Madrid!

It was nice to hear Spanish again. I miss speaking and learning Spanish a lot. It is SO much easier than Danish. I was very nervous because I was traveling all alone and hoped I could successfully handle all the various changes on the metro I had to do in order to get to the hostel to meet my friends. Luckily, I got off at all the correct metro stops and made all the right changes. I called my friends after I got off at Tirso de Molina metro stop and they met up with me on how to get to the hostel.

The following day we went to Plaza Mayor and the Royal Palace. Plaza Mayor was really neat. Emelye, Victoria, and I got some great pictures in front of fountains and the Cervantes statue. Being in Madrid brought me back to Spanish class with Senora Hoffman. Here are some pictures of our first day. Unfortunately, like most of the the things I saw in Madrid, I was not allowed to take any pictures, but here are some of the pictures I took.

Later that day we met up with Rachel. We also met Tim, a guy who lived in Rachel's room from Germany. We had some sangria (not the only time, I promise) which was absolutely delicious! we also went to The Prado (again bring any Upper Morelanders back to Senora Hoffman's Spanish IV class?) I got to see THIS painting (Las Meninas) by El Greco.  I know you're jealous. I also saw some Valasquez, too. Ring a bell? That night we went out with our hostel which we had a lot of fun. Spain definitely knows how to have a good time.

The next day, we went to the Reina Sophia museum and to El Parque de Retiro. I got to see some Pablo Picasso among others. Anyone remember La Guernica? I'm sure you do. Such an amazing picture. I was really looking forward to seeing el Palacio de Cristal, but it was closed for renovations! I was so sad. But it's okay, I still had fun in the park. El Retiro is such a huge park! Really easy to get lost in... That night we went to a Flamenco show. I loved it! Sorry I didn't get any pictures. Once my friend Victoria uploads her photos on Facebook, maybe I can steal some of hers. Soon, it was time to leave Spain. Eating tapas and paella, drinking sangria, and being able to sometimes speak and sometimes be understood in Spanish was so great! Guess I need just four more years of study of Danish until I am fluent ha ha.

Cool painting in the Reina Sophia. 

Walking along in El Retiro Park!

The outside of the Crystal Palace. Which I couldn't get in to see :(

Cool cave. Tried to get a picture in front of it, but my camera refused to get a nice shot.

Rachel with Elivs in Plaza Mayor!

Travel Break Part II will be coming hopefully soon! I have procrastinated writing my Psych paper on sexual double standards long enough. Apparently, Matt Lauer came to Plaza Mayor just one day after we left! Darn! Thanks for reading. Adios!

~Jenna