Springtime in Aarhus!

Now that I am not posting about any kind of trip, this post will be nice and short!

After I got back from Marseille I was absolutley exhausted, so took a couple of lazy days! Easter was very uneventful, but I got an easter package from Margaret containing some excellent Mini eggs and Cadbury cream eggs and another little package from my Mommy containing some other excellent chocolates. So Easter was still delish! I also went to church! Totally in Danish of course. hah

I went to International night that week, though I got there at like 10, not even early, and there was like 5 people there. They come later and later every week!! But it was fun to see everyone, although there were still a bunch of people travelling!!

On Thursday I went shopping with Doni my roommate for Danish outfits hahah, I decided I was looking far too North american every day with my jeans and t-shirt, so we bought some Danish clothing!! We went to a Thursday bar that night on campus, it was really fun, a bunch of the exchange students were there too! So I hung out with Doni and her friends at the beginning and then the exchange students for the rest!

Pretty quiet weekend for me too! I had a lot of work to catch up on, and I went for a gorgeous walk down to the Risskov beach which is only like 10 minutes from my house- totally surprised Id never gone there before, because it was so nice! Next time I will be bringing my camera for sure!

Springtime is definately here in Denmark! It is getting absolutley GORGEOUS outside! If the sun is out, Im pretty sure you have no excuse for not wearing shorts and t-shirts and sandals. My backyard here is totally enclosed by like sheds and trees, so it is so nice to go out there and tan! I love walking through the uni campus, because it is soo pretty. Everytime I walk by the lake you can always see people practicing for the big boat race here on May 7th!

This week I was sooooooo busy!!! On Tuesday it was International night at Studenterhus, but some of the exchange students put together a BAND! It was Matteo from Italy, Jose from Italy/Venezuela, Benoit from Quebec and Mattieu from MONCTON!! seriously, moncton. I could not believe i had not met this guy before. So close! Their band was soo good! They played a lot of songs we knew, which was lots of fun, and Im pretty sure every single person I know here in Denmark was there that night.. soo fun! Although had to walk home, but that's alright!

During the day on Wednesday I was at this grocery store downtown that my roommate told me about- and it had a BRITISH/AMERICAN isle!! I was so happy!!!! They had like the british version of KD ("Cheese Pasta") hahaha, and also things I didn't realise we didnt have here- like Jello, Aunt Jemima Syrup, Pop-tarts, Chocolate chips, Jiff peanut butter, Fluff, Real yellow mustard, fruit roll-ups, fruit loops and shreddies, betty crocker cake mix, old el paso tacos and so much more! I was so happy, though the prices were unreal!!!! As in, aunt jemima syrup was 85 KR, AKA, like, OVER 20 DOLLARS!!!!

On Wednesday night me and Fabian and Jun-Rong went to Waxies, a random pub downtown I'd never been to for a Pub Quiz. Ive never been to one of those before.. but seriously it was so fun! They ask you ridiculous questions, some of them you know, but others you totally guess, and the winners get prizes, but unfortunately we were not among the winners haha. One of the questions was , which country is Bryan Adams from, and so i wrote CANADA in huge bold letters with some hearts and stuff around them, and you have to pass your sheet to the table beside yours for them to correct it, and they just looked at me and were like, I bet i can guess what country you're from.......... haha and then kept making like Canada jokes at me all night haha. it was funny.

Thursday night Me, Fabian, Jun Rong, Eva and Johanna went to Karaoke night at a different pub downtown, it was really funny. Im pretty sure I got sucked into singing Barbie girl.. oh yeah. slightly embarassing, but was with 3 others so was not that bad! But it was fullllllll of old people there, it was hilarious. The same lady sung like 10 times, by herself, but was.. not very good at all. She must have had a lot of self confidence to keep doing it over and over haha. Will probably not be attending that Karaoke night again! There was a "jam session" going on in the room beside the karaoke room, and we were talking to the singer guy before karaoke started, and he was from USA! I love meeting people from North America, Im not really sure why, they are never any different from anyone else, but I guess it is just a conversation starter because we have something in commmon! haha. Anyway some guy playing in his little band was hilarious, he was playing that mandolin instrument or whatever it was called, and his facial expressions were absolutley hilarious. I think I have to include a picture of that, because seriously, TOO funny. I could not stop laughing! We were waiting at the bus stop ready to leave later, me and Fabian. and the bus just DIDNT COME! I was so mad hah , and Im sure Taxis would be crazy expensive here, so we walked. Not cool when I had 9AM class! Since walking from downtown always takes about 40 minutes.. but, it could be worse!

Im pretty sure Friday was like, the funnest day in soo long. Not even joking haha. After class there was the Friday bars of course, and all of the exchange students go to the economics one, and it was just sooo sunny and gorgeous out, we were all outside on the grass. Nice to see everyone in summer clothes!! So fun.

After Friday bar I went home, got something to eat and went to a BIOLOGY PARTY! hahah, okay, I thought it was going to be toooooootally lame, but I had bought a ticket anyway to go. It was like the Biology committee's (Biogas?) 30th anniversary, so it was a birthday party! I knew the guy who was like, organizing it, and he's the one that convinced me to go, and I was like, alright.. I guess I can, even though he was the only one I knew before going, and knew he would be busy the whole time. Anyway it turned out to be not lame at ALL haha, but so much fun! They had like a DJ, a band, and a dance floor, and I ended up seeing people from my classes there! I was seriously the only English speaking person there, or like, non-danish person there for that matter haha, but it was lots of fun! I guess I have never really experienced Danish people when they are drinking at all, but they are talkative!! Normally like they hardly talk at all I guess until they know you, but I had like hardly ever spoken to these people in my classes before and as soon as I saw them here they were like, KAATTIIEE!, and I was just thinking like, I didnt even think you knew my name. hahah. But it was really fun!! I ended up talking to these two Danish girls from my class a lot- Mette and Sanne (the two girls at the bottom), and then the guy who was organizing it Jonas (in the blue shirt and vest), and Jens from my old fish biology class, and Martin from my old classes and Mads and Steffen (above the photo of Jonas) from the two classes I am in now! They all have ridiculous Danish names, most of them that have crazy pronounciations, and Im sure all of their last names have those crazy danish letters in them too. They even got me to dance.. I never dance. ever. hahaha. mostly because I cant! which was reconfirmed that night haha.

The party ended at 3, but I had told Jonas that I would help him and his little committee of people clean up.. and then I stayed for some food afterwards. soo.. I think in the end I got home at like .. 6.. haha, I can't say i have EVER done that before!!! But it was totally worth it, I got to meet some Danish people and have fun!

Yesterday I was really tired from staying up so late, and as it was already bright out by the time I got home on Friday night (or saturday monring? haha), it was hard to sleep. I went to Alberto's birthday party last night which was fun, although since I was so tired I only stayed for about two hours and then went to BED!!

Anyway I think that is all for now, I have procrastinated enough for today and need to be productive! Enjoy the pictures!!

Matteo playing at Student house!!

Me, Jose, Liga and Matteo! Wearing the rockers hats, and take note of Matteo's pit stains!!

Me and Liga at the concert!

Ina, Liga Me and Michelle at the lovely Friday Bar! In our summer colours!

Jens on the right and his friend at the Biology party!

Steffen and me at the biology party! I have a nice danish flag in my hair!! Im pretty much Danish!

Voyage en France partie 2- Marseille et Istres!

Okay I have to admit I was not anticipating writing that much about Paris. But I had to write it all, even if nobody reads it, it will help me to remember my experience there someday!

I promise my description of Marseille will be shorter!! Mostly because we wern't super ridiculously busy and constantly making sure we had enough time to see all the sites.. because pretty much, we saw everything we wanted to see within the first half of the day, on our first day. hah. This part of our trip was supposed to be our actual vacation part, which turned out kind of disastrous, as was the rest of the trip, but also was relaxing in a different way!

SO back in Paris, we decided to take a night train to Marseille to cut some costs for hotel rooms for that night. Im still not sure if I would rather spend the money on a hotel/hostel or be cheap and ridiculously uncomfortable (and in the end, hardly getting any sleep) on a night train. I was lucky enough to have the seat beside me free, and Lianna said she was slightly jealous because I looked like i was so comfortable all night.. believe me, I was not, but at least i got to put my legs up on the seat beside mine!!

So we arrived in Marseille at about 7:30 in the morning, and made our way to the hotel. The first thing i noticed about this city were the PALM TREES! They actually had freaking palm trees! Was absolutley, 100% not expecting this. They were soo nice! It had been really warm in Paris, like 25+ degrees which was incredible, but Marseille seemed to be a little chillier.. must have just been the days we were there! Then again it was probably 20 degrees every day, totally can't be complaining that this is cold weather!

One of the other things i noticed about the city right away was how much friendlier the people were than in Paris. Not that they wern't nice in Paris, but as soon as we held out our map to look for the directions to our hotel, someone came up to us and asked us if we needed help, and she immediately helped us and pointed us in the right direction! Very nice of her!!

I got to use my french a LOT more here than I did in Paris, because it wasn't so touristy, so therefore they literally ONLY spoke french!! It was lots of fun.

So after looking around the hotel, which was perfectly located, we went for a little walk around the city to get to know it. We asked an old man directions to the "Vieux Port"- the old port- which is the main area of the city. He was just like, oh, well Im going there right now, how about you just come with me! He was super freindly, and on our way down there, he even gave us a little history lesson about the city!! Showed us once again the friendliness of the locals! He told us (in french of course!!) about how the city was founded by Greeks in like 600 BC or something crazy like that, and one of their buildings were still there in ruins, which he pointed out to us, and about how there was a huge flood in the city a long time ago!

ANyway so we made it to the Vieux Port, it was gorgeous with lots of boats, and up on the hill was Notre Dame de la Garde! We explored a little bit, went to the tourist shop, got some maps, went into the "Old cathedral" (Second picture up there!!), and went back to check into our hotel, and then went and climbed up the hill to go to the Notre Dame de la garde! It was soooooo cool! It was quite a walk up, but was totally worth it! The view was incredible- the city looked like a greek city or something- all of the buildings were sand-coloured or white, just what I would expect from a mediterranean city, and also you could see into the water, and you could see the full Port!! It was gorgeous, and when you looked out into the water you could see some islands- one was the island with Chateau D'If on it, and the other ones were called the Frioul Islands.. very cool. We went to them the second day of our stay in Marseilles, so i will refrain myself from talking about them at least for 5 more minutes.

Overall the day was pretty good- lots of walking, but we wern't rushing or on any time limit for anything which was great. That night, after our supper (I totally was resorting on food from the supermarkets and 40 euro cent baguettes by this point haha), we met up with Kailey, Ally, Danni, Amber and Belinda who came into the city from a Danni's family's beachhouse that they were staying at for the week, which was in a village called Istres about 40 minute car drive away. It was a fun night, we just went to a couple of small bars and then by about midnight I was pooped out from all of the walking, so we all walked back to our hotel room and they stayed there for a little bit, and they decided to check out the bar across the street from the hotel. I went to bed, and at about 3:30 they came back into the hotel and had to wait until about 5 for their train back to Istres.

The next morning I woke up to Lianna telling me that we were going to be staying in the beachhouse for the next two nights, and we got into a little bit of an argument because I didnt really know them and was happy with the hotel we were in in Marseille... but I never win, so we packed up our things, signed out of the hotel, left our bags there and were going on a boat for the day to the Chateau D'If and the Frioul Islands!!

The Chateau d'If is a big castle built on an island right off the shores of Marseille, and was originally built for protection of the city because it was used as a lookout for incoming attacks. Soon after that it was used as a prison, because they knew the prisoners couldn't escape as it was on an island! Anyway it was really cool to see, and the place was made famous by the 'Count of Monte Cristo' book/movie, and i think I am the only person ever who has no idea what that book is. But it was cool even still! Very pretty. There was also this creepo Turkish guy who kept talking to me in French, and normally I just wouldnt even talk to them, but I was actually really enjoying speaking French to him so i kept talking to him, too funny! Eventually we got rid of him though, and we went to the Frioul Islands next, which were toooo cool! They were big calanques, which I think is just some kind of cool white Mediterranean rock, but it was soo gorgeous. There was also patches of land that were extremely BLUE. like, aqua, tropical blue! Totally wasn't expecting that. Also saw my first CACTUS plant, that was not an indoor plant! hah, but was actually supposed to be there! It was cool. There were some people that actually lived on this island and just had their own boats if they wanted to go into the city, but we didn't walk around that part too much, we just went on the big rocks and checked out some old building ruins and stuff. We saw this really old looking hospital and we walked over to that, and it looked really old and half torn down, but it turned out it was only like, 50 years old. It didnt make any sense at all when I was reading the description, but since my French is so bad it must have said some tramatic event happened or something there that I missed hah. Anyway, as we are always in a rush, we had to rush back to catch the next boat back to Marseille, to check out of our hotel and then catch the train to Istres, a little village about an hour train ride from Marseille!

To be completely honest I was not expecting anything really exciting from Istres, Im not sure why, maybe just because it was a tiny little city of 40,000. But it actually turned out to be gorgeous, and was the only sort of "vacation" we really had, where we could actually relax! That night we just hung out with the girls (Kailey Amber Belinda and Ally) and Ally's danish boyfriend Danni, who's summer house it was that we were at. The next day Lianna wanted to go to a beach nearby, but I was running very low on money so I thought it would be equally as good just to walk around the city, and it totally was! It was soo cute. It was really hot, totally weather for shorts, tshirts and sandals, which totally surprised me it was this hot at the beginning of April! I saw my first LIZARD! woo, that was exciting. The centre of the city was an old, Medieval village where the house was located. It was so neat, the streets were all really narrow and I dont even think there were street signs, and cars wern't really allowed to even drive in them. And there were TONS of cats. tons! While I was walking I couldn't get over the amount of palm trees too. They were sooo nice. I walked down to a lake that was really nice to look at. I think a little polluted to swim in, but nice to look at! There was a little water fountain decoration thingy in the middle too!

I went back to the house after a few hours of walking, I didn't feel very good and had to wait for the rest of them to get home, as the big group of people went with their car to Nice for the day. Soo I watched some movies, relaxed.. very nice!

Early early the next morning (4?) I woke up and headed off to the train station. I was on trains from 5AM until like 3PM the next day. craazy! It was a long, long ride home. I went from Istres-Marseille-Lyon Part Dieu- Strasbourg- Berlin-Hamburg- Flensburg- Padborg-Fredericia- AARHUS! finally! All of those cities I mentioned I had to get a train transfer at. long, long journey. haha. But made it at last! Everything was a smooth journey home except for the very very first train was 20 minutes late, making me miss my second train which messed everything up. But the nice guy at the Marseille train station made me a new route to go home. Very nice of him, whereas the others were supposed to leave that night that I left, but all of their trains ended up being full and other stuff, so I heard their trip was kind of disastrous.

Anyway, enjoy the pics!!!

Mon voyage à PARIS!!

Woops! Sorry of the lack of updates to my blog! It has been a while!

Ill see how much I can cram into one!

I will start with right after my fab. trip to Berlin! all I did for one week straight was STUDY!! I had one exam, a hand-in assignment and a lab all within like a week, so i was busy busy busy! I think i managed to go to international night and i went over to the italians house for dinner one night! very nice.

Meanwhile, if i wasn't studying, i was frantically planning for FRANCE!! Worst planned trip of LIFE, by the way. Apparently there are not very many hostels in Paris, let alone ones that were free, and especially that were CHEAP. Very very long and complicated process, but was finished in the end! Also train ride planning turned out to be a disaster, and pretty much everything else that included pre-planning. The girl I was going with kind of wanted to play the trip by ear, but.. ah, i am someone who totally needs to plan ahead. not a good combo!

ANYWAYS at 2:11 on Thursday april 12th, I was off on a train to PARISSSSSSSS!!!

A Long, long, long, LONG train ride later, I arrived in the beautiful city of Paris at 9:30 AM the next morning!!! Got a little lost getting to my hostel, but with the help of friendly french people and the attempt of my pathetic french eventually got me there! I seriously think one of the funnest things about the trip as a whole, was practicing my French! I know I am not very good at it, i have a thousand grammar mistakes and no accent whatsoever, but seriously.. it is such a fun language! The girl, Lianna, who I went with, was way more embarassed to speak french than I was, which made me able to use it even more! She didnt take any kind of french immersion like I did, but she could understand all of the french that I said, so I think the only difference between me and her was the fact that the french words would come to my head much faster than they would come to hers!

Sooooooo.. put my bags in the hostel, got a map and some directions, and went off to do one of my favorite NEW EUROPE tours! They are fabulous, highly recommend them when travelling in Europe's big cities! They are these AMAZING like, 3 or 4 hour free tours, with the best tour guides of all time. I had a new zealander named Phil, he was very cool! We got to see the Louvre (Picture with the pyramid up there), Notre Dame, Eiffel tower (from a far far distance), palais royal, heard much french history, especially with all of the King Louis'!, lots of gardens and many many other things! I was there by myself for the first day, because the others wern't going to arrive until late that night, so I figured doing one of these tours would be an extremely efficient way to see the city and get knowledge of the history of it!

Yup, so I met some girls on the tour from the USA and Canada, and since it was free museum night that night, we all decided to hit up the Louvre to see the famous Mona Lisa! It was real fun, even though I am not a fan of museums usually!

The girls in my hostel were pretty cool too- I had a girl from Argentina , and another girl from Ireland. Although the hostel itself was definately sketchy!!

The next morning I woke up and met Lianna, and then proceeded to go on half of the free walking tour again with Lianna, Kailey and two australian girls. That was pretty embarassing, as it ended up being the SAME tour guide.. awkward...

Half way through, Lianna was going to meet up with her friend Olivia who was studying in Paris and go to the Palace of Versailles, so I joined her in that! We spent the afternoon there, waiting in long lineups, but it was really cool! They liked it a lot more than I did, because it was just like a big gallery sort of thing- and since I didnt know the history, it wasn't so exciting for me- and the audioguides they gave us had seriously the most boring voice ever giving us the history - which confirmed why I seriously hate learning about history. But the palace was beautiful, and it had GORGEOUS gardens too!! The only thing I really remember about this place is there was a huge room in it with a bunch of mirrors, and thats where the Treaty of Versailles was signed!

After we were at Versailles, we hopped back on the train to Paris and at 6PM we went on a tour of Montmartre.. awkwardly enough with tour guide Phil AGAIN.. but whatever, he was super

cool. It was an AMAZING tour!! We saw the real

Moulin Rouge, as well as the Sacre Coeur, and the house where Van Gogh lived, and where Picasso lived, and where the movie AMELIE was filmed (very cool), and of course the SPACE INVADERS! http://space-invaders.com/ Go to that link to find about more about it. It was hilarious.

Very fun, and after that tour was done, me and Lianna headed off to see the Arc de Triomphe, and the crazy shopping street in Paris with like the original louis vuitton- Champs elysees. Also could see Eiffel Tower looking beautiful off in the distance so we though- oh hey, lets just walk over there..

So like an hour later we got there, (slightly more than anticipted) and it was gorgeous! Took lots of pictures!

The next morning was a Sunday, and the first Sunday of every month has free museum entrances, so once again, I went to the Louvre. I felt like a pro. Actually only felt like a pro on the directions to get to the Mona Lisa. For the other 35,000 pieces of art.. not so much. The Louvre is absolutley the hugest thing I have ever seen in my life. And the pyramid entrance is too cool!!

Spent a little more time than I would have liked in there, but whateve, I guess its something that I had to do when I was there, even though I hate museums. We saw some work by the four ninja turtles, dont ask me to name them because I can't, and also the Venus de Milo! As well as a thousand other things which I am unable to name or remember in the slightest.

After the Louvre, the Catacombes were calling our names. The catacombes are like 4 stories probably underground, and it is where 6 MILLION bodies lay! They took a bunch of bodies from nearby cemetaries when there were plagues and growing populations in Paris and put them in the catacombes.. it was somehow an honour if you were placed down there- dont ask me why, I dont think I would want my bones placed decoratively on the walls down there. It used to be a big mine down there back in the day. Me and Lianna had one word to describe the experience- "Deathy". nice.

That night we went and had supper in a cute place in Montmartre.. have to have at least one fancy meal when you go out to a big city! The rest of the time was pure fast food. well, not like Mcdonalds, but like, crepes and other "cheap" food.. cheap for paris' standards anyway.

While we were in Montmartre, we went back to the Sacre Coeur to see the dusk and sunset views from there, and to take pictures of the church at nighttime. Beautiful!

Also took a metro (Metros saved our lives in Paris) to the Eiffel tower after this to try and go up it and see the city at nighttime, but we arrived and there was only 30 minutes until it closed, which apparently turned out to be a good thing, because I guess the city doesnt look that good at night time, as you cant really see anything except lights. We went on a childrens carousel ride to make ourselves feel better for not going up.

So.. this is where the fun part of my Paris experience goes. The next morning I woke up, to go to the Gare de Lyon train station to reserve a train ticket to be like, oh hey, wheres my wallet? NICE. it was gone. like two hours of searching/ retracing steps and last nights steps with nothing to find. Either my stupidity and carelessness or a pick-pocketer. To make myself feel better I am going to go with pick pocketer.

So that was pretty upsetting, had to call Mom in Canada. Probably a 500 dollar phone call haha. very nice. But Lianna was really nice about it- she was like, dont worry about it, lets just do everything as planned and you pay me back once we get back to Denmark. Good thing, as I had 50 euro and my passport to last me another week in France. SO our plans for our final day in Paris consisted of Eiffel tower, Notre dame, and meeting Liannas friend Olivia again.

So we go to the Eiffel tower, wait in a ridiculously long line up, WALK up 700 stairs (its like half price to walk half way and then take the elevator rather than just take a straight elevator up!), meanwhile my stomach is ridiculously upset, I think because of all of my crying from my wallet eventually made my stomach upset. But i was like, whatever, as long as I dont think about it, I will be fine and it will go away. But of course, it didn't. So on the first floor of the Eiffel tower, I told Lianna I was going to lay down on a bench for a few minutes until I felt good enough to walk up to the second floor. So I looked like a homeless man on a bench for 20 minutes. good times. When I got up I was like, OK sweet, I feel better, lets keep on climbing, but then after a few minutes of standing up I REALLY didn't feel good. So, I ran inside this restaurant looking thing, asked the nearest janitor where the bathroom was and he pointed to like a 20 person line up. Ok, I couldnt wait that long. So I ran back outside, and was like- garbage can, garbage can!. No garbage cans. SWEET. i threw up ON the eiffel tower. Can it get any more embarassing than that??! Im not quite sure... definately something that I will remember for a very long time!!! And to look back and laugh at later, but I am still in that embarassed stage now haha

So eventually, like 2 hours later, we made it up the elevator and to the top. it was FABULOUS! I felt much better, and the view was phenomenal. Met some american boys, they were pretty hilarious, took tons of pictures, enjoyed the view, and eventually went back down.

We then metro-ed over to the Notre Dame to get an up-close look and an inside look, and was also gorgeous! Sat around for the first time and enjoyed the HOT HOT HOT weather, and then met up with Olivia. We did a bit of shopping and went to her apartment for a minute, and before we knew it, it was time to board the train for the second half of our trip- MARSEILLE!

So this is where my post ends (at last, I know), and I think the next one will include everything you ever wanted to hear me say (and much more) about the cute little city and outskirts of Marseille! Enjoy the pics!!!