I have never seen this movie, but that did not stop me from exploring the beautiful land where it was filmed! Also Brave Heart and Excalibur, which I have also not seen. Xi almost missed the bus, but we were dandy after that. The first stop on our day trip around Ireland’s countryside was Kilkenny, a small medieval town with a round tower built in the NINTH CENTURY (1200 years ago), which we climbed of course!
Xi was getting dizzy from the height and the crazy climbing. It was essentially a series of ladders stacked on top of each other, and every time someone was coming down while someone else was going up, a lot of squeezing and cuddling with strangers occurred.
Mr. Robot Man was unphased by both the height and the scenery. He is always in the same state of bliss and general happiness. It’s what I love about the guy (besides his awesome dance moves).
We had two hours to explore, and explore we did! There was beer everywhere, but as our tour guide Anthony explained, it’s never too early to drink in Ireland. Even 10am is acceptable. (Xi and I stuck to water and cookies.)
A pretty unnamed castle
Canals galore
This house is centuries old and was burned down some time ago because of some crazy feud or violation that occurred on the part of the owner. I can’t remember the story, but the guy was very powerful and rich while he lived, so they have left his land and the remains of his estate untouched ever since!
This is the Wicklow Gap, where all of those movies were filmed. I think they were probably filmed in better weather, because it was cloudy and none of the flowers were in bloom, but it was nice nonetheless!
Obligatory action shot
Next stop was Glendalough, or Land of Two Lakes in Gaelic. I totally forgot the Irish and Scottish had their own languages! I think Gaelic is more commonly used in Ireland than Scot is used in Scotland though, probably because the Scottish are partnered with England. All the street signs were in both Gaelic and English. It was pretty cool!
Anyway. Glendalough is an ooooold monastic village from the sixth century, I believe. A bunch of Christian monks lived here and tried to convert the Pagans (multiple gods) of Ireland into Christians. I guess it worked! The beautiful buildings probably had something to do with it:
I am 98% sure this is Rapunzel’s actual tower. The only door was several meters up (either because the ground has settled that much or because the monks used a ladder to enter and pull the ladder in afterwards to keep out unwanted guests). Perfect need for some long hair to climb to the tallest windows way up at the top!
This cool window used to be filled with stained glass. Now it looks very post-apocalyptic and dramatic.
The main chapel
After exploring the village and cemetery, we went on a hike to see the two lakes. It was gorgeous, and my sneakers got soaked in mud and muck.
Xi was trying to be cool by walking on this log, but she slipped and fell right at the end! I even got it on video.
This place was seriously out of a fairytale.
Mr. Robot Man quite enjoyed the shamrocks and clovers, if I do say so myself.
Sheeeeeeep.
We kind of had to run back, because the tour bus was leaving at 5:00, and we were on the other side of the valley with twenty minutes left. We were told the walk took fifteen minutes, so we should plan out fifteen minutes to walk back to the bus. Easy right? What we didn’t realize was that he meant fifteen minutes to the first lake, and we had walked all the way to the second! I had just purchased a burger when we realized this, and since no hot food was allowed on the bus, we had to fast walk/ sprint all the way back while I simultaneously stuffed my face. I had ketchup everywhere, and we were soooo sweaty once we got back on the bus. Frank, our adorable Irish grandpa of a driver, started driving away when he saw us sprinting to the bus just to mess with us. We sat down at exactly five o’clock. Phew!
We slept most of the way back, but the countryside was beautiful every time I managed to open my eyes. Most places have flat, boring expanses of farmland, but in Ireland, the plots are all on top of rolling hills, and each plot is surrounded by little bushes. Adorable.
We got back to the city and explored even more. I think this is Trinity College?
A church/ cathedral whose name I cannot remember
Since everything was closed by this time, we ended up sitting in a park in the rain and watching a bunch of puppies play together. Gah. I miss Xi. She forced me to relax every once in a while.
We were supposed to meet up with Davide and go drinking (actual Irish whiskey!), but when I put my stuff away in the hostel, I came back downstairs and Xi was practically asleep in my hostel lounge. The three of us ended up just hanging out and chatting about life until 11:30 or so. It was great. I really miss them! I wish I had more time to spend with all the people I meet, but that one of the pains of travel!
Once they left, I did my laundry, went to bed, woke up, ate early breakfast, almost missed my bus and had to chase it down, and forgot my rain jacket in my room after all of that. *sigh.
FINALLY. It happened. People kept telling me that travelling solo was a great way to not only spend time by myself, but to meet others along the way and be totally open to forming new friendships. I thought they were crazy of course, because in all my travels last fall, I never once met someone new who I spent more than four minutes with! This was because I was always with someone else, though, be it classmates, others from DIS, or The Significant Other. It’s not very easy (or fun) to try breaking into a group of giggling twenty-somethings or a couple staring lovingly into each other’s eyes and saying, ‘HI! I’M (insert name)! BE MY FRIEND OH PLEASE OH PLEASE OH PLEASE I’LL BE NICE I PROMISE,’ even if that is what every solo traveler is thinking as they eavesdrop and stare with jealousy in their eyes. (Okay. Maybe that’s just me.)
But this time, I was utterly and completely alone. (Mr. Robot Man doesn’t draw too much attention.) When I got off the plane in Dublin, I was in a rather poor mood. I was tired, and I had forgotten about crazy UK/ Ireland customs. I had to stand there for ten minutes trying to connect to WiFi and pull up proof that I really was leaving Europe in ten days and was not planning on bumming around the streets of Dublin for the rest of my life. (I think that was a run-on sentence.) This took so long that I missed my bus to Malahide castle, for which I had pre-booked tickets for a specific time slot. This reminded me fondly of my experience at the London airport and my pre-booked Harry Potter tour tickets. I was NOT going to spend another fifty dollars on a taxi though. Not in a million years. So I sat outside gloomily and sleepily for an hour until the next bus arrived.
It was on this bus that the magic happened. I had my customary seat: second story, right side, in the front. After a few stops, an Asian girl came and sat next to me, so I made room for her and continued staring off into the distance, or reading, or whatever I was doing. Essentially, every part of my body language was probably screaming, ‘I AM IN BAD MOOD. TALK TO ME NOT.’ But this girl was resilient and unaware of cultural norms! She soon asked if I was going to the castle, since that’s really the only place this bus went. I was, I said. She was also. And then,
BOOM.
Friendship.
Beautiful, isn’t it? Her name was Xi, and we spent the next two full days together! How does that even happen? She is from China, but she is studying English language and literature at a university in Geneva Switzerland, and she was in Dublin for a couple weeks doing a language course. Just my luck!
The Gardens were pretty, and they contained a lot of exotic plants I’m surprised could survive in the Irish weather. The castle and grounds have been owned by the same family for over 800 years, and then a lady finally messed it up in the seventies and had to sell it to Irish tourism. Sad.
A view of the grounds from inside the castle
And the castle itself!
After all of our exploration, we were well and pooped, especially since I had to carry my giant backpack through it all. We sprawled out in the grass and watched some Irish kids and their dads play soccer for almost an hour tehe. It was nice to finally relax, because I really hadn’t done much of that up to this point. Thanks Xi!
More garden exploration followed.
And the other side of the castle…
After this, we went into town to drop off my backpack before heading back out for Adventure Round Two in the coastal city of Howth. Here we met up with Davide, her Italian friend that was also doing the language course. We ate some fish and chips while the seagulls relentlessly stared into our souls and demanded that we feed them.
Davide walked around for us for a bit, and then we were left to ourselves so he could head home to do some homework. Poor guy.
The wind was NUTS here. Not as bad as up in the tower on Calton Hill in Edinburgh, but pretty close. We held hands so we wouldn’t blow away, but the seagulls were loving it! I really wish to be reincarnated as a seagull. They have so much fun, and they still get to eat people food!
We went for a little hike to get this great view.
Then I relaxed in a giant swing while Xi played with some Irish boys on this dangerous spinning-walking contraption while a bunch of parents and younger sisters watched curiously. It was so funny. The moms all said thank you and goodbye to us when we left! So that was tiring (for Xi, haha).
We slept the whole way back after planning a crazy day trip for the next day! #Adventure
Edinburgh Day Two started off with a trip to Edinburgh Castle, that beautiful hunk of rock sitting on top of yet another gigantic hunk of rock that I could see from my hostel windows.
It’s even prettier from the front! Shout-out to the stranger man who took this shot.
I decided to do the free tour of the castle, and the tour guide was a young Scottish woman. At the start of the tour, she introduced herself and said, ‘If you can’t understand me now, this is how I talk all the time, so you can look at the audio guides at the ticket window.’ She had a wonderfully thick Scottish accent. I love it.
Here’s a view from atop the castle. Edinburgh Castle is hundreds of years old, and over the few days I was here, I heard several stories of crazy attacks on the castle, true events that became Game of Thrones inspiration, and the tale of a man who scaled the rocky side of the ‘castle rock’ to sneak in the back way (in the Scottish wind and rain, no less!) I also got to watch a British man play and talk about a bunch of medieval musical instruments. He was quite talented, and he even sang us a few songs. (He was quite the attention hog.)
Riding a cannon. No big deal.
The castle’s water tower
And a view from the other side!
After the castle, I had plans to walk around and see a bunch of other things, but I ended up accidentally wandering into the National Museum of Scotland to use the bathroom. I stayed over two hours, as is typical of my character.
This place was insane. History museum plus taxidermy zoo plus science center plus children’s dreamland all rolled into one. There were exhibits on fashion and stuffed (real, dead) animals of every shape and size. There was a leaf-cutter ant colony that I watched for about ten minutes. There were three floors of history on technology complete with interactive lessons, robot arms, the first ever cloned mammal (Dolly the sheep, stuffed and rotating slowly and eerily on a pedestal), and several intricate engines that were running so we could watch how they worked. I was in heaven, to say the least. Plus it was all free!!! And I found several bathrooms!
Here is a sperm wale skull from a whale that washed up on the beach somewhere near Edinburgh. The picture really doesn’t capture how gigantic it is.
Next, I wandered to a cafe to read, drink some hot chocolate, and eat a chicken and rice porridge dish that had half of a full chicken thrown into the bowl.
I didn’t really have much time to do anything else before sundown, but I did not let that stop me! I had heard of King Arthur’s Seat, a great hike with a great view, and it was my mission to complete it. The sun was making its descent as I attacked the mountain. (Well, first I really had to pee. But I didn’t want to pay to pee, and Europe is just generally bad at providing free lavatories. I wandered back and forth for about 45 minutes before giving in and buying something at Starbucks, of all places.)
Once that was done, the hike commenced!
I was tired, alone, and my feet hurt, but the view was beautiful.
At the top! Notice how tired my face is. I mean really, what am I doing? Is that a smile? A grimace? Am I checking my teeth for leftovers from lunch? I also think the rest of my face forgot to join in on this thing. Wow.
Needless to say, I slept well that night, though not nearly long enough. I woke up around five, ate some leftover soup, and hiked my way down to the train station after getting change in ‘every denomination of coin’ from one of the hostel staff (for my collection!)
The sunrise was gorgeous, and I rode on the second floor in the front of my double decker on the way to the airport. I’ll really miss those busses!
First off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM. Sorry I can’t spend it with you in person, but know that I’m thinking of you as I visit the land of your people!
Okay. Internet was super iffy in the UK/ Ireland, but we are back in the land of the inter webs (Portugal), so I can finally start writing again. Don´t be surprised if my posts start getting published later and later.
So Edinburgh was wonderful. The weather, unfortunately, was not. The clouds started spitting out rain right when I got off the train. I do love Scottish accents though. The first person I talked to when I stepped off the train was an older man working for the station. I asked where the bathroom was and he responded in such rapid and thickly-accented `English` that I just had to follow his pointing finger because I really had no idea what he was saying!
Walking around the city for the first time was amazing. I swear my eyes were about to pop out of my head. Everything is made of stone with Gothic styling. Tall, dark, and handsome. (;
Speaking of tall, (not) dark, and handsome, check out this ol´ chap. He was out there every day! Good thing he was wearing wool because it was not warm outside.
This was literally the entrance to my amazing hostel. RIGHT next to the Edinburgh Castle! Crazy! Plus the staff was helpful, the breakfast was free, there were several cool lounges, and there were two fully-stocked kitchens that were all-abuzz during dinner time. Unlike any hostel I´ve ever been to. Highly recommend.
On my way to drop off my things at the hostel, I noticed a free walking tour sign and ran back to catch the starting time. The top photo features Max, my adorable, hilarious, British (not Scottish) guide. At the start of the tour, he told us that his main goal in giving free walking tours is to convince at least one person to fly immediately home upon completion of the tour, sell all of their possessions, sell some of their family´s possessions, and then use that money to move permanently back to Edinburgh. (It was tempting, believe me.)
He brought us to this graveyard and told several stories of J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter series. Apparently she wrote all seven books in Edinburgh, and much of her story aspects were inspired by her surroundings. For example, there´s a headstone in this graveyard for a…. TOM RIDDLE. Cray.
This is a crazy-expensive private school that is believed to be an inspiration for Hogwarts, combined with Edinburgh Castle (up on a big rock!) Can you see the resemblance in all the towers??
After the walking tour, I asked for the best tower to climb to catch a view of the city. Max suggested climbing Calton Hill, and not climbing any tower at all, but he didn´t know there was a magnificent and climbable tower on top of said hill! More on that later.
The walk was green and wet, much like the rest of the city surroundings.
This is the tower!!! The Nelson Monument, I believe? It was super windy, and I was really regretting ordering soup to go, because I had no chance to eat in and my hand was getting cold carrying it around everywhere. I walked into the tower and the most adorable little (well, okay, he was actually pretty tall) Scottish man offered to keep my soup for me. Then he asked if I was sure I wanted to climb the tower, and I asked if he thought the building was unstable. ´Ah, nooo, I´m not sayin´you´ll blow away lassie, just that I´ve seen better days for the weather!´ (And yes, he really did call me lassie.) I said I wasn´t going to be around for long, so this was my only chance!
The view sure was spectacular! This is the National Monument.
And this is a bunch of other monuments/ museums.
AND THIS IS MY FACE WHEN I ALMOST GOT BLOWN OFF THE TOWER. I´m telling you, it was nuts. You see that guy in the background? Before he showed up, I was all alone up there for about ten minutes, and the wind was going positively bonkers. At one point, I was crawling on my hands and knees around the tower to get back to the safety of the door jam!!! The adorable Scottish man lied to me! (But it was super fun, so I stayed out there way longer than necessary.)
When I got back down to ground level, my Scottish friend handed me my soup and said, ´There you go, wee bop.´ …. WEE BOP. I can´t. I just cannot handle the adorability. He asked if anybody else was still on the tower and said he would close it down for the night because the wind had gotten too violent while I was up there. (I´ll say!) Then he sent me off with a, `Goodbye sweetheart, good to meet yew!´ Too stinkin´ cute. One thing I noticed about Scotland and Ireland is that people LOVE to use nicknames: sweetie, sweetheart, honey, wee bop, lassie, dear, you-name-it. Gosh, I love nicknames.
To round off my day, I paid a visit to the Scott Monument, a towering Gothic structure right across the street from an H&M. That´s Europe for you.
Yesterday I caught an early morning train to Cambridge, and gosh was it beautiful. Warm, sunny, rich with history and dripping with school children in full uniform. Lots of bikes, and most of them were either collapsible or giant cruisers with massive wicker baskets on the handlebars.
I spent the first two hours at the Cambridge Botanic Gardens, a sprawling 40-acre wonderland of bees, butterflies, trees, and flowers.
And don’t forget the cafe.
Hot chocolate with spinach-salmon pasta. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Then I just wandered the city:
Punting tours around the canal! Didn´t have enough time to do one myself since I was only in Cambridge for a matter of hours.
I can´t remember which college this was because they were all to confusingly beautiful and there were so many.
I found a tower to climb! I like to climb towers wherever I go so I can get a different perspective of the city. I didn´t climb St. Peter´s Basilica in Rome and have regretted it ever since, so now I make sure not to miss a good opportunity. Cambridge´s tower was fantastic! Super windy up top, and I was relatively alone up there. Plus, it seemed like the type of tower that really isn´t meant to be climbed that often, so those are always fun. Once I got to the top, it felt like the floor could give out any second, but the view was great:
This is King´s College Chapel. So pretty, but there was an admission fee to go inside!
Again, can´t remember the name of this pretty college.
I believe this is called The Round Church, but it just reminds me of something hobbits might gather in for town meetings. (:
After massaging my feet, I slept the entire train ride back into London.
I had an hour to kill before The Book of Mormon, so I grabbed some dinner in Chinatown and popped into M&M World.
As far as The Book of Mormon goes: 10/10 overall, 15/10 on comedy, and very/inappropriate. I was laughing practically the whole time, and when I wasn’t laughing, I had a ridiculously giant smile plastered to my face. I thought the cast would have British accents, but sadly, most of them were American anyway haha. The boy who played Elder Cunningham was even in the original Broadway cast!
The Prince of Wales Theatre was also fantastic. Not a bad seat in the house, and I was sitting very top row, dead center between some Brits and some Frenchies.
I decided to take a double decker bus back to the hostel, because why not? I think I know now where J.K. Rowling got the idea for the Knight Bus, because I certainly felt like I was on it. I sat in the very front on the top deck, and from my perspective, it seemed that we were either going to tip over or crush someone below us every few seconds! Glad I survived! (There were no shrunken heads or magical face-squishings though.)
Back at the hostel, things were hoppin’. I stayed on top of a pub, so while I stood in the stairwell and chatted with The Significant Other, I heard loud, drunken renditions of Miss American Pie, Wonderwall, and another tune no one could quite agree on. (:
I was woken this morning by a shrieking fire alarm. All the girls in my room, myself included, thought it was just someone’s phone alarm, so we all lay there angrily for a solid minute before one girl finally asked. It wasn’t until then that we all realized it was probably too loud to be a wake up call. Thank goodness it went off though, because I fell asleep after turning my own alarm off thirty minutes earlier and probably would have missed my train!
Speaking of which, I’m on a train now. To Edinburgh we go! Weather forecasts are rainy for the next nine days of my adventure, so let’s hope the weathermen were wrong.
Luckily Mr. Robot Man carries around his hard, plastic, waterproof shell everywhere he goes, like a turtle, so he’ll have nothing to worry about. I’ll keep you posted on my end. Until next time.
London is good and done with! Yahoo! I had forgotten just how horrible and expensive and horrible London transportation is. Don’t get me wrong. Once you figure it out, everything runs rather smoothly. It’s the ‘figuring it out’ that’s hard.
First off, I forgot about the border control. Every other country I’ve ever visited is part of the Shengen Union, which means when I get off the plane, no one questions me and I can go skipping off into the ether. The UK is special however, so border control happens both when leaving Copenhagen and when arriving in London. This means extra wait time — a full hour of extra wait time on the London end, in fact. And since my plane was scheduled to land at 8:05 and I booked my Harry Potter tour for 10 and the bus-train combo takes over an hour and my plane landed late, this spelled disaster. I wasn’t sure how strict the ticket time was, but the Warner Bros. website made it clear that arriving late could mean forfitting your entrance with no refund or reschedule. I paid over $45 for this! It was one of the only reasons I came back to London this time around! I needed to see Umbridge’s disgustingly pink wardrobe with my own two eyes, gosh darnit! So…. taxi.
£40 ($54) and 30 minutes later, I arrived at Warner Bros. Studio tired, upset, and slightly less wealthy. (Note that London taxi cabs are actually ridiculously roomy and kind of nice. Still would have preferred a crowded seat on a bus for a third of the price.)
My mood shifted the second I saw these beauties:
Yes. These are some of the actual chess pieces from the actual game of wizard’s chess played by the actual Ron, Harry, and Hermione in The Philosopher’s Stone. (Okay technically it was played by Rupert, Daniel, and Emma, but let’s not get nitpicky.) They’re huge! Imagine the terror!
I was then subjected to The Most Thorough Bag Check Ever, which included me taking all the clothes out of my backpack, explaining what a plastic nail file was, and promising not to stab anyone with the bottle opener (“knife” according to security) attached to my nail clippers. Yeesh.
The tour was worth it. I read every little plaque, watched every little video, and took pictures of nearly everything. Here are some favorites:
Costumes and set pieces at the head table of the Great Hall
The sorting hat! (One of several)
Hermione’s dress from the Yule Ball. In the books, her dress was supposed to be blue, but Emma Watson looks better in pink, so the costume department bent the rules.
One of the Hair and Makeup vanities covered in actual hair and makeup (almost all the characters wore wigs, it seems)
The Mirror of Erised (won’t tell you what I saw!)
A broom setup for filming flying scenes!
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I had more pictures I wanted to show, but the wifi and general cell service is not great in Edinburgh, so this was all I could get the upload.
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The production team behind this series was absolutely bonkers in the best way possible. You know the glass prophecy orbs from The Order of the Phoenix? Over 15,000 of them were hand made (glowing and all) before the director decided to use CGI instead. Remember when Lupin went werewolf in Prisoner of Azkaban? An entire animatronic suit was made, capable of moving, blinking, etc., but it was too difficult to control, so they scanned it in and used CGI instead. Do you recall the magnificent Buckbeak introduced in Prisoner of Azkaban? The creatures team made THREE full sized animatronic Buckbeaks, each of which had real feathers hand painted and hand placed one-by-one, but obviously after all this work, the Buckbeaks simply couldn’t move around fast enough, so they decided to use CGI instead. Notice a trend? So crazy.
Some remarkable non-CGI was the 17,000 hand-labeled and one-of-a-kind wand boxes in Ollivander’s shop, the moving serpent door that was the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, and the Hogwarts Castle itself.
I can’t explain how gorgeous Hogwarts is in person. Mind you, it is a 1:24 scale model, but it still engulfed a gigantic two-story room and seemed about as real as can be. I stood there and stared at it for at good twenty minutes. I can’t imagine what it would be like to walk up to the full-sized castle as an eleven year old, right after discovering your wizardlyness, no less. It was hands down one of the prettiest castles I’ve ever seen, real or otherwise.
Okay okay. I could go on for days about the studio and everything in it, but my phone died halfway through so I don’t even have pictures of a lot of things. In fact, I couldnt even take a picute of The Actual Knight Bus. ): Did I mention I spent over six hours there and missed my slot for the world’s longest slide back in London? Oh well.
ALSO. Butterbeer… Gah… So good…….
After hanging out at the British Library for a while back in London, I went to bed because I was positively exhausted. By the time I fell asleep, I’d been awake for thirty hours straight. The jetlag, man. At least I’ve gotten that over with so I can just be normal tired. Stay tuned for London Part Two. Until then.
So my shindig in Denmark did not go particularly as planned. I landed and was picked up by the wonderfully handsome Jesper. So fun to see him again! He was waving three USA flags at the gate. So stinking cute.
We drove around Copenhagen a bit and I took it all in. So strange to be back! It felt like coming home to a place I never thought I’d see again. I am all smiles. Lots more stuff was under construction, and it was some royal person’s birthday, so the streets, royal buildings, shops, and busses were all adorned with Danish flags. Gotta love their patriotism.
After this, we spent a good several hours talking with 3 (my Danish phone service), T-Mobile, and the fam back in Auburn trying to get my Danish sim card to line up with my new phone. It was not easy, but it finally kicked in. Thank goodness! I need that GPS, yo! I can barely survive as is!
Maria came home, and we ate dinner and caught up a bit before Skyping with Sara who’s working down in Greece (I’ll see you soon!)
Then: commence nineteen hour nap. Yes. NINETEEN HOURS. I tried to be good and went to bed at nine, but I still slept until four in the afternoon! Just like last time! I’m a mess. I would have stayed in bed longer if Maria hadn’t started yelling at me. So much for exploring and reminiscing all day long.
We managed to take a nice walk in the beautiful Danish sunshine to the city center with the little daylight we had left.
Here’s Maria being absolutely FLAWLESS.
You just can’t find perfect little lakes like this anywhere else!!! Gosh I love Birkerød.
Then I took the old bike for a spin. Wow. I just cannot explain how wonderful and peaceful it is to bike in Denmark. The roads are made for cyclists to be safe and comfortable. I couldn’t stop smiling the whole ride. I tried to video tape part of it to show you guys how nice it is, but I managed to turn the camera off with my chest about two seconds after I turned it on. Maybe I’ll invest in a helmet cam next time. Did I mention I was biking in a dress and Keds? Did I mention I love Denmark? Because I was and I do.
After huffing and puffing my way back up the path to our home and nearly crashing into a Danish boy (undskyld!), Maria, Jesper and I drove over to Virum for a buffet on the beach. The food was soooooooooo good, and the sunset was soooooooooo pretty. I was stuffed.
Look at the richness and be jealous.
I’m telling you, this sunset was to die for.
Queue ice cream eating, Danish news, and the first half of Suicide Squad. I had to say goodbye to Maria last night because my flight was leaving so early the next morning (aka now).
So…. then step two of what seems to be my customary European jetlag adjustment cycle: do not fall asleep until at least four in the morning. Unfortunately, I had to leave the house at five to make the train to the airport, so this amounted to a total of Zero Hours of shuteye. I’m a master at this travel thing.
As I was packing, my Danish spider friends made sure to make an appearance. It just wouldn’t be my room without them.
I said goodbye to Jesper at the train station. ): I don’t like goodbyes… Then I waited around for my train. I was early, so I was the only one at the station for a while as it was the first train of the morning.
At the airport, I bought some Capri-Sonne and a stor chokoladebøller to snack on since I was flying a cheap-o airline. I was so good at the chokoladebøller ordering! All in Danish! I understood everything the cashier (adorable Danish boy) said and answered accordingly, but then I had to go and put my card in backwards, so he knew I was a fraud and switched to English. Ugh. I’ll have one more go at it when I come back at the end of my trip! And I’ll pay in cash!
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I just realized that I’ve been walking around with my belt hanging around my hips, unfastened, for an undetermined amount of time…
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Right. So London, here I come! First stop, Warner Bros. Studios for some butterbeer and photography! Can’t wait. Until next time.
Venlig hilsen/ Best regards/ Pip pip, cheerio,
Lizzy-wa
What a weekend. So busy. So stressful. So sightseeing. I’ll admit, London was pretty and clean and the food was good and there were a lot of fun surprises, but the transportation was just the worst. Very hard to figure out the best deal and the best times to do things. I was a mess. Thank goodness Jackson put up with me for the most part. I know I wouldn’t have!
..
My favorite part was Saturday afternoon and evening. We saw the London Eye, a Jamaican stunt group nearby who used a little girl as a prop (scary), walked over one cool bridge after another, saw Big Ben (okay technically not – apparently Big Ben is the name of the actual bell inside the clock tower, not the clock or the tower itself, and we did not see the actual bell, so I guess we didn’t really see Big Ben!), wandered to Westminster Abbey on accident, found what we thought was St. Paul’s Cathedral (it wasn’t) and made our way to Buckingham Palace. All this just to make the meeting point for a free walking tour. But we gave up about five minutes away and decided to take our time to the palace.
This is the best I could do for a picture with the Buckingham Palace guards. Is that good enough, Mama?
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Then the best part: the metro stop for Buckingham Palace was plastered with signs and arrows to a Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. We didn’t think much of it, but I thought it sounded Christmas-y and interesting, maybe a Christmas market or something, and we wandered over.
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Holy guacamole, Batman. This place was rad. It actually was an entire winter wonderland carnival-fair thing,with rides and shops and lights and Christmas trees and fair food and OH GOSH JUST SO AMAZING. About ten steps into the park, we bought a roasted duck wrap. Best. Thing. Ever. We wandered and oohed and awed and Jackson really wanted to go on a ride, but they were £6 each, which is about $9, which very nearly qualifies as robbery. So we just bought more food instead. Fudge and a bratwurst. We are classy. We really wanted to check out the circus they had (with a full circus tent!) but we had reservations for late-afternoon tea, so we made our way out.
(we bought some)
This was a slow-moving carousel for drunk people!!!
The rough life of not being followed around by a personal photographer but being too embarrassed to ask a stranger to take this picture
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Tea was equally wonderful, though admittedly neither of us had tea, and the atmosphere was not very tea-like. Rather, it was a classy little Indian type restaurant, and I had a mango chilli cocktail. Whoops. (Finally, I have found a drink I like. It was the first full drink of something I have managed to finish without wincing or choking or giving up.) Jackson had a grilled lamb burger and cider, and I got the three course set dinner: watermelon quinoa salad, super spicey tilapia, and chocolate mousse with caramelized bananas. It was a success. And we had a special couple’s table out to the side. Probably one of the more romantic dates we’ve had!
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Lastly, we explored a gigantic bookstore in search for a novel written by my Creative Travel Writing teacher. It was called Waterstones and it was wonderful, though sadly, they did not have her book. Ugh. I will have to continue my search, because I want her to sign it before I fly back to Seattle!
(This isn’t the book my teacher wrote. It’s just an adorable one that has a positively hideous cover in the US version. Ugh.)
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So yes. That was the best part, in my opinion. We did other things too, though. All the sights and sounds of London. A double decker bus tour. The London Underground. The London Overground. Oh! And this:
I am a Ravenclaw, and I prefer to leap my way to Hogwarts, thank you very much! (The print was absurdly expensive, but Jackson only managed to capture a blurred landing of my jump, so what choice did I have?) It was pretty hilarious. They provided the school scarves for the photo, and then they had a guy standing there who threw the scarf up so it looked like you were running through the wall. Ha!
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Our hostel was great, too. Free breakfast, and it was a lot cozier than the Generator hostels I’ve been staying in, though it was a ways out of the city.
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We didn’t make it to any museums, but er did that on purpose to not have a repeat of our much-too-indoors Paris experience. In hind sight, Paris had much better weather, and Jackson and I both nearly lost a few fingers and toes on the open-top bus, but eh. It was fun! What more a you want? (besides sun and a possible ten degree increase in temperature?)
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OH AND IT SNOWED ON SATURDAY.
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Okay. Now for some pictures I forgot to talk about:
The interior decoration of King’s Cross
Wand shop at Platform 9 3/4
The Ravenclaw Diadem, which you could purchase for just a few thousand pounds
The Tri Wizard Cup!!!
A pretty clock tower. Can’t remember which one. Ooops…
King’s Cross from the outside
The royal horse guard
Jackson and a lion in Trafalgar Square
A British post box. So cute.
Jackson geeking over Sherlock
The London Underground! We wanted to find 221B Baker Street (Sherlock’s address) but didn’t have time during our short stay. We barely made our plane, if I’m honest.
St.Paul’s Cathedral
When we finally made it onto our $75 tour bus ride
A view of The Shard and The Egg! (London has quite some eccentric architecture.)
The Tower Bridge!
The London Dungeon: sounded fun, but not worth forty dollars at the rate we were going…
The Shard! And The Jackson!
Another strange building
About to cross the Tower Bridge
Check. Out. That. View. Man.
The Tower of London! The caster which housed King Henry VIII. Gosh, I love that guy.
Toasting with some proper medieval goblets
Oh, and we went to Harrods! It was insane, and I bought Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
The seats on the Underground
My view as we left London! So long! I probably won’t miss you!
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Well, I’m off to study for my Danish final tomorrow!!!! Goodnight!
Golly. Add a few points to the stresses of London. After missing that first bus, I purchased tickets for the next one, but the seats were given on a first-come-first-seated basis, regardless of what our tickets said, so I wasn’t seated until the next bus. When I finally got off, it turned out the stop was actually a FORTY MINUTE WALK away from my hostel (in the cold, unfamiliar, dark-as-night-because-uhm-it-kind-of-was-night territory of the outskirts of London). Plus, I was starving. Luckily, the poorly-placed bus stop was conveniently placed with regard to a reasonably-priced Asian restaurant. I’m talking no more than twelve steps. It was glorious. Plus, they always get Chinese take-out in the British movies, so it felt appropriately cultural.
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Now I’m in the hostel waiting for Jackson, because he was supposed to arrive about two hours ago, and he still isn’t here, and I’m trying to simultaneously distract myself and keep myself awake. Here’s hoping it works and that he arrives soon…
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Okay. I’m backtracking now all the way to last Monday the 16th. I had a busy week before I went to London, and I never got a chance to talk about it! So I’m taking a break, and I’ll tell you about London in the next post. Kay?
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I think Monday was normal, as far as I can remember. I probably did lots of homework and made plans to do other things that didn’t happen. A nap may have also taken place.
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Tuesday, however, was a whole bundle of fun. No sarcasm. Denae invited the homestay network over for a nondescript, celebratory dinner, which was kind of a Thanksgiving slash Danish Christmas slash Reunite After That First Homestay Event Event. It was great and delicious. I’ve come to really appreciate just how hard it is to stay in touch with people who are not already a part of your life for some other reason (ie: classes in common, same commute, same favorite st–woah. wordpress in London just underlined “favorite” with the red squiggle that means it’s spelled incorrectly, because they spell it “favourite.” this is great. wow. their keyboards are also different. the quote sign is where the @ sign should be. struggles.– Right. Same favorite study spot, etc.) Therefore, it was great to see some other Allerød and Birkerød people again.
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The dinner was delicious, and the table was arranged so classily (my word)! Even the napkins were folded differently for each person.We had turkey, beef, roasted carrots and beets, scalloped potatoes, warm bread, gravy, salad…. Yes. ‘Twas a good time. And for dessert, we had ris a la mande, a traditional Christmas Danish dessert with a French name. It’s a rice pudding (the good kind) with a bunch of chopped-up almonds, and the person who finds the one whole almond in the bowl (there were two since there were so many of us) is supposed to hide it until all of the pudding is gone, reveal their find, and then get a prize. The prize was an advent calendar!!! I was jealous, since I’ll be missing the first twelve days of my fantastic, customary truffle-filled advent calendar Mom bought from starbucks so many years ago. (Why does British wordpress also think “Mom” is spelled incorrectly?)
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We also did a gift exchange. Super great idea. Everybody puts their wrapped gift in the middle of the table, and their are multiple cups with dice in them (one per cup). It’s a mad speed round of rolling and passing, and if you roll a six, you get a gift from the middle, regardless of whether you already have one. I managed to have four of the twelve gifts by the end. Huzzah! Round two is the same, except when you roll a six, you get to steal a gift–physically. You have to actually get up and grab whichever gift you want so the rolling and passing can continue uninterrupted. I had five gifts at one point and ended with two. Then the people with multiple gifts keep their favorite and dole out the rest to those without. I got fluffy socks. #winning.
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Wednesday was my Ultimate Adventure Day. First I had a field study with Royalty in the Land of Equality. We showed up at Roskilde Cathedral around 9am and got a tour by our professor, the amazing Stephen. It was so much better than when I tried to peek in the last time I was in Roskilde! (Granted, a service was happening last time, so I couldn’t do much exploring.)
The grave of the most recent king of Denmark, the father of the current Queen Margrethe II. He liked gardening and nature, so they broke tradition and put him outside the cathedral.
The inside!
A royal height chart, just like the one on my kitchen wall back home! It’s pretty hard to make out, but the very tallest one is Peter the Great. Tehe.
King Christian IV’s chapel, where he’s buried. The ceiling is painted with stars because he was very close to Tycho Brahe. Neat, huh?!
The pretty organ!
The three figures surrounding this tomb are known as the Little Mermaid’s sisters because they were created by the same sculptor.
Okay. This is where it gets weird. This is the model for the current queen’s chapel, where she will be buried. She and her husband, Prince Henrik, will actually be underground, but above them will be a set of steps, three pillars to represent Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, and a glass coffin/ oval thing with the silhouettes of the Queen and Prince. Creepy, if you ask me.
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Afterward, Stephen took us to coffee at the same cafe that Jackson and I had tried out last time. I got ischokolade, hot chocolate with whipped cream and ice cream. HE-LLO.
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More adventures ensued.
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Certain that I would likely not venture to Roskilde again before the end of the semester (long journey), I seized my chance to explore the Viking Ship Museum. I learned a lot, too! Those crazy Danes found five ships form the 1000-1200s a few decades ago that had sunk to the bottom of this Viking blockade. They reconstructed the scraps, analyzed the crap out of them, and then rebuilt them from scratch. They tried to do it exactly like the Vikings, because again, the Danes are crazy. They used axes and tools and materials that the Vikings would have used. No modern machinery here. And after they had rebuilt these five giant sailing ships, some other crazy Danes went out and actually sailed them! To test the designing prowess of the Vikings, I guess. Seriously nuts.
The completed reconstructions
One of the original Viking ships (or what was left of it!)
Another angle of another ship
Me trying to not be lonely inside a model Viking ship. There was a giant shield and Viking costumes that I really wanted to pose with, but I was too embarrassed to ask anybody to photograph my single self.
Those red things are giant shields!
Just a typical Viking boat-constructing shed, where they were still at work creating another ship. Honestly, where do they find these rugged men who think it would be a good idea to act like Vikings and build gigantic sailing ships with axes and their own bare hands?
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The sun had come out by this time, and I took my time to walk through the city a bit. I had nothing else planned that day, though I had dreams, certainly. I found myself in a fantastic little bookstore, grabbed a sample copy of a novel for free (in Danish), and convinced myself that I will get at least one novel in Danish before I return to the States. The covers are so cool, and that way I can brush up if ever I want to! (on Danish, that is)
A view of the Cathedral on my walk back to the station
Some pretty wreathes at the Roskilde Christmas market
Art in the town square
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On the train home, I was debating whether I shouldn’t go the whole way and just go up to the Louisiana Museum by myself. I have been wanting to go back ever since I bought my season pass on my first visit, for goodness’ sake! But I was too tired and it was getting dark. I also really wanted to go to the ballet again (this time to see Swan Lake), but again with the tiredness. So I settled for going home to relax. I plopped down on my bed, opened– JACKSON IS FINALLY HERE AT THE HOSTEL. ONLY 2.25 HOURS AFTER HE SAID HE WOULD BE. I WASN’T WORRIED SICK OR ANYTHING. I’M FINE.– Right. So I got in bed and turned on my iPad, only to find an email from my core course teacher offering me free tickets to… The Danish Ballet. Performing Swan Lake. Wow. I had to go, obviously. I ate some food, packed a sandwich, and hopped on the train yet again.
Lights next to the metro station!
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The ballet was strange. As per usual, it seems. The performance was not just Swan Lake. Oh, no, sir. They only performed the big meeting/tableau/showcasey scene, which lasts about 45 minutes. After intermission, the dancers came back on, sat in the raised orchestra pit, and performed a “choreographic concert.” This consisted of a sort of interplay between the dancers and this very complicated lecture given by a very old man that played every once in a while on a screen behind them. The “choreographer” was an American, and he sat at the conductor’s chair “conducting” the dancers to say and do the most ridiculous things sometimes. It was very interesting. Much more acting exercise than dance, if you ask me. It’s really hard to explain though, so I won’t try. But it was enjoyable, nonetheless. Can’t say no to free art!
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I was tired as heck on Thursday, and sicker than before. My throat was throbbing, and I really, really, REALLY did not want to get out of bed, but I just HAD to go to the last day of my core class. We got clementines and cookies, at least. After that class, I had a three hour break, so I met up with some of the Iceland Gang for some studying (no studying occurred) coffee and hot chocolate. Prime choice.
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Abbi and I explored some Christmas markets afterward!
“Everything is made of chocolate”
I thought I had taken the picture before Abbi made her way in, but I was wrong… So very wrong…
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I raced back to Creative Travel Writing to hear a talk by a guest speaker, Nagieb Khaja. He’s an amazing Danish journalist who reports on extremely dangerous and active events and groups. He’s been embedded with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, he’s been to several different war zones, including Syria, and he has reported on the gang activities in Copenhagen. It was such an interesting and enlightening talk, and he linked the activities in Paris and the actions of IS all the way back to the first World War. He also kept asking us really serious questions about American military actions that we had no answers to. I asked him a question about objectivity in the kind of intense journalism he works with, and he went on to explain that staying objective and neutral is what keeps him safe when he is interviewing potentially dangerous people in highly tense situations. Very eye-opening.
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Friday (sorry for so much stuff this week!) I had a field study with my Royalty class to the Amelienborg Museum. Our teacher Stephen works there as a curator of sorts, so he had an all-access pass for us. (Amelienborg is where the royal family lives, by the way!)
A view of the Marble Church from Amelienborg Square
The epitome of a (royal) man cave
A sort of Iron Throne!
Some pretty Christmas sights on my way to Danish (I was late).
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Okay! I think that about covers it for my week before the London trip! London will be the next post. I am now back in Copenhagen. So yes. It is technically Monday the 23rd now, but I started it on the 20th! So there!
I feel like I’m in a video game! I’m on the metro to the airport so I can take off for London! Host sister Maria was supposed to go with me, but we could never quite work out the details, so I’m dragging along Jackson instead. Good thing, too, because Maria is sick as a dog. Poor thing. Except that I think she gave it to me and Jesper, too. Sara is the only one who hasn’t been sick all semester. She says that I apparently wear tooooo many clothes, so I do the opposite of not wearing enough and make my body weak and prone to illness. Whatever, man. I’m not gonna go running around in a sweater. I learned the coat lesson the hard way back in middle school. Thanks a lot, Dad. Apparently you are the reason for my sickness! According to Dr. Sara, of course. Not sure how reliable that source is, though.
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This week has been quite a good one, actually! Very busy, but we’ll balanced, and I accomplished a lot. I was home for less than five total days, so I’m pretty impressed with all I did this week!
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Even the airport is festive with the Christmas season! I love it.
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What I don’t love is passport control and having my boarding in the farthest gate possible. We’re walking outside to climb airplane stairs again!
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Okay. So far London is meh. Security is high and passport checks are a thing. My right ear wouldn’t pop and I almost cried on the descent. It felt like the right side of my head was exploding. Then when I landed, I blew my nose and everything starting spinning horribly fast and it was just a mess. Then the bus ticket guy was super super rude. Those dang Brits! Where are Hugh Grant and Colin Firth?! Plus, I was a procrastinating little twit (British word) and didn’t book my bus ahead of time into London, so now I’m sitting on the floor of the bus ticket center (no seats) waiting for the next one. And I’m hungry.
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Okay. End rant. I’m in London. Jackson should arrive soon, though his plane was delayed half an hour. This will be an interesting 47 hours!
