Danmark, t-shirts, and solace

On weds, lynsey and I went to the Danmark-Wales friendly soccer match at brondby stadium. The weather wasn't the greatest, it was cold and misting but it was a lot of fun. We sat with the denmark fanclub right behind one of the goals. we were right next to the two guys that brought big drums. so we sang a long with a lot of the songs and chants during the game, which was pretty awesome. Unfortunately danmark lost 1-0 but it was a good game and danmark had a lot of good chances at the end of the game, including hitting the post in stoppage time. I'm glad i went, as it will be the last time i'll get to see the national team play.

In my creative industries class we had been working in groups on a t-shirt assignment to make a new DIS tshirt to possibly sell next term. Anyways, my group "won" so there is a good chance they will sell the t-shirts next term, unfortunately i probs won't get one since i will already be back in america. But it was still fun to work with a group to create a t-shirt. A picture of the front is below, the back just says copenhagen at the bottom.

Finally, tonight i went to Quantum of Solace (the new bond movie) with my host family.

papers, movies, and a party

hey everyone,

well, i don't have anymore exciting travels to try to condense into a blog entry but I have been having fun back in Copenhagen.

After getting back I went with my tine and oliver (host mom and host brother) to the planetarium to see the permanent exhibit about planets and then see an imax movie about ancient deep sea creatures. Unfortunately the imax stuff wasn't working so after sitting in the theather for like 45 minutes waiting, the imax people eventually gave up and we went home. but we did get free tickets, so we ended up goign back and watching it next week, and bo (my host father) came along also.

Friday, the 7th of nov, was j-day and was a lot of fun. The danish word for christmas is Jul but it is not the day that danes celebrate jesus's birthday but the day they celebrate the introduction of christmas beer. To help the celebration, tuborg (a danish beer company) has employees dress up in christmas stuff (elf hats, santa beards, etc) and drive around in big trucks from bar to bar giving away free beer. usually the trucks only drive about a block or so between bars, so a big crowd follows the trucks, singing jingle bells in danish and english and having a jolly time. So some friends from my business program and I followed the trucks around for a while and managed to get some free stuff like hats, fake beards, a blue santa coat, and so on. that was a lot of fun and after that we just hung out in the city for a while. all in all a good friday

On saturday i went to the exploratarium with tine and oliver. it was like a science center but bigger and with better things to play aroud with. i had a great time even through most of the stuff was aimed at a younger audience than me. but it wasn't all kids stuff, they had other stuff, but the kids stuff was the best, no lie. That was a lot of fun.

On sunday i went with lynsey, xiao, and anju (all carleton kids) to another FCK soccer game. FCK won 4-0, so that was really cool but it is starting to get a little cold for soccer games, it was really windy. speaking of weather the last week was rainy and dark for the majority of the time, not a lot of fun and the days are getting really short here. i got up at 10 am the other day and it was still dark, it started getting dark around 4 in the afternoon. the worst part is the days will start getting longer the day after i get back to the states.

The last week was pretty busy starting to write some big papers for classes. I had 3 papers due today and one due tomorrow. i think i have written almost 30 pages in the last week, good times. Glad to get a lot of that out of the way.

This past weekend i didn't do a lot, went into the city and chilled with people for a few hours on friday night. Saturday was the annual meeting for my host parents lotto club. It was at our house, so about 11 adults and 5 kids came over. We ate so much good food, it was amazing. Smoked salmon and shrimp for starters. A really good cut of venison that was baked and wrapped in bacon for the main course and some apple pie for dessert. It was great and i was really full. We also blind taste tested some wine and tried to guess where it was from and what year it was made. I played some wii with the kids and also played a board game about wine that was in danish that i didn't understand at all but i had a partner so it was ok.

I'm excited, i'm going to another Denmark national soccer game on weds. They are playing wales in a friendly international match, should be a good time.

athens

it was great to get to see so many people in athens. we got into athens in the evening and after we got to jessie briol's apartment we had a great dinner with jessie, jessie's mom, and her friend. I like going out to eat in athens because they often give you something at the end of the meal on the house. that night we got a tray of apple slices with honey on them, they were really good

the next day we decided to climb the highest hill in athens. the view of athens was great! athens is such a big city, they pack about 3 million people into not that large of an area without using skyscapers or other tall buildings. we chilled on the top for a while, took some pictures. i found out how much i liked the greece flag (its so awesome fyi). after the hill climb we walked around the city for a while, ended up exploring this cool little "city" below the acropolis.

next day abby got in from israel and ryan farkus came back from his travels (he is studying in greece on the same program jessie is doing). we decided to head to the acropolis, see the parthenon and all of that good stuff. it was great, i'm glad i was able to see that. so much history in greece, its crazy to think about how old so many things in athens are. that night ryan farkus cooked rabbit stew for us and something else that i can't remember, it was very very tasty. we also got the see the changing of the guards in front of parliament. it is a pretty strange ritual, def worth seeing.

on thursday, abby, lynsey and i decided to try and take a day trip to one of the islands close to athens. the plan was to take the metro to the port and from there a ferry to the island. unfortunately the metro workers were on strike and we forced to figure out the bus system to get to the port, we ended up on a super crowded bus (since everyone was taking the bus instead of the metro) and rode it for about an hour before talking to someone and realizing we had gone too far. we got off and walked a little ways backwards and eventually found the port but by the time we got to where the ferry to the island left we were one minute late and the next ferry didn't leave for a while, we decided that it wasn't worth it, cause we wanted to be back in time to have dinner with jessie and ryan, and we got back on the bus and headed back towards the center of the city. that night we went to a halloween party at jessie and ryan's school, they gave us really good food (some souvlaki, french fries, pita, etc) after some dancing at the halloween party we headed out and found some really good gelato.

the next day lynsey and i departed for copenhagen (luckily we did have sterling tickets back)



pictures at:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2025748&l=2011a&id=19103095

Madrid

i got into Madrid around the middle of the day on weds. I meet lynsey at the hostel that we were staying at and we decided to explore the city a little bit. The weather wasn't very good, it was cold and raining but we were excited to see madrid. First we got some "churros con chocolate" from a little coffee shop just off of plaza mayor. The churros were pretty good and we kept walking. All of the sudden we walk around a corner and randomly run into the royal palace (real palace) and the really big cathedral next door. We were both amazed at the sheer greatness of both buildings and walked around and took pictures for a while. We continued through some parks and such, taking more pictures, and eventually we meet up with Kathryn for dinner. After dinner we meet up with some other carls that are studying in madrid (jojo, alfredo, eli, etc) and had some sangraia in this cool little place in the basement of a building.

The next day the weather was much nicer and we headed out on our adventures, lynsey and I went on a tour of the royal palace (yes we got to go inside but we couldn't take pictures), it was so amazing inside, its hard to describe. Irene got in on her flight during the day and we meet up with her, she was always staying at the same hostel, so that was cool. Lynsey and I ended up hanging out that night with a couple girls we meet at the hostel, one was from panama and the other was from south africa. They were both really cool and we ended up going back to the basement bar for sangraia again. They are trying to find an apartment to live in madrid for a few months.

Friday we went on this really cool free walking tour of madrid, it lasted 3.5 hours and saw so many different things, ate tapas, and learned a lot about the history of spain and madrid. I thought that a 3.5 walking tour was goign to be pretty boring and too long but i really enjoyed it and the time past quickly. after that we took a nap in the big park in madrid ( i think i slept for over an hour on a bench, it was awesome) after that we headed for some really good gelato from a shop on the way back to the hostel.

saturday after sleeping in for a while, we headed over to the museo del prado. there is a crazy amount of famous art works there ( in the thousands) including picasso's Guernica. after some more churros con chocolate we chilled at the hostel for a while before finding a indian restraunt for dinner. Sunday moring we woke up early (even earlier than planned since we forgot about day light savings) and headed to the really big open air market, it was crazy once it got going, it took a really long time just to walk through it and there was so much stuff. Sunday night we headed to the Real Madrid game. This was one of my favorite parts of traveling, the game was insane, the stadium is huge. It seats 80,000 (used to seat 120,000 but they had to conform to UEFA regulations) and there were only a couple empty seats at the game we went to. even through we sat way up in the nose bleeds it was so much fun, the atmosphere was amazing. The place went nuts when the other teams was awarded a pk during the first half when real madrid was winning 1-0, it was pretty crazy. Real ended up winning 3-2 but it was a close game, the other team hit the post with a couple minutes left in regulation.

Monday we headed to the airport to fly to athens.


pictures at the following link:


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2025716&l=f57d4&id=19103095

Amsterdam

i got back on friday from all of my travels, i had an amazing time seeing, doing, going, etc to all of the places that i made it to. But i am very glad to be back in copenhagen in a familar bed.

first stop was amsterdam, i spent about a day and half in amsterdam, which turned out to be the perfect amount of time to spend there. amsterdam was great, canals everywhere, friendly people, windmills, and a great vibe. i had a lot of fun exploring the city on foot. the first night i just walked around the center of the city and explored. The next day i took off to see more of the city. first i walked around the harbor. I then headed to see one of amsterdam's few remaining windmills. After this i went to three open air markets, which was cool, they had a lot of crazy and random thigns. i ran into the filming of a daily show segment twice, something about dutch people not being able to vote for obama because they aren't american, and they gave me a button, so that was cool.
later that day i meet this australian couple saying at the hostel and i hung out with them and another girl from the hostel for a while but they all went back to the hostel pretty early. So i bought some french fries (vincent wasn't lying when he said they drown in mayonnaise) and was walking around when i ran into molly and her friend (molly is in my business program in copenhagen). They were hanging out with some aussie guys (aussies are everwhere in europe) so i chilled with them for the rest of the night. 4am the next morning i headed for madrid (via ryanair which was a huge mistake, never trust ryanair)


link to pictures from amsterdam:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2025714&l=174bb&id=19103095