Mallorca Trip

So I'm back from the sunny and 85+ weather that we enjoyed in Mallorca. For anyone who doesn't know, this included me up until about 2 weeks ago, Mallorca is an island off the coast of Spain. We left CPH on Wednesday, had a full day of traveling with a long layover in Madrid. We finally got to our hotel, Hotel Linda, around 9 or 10pm. It was sooooooo amazing! Warm weather at that hour, unreal. Our hotel was only about a 5 minute walk to the shore (of the Mediterranean Sea) so that night we walked along the beach and tried to get our bearings as to where our hotel was.

The next few days were filled with beach sitting, walking along the strip, and some pool time. The first day in the sun (Thursday) we fell asleep and got sooo burned. Dino didn't buy or bring any sunscreen so he was fried, I was a little burned but mostly tan. The first night we went into the city--Palma-- and walked around. We ate dinner at a little Spanish restaurant, had paella, and then to a little shop for dessert. The city was like any city--had its restaurants, shopping, people. I think we were the youngest people we saw for most of our trip though.

Friday night we went out for dinner (spaghetti on the beach) and then to some bars. We found this one called "Rat Pack Pub" that had old music on and we found a few drunken old people to sing and dance with. This one had the hotts for Dino so bad, it was hilarious. Then we went to another pub and met a couple from Wales. They were really fun and we started plotting our voyage to Africa (I desperately wanted to go). The night ended in a weird bar called "Linda Salsa", our hotel club I guess. We stayed for maybe 5 mins and then got the hell outta there... too weird for us!

Saturday night we wanted to stay low-key because we had a flight the next day so we had a few beers down in our hotel bar (not the salsa place) and played air hockey. I'm not reporting the results of those games..

All in all it was a really good trip, probably my favorite as far as a "vacation" goes, most traveling we do here is not to tropical island but to historical cities. The breakfast buffet every morning was also a perk. I was a little nervous, I'll admit, to travel alone with Dino for that long. It turned out much better than I ever could've anticipated and makes me look forward to Croatia and Montenegro even more now!

**********PICTURES!!!***************

Album 1:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2106560&l=53007&id=73404302

Album 2:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2106572&l=934b4&id=73404302

Czech out my Prague Blog

Before Prague--Tuesday night we all went out to Moose Bar to celebrate one more night together before we left on our trip to Prague. We had such a good time, all hanging out in my room before going out as one big Tordens group. Alex went in only shorts, a muscle shirt, and flip flops.. hilarious. There were quite a few exchange kids from other residences that I haven't seen in forever. Didn't make for a good travel day the next day but definitely worth it!

Okay, onto Prague trip:

Pictures:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2105418&l=df65c&id=73404302

Blog:
Another trip! Yes, this time it was Prague, in the heart of the Czech Republic. Our group of travelers for this trip included two groups of four each. My group was me, Elyse, Teddy, and Chris. We met up with Alex, Ben, Matt, and Jess the second day. Our flight left Wednesday around noon. Dino took us to the airport and we were off to Prague! When we arrived, we found our way to the hostel by using the bus and metro. Their metro is so different than Copenhagen’s. It is really old, loud, and dirty. My first look out at the city was beautiful. You can see all of the historical old city parts of Prague (cobblestone, uneven streets, old buildings), the newer, more modern big city part, and beautiful nature all in one view. Tall, grassy hills and bluffs are surrounding the main center of town. Prague is split between a few districts, pretty much Old Town and New Town from what we were traveling in. We stayed in the Old Town side of the water that splits the two sides at Chili Hostel.

Night 1—We dropped our stuff off at the hostel and were off and running to explore Prague. No destinations or sights to see in mind, just trying to get our bearings and see where we were. We found ourselves hungry after awhile and ate dinner in the a basement restaurant with authentic Czech food. I had goulash and dumplings, my new favorite meal I think. It isn’t too expensive there either, not dirt cheap, but definitely reasonable. I had a big thing of goulash and dumplings with a side of garlic soup and water for around $11.50. Later that night we went to a Czech pub close to our hostel and had a few beers with some guys we met at the hostel. It was very bright in there and not the atmosphere we were looking for so me and Elyse decided to go our separate ways. Teddy and Chris stayed and hung out there with our newfound friends and we ended up meeting people and going to another bar. We were looking for this popular five story club but couldn’t find it so we ended up in an underground bar. At first I thought it was really lame because it was adult Czech people who were drinking and dancing, only about 10-15 of them max. We ended up having a few drinks there and talking to our new friends from Ukraine and Germany and eventually joined the adults in dancing to Czech music. All in all it turned out to be a pretty good time.

Day 2—Our first real day in Prague we decided to go to the National Museum. I feel like I’ve been to my share of museums for awhile since being abroad but this one was quite a bit different. Elyse and I went apart from the guys in the museum and had a good time. There was a huge mineral collection and a zoo-like exhibit. The zoology room had real animals stuffed (taxidermy I think they call it..??)—everything from birds to bison. A little creepy if you ask me, but interesting none the less. There was a foot exhibit too. It had a bunch of interactive things for kids and Shaq’s shoe!

After the National Museum, we walked to Old Town Square. We saw the Astronomical Clock and then got lunch at a stand and ate in the square. Lunch was horrible, we watched them microwave our food and then hand it to us.. sick. The square was really pretty and lively--music and people everywhere and a pretty nice day too. Next up was the Jewish Quarter. We couldn’t really tell a difference except there were a few temples and people selling Yakimas. They charged for everything there, including a cemetery. Who would pay to see dead people?! Not this girl. We walked by the water and then headed for the hostel for a quick nap before meeting the other group. When they arrived, we went to The Globe (a student bookstore/café/bar/restaurant right by our hostel) for happy hour. Some of the guys took shots of absinthe which the bartender lit on fire. Pretty serious drinking at 5:00 in the afternoon! We all got ready and headed out for the night. We ended up splitting up again because some people wanted to eat dinner at an expensive place and go to pubs while another group wanted cheap dinner and a club. I opted for the second option. We found an Italian place, then a bar after that. We met a guy from the States who teaches English in Prague. He was telling us all about this place called Cross Club and said we had to check it out. He ended up taking us all the way there, what a nice guy. Except he did ask where I was from and didn’t think I was from America because he said my English was not native English. What that hell?! Either way.. Cross Club was not that exciting on a Thursday night but it was a cool building. The interior looked like a bunch of car engines on the wall and they had the best dark beer I have ever had. It was sweet almost and tasted so good. The music there was not my style either, the whole place seemed like there was an underground drug culture that we didn’t know about. Well, until some guy offered Teddy “nose ice cream”, haha!

Day 3—We split up seeing the city again. We were all supposed to meet at noon by the clock and the other group never showed so we decided to take on the city by ourselves. Me, Elyse, Matt, Ben, and Chris all went across Charles Bridge to the other part of the city. We saw Prague Castle (which had a church, royal building, and Golden Lane). I like that side the best I think because it was a more upbeat atmosphere. We found the funniest souvenirs ever—t-shirts that said “Czech Me Out”. Matt and I each got one and wore them for awhile that day. We were making up hilarious puns on Prague and Czech. Some of the best—“Can I pay with a Czech? –Okay I think there’s one over there”, “Prague-ability”, “Prague-nosis”, “Impraguenate”, “Czechpoint”, “Czech that out”, etc. That night Elyse and I had dinner at The Globe then met up with Alex and Matt and went to U Flecka beer hall. We had more of that dark beer and shots of cider, too bad it closed about ½ hour after we got there because it was a lot of fun. Then we met the rest of the group and went to this three story bar/club called Chateau. It was quite the hike and again seemed like more of a gothic/dark scene. Matt and I didn’t stay very long and then went back to the hostel to get ready for an early flight the next morning.

All in all I think there is something so different in the Czech culture than the Danish culture. I was trying to explain it to Dino and the best explanation I could come up with is that there is an innocence about Scandinavian culture. The Czech culture is lacking that innocence, much harsher and dark culture. Not that the people were outright rude or mean, quite the opposite, but you could just feel a difference. It seemed like there was a much more obvious drug culture there than in Denmark or anywhere else I’ve traveled to so far. I still really liked the city and was glad I got a chance to experience it.

Since we've gotten back: Saturday we arrived back in CPH around 1pm and it was a gorgeous day out. Dino and I took a 3 1/2 hr walk around the city. We went to our favorite eating spot, Sunset Boulevard, and stayed for quite some time like usual. That night we stayed in and watched a movie and talked to some Tordens people about their weekends.

Sunday--Me, Jos, and Jon took a walk to try and find this man-made lagoon that is supposed to be really nice during the spring and summer. It was another nice day, sunny and 55'F and it was quite a hike. We decided to get a Carlsberg for the way and when we got to the beach we found a nice sand hill and sat and chatted for hours. We had a few beers long and just enjoyed the nice and relaxing day in Copenhagen. On the way back we stopped at Christiania for a drink. The bars in there are sooo much different than traditional CPH bars. Then the three of us came back to Tordens and cooked dinner together.

Monday--Today I'm working on my papers and trying to get caught up before leaving again. Next trip is Mallorca for 5 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! An all inclusive resort in the heart of the shopping/restaurant/bar district. Our resort looks so nice I can hardly wait to go!

One last blog before Prague!

This past weekend was a pretty good one back in CPH. Friday night at A-Bar was a lot of fun. We pre-drank in Ben's room until about 10:45pm then to Australian Bar. I couldn't believe you can actually drink that cheap anywhere in Copenhagen! 60dkk entrance then free drinks (ALL drinks..) until 1am and 10dkk after that!

Saturday I was pretty lazy--worked on my 10pg paper for my Sports Econ final and tried to catch up on sleep. That night Dino took me out for a "surprise". We ended up going to see the movie "PS I Love You" which just came out over here. I finished reading the book towards the beginning of my trip. I thought it was one of the best movies I have seen in quite awhile. Much different from the book, but still good. Coming home from the movies was a quite interesting...Dino and I ended up getting into a fight based around me being "too nice". It was a little more than that, but basically about differences in how we see things.

Sunday we decided to workout at a different FitnessDK. We went to Vesterport, it had much more high tech equipment (machines with TVs in them) but I didn't like the feel of the whole gym. I feel like I have my routine at the Frederiksberg one. For dinner we went to a sandwich shop, then went back to Tordens. That night I talked to mom on msn and tried to get to sleep early but a certain Japanese neighbor was on the phone (LOUDLY) which kept me up until 3am!
Needless to say Monday morning was a rough one after hardly any sleep from the night before. I still woke up around 8am and went to the gym. Had a good workout, then to the library to work on my paper. I finished four pages but I don't feel like this one is coming along as well as the other econ paper. Just something about it that doesn't seem to "flow". Dino and I used the wellness center at fitnessdk that afternoon. I like the jacuzzi but hate the fact that you have to get out every 15 mins for it to self-clean. Its soooo freezing after that! For dinner that night we went all out--lemon pepper chicken, fries, and (best of all) ice cream for dessert. A few episodes of golden girls while we "punched our stomaches" (translated into English from the Danish way of saying "digesting"). Again I was going to try and get to bed early but Elyse and I ended up staying up and talking til almost 2am! yeeesh I gotta get some sleep sometime soon..

Today is a beautiful day outside..almost 50 and sunny. I took a leisurely morning and am now waiting in the library until class starts. Finally a chance to update my pictures (except Paris still to go) and my blog before I have much more to blog about when I get back from Prague. Ahh what a life... Prague tomorrow and Mallorca in a week :):)

********Pictures from Spring Break and more CPH*******

Quick note before giving out all of the links to my albums... I deleted my Paris pictures but am going to get the pictures from Marc and Elyse and get them posted soon, also more pictures from the other places may be added shortly. I will keep you posted, but here's what I've got for now

Here are links to my spring break photo albums:

Barcelona:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2104802&l=695f8&id=73404302

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2104864&l=fae51&id=73404302

Madrid/Berlin:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2104873&l=66834&id=73404302

Amsterdam & Moms visit: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2103693&l=4b231&id=73404302

More Copenhagen:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2098022&l=4835b&id=73404302

Since Spring Break

Dang that was a lot of writing and catching up to do! This past week and a half since I last blogged about has been pretty uneventful, for the most part. I'll try to sum it up as best as I can in one post so I'm back on track. Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday I spent most of my life studying for my Corporate Finance exam. That was on Wednesday, 4hr long written exam.. ugh.. but I think it actually went ok. I don't get the results for probably another 2 weeks or so, it will be interesting to see how I actually did on the exam..

That night called for a celebration... we went to a birthday party in another dorm, it was okay but not too many people were there. When we were riding the metro home, there was no one else on the entire time! We had a dance party and were just being stupid the whole way home, definitely something I wouldn't have seen coming that night!

Thursday night we went out to Australian Bar (A Bar), a ton of fun.... a lot of Tordens residence went out together and had 40kr entrance with 10kr drinks. The next few days I dedicated to writing this paper I had to about Turkey's economy. Sunday I went up to Helsingor to see Dino and his family after I had lunch with the ladies of Tordens. We went to a place nearby called Restaurant Chili that has a 60kr student special but since my school ID got stolen they were huge jerks about it. It was a pretty quiet time at Dinos, just watched some videos (Golden Girls which we are now obsessed with, Dad sent me the complete first season). Back in CPH after Monday I pretty much tried to study and get some homework done and relax a little. Elyses family was in town so I went to dinner with them one night at Jensons Bofhus. After that we were going to go out but instead the night ended with me, Ben, and "The Brewsters" (Jos and Chris) in the brewsters room having wine and talking. My new workout routine is getting more intense.. since I hate running I always dreaded the treadmill but have now incorporated it into my workout and am beginning to like it more and more.

Last night Dino and I went to the ballet. He came over with a dozen roses and pizza, so we had cava (champagne from Barcelona) and candles too. After dinner we had a drink at Nyhavn before heading off to the Royal Theater. The ballet was alright, it was called Onegin but the guy sitting behind us was a complete jerk! He was just so rude, at one point I made a comment to Dino (quietly whispered) and the guy tapped me on the shoulder really hard, almost a push, and started yelling at me in Danish loudly. I can understand if we were being really loud to begin with but it was already hours in and I had just made one comment. He could've just nicely asked me to be quiet but he had to be such a jerk about it. That pretty much ruined my wanting to stay for the third and final part of it, so we left after the second intermission and went to Nexus. Tonight we are going back out to A Bar for 60kr entrance and open bar from 11-1.

Cultural epiphanies.. even though I'm sure I've said it before, these past few weeks have made me realize how little "life" there is to Danish culture. Everyone is so prim and proper and never says a word. It makes me appreciate American culture so much, even though people say we are loud and whatever, I'd much rather have "life" in my culture than just plain blah. Also, Danish guys are VERRRRY feminine. It's so weird. Nothing that I am used to at all... they have much tighter jeans than most girls and wear women's scarves all the time. It is one of the most unattractive groups of men to me ever, but Danish girls must like it because almost all of the guys have the same style. Oh.. not to forget these huge ridiculous Buddy Holly glasses that look like the ones from the prank glasses with the huge nose and mustache attached. The first time I saw guys with them on I was expecting them to bust out laughing or something but no, apparently they are serious about this style. Bizarre. Okay, that's my rant for the day!

Spring Break, part 5--Amsterdam & More

The next day we were in Amsterdam (Wednesday, March 25th) we started by taking a canal tour. I didn't know there were so many canals in Amsterdam, but there's one almost every other street. We first got off the tour by the city square and went to the flea market. There were some pretty interesting finds there to say the least. After that we stopped at a bagel place and waited forever for a bagel sandwich. Seriously the customer service there was the worst! No one waited on you and they took forever to do one small thing. Frustrating. We must've read the canal tour map wrong b/c pretty soon our "green line" boat all of the sudden turned into a "red line" boat so we had to ride it around for about an hour more.

We finally came to the Anne Frank house.. very eerie to be inside, its the secret annex her and her family stayed in while in hiding from the Nazi Germans. Very well preserved, except there was quite a few artifacts that were undergoing restoration so we couldn't see them. I ended up buying the book (Anne Franks diary) at the gift shop (okay lets be real, MOM bought me the book..) and I got it specially stamped saying that I bought it at the actual Anne Frank house.

Next up--Winkles for dutch apple pie. It was alright, tasted like regular apple pie but it was good. It seems like they don't really want you to find anything in that city though. There is hardly any signs up of where to go or how to get there, much different than Paris or Spain.

We found a nice Irish pub and had a drink and some appetizers after the apple pie. Finally got to try their famous white beer (very good). We decided we should see the red light district at some point, so that was our nighttime activity. It really wasn't all that bad compared to what I had expected. There were girls in the windows and a lot of "red light district" type shops, etc but it seemed more like a tourist destination than anything. We found a bar there and had a few beers, then to a sports bar. While we were changing bars we saw a bus tour of old people walking the red light district around 11 or midnight! Really not the crowd I thought I would be seeing! The rest of the night was filled with nice bathroom attendants, pizza hot dogs, outrageous cover charges and bouncers, random $1,000 atm withdrawals, and me spending 28euro ($42) in less than 3 minutes.

Thursday--Elyse went to see the Jewish historical museum while me, mom, and Ellen went shopping. We found this pretty big shopping district right by our hotel the night before. There were soo many stores it got overwhelming, but we did find the department store called Hema. We bought stroopwaffles (very popular and very good) there. More shopping..more shopping.. lunch! Had lunch at a little cafe/restaurant nearby, ended up staying and talking for quite awhile, very good food. After our shopping day it was time to get back to CPH. Flights went well, and back to CPH we were. We just got pizza and some sodas for dinner and called it a night.

Friday--Another country... Sweden today. We took the train to Helsingor and then to Helsingbourg by ferry. In Helsingor, we met Dinos dad at a cafe/bar and had coffee with him. It was so interesting to see someone else finally in my place as far as language barriers go. Dino is a good translator, so it wasn't much of a problem, but I feel like now they have an insight to how hard it can be at times. We walked by the shoreline in Helsingor, past Hamlets castle, to the ferry. In Helsingbourg we ate lunch at a Turkish/Greek place Dino and I ate at the last time we were there. Very cool decorating, authentic of what I would think of Turkish/Greek. We walked around Helsingbourg for awhile, saw the fortress and some shops, then went back to Helsingor to meet Dinos mom this time.

Back in CPH we decided to have a night in. Me, mom, and Ellen got pizza and sodas (yes, again) and stayed in and watched TV. Man do I miss having a tv... not that I even really watch it that much, but it was so nice to have one for a night! There was quite a lot of talk about African surfers...haha..!

Saturday--Their last day in CPH. We were thinking about doing the Carlsberg Brewery Tour, but heard it was $30 so we decided to stay in and be lazy for the morning. It was rainy and dreary out anyways so I didn't mind. I did a little homework and then we met back up around 2pm. We ate lunch/dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe and stayed in from the rain. On our walk back, we went to The Dubliner (an Irish pub on Stroget) for a few beers. Saw the soccer match but didn't pay much attention (at least I didn't know what was going on). By that time it was pretty late and they had an early flight to catch so we decided to get back.

Sunday--5:30am. Yeesh thats early.. took mom and Ellen to the airport and sent them on their way back to Wisconsin. The final end to my never-ending spring break. It was hard to say goodbye after finally seeing them in so long and the week seemed to fly by. It made me realize that I really don't have all that much time left here in CPH.. at that time it was about 2mos and 3 weeks. Can't believe it..

Spring Break, part 4--Mom and Ellen in CPH

Less than a day after arriving back in CPH, we were back at the airport again... mom and ellen are in Copenhagen!! We picked then up around 1 in the afternoon, got them to their hotel, and then showed them Tordens. They stayed one street away from me at Best Western Hotel City, which was nice that they were so close. I really liked seeing their reaction and how they perceived everything when first arriving here. It reminded me of how I saw things those first few days... so new and unfamiliar. I think they were surprised to see how great of a location I actually have, it really is right in the center of the city. Maybe I will persuade Mom and/or Ellen to write a little synopsis of their time in Copenhagen so we could see their perceptions..? Either way, that night we walked down Stroget, which was frustrating because everything was closed (sunday, and easter). For dinner, we went to this Turkish buffet that Dino and I had gone to awhile back. It was sooooooooo nice to have them both in Copenhagen!! I think it made me realize how much I really did miss home. Just to have people that know and understand the background to my stories without countless explanations and to understand my sense of humor that is usually not as well received by other people. I also liked showing them my life as of right now, the streets I see on a daily basis, the building I always pass, the buddy that always hangs around ;), etc.

Day 2--Dino and I met mom and Ellen at their hotel for breakfast, then we walked to Nyhavn to walk around. Nyhavn is the canal strip right by my apartment with a lot of bars/cafes/restaurants. Our walk continued to the Royal Palace, and then to The Little Mermaid. The Royal Palace was pretty close to my apartment and I was a little embarrassed to admit that I had never been there. It wasn't all that special, but still nice to have seen. The Little Mermaid was a huge disappointment. It is supposed to be Copenhagen's signature sightseeing thing, but if that's all they have to offer I would say don't bother. It was so tiny!

Next up was showing them my school.. I sort of forgot how much different it really is than Wisconsin schools and universities. Because it can have corporate sponsors, it is about 1,000,000 times more modern than the schools I'm used to. After I couldn't persuade them to go to class in my place, we decided to walk down Stroget to see the city square. The parliament buildings and Tivoli are really close so we saw those as well. We ended up at Hard Rock for a drink, then we went to Central Station. We found this Boston/Irish pub called O'Learys, so we stopped in for a drink there. There was some crazy lady in the bathroom.. this story only makes sense if you were there, so I will not elaborate.. hilarious. That night we walked down to Nyhavn again and had dinner at one of the restaurants while listening to musicians.

Day 3--Finally, the stores were open! Who knew there was an Easter Sunday AND Easter Monday?!?!?! Of course, I haven't seen snow except for maybe once the entire time I've been here and sure enough when mom and Ellen come it snows! We were shopping so we didn't notice all that much. We had lunch at the same kebab shop as the day before and I think the owner liked me because he gave us a huge thing of free falafels. (too bad we all hate falafels) The Round Tower was our last stop before leaving for Amsterdam. Even though I've been there twice already, I would say it's still one of my favorite spots. I would guess that they liked seeing the entire city as well.. (?)

Day 3--cont--Our flight to Amsterdam went well, but getting to our hotel was a completely different story! The Amsterdam public transportation system is one of the worst ever.. after we finally figured it out and were on our way to the hotel we had to use the tram system, aka: The Death Tram. It had people sliding everywhere and getting stuck in the accordion part. Whew, after surviving that ride we found our hotel.. and 3 Sisters Pub. We had a few (or more) pints of Heineken and then decided we should go walk around our square (Rembrandt Square). We found that a lot of things were closed except some coffeeshops (the ones that sell weed legally) and a place called Cafe Nasty. We ended up opting for finding fries and pizza and going back to the hotel room.

Spring Break, part 3--Berlin

Our early morning flight from Madrid to Berlin was a little rough but we made it there alright. Finding our way to the metro system from the airport was also a little rocky. It was obvious that Berlin is still a recovering city (from the late 80s when East Berlin and West Berlin were reunited). Things like the metro (UBahn and SBahn) were so much less modern than the other ones we had been on in other cities. Even the buildings and street vendors, everything was different than any of the other cities we were in. Anyways, we found our hostel and had to book it to make it on time for a free walking tour. Whew.. we made it! The walking tour took us all over, showing us some of the most famous spots in Berlin. The Brandenburg Gate was our first stop, right across from the French and US embassies, and Hotel Alton. Hotel Alton is the site where Michael Jackson dangled his baby a few years ago. We also saw the Berlin Wall, the Jewish Holocaust Memorial, Checkpoint Charlie, the Book Burning Memorial, Hitler's Bunker, and a bunch of other stuff. Towards the end it started hailing and was freezing cold.. which was weird because it fit perfectly with the depressing, dreary stories that were being told. I'm glad we did the free walking tour and glad we picked Berlin as a place to visit because it is such a different culture. I felt like Paris was historical but in a more glamorous and romantic way, Spain was full of life, and Berlin was very stern, cold, and utilitarian. Through high school I went through a phase where I did pretty much all of my projects, papers, etc on the Holocaust and WWII so I thought Berlin was amazing to see where those things really happened. I stood on the place where Hilter and his wife committed suicide...creepy but I felt such a connection to history during that time.

Berlin nightlife is quite the opposite... not dreary or depressing at all! We did the pub crawl with our newfound friends we met on the tour from The Netherlands. It turned out to be a group probably over 150 people, which was fun but hard to maneuver to 4 bars and a club. Same as in Paris, we got free vodka/orange shots before each bar and drink specials at each, it was 12 ($18) euros per person to go though. The club we went to at the end was called Matrixx and was SUCH a good time! Two rooms with music and packed with people. Towards the end of the night they started playing 70s music in one of the room.

..and that was our short, short stay in Berlin. I really would like to go back to Berlin if I get the chance, there were a lot more guided tours I would have liked to take and so much more to see there. The next day we boarded our plane and landed back in Copenhagen for the next few days.

Alright, time for the second part of spring break... Madrid and Barcelona. We had to take a bus from our hostel in Paris to the airport and then an early morning flight. This time it was only me, Elyse, Jonathan, and Marc. We landed in Madrid on Saturday morning, and I was bound and determined to wear a strapless dress and flip flops all day long. A little on the optimistic side, but much better weather than in CPH or Wisconsin. We checked all of our luggage and were on our way to see Madrid for a day. We found a restaurant with outside seating and ordered Paella, it was so nice to be able to sit outside and eat in the sun. For the most part we had a relaxing day, a little wondering in and out of shops and saw the Reina Sofia museum. The first store the guys came in with us (Miss Sixty) we were in for all of 30 seconds before leaving and as we were leaving Jonathan set off the security alarm and had to be searched.. it was HILARIOUS!!!!!!!! We had to catch a night train to Barcelona so we headed back to the train station, gathered our stuff, and were on our way...

The night train is quite an experience in itself. It definitely makes you value faster and more comfortable modes of transportation a lot more. There were cabins that housed 8 people (4 people per side) with seats the size of very very very small airplane seats, maybe like a car bucket seat I would say. In my cabin, there was a mother/daughter from Madrid, a soccer player from Argentina, and an American girl studying in Spain. The daughter was 20yrs old and even through our language barriers her and I got along pretty well. It was interesting to hear the mother/daughter speak to the American student, I took Spanish for a few years so I could listen and somewhat understand what they were talking about.

When we got to Barcelona, we found our hostel (Saint Jordi) but couldnt check in for a few hours. Luckily the lobby/reception area had some couches so we just killed time there before showering and getting ready for the day. Our first stop in Barcelona was the Hard Rock Cafe...haha, totally an American thing to do. Then.. Sagrada Familia, which is a famous (huge) church, still under construction, designed by Gaudi. It was amazing how huge it really was. I liked all of the intricate details throughout the outside of the church, but when we went inside it looked like a regular construction site. We decided to wait in line and take an elevator to the very top, it was such a good view of the city! On our way down there were little alley ways we could go through and see outside, it was nice because it gave you another view of the city as well as an up close look at the architecture.

A nap was definitely in order after the lack of sleep from the overnight train. After about a 4 hour nap we decided to wake up and go try and find the Badger basketball game. We wondered to Las Ramblas (popular street in Barcelona) and found a place called Sport Bar. As we were watching highlights from the game, I wanted to reformat my picture settings on my camera so I would have enough room for the rest of our trip. Well, that failed miserably. I accidentally pressed something wrong and ended up deleting ALL of my pictures I had taken up until that point!!!!!!!!! Ahhh, talk about a crappy way to start Barcelona...

Day 2 in Barcelona---Decided to start at Park Guell, which is a park unlike any I have ever seen before. A lot of the designs were by Guadi and it was HUGE. Many different peak points to look out at the city from, along with a big open area with a ceramic bench surrounding the whole place. Luckily it was a beautiful day, I think if the weather was crappy it wouldn't have been so nice. After spending a good chunk of time there, we got some souvenirs and were out of the park. About a half block later, I was going to buy postcards from a street vendor and my wallet was gone. We searched everywhere and it was nowhere to be found (I just had it at the souvenir shop outside the park), so with about 99% certainty I can say it was definitely stolen. The rest of the day was more or less dedicated to solving that problem.. Marc's friend Tessa (who works in Barcelona) met us and helped me figure out what to do about getting everything fixed. She had just gotten her wallet stolen a few months back so she was a great help. I had to go to the police station and everything. Thankfully I got all of my credit/debit cards stopped and reissued, and mom was coming in only a few days so she brought the new cards for me. It just sucks... I had SOOO much stuff in that wallet! Besides it being a really nice wallet (leather, Fossil wallet), I had my drivers license, 3 student ids, gift cards, 40 euros ($60), ticket stubs from everything from a year or more, my Danish CPR card (similar to a social security card, but much less valuable/important), and other stuff I don't even remember.

After that episode, it was time for some authentic Spanish food. Tessa took us to a real tapas restaurant. In case you don't know what tapas are, they are like little hors devours (or however you spell it..) that we picked from a buffet line. The ones I tried were very good, but expensive. After dinner we walked around the old/gothic part of town and saw the architecture and went inside one of the main churches. The church had an open courtyard with a fish pond in the middle! It was definitely not what I would have expected from a church. Next up on our guided tour (w/Tessa as our guide..) was a walk along the beach and boardwalk area. This is where a lot of the clubs and restaurants are, and it was a really nice night out. So much better than snow!!! Later that night we went to a club down on that strip called Shoko, free entrance and drinks til 1 or 2am. We had sangria from a box before going out, probably not as classy as the regular sangria but good none the less.

The next morning was the first without the boys. They had gone their own way (to Seville) and we still had two more days in Barcelona. We slept in and then when I got up Elyse was still sleeping so I decided to go exploring on my own for awhile. It was the first time I ate by myself in a restaurant (sub shop, but still) I think in my entire life. I usually want to cry and accompany people if I ever see someone eating alone but it actually wasn't too bad. I had my books and maps to plan out my strategy and got to take as long as I wanted to plan whatever I wanted to do. I walked down La Ramblas and found a food market right off from it. It smelled like fish but had a lot of variety of foods. Next on my agenda was to find "the up and coming new popular street" Playa de Royal. I found it, but I didn't see anything thing very new or popular, just a regular road with men who talked too much to me. I went back down to the beach and walked there for awhile, and ended up finding this free Catalan region museum. The Catalan is the region that Barcelona is in, people there spoke their own language (as well as Spanish) but it is a very independent region. The museum was obviously pretty new and had a lot of 3D displays, a good deal for being free. After my jaunt alone, I met up with everyone for dinner. It was only me, Chris, Elyse, and Marie left. We went back by Sagrada Familia to an italian restaurant. I was glad because I got to take more pictures after erasing mine from earlier. After dinner we went to their hostel, HelloBCN, to hang out at the bar there. It was a pretty nice hostel, much bigger than ours and had a bar inside of it with 3euro pints of beer or sangria. Not too many people were there though so it ended up being a pretty quiet night.

The next morning (our last in BCN), I met Marie for coffee at La Vaca Paca while Elyse and Chris went to the Gaudi apartment. When we met up again, Elyse and I decided to go to the Olympic Stadium from the 1992 olympics. It was up on a huge hill and wasn't what I had expected. I assumed it would be one or two large venues but there were stadiums and tracks everywhere. One of the doors to the track was open so we got to run on it (probably legal..).

Our last activity in Barcelona was to visit the shopping mall right on the water. We had lunch at Fresco Buffet, which had only fresh/healthy food. There was tons of fruit, vegetable, whole wheat stuff, fresh veggie pizza with no tomato sauce, and a bunch of other foods. There was even frozen yogurt, but I think it wasn't even the traditional frozen yogurt, probably just slightly flavored ice with a little skim milk. Either way it was good and I ate about three bowls. We did a little shopping but didn't have too much time because we needed to catch another night train.

This night train was slightly better than the last, but not much. More like an airplane (seats and set up) but yeesh.. still uncomfortable. I got a little studying done, but that's about all. When we got back to Madrid, we were still sooo tired. When we found our hostel, it creeped us out. It was on 3rd floor and as we were walking up the stairs there was a guy in the hallway. And he wasn't standing or moving. I thought we had just found a dead body, we were so freaked out we ran out with our luggage and didn't ever want to go back. We decided to ring the front desk and the receptionist went down and kicked the homeless (allegedly not dead) guy out and came and got us. We couldn't check in for a few more hours so we went to a coffee shop and then to an internet cafe. When I checked my email there was one from mom with an attachment to a news article about Osama Bin Laden's new video and how he talked about the Danish cartoonist's controversial drawing. It was scary to read about the place I've been living being talked about by such a complete psychotic creep. There was even talk about me coming home, but I don't think that will happen until after my program. When we finally got into our room we slept for hours. Our room was so nice because it was only a 2 bed room, almost exactly like a hotel room. When we woke up, we walked around Madrid and saw it in its prime hour--late night. Dinner time is normally between 9 or 10 pm so we were right on time for being out and about. The streets were filled with people and noise (such a change from cph), everything lit up.. ahh it was so nice to feel some sort of pulse in a city.

Spring Break, part 1

Ahh... FINALLY back and in blogging business! It's been a little over three weeks since I've last blogged, and let me tell you I feel like it has definitely been longer than that. These entries will most likely be cut very short so I can catch up...sorry!

I'll start with the first lag of my spring break--Paris! We left early that Wednesday morning, boarded our plane, had a Tuborg or two on the way, and landed in Paris. After navigating the trains and metro we finally found our first hostel (Aloha Hostel) which was very close to the Eiffel Tower. It was me, Elyse, Marc, Jonathan, Chris, and Chris's girlfriend Marie. We all stayed in a 6 person dorm for that night, which was nice to not have to stay with strangers. The first thing we did was to go to the Eiffel Tower. Marc, Jonathan, Elyse and I decided to walk up the Tower. It was quite a hike but the view sure was worth it when we got up there. I had been to Paris before, during my senior year of high school, but it was still nice to go with a smaller group. Next up was the famous Nutella crepes, one of my favorite things of the entire break. (PS when I used the plural form of crepe, that was no mistake.. there were definitely MANY crepes eaten after the Eiffel Tower!)

A quick walk and we were at the Arc de Triumphe and Champs Elysee. We stopped for wine at a cafe/restaurant on Champs Elysee and toured around the Arc. We had planned on doing a pub crawl with our hostel that evening, but when we layed down for a nap we didnt wake up until hours later. Instead, we went up to Socre Coeur (basilica on a hill overlooking the entire city), very pretty view of the city at night as well as of the basilica itself.

Day 2--We had to move hostels, which was very annoying considering mine and Elyses excess of luggage and the shortage of escalators and elevators in the metro and hostels. This time we stayed on the other side of town in Friends Hostel. My first hostel-mate ever was a total creep. About 55yrs old, reeked of booze, and when I said "Hi" he said "Yeah, I wish I was". Ahh.. is this hostel life?!?! Eeek! Other than that the place was pretty cool.

After we dropped all of our stuff (and said a prayer Alvin/Alfred/Arthur (creeper) wouldn't steal or touch anything), we went to the Louvre. Walked around there for a few hours, saw the Mona Lisa and a lot of places mentioned in The Divinci Code.

Since our hostel was in a relatively ''bad'' part of town, there were a ton of junk shops around, which I for some reason love going in, so I did a little browsing. I later found out that the majority of the stuff there (cell phones, perfumes, etc) is actually stolen. Who knew? I found this one store, resembled a Wal-Mart, where I found this perfume --Ms Arbell-- for 1.99euros (about $3), my first big purchase in Paris! I thought it smelled kinda good, but when I brought my prize purchase back, everyone else disagreed. Ahh well.. dinner at our neighbor kebab shop and then finally the pub crawl! Our group was relatively small (only about 18people in total), and we went to 4 bars and one club. A pretty good night, met a few cool people but more laid back than other pub crawls I've heard about.

Day 3--Pompidou (modern art center/museum) to start off our last day in Paris. I really liked the Louis Burgess galleries, and some of the other modern art was a nice change from the Louvre artwork. We did a little shopping after that, nothing major pretty much just killing time, then got ready for our last night out in France. We ended up going to this amazing fondu place, it was a total tourist place for the younger crowd but we had a blast. It was a small restaurant with a lot of character--a booth with one long table and chairs on the other side, so if people were sitting at either end you had to climb over the table and we drank wine out of baby bottles. Actual baby bottles. We got cheese and beef fondu, I have never had real fondu so it was quite the experience for me. Probably one of my favorite places we ate on the entire trip, I think we all had a blast. We were pretty close to the red light district (ie. Moulin Rouge), so we walked around there for a little bit. It was a lot classier than I would have thought, maybe we were just there before all the fun started, but really it was relatively calm. We had to get back to our hostel early for our flight to Madrid...(see next blog)