"There is no real ending. It's just the place where you stop the story."
-Frank Herbert
This past week has been a mix of stress, papers, hellos, goodbyes, and exams. On Thursday I finished my 15 page paper on Danish Cinema, just in time to go to the airport to pick up my friends Niklas and Krys, who came to visit for the weekend. It was so good to see them again. Yet it was bittersweet because we knew that this goodbye was the real goodbye.
There were so many attempts to get both of us in this photo.
And what is better than going to a playground? Going to a playground with a lemon cupcake with pink sprinkles!
We thought this thing would be super comfortable, like a giant hammock, it was not. See those round shiny things? Yeah, those are super hard balls of plastic that dig into wherever you put pressure on, I think I have bruises.
These swings, however, where awesome.
The next day we walked around the city with Niklas and Krys squealing at everything we saw, just remembering the good times from last semester.
I was trying desperately to try and read all of the novels that I was supposed to read for my exam that I had on Tuesday.
We then walked through the Botanical Gardens, which apparently Niklas had never been to in the 6 months he was in Copenhagen.
Over the four trips Krys and I have taken together we have gotten super good at posing together for photos.
More fun with Coke names, I was Heidi and Niklas was Nicolai.
That night we tried to grill out but ended up just cooking things on the stove again, we have really not had good luck with grilling out.
Even though we were not able to grill out we were still able to eat outside, I forgot how beautiful Copenhagen was in the summer. Those 8 months of grey and cold really overwhelm the one month of sunshine and warmth.
Niklas wanted a "cheers" photo but if you look only one of the cans is open, since Niklas was the only one who was drinking the beer. I have lived in a major beer drinking country for the past 10 months and I still cannot force myself to drink the stuff.
This picture is hilarious because it shows exactly what the four of us do with beer. Niklas drinks it, I will just hold a beer in a bar to look like I am drinking it, Diana drinks water, and Krys is not exactly sure what to do with it.
The next day we went to the beach! Yes it is warm enough to go to the beach. It was hilarious because Krys tried to read my book out loud. My book written during the Harlem Renaissance, with the Southern African American dialect. Let's just say her German Accent is not really in line with reading the black southern vernacular.
Niklas was afraid of getting sunburned.
Only in Europe would you see a beach handball tournament.
Saturday night we had planned to have a campfire at the Viking Ship, but it was raining off and on so we decided to stay in and watch a movie instead. It was also Kate's birthday so we continued the tradition of bringing her cake at midnight. Krys again made a beautiful cake.
It was Kate's 21st birthday so of course they took the traditional shot on your birthday.
The movie choice of the night was "The Sound of Music", I had talked about this movie all semester with Niklas and Krys and they had never seen it so we finally watched it.
He finally found his name, even if it is misspelled!
For their final day in Copenhagen Diana made us an amazing brunch of pancakes, waffles, eggs, bacon, and smoothies.
And we were able to have another skype across eight time zones! It is crazy chaos when you try to talk to eight different people through skype.
In Europe there is really no fear of identity theft, as you can see by what Niklas thinks is fine to just leave out. Basically this is his ID card, money, camera, phone, and metro ticket. I should have stolen his identity.
It's weird because the goodbye on Monday morning was not nearly as hard as it was to say goodbye to them in January. I don't know if that was because it was 6:00 AM which is basically the middle of the night for me or if it was because I am now used to saying goodbye. Either way it was easier than January, but still sad.
After continuing my nights sleep I got up at 11:00 to go and tour Christiansborg, which is where the Danish Parliament meets and where my roommate, Natasha, works.
Christiansborg is built on the site of Absalon's Castle. Absalon was the bishop who founded Copenhagen. You can still visit the ruins underneath the castle, which I did way back in October. Since then the castle has been rebuilt 3 times due to fires. The royal family at one time lived in Christiansborg but after the first fire built Amalienborg and the Parliament took over the old palace. Since the second fire the building was completely remade to fit the offices of the parliament members and meeting rooms.
There was a hall which had all of the paintings of previous prime ministers. I just really like this one, first of all no Dane is that color, secondly there are definitely no mountains in Denmark, and thirdly why is there a fighter jet in the painting? So many questions.
All of the clocks in the building have this "A" and "M" on it. When the "A" is lit it means that the parliament is in session, and when the "M" is lit it means that the members need to go in and vote. From the first time the "M" gets lit up and a bell rings, members have 7 minutes to get to the chamber to vote.
And here is the Danish Parliament working hard! Just kidding pretty sure there were more computers open to Facebook than there usually is in an university class.
Apparently this lady is the most powerful woman in Denmark, Margrethe Vestager. She is the Minister for Economic and Interior Affairs.
Riding this elevator is quite possibly the scariest thing I have done in my life. The elevator is continuously moving and does not have doors, you just need to jump on and jump off. Just hope you do not trip and fall because the elevator will not stop.
My other roommate, Morten, also came along for the tour. He had never seen his nation's parliament before.
Behind the Castle is the Royal Stables. But Natasha and Morten told me that the queen never actually rides the horses. I don't really understand the need for a royal stable if the royalty never rides the horses.
Then Natasha showed us this hidden beauty, the garden of the National Library.
And today to end my stressful week I had a four hour written exam. Not only do you have to go to the university at 8:00 AM and sit there for four hours writing an exam, you have to bring all 7 novels from the class, your computer, and your own PRINTER! That's right you have to bring a printer to the exam. I borrowed my friend, Kate's, printer and she put it in her small suitcase to make it easy to carry it. I knew that i would look foolish taking my suitcase to the university but I just didn't care. There was no need to feel foolish, with the amount of suitcases rolling around the university this morning the building could have easily been mistaken as an airport. But all of that no longer matters because I am officially done with this semester! And to celebrate that I am going to Croatia tomorrow! I am so excited. While I have done a lot of trips while being here, I would say only one other trip has been a vacation. The rest have been trying to see as much of one city as possible in 3 days or less. This trip which is 11 days through Croatia and Bosnia will hopefully be relaxing and fun. It will be my last big hurrah before I need to go home to real life again.
Final Countdown: 15 days
No comments:
Post a Comment