Eurotrip photos

For now I’ve uploaded some pictures of 7 out of the 9 cities we went to. Rome and Paris later!
Berlin Prague Vienna Budapest Salzburg Venice Pisa

25 days !

until I fly back home! that is, hopefully, if Eyjafjallajökull doesn’t erupt again, or rather, if Katla doesn’t erupt. So far it has ruined plans for two weekends already. :(

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY MOM! :) I sent her a postcard on Thursday, when the airports started closing -__- so I don’t expect her to receive that anytime soon :(

The weather has been so cold lately. As I was walking in the rain today, I thought to myself, it’s so cold it might as well snow! -_-. And that’s exactly what it did. It snowed huge fluffy snowflakes. None of us were too thrilled since we were dressed in our spring clothes and everywhere and everything was wet and freezing cold. :|

My Danish class visited Christiania on a field study today. Perhaps I would’ve had a better time had the weather been nicer, the tour guide not as anal, and the tour group not full of Danish students who like to smoke and drape themselves all over each other. :\ It was an interesting place to visit, nonetheless. Afterwards, my friends and I ate at the vegetarian restaurant there and then proceeded to celebrate Jane’s birthday at La Glace.

Christiania!

my vegetarian dish :)

La Glace!

celebrating Jane's bday early

So I’m leaving for Stockholm Friday morning at 5:23AM ! x___x At least I’m going somewhere, right? somewhere north and even colder, but somewhere nonetheless :D if ALL GOES WELL, I get back home at around midnight on Thursday (GREAT timing, Danish presentations and dinner..) and then leave my house at about 3AM to catch the night bus. :\ Why not sleep over at the station, you ask? Because they kick people out. :| Oh well. Not much else I can do lol.

ALSO, we finally have a house for senior year! 269 pine st 8) right next to weshop, olin, scili, pi, and the falafel cart hahah. oy, it’ll be noisy but then I CAN JUST RUN TO OLIN ACROSS THE STREET. Win?

Anyways, I’m OUT. Must finish powerpoint presentation for tomorrow as well as an essay in Danish and then 3 papers… and then some. :(

4/16 .

Todayyyy.

GOOD:

• It was Denmark’s Queen’s birthday today –> lots of DIS students going out to see her –> chillaxed classes
• My Danish teacher took us out to Town Hall to see her. We stood right next to the birthday cakes (there were 80 of them!). They were more like wienerbrød cakes, which I was totally NOT opposed to :) :)
• This one totally deserves a bullet point on its own: I had three slices (HAHAH FATTY) of the cake; the inside had this delicious cream too.
• The weather was AMAZING.
• And of course, I got to see the Queen.

BAD:

• Iceland’s volcanic eruption –> closed airports/many delayed flights –> people finding other ways to travel –> all trains fully booked (to Stockholm, Berlin, Munich, etc., aggh) –> Silvia and I couldn’t go anywhere this weekend as planned, potentially wasting 2-3 days on our Eurail passes (~$161) –> sad us
• Freaking. GRS. freaking. housing lottery. freaking. unluckiness. :( Oh well. Can’t ask for too much ..
• Ughhh couldn’t get into human memory class for pre-reg, the class I need MOST to graduate. :(
• HOUSE-HOPPING DAY AND MABUHAY AND WESFEST — WHY AM I NOT AT WES :(
• Now that my weekend’s free I guess I don’t have the excuse to avoid financial aid stuff. and papers. and such.

Exactly one month till I fly home. Let’s hope by then all flights will return to normal and that there’ll be no more volcanic eruptions :| though according to the news and my Danish teacher, it’ll probably continue erupting for a while x_x And I know this is totally self-centered of me, but I WANT TO BE ABLE TO GET BACK HOME. :|

random things about Europe: food

• Europe’s McFlurry is so much more awesome than America’s. We get SYRUPS in ADDITION to more choices in candy! It’s like an America’s Mickey D’s sundae and McFlurry combined. The candy is also better, sadly.. like that conetti thing. Whatever that is, I’d totally get it again.
• Gelato comes in Hello Kitty flavors. Hello Kitty is SO POPULAR in Europe, btw.
• I couldn’t stand the smell of restaurants that served cheese fondue.. not that we even wanted to pay 15€ for one :\
• This is amazing. And these were everywhere in the Latin quarters in France.
• There are such things as licorice macarons. Of course. How could I be so ignorant?
• Macarons, by the way, are delicious little pieces of heaven that make you forget about everything else in the world. Except they’re incredibly expensive .. we hunted down Paris’s top macaron places and they averaged about 1.5€ a piece.
• Kinder chocolate and ritter sport chocolate should be more popular in the US.
• European Mickey D’s have a separate McCafe section that sells pastries and cakes as well. French McCafes sell macarons too. Their Mickey Ds also have sandwiches American Mickey D’s don’t have, including veggie burgers, chickenburgers (with sweet chili sauce), and NY/Chicago/LA/wherever-styled burgers.
• French Mickey D’s (didn’t notice if this was available elsewhere) had different side-order options for a meal — fries, potato wedges, or salad. Yeeup, salad … makes it slightly healthier?
• The BK in Salzburg had cheese nuggets. :O
• Italian pizza is THE BEST. Their thin crust is amazing.
• Pizza is also served by the pie in Europe.. and each person orders an entire pie for him/herself as a meal. I’ve yet to see people order by the slice.
• Authentic Italian pasta, on the other hand… well, let’s say, other countries could beat them at it — at least at the restaurants we ate at.
• Nutella comes in all different shapes and sizes, from HUMONGOUS jars to the ones we have in the US to single-serve packets. They also have Nutella to-go.
• Haribo gummy bears in Germany also come in pear, peach, and black currant flavors.
• Absinthe tastes like mouthwash.

back to the land of PRICEY-NESS and “nej tak”s

The title says it all — I’m back in København! :D where even Paris cannot compare in terms of pricey-ness. I’ve also pretty much “nej tak”ed my way throughout Europe — both unintentionally (out of habit) and intentionally (to pretend like I don’t speak English or their language). The whole language thing got kind of funny as I ended up being a city behind (saying grazie in France doesn’t get me anywhere o_o). I did, however, miss Denmark for its lack of a language barrier.. it was incredibly difficult communicating at times, especially when Silvia and I tried to order in a Mickey D’s in Paris for Boris… oh dear.

So it was a 2-week long Eurotrip around 9 cities with roughly 1700+ pictures from my camera alone of Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Salzburg, Venice, Pisa, Rome, and Paris. During these two weeks, we’ve taken trains, trams, cars, buses, shuttles, and ferries as we each traveled with an average-sized bookbag and a bag of food (yeah we were all pretty gross by the end of the two weeks :P). We’ve had our silly moments, cranky ones, funny ones, embarrassing ones, and in the very end, we didn’t regret one bit of the trip. Prague and Salzburg were my definite favorites, followed by Venice and Paris.

Mayyybe updates + pictures later, but I’ve work to catch up on (heeeeheh..) as well as things back home that need to be taken care of. :( Trip this coming weekend [again]! to possibly Stockholm or Oslo? or something. o_O

Until then!

my survival pack for two weeks