This is the end, I promise.

So maybe I'm just addicted to blogging, but I didn't think that hating on the entire airport system was an appropriate way to end this little literary project of mine. I just got a phone call from my favorite little Portuguese man at the airport (keep in mind that it is 11:50 pm on Christmas) saying that my bags will be here in the morning!! It's kinda like Santa Claus, only .... not.

Anyway, I thought I'd take a little time to reflect on the abroad experience, once and for all. I'm really enjoying being home (more than I thought I would, actually) but it IS strange. I drove a car yesterday. I got confused trying to find things in my kitchen. I went past my high school and for the first time felt no sort of burning attachment to it. (Yeahhh, I know, I kind of hold onto things for a while. Prepare yourselves.) The little novelties will wear off soon enough, but these past 4 months have changed something in all of us.

Apparently, only 2% of students study abroad. Seems crazy, considering DIS alone had like 500-600 kids in the program. Obviously, I feel that the other 98% are missing out. The experiences we've had can't be put into words. In the opening ceremony in August, an intern suggested that before the semester began, our best stories were something to the effect of "Dude, remember that time you got drunk and fell down?" He assured us that the quality of our stories would increase ... tenfold. Between everyone at DIS, I'm pretty sure we've seen it all. Gypsies trying to sell us their babies, skinny dippers in the fountain by Tivoli, parties consisting solely of deaf people, Romanians offering to share their STDs with us, getting acupunctured by a Danish GPs, european raves in solid white, breaking & entering, 6 year old host brothers giving us the big F.U. .. the list goes on and on.

But beyond producing crazy stories, studying abroad has opened our eyes, made us appreciate life, and helped us to be ourselves. Being given an experience that I knew had a limited time frame definitely encouraged me to make the most of it. I basically doubled the number of close friends I've made in college in one semester, because we were all forced to be less inhibited. The whole "I'm never going to see these people again" mindset really allowed us to open up to each other, and show off how strange we can be. And now, as a result, I BETTER be seeing these people again!

So to everyone, thank you for the laughs, for the embarassing photos. Thank you for cracking up with me during class, and complimenting my doodles of elephants and rocks. Thanks for the hygge nights and the wild nights. Thank you for spotting me the 100 kroner when you knew I needed it. Thanks for being fully engaged in the experience, and for allowing me to be as well. Thanks for the memories! They will last a lifetime... and just in case they don't, God knows I have around 3,000 pictures to refresh them ;)




Hej hej, for real this time, & good luck to future travelers.

I'll be back.


- Caitlin

The Nightmare Before Christmas/Phil-a-delphia Freedom

Mannnn. I thought I had ended this blog too nicely to add in any sort of "P.S." or "Oh by the way..." but I've been presented with a story that needs to be told. I chose to fly home during one of the biggest snowstorms of the decade, and prices were paid.

So, I woke up at 6am on Sunday morning & Iben and I carried my overweight (maybe even obese) bags to the car, and drove to the airport in the snow. I should have known our experience would be interesting when the line at the check-in counter extended back into the next terminal. I also had chosen to fly at the end of the climate conference, when everyone else and their mothers were leaving CPH. I checked in, met up with Becky, Sara, Megan, and this kid Ben, who I incidentally met for the first time as we were leaving Copenhagen. We were all on the 10:10 flight to Frankfurt, and Ben, Becky, Sara and I were continuing on to the land of soft pretzels & cheesesteaks.

The flight was a little delayed, so when we landed we had to hustle to our next gate. Ben checked the gate # on his boarding pass, and we blindly followed, only to realize that he was flying to Philly on Lufthansa, and we were supposed to be taking U.S. Airways. Didn't matter that we were late though, as we soon found out our flight had been cancelled. That's when the real adventure began.

The 3 of us were sent on a wild goose chase around the Frankfurt airport, in pursuit of the U.S. Air desk. We finally got there, and found a 4 hour long line to get re-booked and all that. At one point, Sara asked some official looking man if he thought we'd be able to get home for Christmas...... to which he responded, "Pshhh I don't even know if I will be home for Christmas." SO reassuring.

When it was finally our turn to get some help, we discovered that flights weren't leaving from Frankfurt to Philly until Wednesday (keep in mind it was Sunday) but we learned that we could get home on Tuesday if we re-routed to Lisbon, Portugal and then flew to Newark. We jumped on the opportunity to get home ASAP.... plus, Portugal? That's kinda cool, right? In hindsight, we probably should have just stuck it out the extra day in Frankfurt, but that wouldn't have made as good of a story.

Our next flight was delayed by a few hours, and we didn't land in Lisbon until 2:30 local time. We waited at baggage claim, where Becky got both of her suitcases, but Sara and I didn't see either of ours. This began the process of fighting with an army of Portuguese airport workers. We had remained surprisingly calm this entire time.... but by 5am, after being deferred to a million different places in the airport, I had just about lost it. The man at the Lufthansa desk kept trying to tell me that my final destination was Philly "because that's what it says on the ticket." I hate being treated like an idiot, and I hadn't slept in 24 hours, so believe me when I tell you I was practically climbing over the desk, with tears in my eyes, yelling and ready to strangle the guy. I remained all fired up until I called my Dad, who was just like, "go get yourself to a hotel, we'll figure it out tomorrow, call me when you're ready."

We got a cab, but legitimately no one in Portugal speaks English (and our proficiency in Spanish was more useless than we thought it would be). We ended up just saying "hotel" and giving hand signals to indicate "3 stars?" We didn't want to spend TOO much money. Well, after a drive to God-knows-where, Portugal, we were left at a strange hotel run by a single man that had lots of mirrors and smelled oddly like my SAT tutor's house from when I was 16. The cab driver was really nice, and handled most of the check in process for us. Then, we were led to a dark room that I swear was colder than the temperature outside. We slept from roughly 6:30am to 3:00 pm. Much needed.

Monday was spent basically killing time. We would have liked to have seen the city of Lisbon, but we didn't really know where we were, and didn't want to mess with too much transportation. So we settled for a pretty gross meal at a cafe, and a little place where we got an hour of internet for a euro. Not bad, not bad. Then we watched some strange movie on Portuguese MTV & slept..... again.

The flight to Newark was great. We left on time, I watched 2 really good movies, got a surprisingly good meal (way better than I expected from TAP Portugal.....which I had never heard of). Unsurprisingly, when we landed our bags were still nowhere to be found. So poor Becky had to wait with Sara's and my parents for a couple hours while the 2 of us fought with more airline people, all of whom wanted to blame our problems on someone else. Finally, we filed a claim for the bags, put it all behind us, and crossed our fingers that we would hear something in the next couple of days. The nightmare was over, & I was in my beloved state of NJ.

UNTIL..... we were around exit 5 on the Turnpike & got a flat tire. REALLY?! We had to awkwardly chill on the side of the road until a flatbed came and picked us up and we rode way up high (still inside the car) to the nearest NTB station. Meanwhile, Becky's mom and uncle were at my house being entertained by my unsuspecting 16 yr old brother.

Ultimately, it was all okay, and we all got home. The only problem is I still don't have my bags, which contain all of my clothes, all of my souvenirs from the past semester, my acne medicine, and all of my Christmas presents for EVERYONE. Booooo. I called the airline today, but got nothing. They are PROBABLY still in Frankfurt, but realistically they could be in Frankfurt, Copenhagen, Lisbon, Newark, or Philadelphia. Ideally Philadelphia..... but most likely Frankfurt or Lisbon. Just so happens that we were forced to file the claim with TAP, and the workers are all Portuguese and not as easy to communicate with.

So for now, I'll just be sitting, waiting, wishing (thank you Jack Johnson) and enjoying Christmas in the land of the free with my family & friends. It's just a shame that I'll have to be naked the whole time since I am without my wardrobe.

This is not the most positive way to end the blog. Maybe I'll be back. But at any rate, Happy Holidays to everyone && I hope that the rest of you make it home easier than I did!

THE END OF AN ERA / Lessons Learned

I think it is safe to say that I cried more last night than I have all semester (granted, that's not even a lot). Now that the goodbyes & the tears are out of my system... it's time for one last blog post.

This past week has been, in a word, INCREDIBLE. I turned in my final paper for art history on Tuesday, and then I was completely done with school for the semester! Monday night, Becky came over to say goodbye to my host family... and we went out on a limb & decided to cook them a good, Amurrrican meal (burgers and mac&cheese, obviously). We used Martha Stewart's tried and true recipe for the macaroni... and even though Denmark doesn't have half of the ingredients, it turned out surprisingly well. Tuesday night, I went to Becky's house to say my first goodbyes - to her host family. Afterwards, we met up with some of the other girls and went through our traditional Tuesday night routines. I insisted that we swing by the Moose so we could grafitti the walls (I left a note for Tara to find in the spring!) and of course we finished up the night with some karaoke. Even though Sam's Bar was being mean to us the last night, and cheating us out of our songs, it still holds a very special place in my heart. <3

Wednesday was a day of great exploration. I met up with Ariel in the morning and we wandered the red light district, and ventured out to some part of Copenhagen that I had never even seen before! Crazy that that can still happen. It was cold & snowy, and it was at this point that I realized I was getting a cold, that I have managed to keep relatively under control this whole crazy week. For dinner, I met up with our little group of Rome friends at Chili Milli, and it was wonderful. HYGGE!

Thursday was spent returning books, loitering around DIS and the city in general. I did some extremely last minute Christmas shopping, and bought myself a little Danish flag :)

And then, there was Friday. We all assembled at some theater at 2:30 for the DIS concluding ceremony. It was really, REALLY cheesy, but I loved every second of it. They had a string orchestra from the University of Copenhagen, some presentation of awards, and funny speeches about the "you just saw the whole world.... now what?" issue. The DIS choir sang "Don't Stop Believin'" and Jamie and I were like allllll choked up, but pretty much everyone else was laughing at how corny it was. There was a little reception after, with some cookies and glogg ("what's better than wine? HOT wine!") I said some goodbyes there, but it was super crowded so unfortunately I missed a lot of people.

I came back and made pasta with my favorite pesto sauce ever, that my host family is obsessed with, and got ready to go back out. I took my final ride on the 6A to norreport, to go to the DIS party. It was oookaayyy I guess. I was hoping that more people would be there, but there got to be a pretty solid crowd by the end. I started with the waterworks pretty early, when Allie and Carolyn left because they had morning flights. It was at that moment that it finally hit me that it was the end. I'm not usually THE most sentimental person ever, but goodbyes really get me.

Eventually, we made our way to La Hacienda, a club right near DIS that I had never been to before. Fortunately, there were tons of my people there, too. Medina (a popular Danish singer) was performing, and it was all around tons of fun. Until I had to say goodbye, of course. There were lots of hugs, and then I got on the night bus and put on my "songs to cry to" playlist on my ipod (DON'T JUDGE ME). Ahahaha it's really stupid because like half of new friends go to Gettysburg and I'll see them in 3-4 weeks anyway, but it was the other half... and the random acquaintances that I'll never see again... that REALLY made me sad.

AHhhh this is getting long. Today is a packing/hanging out with the host fam day. I just said goodbye to Thomas and the dogs, as they are headed to Jutland until late tomorrow. Anst is coming over tonight and Iben is making my favorite Indian food :) Happiness is Denmark.

------------------------------

Lastly, I stole this idea from Allie.... I have learned SO much more this semester than I have in the past 4 semesters at Gettysburg. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration... but I have learned a lot. Academically, and otherwise, we are all much, much wiser now. So here goes.




- Danish is an impossible language.
- However, I have mastered the basics: "Hi," "My name is," "Can I have a...?", "I don't know", "What?", "Beer," and "Ham and Cheese."
- 2 minute showers are possible.
- Pickled herring doesn't taste nearly as bad as it sounds.
- The easiest job in the world is that of a meteorologist in Denmark. You can say whatever you want, and most likely, at some point in the day, you'll be right.
- Underwear is a luxury, not a necessity.
- There is no correct answer to the health care issue.
- As dumb as this sounds, the Euro is NOT the same as the Dollar. And kroners are not monopoly money.
- Don't eat licorice here.
- A little impulse never hurt anyone. A little rationality never hurt anyone either.
- Dryers are bad for the climate. Cold, crispy clothes are the Danish way.
- I am even more awkward than I previously thought.
- HIV numbers are low in Scandinavia.... but really high in Estonia. (Which kind of debunks Nat's "it's because they wear more clothes" theory)
- The 6A is the best bus ever. The 82N is the worst.
- It is socially acceptable to date someone who is half your age, plus 7.
- I can pass as Danish very easily, but only when I dress nicely.
- You shouldn't travel to places just because there's a song about them. A wise irishman once told me "There's a song about Alabama... but I would never want to go there!"
- It is pretty easy to convince Europeans that NJ is the best state ever. I like that about them.
- "Party in the U.S.A." can be easily changed to fit any country, and the outcome is always hilarious.
- "Kulor boots" are just as essential as "frat flats."
- Sketching buildings is the best way to understand them.
- St. Peder's Bageri and Hey Bagel make the world a better place.
- If you put your mind to it, you really CAN do anything. (or anyONE ahahahah jk jk jk)
- "The simplest explanation is always the American explanation," and the world is made up of humans, microorganisms, and elephants and rocks. (Courtesy of Peter Christensen)
- Life is wonderful, and shouldn't be wished away.

Nothing Gold Can Stay.

Don't worry, this isn't my final blog post. Many things still need to be accomplished before I cap this off for good. However, the thought of leaving the greatest semester of my life behind in a couple of days reminded me of this poem from like 7th grade. You're right, I have zero interest in poetry what-so-ever, but this one felt appropriate to share:



Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
Then Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day,
Nothing gold can stay.

- Robert Frost

Every day, a new experience

For as much as this feels like home, it amazes me how foreign Copenhagen can feel every now and then. The whole city has been a little out of whack lately, due to the COP15 Climate Conference that conveniently ends at the same time as our program. Every now and then, I'll hop on a bus and it will just decide to change its route or something. Love it when that happens. But yeah... the climate thing is a really big deal over here, and it's actually been really cool to be right in the center of it. Radhuspladsen (the main square) has a stage for concerts, etc. and a giant globe thing. There's a melting "ice bear" in Gammeltorv... all kinds of crazy stuff. Protests tend to happen right under my classrooms on Vestergade. Makes taking finals interesting for sure.

Unfortnately, I haven't had much of an opportunity to experience the climate hype, due to all the work I've had this week. Between Thursday & Friday alone I had a project, a paper, 3 finals, and my final Visual Journal to be turned in. STRESS. I mean, that might be an exaggeration since we all know how little I like to stress about anything, but it was tiring to say the least.

So we chose to celebrate the end of the week with something familiar: The Nutcracker. That's about as familiar as it gets, right? Like, how many times have I seen the Nutcracker? WELL. You haven't had the full experience until you've seen the Danish Nutcracker.... or should I say nøddeknækkeren? THIS version of the Nutcracker would have been better appreciated on some form of drugs. There was surprisingly little dancing, but don't worry, this was compensated by the inclusion of monkeys, bikes, and a giant Easter bunny looking thing. That's the Danish sense of humor for ya. Usually, I can appreciate this.... but you don't mess with the Nutcracker. I was pissed.

What does not belong here?!?!!

Afterwards, despite our exhaustion, we rallied for our last Friday at Kulør. It was ......... typical. Hahah um except for the part where I made the poor choice of wearing heels. Given my size, and my coordination skills, I am just simply not meant to wear heels. ESPECIALLY on cobblestone. I have no idea how the Danes do it. Let's just say that I have multiple bruises. Actually, I have a confession. I took them off for a little while on the way home. I know that's gross, and it was FREEZING, and it's going to be a miracle if I don't catch some form of the plague, but better that than a broken ankle. Seriously. Those shoes have been retired.

This morning, the host fam went "into the forest" to get their Christmas tree. AND THEY DIDN'T WAKE ME UP. I mean, I guess they figured a normal American college student wouldn't be too thrilled about being woken up after a late night to go drive 45 min. into the middle of nowhere in pursuit of a tree. But I'm secretly very bummed out. Christmas trees are my favorite :) Hygge, in a nutshell.

Okay, I promise I'll write at least once more before this blog comes to a close. In the meantime, I'll be writing one more paper, experiencing as much as I can in my last week, and continuing to kid myself into thinking that I'm ready to get out of here.

Ca va, toi!

So this will be the last of my travel blogs.... meaning the last of my travels outside Denmark. I got back from Paris late Monday night, and have been doing work ever since. Finals are this week, but I have a little over an hour between classes right now, so obviously I have to prioritize and write my blog. It's a little difficult right now because I'm on a Danish computer at school, and everytime I try to type an apostrophe, I end up getting one of these: ø

Becky and I left for our Paris adventure on Thursday night, and neither of us were really feeling up to it. We had been traveling for essentially an entire month straight, with only a week and a half in Copenhagen. BUT Paris is a must-see, and we decided that we were willing to rally. I mean, not that we had a choice.... being the genius that I am I never put cancellation insurance on my flights.

The first order of business was finding our hostel. The second order of business was finding a crepe. We fell in love. If we counted correctly, I'm pretty sure Becky managed to eat a grand total of 9 crepes in the 4 days that we were there haha. But anyway, our hostel was called "Yound and Happy" and it was on Rue Mouffetard in the Latin Quarter. The location was definitely ideal, and the name led us to believe that the hostel would be full of young, happy people. We had been pretty lucky with hostels up until this point, so I guess it's only fair that we got stuck with a stinker. Well, really, it was just cleanliness that was the issue. I know I'm kind of high maintenance, but there were multiple mysterious stains on my sheets (which we had to PAY FOR by the way) and the bathroom floors were covered in some suspicious little black curly hairs. Yummmmmm.

Young and.... dirty??

We managed to suck it up for 4 nights, and it was worth it. Friday morning, we wandered around a little bit, checked out Notre Dame (didn't find Quasimodo though) and waited for the rest of the Gettysburg crew to arrive. Jenn, Jamie, and the Megs showed up around 1 and we spent the remainder of the day being fabulous and shopping on Champs-Elysees.... probably the best shopping street in the world. We picked the right time of year to come, too, because there was a huge Christmas market set up.... kind of like the one in Bath. Unfortunately, I wasn't really able to BUY anything (see bank account) but walking around was enjoyable enough. There were lots of pretty lights & all that good stuff too.

Notre Dame, the tree, and Becky

Lights!

We decided to stick to the area of our hostel in the Latin Quarter for dinner almost every night to save money. We found a pretty good place the first night and got a 3 course meal for €10-13. Okay, maybe that's not THAT cheap... but hey, it's Paris. Afterwards, Meg led us to an apartment where 2 other Gettysburg girls are apparently living for the semester. They were celebrating a birthday, and there were randomly like 10 other Gburgers there. So weird. We hung out for a while, roamed the streets, and then ended up just going home. Jenn, Meg, and I didn't feel like waiting (or paying) for a taxi, so we walked ourselves home from the Bastille area. On the way, we encountered some interesting French men who were asking for directions. They clearly knew where they were going... but they were just like "ohhhh we're confused! We'll just follow you to where you are going!" Ummm, nej tak. Jenn went into teacher mode on them and made good and clear the path that they actually needed to take.

Gettysburg in Paris

Saturday morning, I insisted that we do my favorite thing ever: the NewEurope free walking tour. Once again, did not disappoint... but our tour guide, Jacqueline, was CRAZY and almost everything turned into some sort of sexual innuendo. Fortunately free tours appeal to people my age, so no one seemed particularly horrified.

I'm Louvre'n it! (bahaha)

That afternoon, we met up with one of Meg's friends in Montmarte (I think that's how you spell it? I don't feel like looking it up.) which is where Pigalle st., the red light district, is located. We ended up sitting on the stairs outside of a big cathedral (this name is also escaping me) listening to some live music. It was at the top of a hill, and we had a view of the entire city. Perfect.


That night, we went to the Eiffel tower, fully intending to climb up. However, we were too late by like 5 minutes. So sad, but I ended up saving €13 so I can't complain. We got more crepes (ahaha...) watched the light show, and took tons of unecessary photos. At one point, I was just standing there harmlessly, and all of a sudden there was a guy in my face saying something in French. And then in a split second he was gone. I was so confused. Our French speaking friends informed me that he had said "ca va toi", which apparently translates to something like "you're good." Whaaateverrr.



The first Sunday of every month is free museum day in Paris. (Good to know if you are traveling on a budget!! Of course, this was just coincidence for us bc we obviously don't do much research) UNFORTUNATELY, this past week or so, the vast majority of the public museums in Paris have been on strike. Go figure. We did managed to get into at least a small part of the Louvre, as well as l'Orangerie... so that was good. I saw a few of the paintings that I've been studying in my art history class this semester so I was really excited about that, but Becky and I agreed that our attention spans for museums are not what they should be. Plus, we had gotten caught in the pouring rain and were all wet and squishy. My wonderful Old Navy boots are now completely destroyed. So we ended up just going back to the hostel, showering, and hanging out for a while. (I mean... not that a shower in that hostel gets you clean or anything.)

All of the other girls had left, and once again it was just me and Becky. We decided to be really cheap/really French for dinner, and got crepes, french fries, and brie cheese. Oh, it was healthy too. We saved the cheese for last.. and when I opened it, something smelled AWFUL. Conversation at this point went something like this:

Me: Ew, Becky did you fart? (Come on, this is not that out of the question)
Becky: NO? Oh my god, it's the cheese.
Me: Ew!! Do you think it's okay to eat?
Becky: I don't know, you eat it first.
(we sit and stare at the cheese, alternately smelling it and laughing for like 10 minutes)
Me: Maybe we should text Jenn and ask her?
Becky: Yeah, go for it.

So we texted Jen, our resident France expert. She just laughed at us and told us that all French cheese smells bad. We pretended to be reassured and ate the cheese, but we were definitely nervous and awkward the entire time. Kind of took away from the moment, you know?

Monday was kind of a waste, unfortunately. Because the museums were closed, because we were out of money, and because we had packed everything else into the first 3 days, we esentially had nothing left to do. And our flight wasn't until 9:15pm. We wandered around the red light district for a little bit, but ultimately ended up back in the common area of our hostel hanging out with some strange man whose name we do not know but that I like to call Howard, who is in his late 30s and has been traveling the world for a few years now. He really was weird, but he had some great stories about how he met Obama's grandmother in Kenya and all kinds of crazy stuff like that. So that kept us entertained until it was time for the airport.

All in all, I thought Paris was a great city... but I would really like to go back sometime when I have more energy... and money. Up until this weekend I will be scrambling to get the bulk of my work done so that I can have the last week to hang out in CPH with my friends and host fam. I am going to miss this place so much, it's not even funny. I do not envy the people at home who get to deal with my depression once the fairy tale semester is over.

Okay! Time for my last Visual Journal class everrrr. Stay tuned for at least one more blog post in the next week or so. I haven't written much about actual Denmark lately... and there is BIG STUFF going on here, with the COP15 Climate Conference and all that jazz. I just realized this, but it's going to be reeeaalllyyy fun trying to fly out of here on the 20th with all of the climate delegates and world leaders. Yep.


Vi ses!

Bathtime & Transportation Adventures

Hello again, and Happy TAKsgiving! Ahahah sad I missed it in America, but a British Thanksgiving isn't such a bad alternative. Last Wednesday, I set out on a solo adventure for England/Great Britain/The UK/whatever you want to call it, to visit Rachael. She is studying in Bath, which I discovered is not the EASIEST place in the world to get to from Copenhagen. It was my first time traveling alone, and in order to get there I had to:

1. Take a bus, then the metro to the CPH airport.

2. Fly to Milan. The flight changed gates on me not once, not twice, but THREE times.

3. Exit the Milan airport completely, go through check-in/security/passport control all over again. (Sketchiest airport I've ever seen, btw) Fortunately, I found Hannah from my core class on my flight, so even though we weren't continuing to the same place, we kind of helped each other figure out what the heck we were supposed to do with ourselves.

4. Fly from Milan to Bristol.

5. Take a bus from the Bristol airport to the Bristol Temple Meads train station.

6. Take a train from B.T.M. to Bath. Only.... the machine wasn't accepting my card, because it doesn't have some special chip in it, and I didn't have any cash. I called Rachael and she told me to just chance it and not buy a ticket. But we all know how my luck is with THAT sort of thing. Fortunately, a lovely British man ended up buying my ticket for me. So nice!!!!

Yah, so I finally got there & was pretty pleased with myself for making it that far. Rachael and her friend Greg picked me up at the train station, and we wandered around Bath a little bit, saw the Abbey at night, etc. But it started to rain and I was SOOO tired, so we went back to their house. Rachael's program has only 50 American students, and they all live in these little flats together. Great in theory, but I can see how it can get old pretty quickly. It made me really thankful to be in the DIS program, where I'm still meeting new Americans all the time, and can escape to my own little Danish house if I don't want to be around them.

Bath Abbey @ night. Rachael and Greg are in there too, if you look really closely!


Thursday, we got up and did the most touristy thing EVER: the Roman Baths. Entry came with an audio tour, but we kind of breezed through the museum pretty quickly. I have seen so much Roman stuff lately it's not even funny. Probably the highlight (or lowlight, if you will) was the free glass of bath water that we got to drink. It's supposed to have "healing powers" or something..... but it was warm & tasted like eggs. And you all know how I feel about eggs. GROSSSSSSS.



Roman Baths!

Mmmm... Egg water.

Then, Rachael took me hiking, essentially, along this canal path that's kind of hidden. People like to run there, and I can see why because it was beautiful.... but also extremely muddy. Unfortunately, the only shoes I brought were my Uggs, so needless to say I was being a princess and walking SUPER carefully the whole time. We ended up going what I want to say was probably 5-6 miles. A distance that seems a LOT shorter when you are running.


Rachael had class from 4-6, and then we went to see Nicolas Cage "light the city." We got there really late and it was really crowded, so no... I didn't REALLY get to see him. But the lights were pretty, so way to go, Nic. Afterwards, we went to the ASE Thanksgiving dinner, which ... ehhh... wasn't as good as a home cooked Thanksgiving, but it was close enough. I saw an odd selection of people from my school, many of whom I didn't even know went to Gettysburg! You'd think we'd all know each other by now, but apparently not!


After dinner, I went with a bunch of Rachael's friends to a pub called the Huntsman. It was fun... especially since I found a lot of strange connections where her friends have friends who are in MY program, etc. Small world stuff, you know. I will have you know, that I only purchased one drink, but I wasn't even really able to enjoy it. APPARENTLY, the Brits have this rule where someone can toss a coin in your drink at any time if you're not looking, and they say "save the Queen, save the Queen!!" And then you have to drink it really fast and essentially..... save the queen. Being the rookie that I am, I accidentally SWALLOWED the Queen. I mean, I coughed her back up. But it was game over for me at that point. I spent the remainder of the night just trying to take revenge on people.


Friday morning, we got up and explored the Bath Chirstmas market, which is apparently a pretty big deal. It was set up right in the center of town, by the Bath Abbey, and there were tons of little stands set up and it was all decorated and SO CUTE. Rach and I got some hot apple cider, did some Xmas shopping, and sampled a lot of free cheese. (Ok, maybe that was just me.)


Saturday was the big day -- London! Definitely the New York City of Europe, if you ask me. It was cool to be there, but it's not actually at the top of my list of favorite cities. I definitely prefer Copenhagen.... but maybe I'm biased. Anyway, we did a bus tour (rode on the top of a double-decker!! so London-esque!) that enabled us to see a lot of the touristy sites. I took about a million pictures of Big Ben, who incidentally is NOT that big. Our bus tour included a little boat ride out to the Tower Bridge (what most people call the "London Bridge") but it gets dark so early over here, that we ended up seeing the bridge all lit up. 'Twas nice.



LONDON!!


We met up with Becky, Sara, and Stephanie for dinner.... they were on the DIS trip to London for the weekend. They said it didn't compare to Brome, but who could have expected it to?! Anyway, I'm really glad Rachael got to meet them, but the place we went for dinner was overpriced and NOT good. Oh well, it happens.


Afterwards, Rachael and I took the train back to Bath.... and even though our train was delayed, we still ended up missing it. So we had to hang out with the gross pigeons for an hour and wait for the next one. THEN, there was some sort of construction or something, so we got kicked off the train a few stops early and had to take a bus back to Bath. We didn't end up getting back until 1:00 am. Oof.

Finally, I left Sunday morning to do the transportation adventure again. Only this time, my layover was in Barcelona!! I spent a solid 4-5 hours in the Barcelona airport, where I tried to brush up my Spanish a little bit. I even stepped outside the airport so that I could say I've technically been to Spain! After all of that though, I was SO ready to come back to Denmark. The kicker is, I LEAVE AGAIN tomorrow night for Paris. I absolutely love all of this traveling, but I'm slowly burning out. Only 2.5 more weeks of living my life at 100 mph! (Ahh, that's actually really sad) I have so much to be TAKful for. <3


Vi ses!

- Caitlin