Denmark and Bowdoin Reunion!

Wow--another weekend, another city. The good news....I have officially survived my first cross-Europe solo travel experience! There were a couple of moments that that fact remained uncertain, but in the end, I made it to Denmark and back safe and sound. The trip was wayy to short, and very fast-paced, but all and all, it was an incredible weekend with Bowdoin kids from school, and I'm so sad it's over already!

My trip started off last Thursday, when I woke up early to catch the free shuttle from the train station to the airport. I cut the timing a little close, but in the end, made it to my gate in time and flew to London for my first stop on my way to Copenhagen. I hung out in London for a while before my next gate was announced, and when the number finally came up on the screen, I headed towards the shuttle so that I'd be on time for my flight. That's where my first travel troubles began. The transport shuttle malfunctioned and shut down just in time to keep me stranded on the other side of the airport, wayyy too far from my Copenhagen gate, and right as the announcer was calling for all passengers to board my plane. Uh oh. So, I looked around, saw a girl about my age also looking flustered, and asked her if she was flying to Copenhagen. She was, and so we both freaked out together. Luckily, we found enough people who were in our same boat that we figured they'd have to hold the plane. Well, we weren't exactly correct in that thought. After finally finding another way to our gate, we stepped off the shuttle just as the announcer called gates closing in 1 minute! So, we started running. Yup, I sprinted through the airport with 10 of my new best friends. Luckily, we made it just in time, and boarded the plane completely out of breath, but happy to have gotten on. About 15 passengers weren't so lucky, and were stranded in London. Phew!!

Ok, so, I made it to Copenhagen on Thursday and met Gillian at the airport. Let me take a sec to tell you about this airport.....it's incredible! There's wood floors everywhere, designer shopping, and car displays!! It's also soooo incredibly quiet. Just imagine thinking that about JFK or Chicago O'hare. Never!! Anyway, Gilly and I hugged for about 5 minutes, freaking out that we were both finally reunited, and in Denmark of all places, and then headed for the train so that we could go to her homestay house. We made it out to suburbia Denmark, and she showed me around her incredible house that she gets to stay in for the semester. Her parents are amazing and they had the best dog in the world--Candy Chanel. Its a Finnish (?) lap dog, and it's the cutest, best thing in the world!! Gilly told me that it sleeps in the snow sometimes because it gets so hot inside! The inside of the house was beautiful as well. The Danish architecture was very evident in this house, and it was just so nice to be in a home again! So for the rest of the night, Gilly and I just hung out, relaxed, had an amazing homemade lasagna for dinner, and caught up on the last month that we've both been going through this crazy abroad experience.

The next day, we got to sleep in and were woken up by Gilly's host dad making chocolate croissants for breakfast. Not bad huh! We headed out on a walk with Candy Chanel after breakfast...and that's when i learned her true abilities as a Finnish lap dog. She likes to hunt. And lucky Gilly and me....we got to see her in action. I wont go into too much detail because it was one of the most disgusting things in the entire world, but we saw Candy hunt a field mouse and come up with it in her mouth!! She then proceeded to walk with it like that for the next 5 minutes before hse finally dropped it. UGHHHHHHH. awful. BUT, then, we headed into the city center of Copenhagen so that we could walk around a bit, see her school, and be in the city in time to pick up the rest of the kids from Bowdoin arriving from Spain! Getting off the train in the city, were were immediately surrounded by tons of bright colored houses lining the streets. I loved them! We did a little city-walking tour then, and Gilly showed me her school building and the BEST place to get pastries in the world. Literally, the pastries in Denmark are incredible. I had this chocolate croissant with chocolate chips and whip cream and strawberry filling...ahhh to die for. I loved walking around though, and learning all about the history of the city. It was so interesting to be out of the UK and see how different another city could be. Each city and place I've been to so far has such a different feel and atmosphere to it. Edinburgh is full of old stone buildings that are gothic or romantic looking...Copenhagen is filled with colorful buildings each side by side mixed in with old churches and monuments. And not to forget the canals here and there! Also, everything's in Danish! Funny thing, I totally forgot that they speak other languages in Europe!! I've gotten so used to having English everywhere, but nooo, in Denmark, they speak Danish! Yes, most people speak English too, but it was so funny to see all the street signs in another language. Props to Gilly and everyone else that has to deal with that in their host cities!

All the buildings that I loved so much. Why can't we have this much color in our cities??

BEST. PASTRIES. EVER! (there's a reason we call them Danish's!)

After seeing some sights throughout the city, Gilly and I headed back to the train station to meet up with our friend who's also staying in Copenhagen and everyone else coming in from Spain. Greg, Becky, Alyssa, Emily, Kate, Sam, Danny, and James all arrived at the station at about the same time, and a complete hugging and screaming reunion commenced in the middle of the crowded station! It was sooo amazing to see everyone again...I can't believe it's been so long since we've all been together at school. And the one thing we couldn't get over was that we were all reunited in a European country! Such a weird feeling. Everyone but Greg is all studying in Spain, most in different places, but there nonetheless, so for the entire weekend, we heard lots and lots about Spanish culture. The Spain kids were all starving, so we headed for lunch--there was a quick stop at a 7-eleven on the way though, because in Copenhagen, you can drink beer while walking down the street in the middle of the day! Needless to say, we all wanted to take advantage of that and cheers to being reunited! The rest of the day was filled with catching up, walking around, and finally getting ready for going out that night. We went to a thai place for dinner and the headed to Greg's apartment before going dancing. We ended up at this dance club that had snow falling from the ceiling, fog machines going full force, and lots of strobe lights. It was definitely alot of fun to dance and just be out with everyone from home. One thing we found out really quickly about Copenhagen...it's SOOOOO expensive! I don't know how those kids are doing it for the whole semester!

Saturday was another good, long day in the city. We woke up late again, but this time, Gilly's house dad had laid out the most impressive breakfast spread I've ever seen. I'm not kidding around here...there was orange juice, tea, coffee, chocolate milk, amazinnnggg cheese, meats, all different kinds of breads and jellys, nuetella, and then an omelete dish with tomatoes and sausage on the side just in case we weren't satisfied with everything else. Ah so so so good. So we all got to sit around the table and eat with her parents and catch up some more before heading into Copenhagen--once we left the house, we headed for the Carlsburg Brewery but met a few disasterous speed bumps on the way. First of all, I lost my clutch on the way there. Luckily, I had taken out my credit cards and phone the night before, so all I had lost was my ID's and some money, but still, I was so frustrated with myself at the time! (Just wait, the story about my clutch will come back by the end of the weekend). We did finally arrive outside brewery after getting slightly lost walking there, but unfortunately we couldnt' find the entrance for the longest time, and then realized the brewery had been closed for 30 min by then!! So, we got some cool pictures of the outside of the place, but none of the inside. We ended up leaving and going back into the city to go see Nyhaven at night...it wasn' t as cool as seeing it during the day, but it was beautiful nonetheless and so cool to see the canal all frozen over! While walking down the canal though, we found a Scottish pub to go into to warm up!! I was very excited about that as you can imagine. After that though, we did pretty much the same as the night before--got some dinner, hung out for a while, and then went out dancing! We also did make it to the ice bar in Copenhagen!! We all had to get dressed in these massive blue coats with fur hoods and then got 40 minutes to hang out in this big ice cube basically. It was definitely an experience. The only stressful part about the weekend was trying to go out with such a big group. Once we were all out and it was dark and crowded, it was hard to stay together and decide where we should all go...none of us had working cellphones and none of us could speak Danish, so moving a group our size around the city became pretty stressful. Luckily, both Friday and Saturday night went smoothly enough and it ended up being so so so much fun!

Nyhaven at night--not the best picture, but hopefully you can sort of see all the colors!

The whole Bowdoin crew outside the City Hall--Sam, Emily, Greg, Danny, James, Gilly, Alyssa, Kate, me and Becky!!

Ice bar!!--I really wanted to take that coat with me, but I figured it'd be kinda obvious

Ok, Sunday morning we didn't have much time to do much of anything before our planes home, but there is a story that ended my vacation on an extremely high note. Remember my lost clutch? So, I woke up on Sunday to a text message saying that a person had found my wallet!! I didn't know how they had gotten my European cell phone number, and I was a little nervous to find out, but luckily my host parents got on the phone with the guy and spoke Danish for a while, and when they got off the phone, informed me that the man was coming over to their house to drop of my wallet!! About 5 minutes later, this man came in and handed me my clutch with everything it, wished us all a Happy Valentine's Day, and left. It was incredible!! I got so so so lucky and the Danish are such nice people! Definitely a great way to finish off the vacation.

After 3 crazy days in Copenhagen, it was nice to be excited to head back to Edinburgh. I mean, I love this city. I still get excited when I'm walking around, anticipating what incredible view is coming around the next corner. I can't imagine I'll ever get sick of seeing these cobblestones streets winding up a hidden alley way, or seeing the castle over the city. Don't get me wrong--getting to see all of my friends from home in Copenhagen was amazing. I'm so glad we all did it, and it was a great way to celebrate Gillian's 21st birthday. It definitely made me realize how lucky I am to have all of those friends at school, and how much I miss them while I'm here...but it also made me realize how happy I am to be in Scotland, and how incredible it will be to relive this experience with everyone once we're home! As for now, I'm just enjoying Scotland, and can't wait to be in Edinburgh this weekend...for a whole weekend!

One more thing--yesterday was Pancake Day here!! (Well, technically, I think it was Pancake Day across Europe) But, anyway, my friends and I decided to celebrate by cooking pancakes and getting together for dinner. Their pancakes are more like crepes here, so that's what we made, and they were delicious!! We had fresh fruit, syrup, and chocolate sauce, and dinner was definitely a success! Ok, that's it for now....peace out cub scouts.

New things for this week:

-Going to Copenhagen!!

-Cooking crepes for pancake day!