Category: Denmark

Hej! God morgen! God aften! Not sure what time you’ll be reading this, but *insert appropriate Danish salutation here*!

I’m currently writing from about 35,000 feet, to a secret destination. And I am very sleepy because this is a very long flight (my longest ever, in fact), but I have yet to sleep a wink. I’ve instead watched two movies and read a good chunk of my current book, The Joy Luck Club. (Mid-book review: a great read, but I’m struggling to keep up with the eight central characters. Thank goodness it’s a paperback, so I can flip around for reference when needed.) On another note, I really have to pee.

But instead of sleeping, I am blogging, because if not now, I’m not sure when. And instead of peeing, I am wishing I could levitate over the boy on the aisle seat so I don’t have to ask him if I can exit for a fourth time. Curse my tiny bladder.

Anywayyyysss… 

If you hadn’t gathered from the greetings, my last visit was to Copenhagen! My third home. (Home one is home, obviously. Home two is Seattle. Home three, Birkerød, and home four is Vancouver with my HPeeps. Tehehe. So hard to keep them sorted.)

When booking this big flight I’m on, I found a perfect combo that left from Copenhagen and landed back in another city I wanted to visit in Europe. (No spoilers!) And it was pretty reasonably priced for being only a month out, especially since I’m visiting a city a lot of other people are visiting this time of year! But more on that later. This is suppose to be all about Denmark, and I keep getting sidetracked. 

Landing in the Copenhagen airport was homey enough. By faaaaar my favorite airport, and my second-most frequented! Everything is so clean, easy to navigate, and cozy. Love it. And security has never taken me more than fifteen minutes.

Host sister Sara met me at the airport, and I was surprised to see nobody was waving Danish flags at the arrival gate! These Danes are getting lazy, I see. Haha. It was a fun surprise for her to meet me though. We went straight to her apartment, and I was tickled to learn that she is now living in a DIS kollegium. DIS is the school I studied at in Copenhagen in 2015, and its host family program is the reason I met the Jensens! A kollegium is a student apartment, and since this one is DIS owned, its residence are half Danes and half American DIS students. So fun that she’s doing that, and so weird to see the DIS logo on everything here! The apartment was super hyggeligt. Impressive.

It was a pretty late flight and another late night to sleep after showering and catching up. One of these days, I’ll get back to my Finnish early-bed-early-rise schedule. I miss it already.

Soon enough, we hit the town. I honestly can’t remember what our original goal was, but we did a lot of lovely wandering along the water.

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We hit up the Black Diamond (national library). This was nice because 1) gotta keep up with my library trend, and 2) last time I visited with Mama and The Boy, it was closed for the new year.

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While wandering the library, I was shocked to learn that one of my favorite hidden Copenhagen gems is located right behind the library! I’d never known because the library is split between an old, vine-covered brick building and the new, monolithic glass structure that gives the library its name. I’d never connected the two dots, so I thought this fountain was basically on the other side of town this whole time.

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Then we hit up our first tower of the day: Christiansborg. I like this one because it’s free. Muahahahaha.

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And then some more water and canal-side trampliiiiiines. I think the world needs more trampolines.

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Next up was Nyhavn. We really covered a lot of ground that day. Quite the sight-seers and thing-doers we are.

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We meant to just walk along the harbor, but when Sara casually mentioned the waffle and ice cream shop, I had to go in for one of my favorite Danish treats – nougat ice cream with whipped cream and jam on top. Yum! Sara called me crazy for wanting ice cream when it was so cold outside. I call myself weather-blind.

There was a cute little Nyhavn sign that had rock climbing handholds on it, so I tried my best to pose with them. This spurred Jonathan to ask if I was somehow standing on something or if I was just “the most stable jumper ever.” Take your pick.

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We also did a little shopping and gallery viewing.

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And some walk, walk, walking.

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We even walked all the way through the King’s Garden surrounding Rosenborg Castle.

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Oh! I remember now! Our original goal was to visit Statens Museum for Kunst – the Danish National Gallery. This is my favorite museum in all of Zealand (the island of Denmark where the greater Copenhagen area is located). When I studied here, it was free, and I would come in all the time just to read or eat or work on my blog because it was so pretty and had such a lovely atmosphere. But by 2017, something changed, so now its entrance fee is about $15. I have yet to convince myself to visit since, but Sara and I were determined, and she wanted to check out the new cafe.

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We were a bit (a lot) disappointed to see that the cafe was rather expensive and fairly lackluster. It just wasn’t what we were looking for in terms of food. We decided to head out for food and come back for the museum, but we never did make it in. Oh well. One of these days I’ll get over my cheapness! (Highly unlikely, though.)

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We quenched our hunger with hotdogs and special pastries only offered this time of year (fastelavnsboller).

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The cashier tried to deny us eating-in-restaurant rights because we had 7-11 hot chocolates, but we convinced her otherwise.

And then the danger began: we visited Søstrene Grøne, by second favorite store in Denmark, and the place I wish I could purchase all of my home goods.

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At one point, looking at the goods in my hands, Sara asked, “Why do you need so many spoons?” Silly question, Sara. Silly question.
And then my favorite place in the whole world (lots of favorites today): Rundetårn!

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I just can’t ever get tired of this place. And it’s cheap, and every time I visit, I feel like I’m seeing the city in a different light. The small museum exhibits have also been different every time I’ve visited. This one featured pieces from a local fashion school.

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Pretty pretty pretty pretty.

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Sara was trying to be studious, so that meant I got to visit my favorite library in the city, Hovedsbibliotek. You may recognize the views from several older blog posts.

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As the sun started to set, we walked around a bit more and made the mistake of stopping by yet another, larger Søstrene Grøne so Sara could grab some larger items she’d wanted to avoid carrying around all day. This would have been fine if not for my weakness for cute things and spoons. I even bought a (second) cutting board. I have a problem.

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Then a quick nap, some more walking, and a trip home to Birkerød for the night! Yay!

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It was so lovely to see Maria and Jesper, as always. Dinner was a deeeeelicious salmon, salad, and potatoes with a dill-yogurt dip. Too good. I also purchased a bunch of Somersby flavors I’d never tried, but I only managed to drink two of them, and I forgot the rest in the fridge.

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I also did some laundry (Maria’s and my own – ha!), and Sara and I watched the new documentary RBG about Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Highly recommend.

I made the unfortunate mistake of staying up past 2:30 fighting with the WordPress app, and then I found out I’m almost out of picture storage, but I persevered. (Thanks, Jonathan). This is what I do for your readership, Daddio. Sleep came with such a sigh of relief, but of course it didn’t last long enough.

Sara and I had plans to visit the Louisiana Museum, after all! And first, we hit up the cafe. I was personally offended to find that they were not serving their lunch buffet all week because their dishwasher was broken, and I settled for three desserts in its place. 

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There was a really cool exhibit all about an architecture firm named Elemental. One section focused on their work with government-assisted or low-income housing, and it detailed the conditions and prices of standard low-income housing in the area versus the homes they created. One thing I really liked about their designs was that they allowed the owners to easily customize and expand the original buildings.

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The focal point of the exhibit was a five-sided box, where the bottom side was missing and the whole box was floating about two feet off the ground. Viewers were meant to crawl under this space and lie under the box to view a video that was projected onto the ceiling. It was pretty neat to see all of these adult Danes crawling around and laying on the floor together.

The other exhibits were largely familiar.

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As was the beautiful outside.

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Sara decided to show me the children’s area, where kids could play with Legos, clay, and paints. And since the whole painting area was empty, we decided to try out our artistry.

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That was fun. The rest of the museum walk was nice and casual.

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We did a little shopping in the museum store to wrap up the visit, and then it was back to the city to check out the Copenhagen Light Festival.

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The old stock exchange building has been used by a private company as an office building for many years, and since they took over, it has only been opened to the public once. This night was the second occasion, and we took advantage of our luck.

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Very pretty. We spent the next hour or so just wandering the city and shopping around.

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We found a secret way to get a great view of Tivoli, and it basically felt like we were inside. Saved $15!

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I really wanted some of these desserts we found, but we were supposed to go get free boas at a new bar called “Hidden Dim Sum by Night.”

It was the grand opening of the restaurant, and at 8pm, they were hanging out a free bun and a free beer to the first 100 customers in line. We got there around 7:45 and… It was pretty obvious we weren’t going to make the cut. They did have some lion dancers from the Chinese-Danish Association of Copenhagen performing to celebrate Chinese New Year, so that was fun. (Sorry for the blurry picture.)

I’ll save you the long story, but basically, we stood in line for about an hour and a half, Sara managed to get a free beer, and I managed to get a free bao. Yay! It was tasty. Sara ordered some extra food because she was hungry by that point, and that was good, too. It was also just a cute little spot. We met one of the owners, the architect for the restaurant design, and a bunch of DIS girls who were waiting in line. Overall not a horrible experience. Just cold!

We marched back to Sara’s place to get some sleep, but first Sara somehow whipped up this fancy chicken meal in no time at all, and we feasted on that a bit. Then sleep time for an early flight in the morning.

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Sara was a lovely host, the Jensens were just as wonderful, and I love that I get to see them so often! Copenhagen and Birkerød will always be my home away from home, and it’s thanks to them!

Next stop is a bit more exotic. Until then…

Venlig hilsen/ best regards,

Lizzy-wa

So remember how I was complaining that if felt like we didn’t do anything on New Year’s? A lot of that feeling centered around two big missed activities: shopping at Tiger (we had shopped around on New Year’s Eve, but we didn’t actually buy anything, and then it closed before we could go back) and climbing the Round Tower.

The top of the Round Tower is likely my number one most favorite place in the entire world, so you can imagine my heartbreak when we decided to leave it for New Year’s Day, only to find that it was closed all day for the holiday. It seemed there was no way around these losses, seeing as we were scheduled to entertain/ be entertained by the Jensen family (my Danish host family when I studied in Copenhagen) all day long.

But wait! Sara’s bus didn’t get in until ten, so we wouldn’t meet up until eleven or so. And Tiger opened at nine. And the Round Tower opened at ten. A coincidence? I think not! It was reckless and crazy, but I was going to Copenhagen in the morning, gosh darn it. The crew decided to join.

Of course, the crew became sidetracked when they saw how close the train station was to a Lagkagehuset. This is my favorite bakery in Denmark, and my go-to pastry is the stor chokoladebolle, or ‘large chocolate bun.’ I picked out Jonathan’s favorite (meaning I assumed it would be his favorite thing in the store, and he swiftly became obsessed), a jordbær kage, or ‘strawberry cake.’ Less a cake and more a tart, this delicacy consists of a tart pastry cup dipped in chocolate, filled with such delicious and fluffy whipped cream, and topped with a healthy heaping of fresh strawberries with a sweet gelatin glaze.

Sorry if that made you drool at all. After trying his first one, Jonathan declared, ‘I think I could eat five more of those.’ This became a regular phrase when in the vicinity of a jordbær kage. My mom was more adventurous, as she chose not to limit herself and to instead order two to three different pastries each day. Don’t worry, don’t worry. She didn’t eat them all herself. I think her favorite ended up being the little pepperoni pizzas, though.

As we guiltily shuffled out of Lagkagehuset for the umpteenth time, a familiar ‘Lizzy!’ was thrown across the busy street of Strøget. Everybody turned but me, though I eventually realized it was indeed someone we knew. A wild Sara Jensen! She had been on her way to the Round Tower to tell us to meet her at home so she could go take a nap. Pretty funny timing.

Then on to Tiger and its less-lit, classier sister, Søstrene Grene, where we spent around forty dollars on many adorable things we did not need. Eventually, we did make it to the Round Tower.

As usual, the views were ahhhmazinggg…

Jonathan got pretty freaked out by the view down to the bottom. Supported by nothing but a plexiglass plate… He was mostly terrified because he didn’t see the glass at first, so he thought I was just trying to kill him. Whoops.

Then time for some posing!

 

It was bright. Tehe. Turned out we picked the right day to climb Rundetårn, seeing as the other days, we’d have been drenched, and our view obscured.

On our way to the train station, we caught sight (and sound) of something I’ve never seen before! It was the march that the guards perform before the changing of the guard at noon, but this time they were led by the royal guard band!

We’d have followed them if we had more time, but alas. A quick pølser stop…

Then running late as always, we took the S train to my Danish hometown of Birkerød, and I was able to show the crew my daily commute home. I had a moment of hesitation when trying to remember which bus to take to my house after the train, but we made it safely to the Jensens’.

Love this place. We exchanged hellos and my mom finally met my Danish dad, and then we went on a little walk around the neighborhood to take advantage of the sunlight.

This was all just a precursor, really, to the buffet at Louisiana Museum.

I cannot adequately describe how delicious this food is. It is just… Golly goodness. Jonathan went back for thirds or something crazy because he was bitter that we didn’t get a discount on Sara’s membership card. ‘Gotta get our money’s worth,’ he kept saying. Everybody looked stuffed and satisfied by the time we made our way to the actual museum. We started with the outdoor sculpture park and a view of Sweden across the water…

Then in to the winding depths of Louisiana.

This room was very strange. The lights were a mix of bright greens and blues, and it messed with our vision such that my blue shirt looked grey, and my mom’s red jacket and Jonathan’s red pants looked black.

This piece was also super cool. There were three sculptures covered in volcanic ash, and if you made enough noise by clapping or stomping around near one of the sculptures, more ash would rain down from these vents up above. Jonathan was very good at this, seeing as how he is essentially a child with no respect for the serenity of silent art spaces.

It was actually really cool though, and we got a bunch of other curious onlookers to join in. #art.

Then some colors and lines…

Mom was especially intrigued by this piece, called something like Mr. Hand, Mrs. Butt, Mrs. Knee, and Mr. Foot.

I was caught a bit off guard in that one.

Now these shoes. These shoes tell a story all on their own. You see, Thursday evening as I was leaving for work, I got a text from Sara Jensen. She had been in Seattle a couple weeks before, and she had found some Vans that she really really liked, but she had convinced herself she didn’t need them. Then she got home and discovered they were $35 more expensive in Denmark, and she instantly had to have them. (I’m paraphrasing.) So for the remainder of Thursday night and into Friday morning, Sara Lee went on a mad goose hunt for these shoes, and my mom carried them all the way to Denmark for Sara Jensen. Both Saras seemed rather pleased with the transaction.

This is the permanent infinity mirror installation in Louisiana. Yayoi Kusama designed the space. It was funny to see the hubbub created for her exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum a few months ago. Tickets were upwards of $40, and people stood in line for hours to get them, only to find that they would be sold out for the day. When I studied in Denmark, though, Yayoi’s exhibit was at Louisiana, and I saw it three times for the measly price of a one-time $20 membership! What a win.

This was some crazy ten-minute slow-motion video of about twenty people getting doused with firehose-type blasts of water from both sides. Not sure what it symbolized, but it was very dramatic and mesmerizing.

And theeennn…

More Jensens! I actually slept through the first hour or two of bonding because I was positively pooped. Jonathan, Mama Bear, Sara, and Maria played Partners, a game similar to Sorry but better in every way. I also forgot to take pictures because by the time I woke up, I was ravenous again, and I was so super pumped for Jesper’s cooking. He had made lamb, potatoes (so good!), a tzatziki sauce, and salad with my favorite Danish feta cheese. Seriously so much satisfaction. And my mom was super pumped that Jesper had gotten some gløgg for her.

We rounded out the night with some more games and some leftover fireworks from New Year’s.

 

Sara drove us to our Airbnb at the end of the night, but when we arrived, I realized I’d forgotten my jacket (with our keys in the pocket) back at the Jensen home. On our way back for round two, everyone was giving me a hard time, until I looked over and pointed out that Jonathan didn’t have his coat, either! Turns out he realized his mistake shortly after I did, but he had planned to sneakily grab his cost without letting us be any the wiser. Disgusting…

We were tired as can be, but we managed to stumble our way through packing before crawling into bed.

Aaaand that’s pretty much a wrap on Denmark. You’ll get an update from Norway tomorrow! Until next time…

Venlig hilsen/ best regards,

Lizzy-wa

The morning after New Year’s Eve hit us hard, despite the lack of alcohol the night before. I set my alarm for 8:30, but somehow needed to be woken up by Mama Bear at ten. We were better this day about getting up and moving quickly, though, after having experienced the full effect of three hours of daylight. (Disclaimer – there are actually about eight hours of daylight in the Copenhagen area this time of year, but on New Year’s Eve, we were really only outside for three of them. Whoops..)

I was a bit torn due to our limited daylight and full plate of activities. I really really really wanted the crew to see Frederiksborg Castle, my favorite castle in Denmark. When I was studying in Copenhagen, I would sometimes stay on the train after class and pass my house so I could hang out by this castle for an hour or so before heading home.

The problem is that Frederiksborg Castle is up north, and Copenhagen was south of where we were staying. To see the castle would eat up two to three hours of our time, slashing away our options for sightseeing in the city.

But alas! I am weak, and my crew refused to guide me, so I decided the castle deserved our company.

We were greeted in Hillerød by a friendly windstorm, dashed with rain here and there. The castle and gardens were worth it though, to no surprise!

I was sad that there wasn’t any snow on the ground, but the castle gardens were gorgeous, nonetheless.

And the castle itself wasn’t half bad, either!

A successful trip to Frederiksborg Slot, if I do say so myself.

Next, we headed into Copenhagen to peruse Kastellet, a beautiful star-shaped fortress from back in the day.

I guess that stop was mostly a Jonathan photo shoot…

But not the next one! On to see the Little Mermaid. But first, the BIG Little Mermaid!

Gotta love her. And her abs.

The ‘real’ Little Mermaid was next on the list. We stopped for a sandwich and a French hotdog first, though. Ate too fast to take pictures!

Circling around Kastellet, we made our way to my mom’s favorite fountain, Gefionspringvandet.

The water wasn’t running )’: but normally the fountain sprays up at the oxen so that it looks as though they are storming through a ferocious river.

Afterwards, we set off for Amalienborg and the Marble Church. (As I’m writing this, I realize how silly that day was. I ended the evening feeling as though we didn’t do much during the day, but we actually did so much!)

Next was a walk to Nyhavn…

And my favorite Nyhavn waffles and ice cream with whipped cream and strawberry jam!

Aaaaaaaand, finally, that’s a wrap on New Year’s Day! Time for some sleeping. Until next time…

Venlig hilsen/ best regards,

Lizzy-wa

(Translation: Happy New Year!)

I hope everyone had a lovely New Year! Whether you were celebrating, dancing, babysitting, or marveling the fireworks, the most important thing is that we got to celebrate about nine hours before most of you. 😛

New Year’s Eve was a longgg day for us. Jonathan and I woke up around 4:30, and my mom woke up around 6. Of course, that didn’t help us get out the door before noon, but what are you gonna do?

I sent my mom and Jonathan to the grocery store at some point to get us body wash and breakfast, and they came back far too quickly, my mom giggling up a storm because they hadn’t actually managed to find the grocery store. I’m pretty sure they went the exact opposite direction from which they should have headed, and they found themselves in a little grocery kiosk called Circle K. They decided that was good enough, so they grabbed some snacks, forgot the body wash, and headed back.

Next, my mom tried venturing to the Lagkagehuset across the street, my favorite bakery in Denmark. She came back a few minutes later, flustered and frantic because the Danish was just too much to handle! I had to go back in with her and sort everything out (in English, because everybody actually does speak English here.) The baked goods were worth it, though, and I got my signature stor chokolade boller for free because they only had one tiny one left. Huzzah!

Then on to Copenhagen. We wandered my favorite store on the entire planet, Tiger, and then perused the shopping streets of downtown. Everything was alive and bright, and it was hard to resist the sales.

Street performers were braving the cold just as we were, and they were pretty talented, too!

We took our time crossing the canals to Christiansborg Slot (Castle).

The tower in the castle was closed because of the holiday, but my favorite part of Christiansborg is the view of the royal stables, anyway!

We took advantage of the pretty Copenhagen Orange buildings…

And mom posed with this creepy statue.

On our way to the Black Diamond library, we found a sidewalk trampoline (my favorite!) and messed around for a while!

Never too old to take advantage of an unoccupied playground…

Next, we sipped down some gløgg (spiced wine) and wandered Christiania.

The sun faded pretty quickly after that, so that when we made it back downtown, it was already pitch black. Oh, and it was positively freezing. And raining. Yaaaay. Also, the entire city seemed to shut it’s doors at 4:00, something I’ve never seen before. Dang New Year ruined our chance at more shopping and a real dinner.

One thing we were keeping in mind was that we really wanted to see the famous New Year’s speech that the Danish queen does every year, and we also wanted to warm up, so we grabbed a table at the Hard Rock Cafe to await the big 6:00 appearance.

But alas! Either that silly hostess lied to us, or somebody forgot, because 6:00 came and went with no sign of the queen. It was pretty annoying, honestly, since we really only stopped here for that, and we paid about $20 for a single drink to share. Ugh.

On to Tivoli…

Tivoli is always pretty when dressed for the winter season, and this time around was no different. We dazedly wandered the lights and markets, sipping yet more gløgg and snacking on some very expensive and sub-par æbleskiver (traditional Christmas pancake balls with jam and powdered sugar).

I also found a crazy bathroom that had a normal sized toilet and a tiny kid’s toilet in the same room:

Crazy.

We were too tired to stay for the fireworks at 11, so we headed back to the Airbnb around 9:30. After a quick shower and a nap, we woke up to celebrate the new year by staring in awe at the crazy fireworks in our neighborhood. It was honestly like we were under siege! I’m not kidding. Fireworks everywhere. Big ones. Loud ones. Bright ones. In every direction. And they lasted for nearly an hour after midnight came around! My mom said it was the craziest thing she’d ever seen. Not sure where these crazy Danes got all the money for their pyrotechnics. Must be state-subsidized… Hahaha.

Jonathan and I finished off the night with some flødebøller, to which he remarked, ‘I didn’t know this was missing in my life.’

Flødebøllers are hard to explain without being able to taste it for yourself, but it is essentially little mound of marshmallow fluff covered in a thin, crisp layer of chocolate with a wafer cookie on the bottom. They truly are life-changing.

So, that was how we spent our New Year. Mostly cold and rainy, but it went out with a bang (literally). More come in 2018…

Venlig hilsen/ best regards,

Lizzy-wa

Alright. I spent three and a half days in Copenhagen/ Birkerød, even though I originally planned for only two days. The issue was that because I started planning this trip so late, flights weren’t as cheap as they can be. Additionally, this week was the start of summer vacation for the Danes, so most flights out of Copenhagen were a lot worse than normal. I needed to get to the Netherlands to see a friend and because I had a flight out of Amsterdam on the 30th. The only thing was, flights from Copenhagen to the Netherlands were over $200, which is much more than I was willing to spend, especially because sometimes you can get that flight for $35.

So I waited. And I waited. And I waited. And unsurprisingly, flight prices did not drop. I eventually had to give in and buy an $80 ticket for a 12 hour night bus. Gah. At least all of my indecisiveness allowed me to decide last-minute to stay an extra day with my second family. I think I really needed that.

That being said, I’m going to try to cover my entire Denmark stay in one post. Let’s see how long it is!

When I arrived from Naples, Sara picked me up from the airport with a welcome wave of both Danish and American flags. I love that.

She had a big day planned, and our first stop was a high school graduation party for her cousin.

You see, the Danes are cray. When they graduate high school, they had a tradition where each class (20-30 kids) load up into the back of this huge truck (pictured below) early in the morning. Then they spend the entire day (like seriously, well into the night) driving to each classmate’s house. At each house, they go in, eat, drink, and party with the fam for about ten minutes, and then pile back into the truck to continue to the next house. Insane!

This house was only the fifth or sixth stop, but the truck still ended up being over an hour late because of late stays at other houses. Whenever we heard the loud music, whistles, and screaming of a graduation truck, the little neighbor boys would run around the house screaming, “They’re coming now! They’re coming now!” in Danish. So cute. The boys were even styling each other’s hair and trying to figure out if they had on the best outfit for the occasion while we waited. Sara’s cousin also just had a super cool house! With some of my favorite books in Danish! 

Finally, the actual truck we were waiting for rolled up the street. The boys went crazy, and the graduates were probably equally as crazy. They all had whistles and duck-noise makers and danced all the way into the house.

I was pretty confused because one boy came in and hugged everyone (including me), so I figured this was the cousin. But it was actually just some random boy in the class. Hahaha.

The graduates ate some snacks, took some shots, and danced around a little more before piling back into the truck again. All in all, seems like a pretty cool tradition. Kind of wish we had something like this, but maybe a little less intense. It probably also wouldn’t be as fun since we would not be allowed to get drunk all day straight out of high school. Hahaha. Not sure how Danes have such a high tolerance! I would die!

After this, Sara and I decided to indulge in some authentic Swedish meatballs at IKEA. So great. She was also very impressed that I was able to order my ten meatballs in Danish. Ha! If there’s one thing I can do in Danish, it’s order food!

We pretty much crashed right when we got home. Can’t blame us. We’d had a very busy day of traveling, partying, and eating!

Sunday, we basically woke up and went straight to the airport to pick up my HP friend, Robert, who just so happens to live and work in Amsterdam now! I was pretty psyched to see this weirdo.

Unfortunately, it would seem I have terrible luck at surprising people at airports. The first time Sara and I picked up Jackson two years ago, we thought we had plenty of time while he waited for his bags, so we wandered off to Starbucks and he ended up surprising us from behind while we searched the random strangers for his face. Turns out he didn’t have any checked bags!

This time was a similar situation. I knew Robert did, in fact, have checked bags, so I saw that they were still being delivered and thought I had time to run to the lady’s room. There was a line though, and by the time I got back up to the arrivals area, Robert was among the other waiting people, looking very confused and searching for me. Ha! I suck.

Reunions and introductions ensued. And then we were off to seek out what Sara deemed some of the best ice cream ever, in an adorable little seaside town near the airport. ‘Twas delicious, indeed. I enjoyed my ice cream the only way you can in Denmark: in a cone topped with whipped cream and strawberry jam. Seriously. Try it.

We wandered the coastline for a bit and watched some half-naked lady in the middle of a really awkward photo shoot.

Then we wandered another coastal park…

And then Sara dropped Robert and me off in Copenhagen to do a little exploring. We were given only one request: please don’t climb the Round Tower. Sara wanted to climb it with us the next day.

So of course, shortly after we arrived in the city, we did what any two sensible command-following engineers would do and we climbed that the, gosh darnit.

Bahahaha. It was an accident, I swear. I just love the Round Tower so much, and after we had wandered a bit, we stumbled across it and I basically skipped inside. It wasn’t until we had purchased our tickets and started the ascent that I realized what we had done. Robert can’t be to blame, as he didn’t really know which tower it was that we were not supposed to climb, or which tower we were climbing, for that matter. It was all my fault. But I couldn’t help it! I just got so excited! I think that was probably my fifth or sixth time up that tower, and it never gets old. It’s one of my favorite places in all of Europe.

I felt bad. I admit it. But not bad enough to not climb yet another tower! This time it was the tower in Christiansborg Slot, and I had actually never done this one before! It was pretty fancy. Elevator and all, and it was free, too!

Always nice to get a different view of one of your favorite cities.

I felt on a roll after doing something I had never done before in Copenhagen, so I thought we would try out the national history museum I had never entered. It was free, anyway, so why not?

Well. Somehow. Someway. In the last year and a half, the museum started charging admission! And so did my other favorite place in Copenhagen, the Danish National Gallery! So upsetting! Free the art! Free the culture!

But nothing could be done. I decided the only way to cheer myself up would be to explore some more, and with my favorite pastry from Lagkagehuset, to boot…

Eat a street hotdog with the works…

And hit up my favorite store, Tiger.

I didn’t get the foam finger, but I did get some adorable tiny razors and some super cool ‘soap leaves,’ like those Listerine  (sp?) breathstrips from back in the day, but the strips are soap instead! So cool!

To top it all off, we did something I haven’t done in a long time and should start doing more often: WE WENT DANCING.

I love dancing in Copenhagen. Everybody is so good. And nice. And generally older and adorable. Plus I forced the DJ to dance with me, which is one of my dancing fetishes. Bahahahaha.

We also admired Copenhagen’s new metro plan. So cool. So circular.

All in all, definitely a successful day in Copenhagen, and a good first day in Denmark for Robert, wrapped up with a quick stop into Ørstedsparken.

Then sleep. Then Copenhagen round two! With Sara this time! Our first stop was Amalienborg, the Queen’s palace. We wanted to get there by noon to see the changing of the guards, but on our way there, we actually ran into the guards themselves just as they were beginning their daily parade of the streets.

We followed them all the way through Copenhagen and to Amalienborg, enjoying watching the many other tourists chase after them at every corner. Yet another thing I’ve never done before in Copenhagen! And a first for Sara, too!

Next, some wanderings.

To the opera house…

To my mom’s favorite fountain, featuring Sara…

To The Little Mermaid…

To a French hotdog snack with The Big Mermaid (my title)…

To Nyhavn! …

And then to get lunch on Paper Island, yet another new place for me. I was seriously impressed with all the ‘news’ I had this trip.

Paper Island is essentially a giant street food extravaganza inside an old shipping storage center type thing. Everything looked and smelled positively delicious. Like you can’t even imagine. Food from all over the world, and it was all as colorful and mouthwatering as can be. I had just finished that hotdog though, so I opted for some cheesecake. (:

After lunch, we hit up Christania, an alternative community right in the center of Copenhagen that used to be some sort of military base and was taken over by squatters in the seventies. Very hippy-ish I suppose, and Lukas Graham grew up here! The man himself!

We topped off the day with another first: I finally got to jump around on this set of trampolines that are just set into the walkway along the water. I never have been able to find them before! It was liberating. But it also kinda hurt my back. Bahahaha. I guess I’m getting old.

 

That night, we indulged in some strawberry cereal. A very strange concept, but surprisingly delicious, nonetheless. Just whole, fresh strawberries, milk, cream, and sugar. Yum.

I slept pretty well that night and had a very easy schedule planned for my last day in Denmark. Oh! Before I forget. My first night here was the shortest night of the year, and when I went to bed around midnight, it still wasn’t even close to dark out! Crazy!

Anyway, for my last morning, I woke up and had some of my delicious standard Danish breakfast: yogurt, muesli, and a whole fresh apple cut into it.

I lazed around for a while, and then Sara and I went for a lovely bike ride around the lake and through the neighboring fields.

Eventually, it came time to drag my feet and pack my things. I was super sad to leave my home in Birkerød, but as Sara pointed out, I seem to come back so often that it doesn’t seem that big of a deal to leave for a while.

I met up with Robert in Copenhagen for a last meal (burgers haha)…

And then I bid him farewell as I boarded my 12 hour bus that became 13, destination: Amsterdam.

Talk soon.

 

Venlig hilsen/ best regards,

Lizzy-wa

Halfway there, in a matter of speaking! I’m currently sitting on a cold wooden bench in the Frankfurt airport, snacking on the free chocolate croissant I got on the way here. My flight to seattle boards in 1.5 hours!

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This is honestly pretty surreal, because the flight here was just like any of the others I’ve taken around Europe this semester. The only difference was that I had to check my bags beforehand (and pay 660 kroner for the second one). Then it was smooooth sailing. I now consider myself a frequent flyer, though since I’ve been airline hopping, I’m not yet allowed into any of the pretty Senator Lounges.

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I got a nice round two ish hours of sleep last night once I had finished packing for today. The whole Jensen family woke up at four am and drove me to the airport. BUT BEFOREHAND: Jesper came to get my bags and check on my empty room, and he noticed the house key I had left sitting on the dresser. This is what followed:

Jesper: This is for you. (holds out key in palm)

Me: What? (utterly befuddled)

Jesper: It’s a gift!

Me: … What? (still befuddled)

Jesper: A symbolic gift.

Me: (finally understanding) Oooh, really? Are you sure? (takes key)

Jesper: Of course. (pats shoulder) You are always welcome here.

I then proceeded to swallow my tears and thank him in a reasonable manner that did not involve the flinging of arms around horrendously tall shoulders and sobbing, much as I would have liked.

My dark, depressing, empty room

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At the airport, I pretended I was Danish a few more times, and then it was time to leave my wonderful vaertsfamilie. They have been so unbelievably welcoming and have played a huge role in my study abroad experience. They brought me in right away, and then they brought in Jackson, too. I could not ever possibly thank them enough. (I’LL BE BACK.)

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I kept most of the tears at bay until I ascended the Departures escalator, even though I had previously convinced myself I would not cry. Whatcha gonna do?

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The Lufthansa flight was nice, but I chose the wrong side of the plane!!! In all my tiredness while choosing seats, my brain reasoned that, following the traditional orientation of a compass, East = Right and West = Left. Therefore, since I wanted a view of the sunrise (rises in the east, sets in the west), I chose my seat on the right side of the plane. We were flying south of course, so all of my reasoning was backwards. I had a view of some murky blueish mush while the Left Side had their sights on one of the most gorgeous sunrises I’ve ever seen. All reds and oranges. Gah. Oh well! Maybe I picked the right (as in correct) side for my longer flight to Seattle. At least I know I have a window seat!

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Okay. I really can’t think of much else to say. I’m just tired and sad and excited and hungry and tired and broke all at the same time. Emotions, man.

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Well. If you’re reading this from Washington State or Trondheim, Norway, I’ll probably see you soon. If not, I’ll try to make it happen again someday. I love you all!!!! Thank you so much for following my adventures on my biggest journey yet (and for living vicariously through me if your name is Mom). Sorry I never did a Paris post. I never got all my pictures off of Jackson’s computer. Something might appear later, just for my own sake, since this is kind of acting as an electronic scrapbook for me, if you haven’t noticed. Wow that was a lot of commas.

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Okay… I guess this is it! So anticlimactic! I feel like I need to hug you goodbye or something…. But since I can’t,

Venlig hilsen/ best regards,

Lizzy-wa OUT! ;D

LAST NIGHT HERE. I AM DYING. NO. WAIT. I AM ALREADY DEAD. THIS CAN’T BE REAL LIFE. PLEASE PINCH ME. OR LET ME STAY. OR SOMETHING!!!!!?!?!

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Sorry, Mom. This is a dramatic time for me. My fairy tale is about to come to an end, and I will be catapulted back to the world where frugality matters and the only foreign languages I hear are Chinese and Korean. Also, I’ll have to re-teach myself math that goes beyond the conversion of kroner to dollars. (I just found my calculator at the back of a drawer while packing yesterday. Can you believe I brought that thing? Silly.)

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If nothing else, at least this week has been one for the books (my scrapbook in particular, whose every page is full and whose spine has been dismantled).

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Monday: What did I even do on Monday? That was practically a lifetime ago… Oh, right! I went into town to listen to some fellow Creative Travel Writing students present their work. It was quite entertaining, and terrible and cheap champagne was provided. I bought a Danish afterwards:

Oops! Forgot I’m not supposed to call them that! Tehe.

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Also took a last couple looks at the Ferris Wheel in Gammel Torv next to DIS:

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Tuesday: Louisiana trip number two in the span of a week. (Tonia and Mikayla invited me to go, yet again, yesterday, but I had to decline because a person can only look at so many polka dots before they start to go crazy. (Take the artist herself, for example…) This time was with Tessa and Phoebe!

On my way to the museum ^

Found this little guy, too. Almost bought him. Can you blame me?

Giant polka-pumpkin

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Cue polka music:

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Wow. You may rest now.

I hadn’t realized the museum was right next to the ocean, but this hipster diver-turned-artist certainly did.

Afterwards, we headed to the tantalizing Louisiana Cafe, where I successfully chatted and ordered some smørrebrød med laks, in Danish, of course! Gosh, I will miss this wonderful language! Plus, they sure do know how to pile their salmon high. Nothing wrong with that.

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When I got home, Jesper and I went Christmas tree hunting and chased down this beauty:

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Wednesday was another solo adventure day for me once I had finished my Sustainable Development final. I started with a trip to Tivoli:

Doesn’t this giant wooden reindeer make you think of the Trojan Horse?

I only went in, of course, because I was nearby and needed some pretty scenery to enjoy whilst enjoying one of my last stor chokoladeboller from Lagkagehuset.

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Then I made my way over in search of a castle and a zoo, but I found this beautiful park first:

This was one of the entrances to the crypts, but they close during the winter months, so I couldn’t check them out.

Okay. This is technically where the castle was supposed to be, but I had seen pictures before and it just looked wrong somehow. Slightly distorted and even curved a little bit maybe? Turns out, it was the backside! And it is indeed curved!

Spotting one of my last grey-and-black patterned crows, which are about a million times prettier than the nasty things you find flying around Washington

A grotto- it was pretty creepy inside, with a bunch of ancient-looking statues and a very tomb-like vibe.

AND THEN I FOUND THE ZOO. (And some Santas.) I was supposed to be looking at elephants, but zebras, giraffes, and gazelles suit me fine, as well. (I tried to tell my mom about it, all excited, and she started telling me all about this crazy stuff they’ve done here…. At least I didn’t pay admission. (Note: don’t click link if queasy.)

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I made my way around the entire park, because the sun had made a surprise appearance just for me after laying dormant for weeks. I eventually found some camels (?!?!):

And then some flamingos (?!??!?!!?):

 

They’re way in the distance there. The super bright hot-pink-red dots. These little fellas were not the “flamingo” pink I’ve come to know from their plastic relatives. It was amazing. Afterwards, I found a casual temple on the side of the path:

Finally, I found the correct park:

This place was gorgeous beyond gorgeous, and the icy sun made everything that much better. I honestly couldn’t believe anything that was happening. It was like I was walking through a story book all day long, and everything kept getting better and better. For example, I FOUND THE ELEPHANTS:

There were two females and one male, tusks and all. His tusks were so long that the ends had to be cut down a little bit because they were clashing with each other. I kid you not. I watched these elephants for half an hour. The smallest one tried to balance a ball on her head for about ten minutes and would rock side-to-side to match it when it would fall and swing on its chain. When I finally tried to leave, I ended up finding an even better viewpoint farther up the path and had to watch again. The male was doing this strange walking ritual over and over and over again, facing the glass where viewers inside the zoo would stand. I could not figure out what he was doing!

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I walked through the park for about an hour afterwards.

LOOK AT ALL THE BIRDS. I tried to count, but there were just too many. Geese, ducks, seagulls, cranes, pigeons, crows, you name it. Birds just make me happy, man.

I believe those three birds in the back are white peacocks with their feathers trimmed, because they have the exact same shape and the funny little feathers on their heads, but when they fanned out their tail feathers, it only looked like this:

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I really was in heaven, though:

And I found the front side of the castle, Fredericksberg Slot, waving its Danish flag tall and proud:

Oh. There was also the Bird Man:

He had a whole bag of some sort of grain or seed, and these seagulls were bombarding him. At the moment this shot was taken, three were fighting over the coveted seat on top of his hat. Every time he would shoo one away, a different one would take its place, just standing up there like the man was a statue. How great is Copenhagen?

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One last nature picture…

And a view of the castle from afar…

And that fancy landscape design that is only found in the royal parks of Europe.

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Next step, bus stop. Finally time to call it a day, right? Wrong. Because I found ice skaters and yet another park, both of which begged for my admiration and attention!

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The park was called Haveselskabets Have, and it was a narrow little maze of small, intricately designed spaces.

I’m going to miss this lovely orange color that you find everywhere in Copenhagen, though you can only really appreciate its richness when the sun its it just right.

Yes. Those are my boots. My socks were soaked and dark brown by the time I got them back on. All for art!

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Once I reluctantly made it onto the bus, I met with Erin from the Iceland Gang for one last cup of coffee (so many ‘lasts’…), and we caught up a bit and did some Christmas shopping.

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When we said goodbye, I ran (literally) to the Glyptotek art museum to try to catch a glimpse of some French Impressionism before it closed at five, but when I got in there and asked for a free ticket, out of breath, the man behind the counter told me in a very bored and confused tone that the Glyptotek was free on Tuesdays, not Wednesdays… I slumped forward in despair, totally distraught that my as yet perfect day had come to such a disappointing and anticlimactic end. I regathered my things from the locker room and trudged my way to the train station, which just so happens to be right next to Tivoli, so….

I went in, of course. Gotta use that season pass! Plus, they do a big light show over the lake every hour on the hour, and Jackson and I kept missing it while we were there. Thank goodness for my detour, because the show was spectacular!

There was smoke, lights, fountains, fire, and lasers, and it was all set to the main themes and story line of the Nutcracker. So Christmas-y. I love it.

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Last thing for Wednesday, I promise. I was starving when I walked into the station, and those 7-11 croissants had been begging to be eaten all semester, so I gave it a go.

Not bad, but I’ve had better. At least now I know!

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Thursday was a bit more mellow, due to the fact that I spent most of it indoors writing my ten-page paper for Royalty in the Land of Equality. In fact, I didn’t actually go outside at all, and I don’t think I even put on pants all day. Awkward.

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Friday was another slow one, filled with yet more writing (and finishing!) of that pesky essay and packing. I did manage to pop over to Mikayla’s house for some home-cooked enchiladas and a nice goodbye-slash-feel sorry for ourselves session with Tonia. Yum/ boo.

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I did go into town to turn in the hard copy of my essay, though, and I did another adventure!

This is the inside of “Copenhagen’s Cathedral,” which I didn’t know about until I read a little walking tour how-to article from 1969 whilst researching about the royal family for my paper. What I didn’t know was that the cathedral was the gigantic building I walk by on my way to class five times a week. I had been wondering all semester what lay inside this thing, and the door happened to be open, so in I wandered, and BOOM. Cathedral. Plus a practicing choir that sounded inhuman. It was mesmerizing, and I watched until they left! (I also had heard about the supposed “Church of Our Lady” that I just had to see (can’t remember who told me that), but I had never gotten around to looking it up! Everything came together at the end, though.

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I turned in my paper, bought some last-minute souvenirs and some freshly roasted caramel almonds, got another peek at the Ferris wheel, and scurried back home for dinner.

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Today, I dragged Maria and Mikayla out of bed around 8:30 so we could adventure in the city one last time. First we got some hot chocolate, but I forgot to take a picture because it was in a to-go cup, which I have become very opposed to since experiencing the wonders of The Cafe Mug for Here.

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And then… Dun, dah-dah-DUUUUUUN. I finally got to do a canal tour!!! And just in time, too. The weather was positively perfect :crisp, cool, and blue. I even broke out my sunglasses for the first time since Paris.

Woah. I have no idea how that happened, but I like it… Okay so from left to right and down: Nyhavn, the Playhouse (theatre), the Opera House, the backside of the Little Mermaid (haven’t seen that one before, have you?), some canals, the spiral tower of Church of Our Saviour (more on that in a bit!), the Black Diamond (Royal Library), some canoers in Santa hats who followed us half the time going under a tunnel, and the Borse (old stock exchange). Wow. That was fast.

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When the canal tour was finished, we went and climbed Our Savior’s Church’s famous spiral tower! I’ve been trying to get up there for four months, and every time something has gotten in the way. But not today, my last day!

Wow. This feature is actually super nice. Okay, here we go: map of the view, some roads, some canals and the shadow of the tower itself, a bunch of really important buildings including Christiansborg Slot and the Borse, buildings, roads, wind turbines in the distance, and the spiral staircase.

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Woo! So cool! But here are my favorites:

Love the golden gates.

The very last steps. Those designers weren’t messing around, and I made sure to squeeze up there and make it all the way to the top!

Here’s the church from ground level.

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We climbed down, I said goodbye to Mikayla, and then it was time for my first ever julefrokost (Christmas lunch) with Scan|Design! So much food was had. And so much of the alcohols.

When I first arrived, all that was on the table was a few giant pitchers of Carlsberg beer. I poured myself a small glass to be adventurous, but it actually wasn’t that bad! Then our little old waiter went around the table and poured each of us a shot of schnapps, which I was not expecting. The Danes proceeded to sing some loud and boisterous “schnapps chant” before taking their shots. I sipped mine. This ritual occurred five more times throughout the feast, and by the end of the lunch, sip-by-sip, I had managed to polish off my first shot glass. Go me! The waiter reappeared during dessert to ask, “Brandy or Bailey’s?” (I took the Bailey’s, and I finished that, too! Not even buzzed because of all the food in my tummy!)

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Here was the first course, which consisted of several fish dishes, traditional pickled herring, and eel. I stuck to the salmon.

Here’s the gang! We also had a meat course which consisted of duck (yum!), frikadeller (meatballs), and roast pork.

Dessert was my longed-for ris ala mande, a traditional Danish cinnamon and almond rice pudding topped with warm cherry sauce. SOOOO GOOODDDD…. But I was so full. It was hard to appreciate it. But I did.

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Anyway. THANK YOU SO MUCH, SCAN|DESIGN, for providing me with such wonderful cultural excursions, friends, and connections in Denmark! I am forever grateful!

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I rode the silent car of the train home for the last time:

And we rounded off my stay in the Jensen household with some pulled pork wraps for dinner. It was my idea, since that was the very first dinner I had here, the day I landed in Denmark! Couldn’t be more happy with my wonderful Danish family. Gah. I love them so much. I will miss doing dishes with Sara and soaking her with water as I fling the salad-rinser around until it is dry. I will miss Jesper’s “HE-LLO!”s every time he comes in the door and his “GOOD MO-RNING!”s every time I emerge from my room. I will miss Maria’s ridiculously on-point dancing and singing to Beyonce, Justin Beiber, and Lukas Graham. I will miss all of this! Don’t make me leave, guys!!!

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Just kidding. I’m excited to see my Mama and my puppy, and I can’t wait to crash in my sister’s dorm room like she has crashed in mine so many times before. Won’t that be something? (Not Europe, but something.)

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And speaking of Lukas Graham, you should go listen to him, because he is Danish and wonderful and he grew up in Christiania!!! My man! He also just performed on Conan the other night. Making it to the big leagues. SO PROUD. EVEN THOUGH I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING. But I am now Danish, and we take pride in the accomplishments of other Danes, no matter how small. (Did you know LEGOs are Danish?!)

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Okay. Sorry for the ridiculously long posts lately. I am just too lazy to break it up because it gets so confusing sometimes. At least you won’t have to read anymore of these pretty soon!!!!! ): ): ):

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Right. I need to shower and pack because it is 11:30 and I need to wake up at three for my flight home tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Goodnight/ Godnat,

Venlig hilsen/ best regards,

Lizzy-wa

(Can you find me in the “i amsterdam” letters?)

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This is it, folks. The final stretch. The final hours. I’ll be home on Sunday, and I will most likely be in shock. Do not be alarmed if when I see you again I do not remember your face. It will come with time.

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What may never come is the full realization of all I have DONE this past semester. For one, I’ve completed my first college semester! That’s exciting, since UW is technically on the quarter system. Wow.

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But enough of that. I don’t have the energy to dwell on my quickly dwindling time abroad. I’ll just tell you about the Netherlands instead, to further procrastinate on the three papers I have due within the next few days. (UPDATE: I started writing this a few days ago, and I am now completely done with all papers and all schoolwork for the semester! My books are returned and my compendiums are all lovingly stowed in the recycling pile.)

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I landed on Friday night after sleeping through most of my public transportation for the day: the bus, the train, the metro, the plane. I was exhausted. But that didn’t stop us from walking the smelly streets of Amsterdam in the dark. All we really did that first night was look at tourist shops (because despite what people say about “tourist traps” and “tacky souvenirs,” I think these types of things are an interesting part of a trip, especially since, you know…. we are tourists), and eat fresh Belgian fries out of a paper cone, because the Dutch and the Belgians tend to be a bit fuzzy on which country they actually live in.

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Beautiful view from my window seat, after Brian finally showed me how to choose seats during check-in!

I know it’s hard to see, but all those little lines are canals as we came in for landing in the Netherlands. I’m not kidding. There is more water than road. I was staring and craning my neck for the longest time trying to figure out if what I was seeing was asphalt or water in between all these crop fields, and of course it turned out to be water, because the Dutch are crazy and refuse to accept that they are soon to become the next Atlantis.

Cool lighting artwork in the airport

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It wasn’t until I landed that I realized I had no idea what was actually IN Amsterdam. I was just going because that had been one of Jackson’s and my To-Do cities. Thank goodness Mom got carried away on Google and practically gave me a step-by-step guide to Amsterdam over Viber.

I knew there would be bikes

Even hip, rusty bikes that may or may not be some form of art piece

I did not know there would be vending machine restaurants

Or cheese shops on every corner (WOW. I just tried to spell that “quarner.” What is wrong with me?!)

Christmas decorations! (The next day, we actually saw a bunch of Dutch teens in “black face” dressed as Santa’s elves because of their history of slaves playing the part of the elves……….. A little awk…)

More bikes

And yet more bikes. I’m not sure that I actually saw more bike RIDERS in Amsterdam compared to Copenhagen, but I definitely saw a lot more parked bikes. Not sure what that’s about, or how often some of those bikes get used!

One of the cutest little Dutch benches ever (aside from THE The Fault In Our Stars bench- more on that later)

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On a side note, I’m currently writing this from the ‘silent car’ of the train, where you are not allowed to talk and there’s a little sign of a man shushing everybody on every window. However, I don’t think it’s ever been quite as silent as it is tonight, despite it being half full. It feels like I am in the Suzallo reading room of train cars. I am supposed to be working on an essay, but I’m afraid my little portable keyboard clicks will be too loud. I can even hear that the lady across from me needs to blow her nose: the snot vibrates a little every time she inhales, and it echoes throughout the car. Should I give her a tissue?

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Kay, back to Amsterdam. I wanted to stay and go swing dancing, but the dance didn’t start until 9:30 (So late! Haha I’m not used to doing things late at night any more. I wonder if that will change once I get back to Seattle, because if it doesn’t, I won’t be doing much dancing!) and we finished our exploring by 7:30. We ended up just training it back to Leiden, where the beautiful and wonderful siblings Koen and Iris lent us free living quarters!!!! THANK SO MUCH KOEN, EVEN THOUGH WE SORT OF STOOD YOU UP FOR COFFEE IN NORWAY, AND THANK SO MUCH IRIS, EVEN THOUGH I STILL HAVEN’T MET YOU.

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The place was adorable, there was a bathtub (I used it. Couldn’t wait another week.), and the stairs were only semi-dangerously steep. (Jackson fell down them on Sunday morning, but nothing was broken or bleeding, so I consider that ‘safe enough.’)

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Saturday, I slept until eleven, as is customary. Then, off to Leiden’s town centre went we! The shopping street was dizzyingly long and lit with strings of lights. We found lots of licorice, because they like that sort of thing in Northern Europe. And we found this strange man who drove this electronic, musical puppet cart around, and every few feet he stopped to let it play a song, all the while shaking a tiny tambourine, before continuing on. It reminded me of the scene where Shrek and Donkey arrive in Farquad’s town.

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Wow. Just got off the silent train, and I’m taken aback yet again by how many stars there are here. I don’t know what it is. The not-so-tall trees? The not-so-tall houses? The lack of mountains? It’s not like the street and house lights are lacking, but I guess they might be a bit dimmer, and the street lamps are definitely a bit shorter. Whatever the cause, the night sky in Birkerød is huge and impressive. I usually have no trouble picking out a few constellations on my walk home. I’ll definitely miss this.

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Right. Leiden. Man, Jackson and I are the Cafe Couple, let me tell you. He suggested I compile a collage of all the hot chocolate pictures I’ve taken this semester, and if I follow through, I think it will be quite sizeable.

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We hopped into the the first cafe we saw, it being nearly noon, the apartment being out of milk, and both of us starving. No regrets.

That thing in front of Jackson is “sort of a sandwich,” to quote our waitress. More like a curry stir fry dumped onto a giant piece of bread, with a second slice thrown on top as an afterthought. Pro: it was delicious, as was the soup I’ve been craving for four months.

Windmills!

More windmills! Some of them were even moving, unlike the decorative bunch you normally find in old parts of town. As you can see, the clouds were threatening us all day, but we managed to stay pleasantly cool and dry.

A memorial to Rembrandt (three different mediums to depict the same old chum!)

And speaking of chums, here’s me getting chummy with him… Tehe

Canals

Chocolate hedgehogs… Too cute to eat!

I got really excited when I saw these because I thought it said “Sally Square,” which is very similar to one of my nicknames, “Sally Squared.” Jackson kindly pointed out that the first word is actually “Salty,” which makes a lot more sense with relation to chocolate.

This, my dear reader(s?), is the licorice section of the biggest candy shop in Leiden. My silly mother asked me to bring her back some licorice, but it was just so hard to choose!!! (YUCK.)

What she should have asked for was a stroopwaffle or two, a delicious Dutch cookie-waffle-caramel hybrid that crunches and smunches and oozes and ugh. So good. I’ve had the packaged kind in Copenhagen, but we tried our hand at some fresh ones in the town center at a stroopwaffle truck. No regrets.

More pretty canals

More canals!!!!?!?!!?! It was getting dark by the time we made it back indoors.

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For dinner, we wandered into a little burger cafe. It seemed classy though, and as we walked in and saw two tiny, blonde, pony-tailed women sharing a salad in the middle of the room, the only inhabitants of the place, I could tell something was off. One of them stood and greeted us: she was the cashier, cook, and apparently the owner. The store had only opened three weeks ago! This should be fun, I thought.

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It was called Mix & Fix, and from the menus plastered to the windows outside, we had gathered that we got to choose the toppings, dressings, and burger, which would be assembled before us. (The menu was in Dutch, of course, so we failed to recognize what exactly the ingredients were.) We clarified this with the woman, and Jackson rounded it off with, ‘So first, I guess we just choose the meat?’ I had realized a few seconds before, when she had mentioned that they were ‘out of the zucchini burger’ that there would be no choices in meat.

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There was an awkward air as she explained there was no meat, but she didn’t have the English vocabulary to say, ‘This is a vegan restaurant.’ Somewhere around here, I noticed the little sign reading ‘Healthy Hot Chocolate, 3€!’

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The lady at the table behind us, who had watched this interaction take place, informed us that the quinoa burger had been featured in the newspaper the week before. That sealed the deal for us, confused and shameful as we were for mistaking the place for a juicy gourmet burger joint.

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It all turned out well, though. The burger was delicious, and we plan to try to recreate it when we get back to Seattle! We brought it back home so as not to further disturb the tiny Dutch women, and we rounded it off with a bottle of sparkling cider.

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Sunday = Amsterdam Funday.

That tall archaic-looking building in the distance is what Jackson called the “Dutch Notre Dame.” Pretty sure there’s no such thing, but we didn’t have enough time to check it out and confirm/ disprove his theory.

Cute little truck, just my size

Some bikes and some neon string-art over a canal. (At one point we found a bike parked vertically on a bridge, but hanging over the water instead of on the street-side of the barrier. So strange.)

I love this shot. I wanted it to be the main photo for this post, but I just love the Amsterdam letters. Struggles.

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First on the list for the day was the Anne Frank house.

The view from the street the Frank family lived on

A tower nearby

Pictures weren’t allowed in the house and museum, so this is one of the only things I managed to snap: just one of the many flights of steep, steep stairs.

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The experience was very moving and educational. I have mostly avoided the story of Anne Frank because when I was younger, especially around her age during her diary writings, I thought it was extremely intrusive of her privacy that millions of people around the world poured over her innermost thoughts without her knowledge. I was personally offended on her behalf when a few of the boys in my eighth grade class read her diary as part of a book group. However, after seeing the museum, my views have changed. I learned that she had dreams of becoming a famous writer, and she even wanted to publish a book about her time in the Annex. I suppose it is quite a miracle that her dreams came true even after her death. I may try to read her book after all, which aside from her diary, includes some short stories and parts of the novel she had started.

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I teared up once, when we were in her tiny bedroom that she shared with a grown man, and I read this quote of hers on the wall: “I long to ride a bike, dance, whistle, look at the world, feel young and know that I’m free,” which she wrote on a Christmas Eve while trapped in the Annex.

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Then we found this Cow Museum, and I really wanted to get one for my Aunt Mel, who has a slight cow obsession, but they weren’t open yet!

Some Liberties? Is this signifying the end of freedom?

Pretty bridges, AKA: the view from The Bench.

NOT The Bench

Across the water from The Bench

Living out our little infinity <3

For comparison. It’s the real place! (We’re nerds, by the way. I pre-ordered TFIOS over six months before it was released. #DFTBA)

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After this little adventure, we made our way haphazardly to a burger joint, and all went downhill from there.

The meal started off nice with another delicious hot chocolate

And our burger arrived. Still in the clear. But after I cut the burger in half, gave Jackson his half, and took my first bite, I found myself magically and inexplicably coated in the aforementioned chocolate, which was thankfully no longer hot. I’m not sure how it happened, but Jackson managed to ultimately throw the entire glass on top of me, my food, and all of my possessions. The longer I watched it, the farther it reached, until I had to stand up to avoid its path. One of the servers ran over with a roll of paper towels, and I had to run to the bathroom to wash out my phone, my shirt, my skirt, and my boots. By the time I got back to the table, the mess had been cleaned and our hot chocolate had been replaced. Apparently Jackson had said, “You trust me with another one?” to which the waiter replied, “Just keep it away from her.” HOW DARE HE ASSUME. Gah. Men.

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Some street art

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Next, we made our way to the Van Gogh Museum, which was basically the only activity Jackson was interested in.

The ice rink outside the Van Gogh Museum. The entire top layer was water, so it looked like they were all skating on a pond rather than a frozen sheet of ice, and half of the skaters were pushing around these classy, green wooden chairs.

“I amsterdam”

Jackson = way too excited about Van Gogh

Pictures weren’t allowed inside the exhibits, but they were really neat! I actually preferred the small set-up in Musee d’Orsay, but I think that is because the works there were really concentrated on his later, Impressionistic works, while the Van Gogh Museum had a lot of his earlier (and less-expressive) works.

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Then it was time to make our sad journey back to the train station….

Here’s that crazy bike parking I was talking about

This one’s for you, Mom. Me and Johnny. It took about ten minutes to get this picture taken without me laughing.

Giant wooden shoes!

One last canal

“The best cookie in Amsterdam.” It was the only cookie we had while we were there, besides the stroopwaffles, but it was indeed delicious. Three types of chocolate, and stuffed with more chocolate. Can’t go wrong there! As far as I could tell, these bad boys were the only thing that bakery made!

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We finally made it to the airport, where Jackson said goodbye (twice, because I went to the wrong security check the first time), and we parted ways until he comes home from Trondheim

Another strange airport restroom sink

I finally got around to flipping through Norwegian’s in-flight magazine, and it made me sad I hadn’t sooner! So many quirky stories and activities to do in Europe that I’ll have to wait for, now! But check out this hilarious little picto-graphic. Denmark is the tiny little blip on the far left. So flat! Can’t wait to see Mt. Rainier on my ride home in a couple days!

The lights of Copenhagen as we came in for landing

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Alright. That was the Netherlands. Lots of fun, lots of food, lots of walking, much like my other trips abroad. I’LL MISS IT SO MUCH. I’m currently sitting amidst all of my packing paraphernalia, trying to figure out how to fit it all and stay under the weight limit. Ugh. I have some last-minute adventures planned tomorrow, and hopefully I’ll have time to write a last blog post or two. See you soon, Mama!!!

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Venlig hilsen/ best regards,

Lizzy-wa

It’s okay. No chicken pox were had. But of polka dots and chickens, there were many. I’ll get to that later.

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Tuesday of this week, Jackson and I finally managed to make it to Malmö, Sweden to investigate the land of his ancestors. We wore our matching Van Gogh socks from France:

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Lots of cool architecture

And giant lamps (Jackson for size)

Malmö City Hall

Sankt Petri Kirke (St. Peter’s Church)

The Turning Torso office building in the distance, usually a tiny speck on the coastline visible from Copenhagen

Malmöhus Slot (ruinous castle)

At the end of the night, we found this charming little cafe cluttered with mismatched and second-hand chairs and sofas: Café Alé

We got gingerbread cheesecake, orange-cinnamon rice pudding, and hot chocolate, as per usual. The whole bill was about the price of an average hot chocolate in Copenhagen. Ha!

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When we got back to Copenhagen, we did a little Christmas shopping:

And listened to some ukelele music being played by some boy from Los Angeles in Gamel Torv:

Then we went to Charlie Scott’s, the little jazz bar I meant to become a regular at, but never got the chance. Finally, I sat down and had a real drink while listening to some beautiful bass and jazz clarinet!

My first Irish Coffee. I couldn’t finish it. I tried so hard.

Jackson and I were the youngest ones in the room by about thirty years.

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Wednesday: Sorry for the blur, but you just have to see the decorations one of our bus drivers put up!

Literally the cutest. She was also wearing a Santa hat, and there was a stocking hanging in every window.

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We went to Our Savior’s Church in Copenhagen because I’ve been wanting to climb that beautiful spire for months, but it was closed because of the rain and the slick steps…. ):

Still pretty, though, and we got to witness some musicians putting on a performance for these youngsters, who quickly became tired, sprawled out on the floor at our feet, and began petting each other on the head:

All of the kids in Denmark wear full snow suits, despite the lack of snow. It’s great.

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To make up for Jackson’s tower-less-ness views of Copenhagen, we ran over to the Round Tower for my third time:

At least the view never gets old.

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Check out these find-and-label charts they put up:

Can you see how they correspond? So neat!

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Then I shipped Jackson off to the Netherlands so I could go on my last study tour with my core course, all the way to Tre Kroner and the Munksøgård eco village, home to chickens and those with green thumbs:

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We toured a building made entirely of straw, un-fired clay bricks made from the ground under our feet, and logs from the surrounding forests:

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But the best part was the toilets:

These are instructions. The toilet (if you can tell from the picture) is actually divided into two sections, and you have to be careful about where you put your shit (our guide’s words, not mine!) Twice a year, they fertilize their fields with all the urine. Craaaaaaazy stuff, man.

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A trip to the Bastard Cafe, a board game bar in Copenhagen, followed, and I came close to winning Catan. I also got this:

Hot chocolate…. Yummm… (Hot chocolate and hot cocoa are two very different things in Europe. Cocoa is what we are used to in the States, where chocolate powder is mixed into milk/water/cream. But hot chocolate is a glass a hot milk with chocolate chips or chunks on the bottom that have to be stirred in. The result is a suspended chocolatey goodness, and the last few sips are always pure chocolate rather than the powdery dregs of “hot cocoa.”)

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We then ate dinner at “Rub and Stub,” a volunteer-run restaurant which uses donations and leftover foods from other restaurants and food banks to make all of their dishes. Therefore, the menu changes every day, and you never know what you’ll get! (The name could be better, though. It frankly just reminds me of putting out a cigarette.) Our class was unfortunately lectured because four plates were thrown out due to confusion on everybody’s dietary restrictions, and food waste is the worst enemy of the restaurant. Embarrassing, I must say.

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I’ve also discovered I can tolerate Rose Wine:

I finished the whole thing, though it was a lot fuller than a normal glass of wine when it first arrived, quite dauntingly.

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WOW SORRY FOR THE LONG POST. I just have so many pictures I want to share! Last snippet! (It’s long, but mostly pictures.)

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I went to the Louisiana Museum with Sara yesterday to see the new Yayoi Kusama exhibit, the same artist who designed the crazy tulip sculptures that were at the train station in Lille, France:

Yes. Those things are supposed to look like penises. Kusama really appreciates nudity and freedom of the human body.

A lot of her work focuses on “infinity”

^ I think this one’s my favorite! The floor beyond the tiny platform where we stood was covered in thin layer of water to enhance the reflections, and apparently Maria fell in once! Tehe.

The sticker room: upon entering, a man handed us a sticker and let us put it wherever we wanted: the couch, the tables, the lamps, the cutlery lining the dining table, the ceiling if we could reach (I couldn’t). I put mine on the as-yet blank sign that read: “No stickers beyond this room.” Ha.

Playing the sticker piano!

The entire Louis Vuitton store once partnered with Kusama and painted the outside of its giant New York store. Insane.

We finished the night with this little oddity, some sort of modern sculpture that took up the whole room and was made up of giant fake ants, human body parts, some sort of neon gel fluid, fruit, and Plexiglas. Why…..?

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Okay. Thanks for sticking with me through this post, if you made it this far! I’m off to walk the sunny streets of Copenhagen for a bit before hopping on my plane to Amsterdam! The last frontier. Can’t wait.

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Venlig hilsen/ best regards/ vriendelijke groeten,

Lizzy-wa