CHK in CPH
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Valenza!
Our bus ride from Barcelona was about 4 hours, and we got to see some really beautiful Spanish scenery! The first hour or so the sun was setting which was marvelous. We were, of course, the last ones on the bus so we were all the way at the back which was nauseating, but other than that the time seemed to fly by! I think that can be attributed to how much I miss cars, though.
When we arrived we walked for about 20 minutes to our hostel and checked in. It was adorable, had lots of computers, common space and a kitchen, and our room was lime green so clearly I was a happy camper. By this point it was probably like midnightish or 1 and we were tired from a ridiculous day of carrying suitcases around like idiots so we promptly passed out.
The next day we slept and and then headed to the beach! We stopped at a place for lunch and then after much difficulty finding the metro station, decided to head down to the Port of Valencia since that sounded like a good beach. And it was!
In addition to the lovely scenery, there were a bunch of hotels that had restaurants and cafes, and a little stand where you could buy drinks and rent chairs, umbrellas, etc etc. We bought beer. It was a good decision.
After a full and lovely afternoon on the beach we had dinner at one of the restaurants behind the beach which was really really delicious, but more delicious was our discovery of Agua de Valencia… which is most definitely not water. It is a mixture of orange juice, champagne, vodka, and liquer and it is beyond amazing.
After that we hurried home because we were planning on going on a pub crawl that night! There were ads for it around the hostel, and it is every night at 10pm and they get groups from all of the youth hostels in the area. Our leader was a Scottish transplant who was pretty skeezy but hilarious all the same. A whole crew of Australians was on board that night, and they delighted in making fun of all the Americans wussy drinking habits and going to bed too early, as per usual. There was also a group of really obnoxious Dutch boys in horrible preppy outfits.
The highlight/lowlight of the evening was at the second bar. It was a gay bar, but it was practically empty so our whole crew rolling in was massively awkward for everyone involved. However, our guide Duncan informed us of the existance of the “Chuck Norris Roundhouse Kick To The Face” shot, the ingredients to which one would only be allowed to know after taking it. Challenge accepted. It was dreadful, but obviously a necessary undertaking.
The next bar gave me a glass of scotch and a glass of coke when I ordered a coke and whiskey… which was weird. And the bar after that was probably the most fun, as it hosts an international party on Mondays so it was really full. After it closed, we went to the last club of the night which was fairly boring. Duck sauce was danced to, friends made questionable decisions, crankiness was had, etc etc. We got home at roughly 5am. Job well done.
Next day we obviously did not wake up early and do things, so it was another beach day. Went to lunch at one of the beach restaurants which took laughably long; worst service of all time, but the food was so insanely worth it. However, the weather this day was incredibly windy which was not fun. Sand in everything and everywhere. I rented a chair which helped a little with the sand, but not the cold. Bleh. We went back to the hostel kinda early and got kebab for dinner.
Oh, and here is a picture of me being a cranky hipster on the beach.
On our last day we woke up and got lunch at a cafe down the street, then went on a walking tour with none other than Duncan, our creepy Scottish pub crawl leader. It was a pretty good tour of the old city. We saw the Cathedral and the Basilica, La Lonja, the central market, and some other cool areas of the city. Afterwards we went on a “tapas tour” which was less of a tour. We went to one place and had a few tapas and some drinks, and then we went to another place and had lots of tapas and a drink. We ducked out early though because we wanted to make it back to the Cathedral in time to see the Holy Grail.
Naturally, we made it to the Cathedral just in time to see it, but got confused and went up to the tower thinking that was where the Grail was since that’s what the guard told us. Once we caught our breath from that evil, evil climb (I swear, Europe tourism is just about going to the highest tower in every city) we rushed back down the stairs… only to get there just as the bell chimed 6 which was when the grail chapel closed. Such a disappointment. We found a way to see it later in the day, but it wasn’t that impressive in the end.
By then it was about 8 so we went back to the hostel and Marjie and Rebecca grabbed their bags and we walked over towards the bus station and got dinner and drank a whole lot. After we finished they went to catch their 12:30 bus and I walked back to the hostel and passed out for a few hours since I had a 9am flight to catch back to Copenhagen the next day!
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Barthelona
Okay so my updates about spring break are going to suck. I’m warning you now so that you have low expectations because it’s been ages since break started and it isn’t fresh in my mind but heeere we go!
Left for Barcelona early Friday morning. My flight was an hour late which was really stressful since I only had a 45 minute layover in Munich so I was pretty positive I was gonna miss it… luckily they made an announcement when we landed that everyone should stay seated unless they were on the couple connecting flights that were really close. Also my departing gate was two down from where we came in so it was all wonderful and I made it to Barcelona right on schedule. Called Rebecca to figure out how to get to wherever we were staying and promptly took like 3 hours to get there because the metro is super confusing and I got completely lost because I’m retarded. But whatever I finally got to the right stop and sat outside in the beautiful sunlight while Spanish girls made weird faces at me and my suitcase. The usual.
Met Marjie and Rebecca, dropped stuff off at the apartment where we were staying and then we headed out to look for an area called Montjuic. We kind of found it but not the right side of it but we still got to see a beautiful Palace/art museum and listen to some Spanish music in the beautiful weather so that was A-OK with me.
After we wandered around there for a while we started looking for dinner. Ended up getting paella and sangria at a little cafe. We had this really awkward Indian waiter who was like way too interested in us and kind of tried to invite himself to hang out with us later. Uhm, no thanks bro. After that we went back to the apartment and pretended like we were gonna go out but then just went to bed.Next day we did a little wandering on Las Ramblas while Rebecca wrote an application, saw a really cool market where I wanted all the fruit, then had lunch and saw the Cathedral.
Then we went to the Sagrada Familia which I was beyond excited for, and which totally lived up to the hype. Probably the most amazing church I’ve ever seen, if not the most amazing building in general. We also stopped by Gaudi’s tomb.
Then we went to some super fancy street because Rebecca’s guidebook said there were some cool buildings. Naturally we couldn’t find it and no one knew what we were talking about when we asked so we gave up and went to this horrid hot dog restaurant for dinner. Once again pretended we were gonna go out and then didn’t, but I was dead tired so whatevah.
Saturday was our last day in Barcelona, and we had to check out at 11 so we were gonna have to carry our suitcases around with us all day. And since we are retarded we decided that we would go to Park Guell that day… worst idea ever. First we had to hike up a giant hill and then we were like in the middle of a dirt path with our giant overfilled suitcases. Not fun. We deliberated for a while and then discovered all the good stuff was actually downhill so we went down and glanced at some of the buildings before peacing out for the beach.
We grabbed lunch at this super rando little restaurant that like didn’t actually have anything on the menu, and then hopped on the metro. Got off at the port/Olympic Village stop and had a delightful afternoon reading Harry Potter in the sun.
Around 5 we packed up our stuff and went on a rescue mission to Marjie’s friend’s apartment to get her and Rebecca’s sweaters, and then we were off to the bus station on our way to Valencia!
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Tower of London Day
Saturday morning Rebecca and I rolled out of bed and made our way to Borough Market for lunch, only to be waylaid for two hours by a pitcher of Sangria… at 11am. It was a good choice.
My mother is a huge Anglophile, but has never been to London, so I made sure to call her and torture her with that fact. After we finished off the pitcher at about 1 or 1:30 we wandered down the Thames on our way to the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge.
We took a tour with a Beefeater around the Tower, which was hilarious, and then wandered around on our own for a while. Saw the Crown Jewels which were pretty mindblowing, there was a silver punch bowl the size of a bathtub and SO MANY CROWNS! They also had footage of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation which was beautiful. We also got to see quite a few of the towers where they held people, and Anne Boleyn’s tomb! Such a wonderful nerd moment since I spent winter break watching The Tudors. However there was a dreadful group of French children that were completely out of control and we wanted to kill. The worst. Oh and we also got to see some of the Tower ravens! Really cool but also terrifying. I pretty much thought they were going to kill me.
Around 5:30 the Tower was closing and we had seen everything except for the torture exhibit, which I wasn’t too keen on seeing, so we headed back to Rebecca’s dorm for dinner which was delicious kebab take out! We were going to try to go on a Jack the Ripper tour with Rebecca’s friends but we were too lazy to rush back to Tower Hill. We rolled around a little and then went to the student pub with Rebecca’s friend Matt and met up with JC before going to a bar for the evening, which was quite the humorous situation. It was full of Scottish men in kilts because of the Scottish MNT playing the Brazilian MNT in soccer the next day. I wish I had the pictures from this, but again they’re on Rebecca’s camera. Anyways, after the hilarity that was that bar we headed home at about 2 am. And so ended another magical day in London.
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Londontown!
So, last weekend I went to London to visit Rebecca! After my Thursday class got out early (so I could have taken the 6:00 flight, so frustrating) I headed to the airport ages early because I didn’t really have anything else to do, getting there like 3 hours before my flight. I waited around and was gonna get dinner at 8:30 but naturally everything was closed by then because Denmark does that kind of crap. So I got some chocolate and Pringles because I am a 5 year old, and went down to sit by my gate at about 8:30 expecting boarding to start soon. I found a seat and was watching How I Met Your Mother when my computer was about to die so I tried to move around and find a plug, but in the Copenhagen airport apparently they don’t keep their random outlets working for random people to use like in America. So I just kind of sat and let my battery get dangerously close to dying when suddenly I realized I was sitting in front of the wrong gate. It was 9:12 and I was sitting in front of the flight going to Berlin, and my ticket said boarding stopped for my flight at 9:15. PANIC. I haphazardly tried to stuff my computer and things into my suitcase, but my suitcase is so busted that I couldn’t zip it in my panicked state so eventually I just carried it over to the gate in hopes that they wouldn’t leave without me if I was right there with my struggle, sadly having to abandon my Pringles.
So once I overcame that potential nightmare and got through the gate I saw my friend Shivani and so I creeped over to her and we sat together on the plane which was way too warm for comfort. Ew. Spent the flight talking about greek life, typical behavior, and then got way too excited for landing. Except that the Stanstead airport is evil and full of staircases where there should be escalators, so rude. Customs took literally years to get through, and while we were waiting in line Shivani had a minor meltdown when she realized she wrote down her friend’s phone number wrong and didn’t have any way to get in touch with her. But luckily that all worked out, dealt with the customs people who were weirdly cold, and found the EasyBus counter to get ourselves on the midnight bus to Baker Street! The bus driver had really creepy fingernails and the bus was hilariously small and orange which made for quite the comical ride. When we got to Baker Street we kind of wandered around until we found cabs… Shivani was so cracked out that she left her suitcase at the bus stop and a nice Spanish man luckily brought it over to her before she got in her cab. Once she was safely bound for Westminster I hailed a cab for myself which was offensively expensive but oh well. Arrived at Rebecca’s dorm at around 1:30 and was greeted with alcohol, Jack and coke no less, so nothing else matters! Hooray!
The next morning I slept in and then took a shower when Rebecca got back from class. Then we set out to try and find Dylan and go on the London eye. (I wish Rebecca had put her pictures up on Facebook because there would be a lot more hilarity in this post but I will just toss in the ones that I have.) We walked along the Thames to the Tate, and then met Dylan and her friend on the Millennium Bridge and kind of wandered around trying to find food for Rebecca and I.
After lunch we wandered some more down Fleet Street, saw the main King’s College buildings and some of the LSE and the Australia House where they filmed Gringott’s! Then we wandered through Sommerset House on our way back to the London Eye.
Oh, and Dylan and I took the obligatory tourist phone booth pictures.
Dylan’s friend left us once we got to the Eye since it was expensive and she didn’t want to go on it, so we said goodbye to her and then waited in the ticket line. There was no student discount and it was something like 18 GBP so like $30. Worth it though! I’ll make a separate post of pictures from that.
After the Eye, Dylan set off for dinner and Rebecca and I continued to wander. We got Rebecca some ice cream on a bridge (lord knows which bridge) and then she saw two other guys with ice cream and said cheers to them, which made them want to take a picture with her? Hilarious
As you can see in that picture, we were just by Parliament and Big Ben so after we crossed the bridge we stopped at a random stump and had a photo sesh, but I’ll give that another post as well. We wandered past Westminster Abbey, Churchill’s war rooms (closed for the day), and talked to some ducks in St James’ Park.
We then wandered over to Trafalgar Square where I laid in some grass with a statue of George Washington that allegedly has Virginia Soil (Rebecca has the pictures of this, sadly) and then met up with Rebecca’s friend Matt and started questing for dinner. In London pubs are all seat yourself, so it is nearly impossible to find a table anywhere. Also people just stand outside of pubs and drink because it’s not legal to smoke inside, so weird. We went about 4 or 5 places before we found one with a table and I had a delicious dinner of fish and chips! Rebecca also insisted that I try something called a snakebite which is apparently so potent that many places won’t serve it. It’s half beer, half cider, and then there is some sort of fruity syrup in it, pretty delicious. We were going to go out that night… but were both too exhausted and lazy so we just went to sleep and it was glorious.
And thus concludes part one!
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When Lisa visited for my birthday a few weeks ago we took a day trip to Fredriksborg Castle! It is a really beautiful place, and has also been turned into the Denmark’s national history museum, but most importantly it had a free audio tour! I was such a fan. The castle caught fire in (I think) the 17th century so a lot of it was reconstructed which was sad, but it was done remarkably well. The chapel was beyond mind blowing with the intricacy of the wood carvings covering the ceiling, and all of the shields/honors/crests covering the walls (and continuing throughout all the stairwells) and the organ which is so large it takes two people to work. The only really sad part was that the second half of the tour was all just descriptions of the paintings when there were some really neat artifacts that I wanted to hear about, but the first half was so wonderful it didn’t really matter. Hopefully I will be able to get back when it is warm enough for the gardens!
