More Travel Break Fun!

Time for a recap of week 2 and week 3 of my travel break!

After the Czech Republic, I headed back to CPH because (yay!) my boyfriend was coming to visit. I was so excited to finally have someone from home come see where I’d been living for the past year and it really meant a lot to me to have the opportunity to show off my Danish life.

Since it was my break, we were able to do a lot of things that I’d wanted to do here in Denmark but never got around to with my course schedule. Obviously, I showed off the numerous castles in the area (Rosenborg, Frederiksborg, and Kroneborg) and took him to Nyhave and Amalienborg to see the changing of the guards. We also took the ferry across to Sweden and spent a few hours playing in Helsingborg.

One of the evenings we went to my host mom’s daughter’s place for dinner and ate with her and her husband and their 2 children. I was glad that we were invited over so I could show off some more of my “Danish family.” My host mom also took us to Roskilde one of the days so that we could see the Viking Museum and another Danish town.

Oh and I introduced him to the Danish drinking culture as well, don’t worry. We even visited the Absolute Ice Bar!

After a week, it was time for him to go home and time for me to begin my third week of travels, starting with Amsterdam! Here I met up with a friend from my hometown who is studying abroad in France and another of her friends from her program.

Amsterdam was so beautiful and had so many interesting things to see. Besides wandering along all the canals, we visited the Anne Frank House, the flower market, the Waterlooplein Market, and of course the infamous Red Light District. It was extremely disquieting to see how young some of these girls were and to blatantly watch men go in and out of their “rooms.” The weather was pretty nice while we were here and we spent most of our time just exploring the city.

Next we took a train to Brussels where I was able to meet up with my friend from AU, Lucia! Brussels had some interesting things such as the Grand Place and the Manneken Pis (Dutch for “little pee man”) but I think the highlight of the trip was having a great tour guide and getting taken to some fun (and cheap!) bars. On the rainy day we were there, we went to the Cinemateket and saw a 1920’s film with live piano accompaniment! We also managed to find a giant fluorescent orange sculpture, the controversial David Cerny exhibit in the EU, and a church that had public urinals attached to it. Brussels is rather crazy, fyi.

The last city the 3 of us hit was Brugge (Bruges), also in Belgium. It was about an hours train ride north of Brussels and a super cute “fairytale-like” place. Most of the city center remains in true medieval form with beautiful architecture and numerous canals, earning it the nickname “Venice of the North.” While it was rather tiny, there were lots of things to do and lots of things to eat. Belgium is famous for its fries, chocolate, waffles and beer, which we HAD to indulge in while in both of these cities.

During our visit, we managed to go into the Holy Blood Chapel where they displayed a holy relic—a vial supposedly containing Jesus’ blood. We also wandered around the canals and relaxed in a beautiful park.

The next day we visited the Chocolate Museum and a funky second hand store that had a lot of crazy things to buy. After eating some to-go penne pasta out of a “cornette” (paper cup/cone thing—what will those Belgians think of next?), we witnessed some taffy pulling and then ended out tour of Brugge by relaxing in the warm sun by a fountain.

That night I flew back to CPH (on my last flight until I go back to the US!) and spent the next few days sleeping and getting some work done.

We only have 3 weeks of classes left, then a week of finals and then the semester is over! Can anyone else believe how fast my 9 months abroad have flown by??
my that is some erotic looking chocolate, ya got there Belgium...