School's Out!

It's the first time that I've actually dreaded the end of the school year, even after having worked 10-12 hours a day for 5 days on a exam paper (and for the first time ever finished it 3 days before the deadline, shocking I know). It's weird to think about being home in 2 weeks.

Anyway, due to irritable volcanoes and closed airports, my trip to Barcelona was rescheduled for this past week (just got back last night). I like to think that things happen for a reason because the weather for the original trip wouldn't have been nearly as fabulous was the weather was this week. 80 and sunny the entire time! I couldn't help but to soak up the sun as much as possible, even at the expense of my poor pale skin.

Barcelona was a beautiful city. I can't even describe to you how beautiful and the pictures will fail to do it justice. If you ever get the chance to go, take it.

I have hundreds of pictures from the trip that I will upload for you to see, I think that's the best way to describe what we did during the trip.

Tomorrow I'm heading down to Slovenia to meet up with Jason, Michelle and Sidney! Hopefully the rain will go away for that trip!

Much Love.

T-Minus One Month

I realized last night that I will be home in exactly a month...where did time go?

Last weekend I went to Milan to visit my friend Paula and was reminded what spring is really supposed to be like; green and at least over 60 degrees. I actually got to take my coat off, it was fantastic. Although Milan was more of a metropolitan city than I would have preferred it was great to see some friends from home and eat some great food.

Friday my friends and I hosted our long awaited 90's party. Although attendance was lower than I would have liked we all had a great time dressing and dancing like it was 1995...or '96, '97 or what have you.

The weather here has been extremely drab and it's starting to get to everyone's head a little bit. For the last week it has been overcast, high 40's, and either windy, misting, raining, or pouring. I even got a text message from my Danish friend apologizing for the weather saying the "weather is never like this"...I've gotten similar texts from the same person on at least 3 other occasions in the last 5 months.

Tomorrow I get my exam questions and have about 6 days to turn out a 14 page paper. It's going to be a rude awakening having to actually work and study for the first time in 5 months, though I will be rewarding my efforts with a trip to Barcelona on Sunday :) Hopefully there will be sunshine and warm weather there...not to mention Sangria.

Much Love

Danish Mifflin

This past Saturday was the legendary Mifflin Street block party in Madison and I was asked if I was sad I was missing it. Luckily May 1st happens to be the Danish labor day and the party that goes with Danish Labor day, I am sorry to say, blew Mifflin out of the water (and the Badgers thought they knew how to party). Everyone goes to this park called Fælledparken and picnics, bbq's, drinks all day long listening to live music and the occasional policical speech by Socialist activists (maybe communist, I have no clue it was in Danish and there was a few communist flags, but I was told it was a socialist holiday). This park is huge by the way, and every inch of it is covered with people. I also didn't have to worry about having an open intoxicant because it's legal to drink in public here...though in Mifflin's defense I think part of it's charm is avoiding arrest all day. Other than those few things it wasn't that different from Mifflin; the first thing I saw when I got there was still someone bending over to throw up (drinking too much seems to be universal).

Sunday I went to tour the newly renovated palace for the Crown prince Fredrik and his family. I went with Lone (for all intents and purposes my Danish mom) and we only had to wait in line for an hour and a half (worth it). I couldn't take any pictures but it was beautifully decorated inside, I can't imagine living in a place like that. Afterwords we went out to Helsingør to watch Mark (her son, my Danish brother for all intents and purposes) play football (the American kind). The Kronborg Knights got beat on by a team from Copenhagen but it was really homely sitting there and watching American football. Then I went back to their house where, and I will have you know that this was by special request, I cooked them my alfredo sauce (again). Yes, I am that good of a cook now :) Go me.

I'll put some pictures of the park up on the photo journal.

Much love

Spider incident, Tour de Chambre, and Copenhagen heat wave

The dreaded moment has arrived. Along with allergies spring has finally brought me my first spider (not itsy bitsy by any means). I knew this was coming, and not having 5 boys around to have kill spiders, I knew that I would have to suck it up and deal with it myself. So I've been psyching myself up, getting into the "you can do this" frame of mind, it's just a spider and your shoe is much bigger than it. When I discovered a web and spider legs outside my window I wasn't sure if it was just a dead one left from the season before or my first encounter. The rest of the story goes a little like this:

-I think there is a big spider on my shutter (calm, cool, collected, I can handle this mode)
-Move the shutter, spider drops into sight and starts crawling around
-@!#!$!%@#!@# and lots of screaming

I spazed so much that I almost gave my friend a heart attack and scared him from going anywhere near it much less killing it (oops).

Said spider is still at large.

Last night my floor had a tour de chambre (round robin of bed rooms so to speak). 8 of us participated and for each room you had to come up with a theme, decorate, dress up, come up with a drink (not the Shirley Temple kind) and a game to play. Lacking any sort of creative bone, cell, and/or gene in my body I came up with a flower theme (original I know), which gave me a good excuse to buy myself flowers :) and play pin the bumble bee on the flower. Needless to say every other theme was more creative than mine, including a girl who transformed her room into a disco, Saturday Night Fever style. One of the games for the Communist Russia themed room was throwing these Danish chocolate marshmallow ball things (surprisingly good) at the face of G.W. Bush. It was kind of funny because all of my Danish roommates were looking at me waiting for me to be offended. Too bad I'm such a poor shot; my throws went over the target, into the wall off to the side of the target, and onto the floor a foot in front of the target...and I can't even blame that on being intoxicated because it was the first game of the night.
In other great news the weather here hit 64 and sunny on Thursday! I could actually take off my coat! It was short lived though because now it's back in the 50's and raining. Don't be alarmed if you confuse me with an albino when I come back.

Thursday I am off to Milan for 4 days of warm weather and carbo-loading!

Much Love