Tivoli!

...again!  Friday afternoon, my friends Molly, Laurie, and Sara decided to go on a spontaneous trip to Tivoli, Copenhagen's awesome amusement park (rumored to have inspired Disney World!)!  It was probably my fourth or fifth time visiting Tivoli, but it never gets old!

The big swings I finally got to ride!

Whack-a-mole

Swings in action

The most exciting boat ride

We enjoyed a lovely (albeit expensive) dinner at the park and stayed almost until closing, because Laurie and Molly had become addicted to the giant claw game and had their hearts set on winning a large teddy bear.  In the meantime, they accumulated a small zoo from the "Winner every time" machines with the smaller animals.  I was feeling left out, so I decided to play too:

My prize: ..So what if he is neon green and has funny curly hair (missing in patches).  Winner every time. 

"Wake up Potter, we're going to the ZOO!"

My entire apartment got to hear me repeating that line from Harry Potter for about a whole week before our trip to the Copenhagen Zoo!  Fun fact: for a long time when I was little, my life goal was to be a wildlife biologist and have my own nature show on the Animal Planet, so you can imagine how excited I was.  And no, no explanation as to why I am now a Criminology major.

The Student Activities committee at DIS helped to arrange the trip, subsidizing the cost and providing us with a delicious lunch from ChiliMili.  The zoo has about 3,000 animals, and they're divided into areas corresponding to their native environment.

Meaghan eating lunch

Lions eating lunch

BEARS, oh my!

Elephant!

Penguins, my favorite

CUTEST thing in the world- chimpanzee family; dad was sleeping, mom was hanging out, and baby was jumping on top of dad.  Finally, dad woke up, rubbed his eyes, and nuzzled into mom, who started rubbing his back.  Most precious thing.

What's black and white and NOT red all over?  A non-embarrassed zebra!  Heh.

That time I bungee jumped from a crane...

On Saturday, my housemate Molly convinced me to do this:

Clearly, as the update of this blog suggests, I survived.

And I have to admit, it was pretty fun too.

Worth it.

I spent my last two days in Iceland on my own!

This was a decision I made after considering a flight back to Copenhagen on Thursday cost just about as much as paying for two more nights at the hostel and getting a cheaper flight on Saturday morning.  Plus, I was feeling a little adventurous- during my entire time abroad, I've never been a lone traveler, so I though this would be a good opportunity to try it out.  

Although I was admittedly a little lonely at breakfast on the first morning, I was excited to take the day at my own pace.  I had no plans to do anything besides walk around the city that day, so I hung out in the lobby for a little bit.  Eventually, I made friends with two older women from Atlanta who had just flown in that morning.  They were precious.  I also met one of my new roommates in the 10 person room Rita and I had been in all week- super cool, and really fun to talk to.

Even though I already think I'm the world's least intimidating person, I guess it helps being totally on your own.  People were really willing to strike up a conversation if I was sitting by myself, and it was a great opportunity to get to talk to people from all over.  

It was great wandering around aimlessly, writing some postcards, drinking some coffee, and chatting with some fellow travelers.  Secretly (or maybe not so secretly) I aspire to me a cool international kid traveling the world and having adventures, but until recently, that felt so far out of my comfort zone.  My experiences in Iceland gave me confidence, and even more wanderlust.

I leave you with one piece of advice:

Go to Iceland, it's worth it. 

:)

Spring Break ICELAND

Whenever I told people about my plans for the second week of travel break, usually the response my answer elicited was "What?  Iceland?  Why?  What are you going to do there?"

Admittedly, I didn't know much about Iceland apart from the inside of the Keflavik airport and my experiences with Icelandair, which were always delightful; however, I had always heard good things, and I've been curious to see for myself.  My housemate Rita shared by curiosity about the mysterious land of Iceland, so we got to be travel buddies and explore together.

The first day was a bit rough, as I arrived at our hostel at 7am after an overnight flight on which the man behind me coughed incessantly the entire way and I got no sleep.  Unfortunately, check in at the hostel didn't start until 2pm, leaving me to sit in the lobby, eyelids heavy, almost falling asleep multiple times.  In a fortuitous turn of events, I was able to check in early and immediately took the world's best nap until it was time for Rita to get in!  We took it easy that night, going out for a nice dinner before getting some sleep to prepare for our busy week.

Speaking of which, my questions of "what is there to do in Iceland?" were entirely answered as soon as I arrived at the hostel.  I probably read every informational pamphlet available about all the different bus tours/adventures that were offered by companies in the city.  They made it super easy to see all the major sights during the day, and they even picked us up right at our hostel!

The Golden Circle:  Basically the tour that everyone does while in Iceland.  You're able to see a lot of the natural beauty of the island, including lava fields, waterfalls, geysers, etc.  Sidenote- it was insanely windy that day, and every time we got off the bus I thought we were going to blow away.  I'm sorry to say that neither words nor pictures will do the absolute perfection of this place justice, but these should give you an idea.

Hot spring

Windy..

So windy.

Northern Lights:  Although the weather in Iceland is notoriously unpredictable and it can go from being cloudy to clear in a matter of minutes.  In any case, we knew we had to at least attempt to see the Northern Lights- it's such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and it's been on my bucket list forever.  Lots of the tour companies run tours to go attempt to see them, but the tourist has to be aware that spending close to $50 and not seeing anything might happen.  The day we went, the weather had been off and on all day.  As we drove out away from the city lights, we stopped the van a few times so our guide could monitor the "energy" in the sky- a precursor to the aurora.  It was windy and cloud, and as we huddled in the bus, I was having serious doubts about our luck.  Finally, after what seemed like forever, our guide called us out of the van, and we could finally see the soft green light forming in the sky.  As the night went on, it only got better and better.  A man on our tour had a great camera, so he offered to email his photos to us.  They turned out great, but talk about pictures not doing it justice.

Unreal.

Horseback riding: Icelandic horses are super unique.  They're smaller than normal horses, and their winter coats are really fuzzy.  Since Rita and I both love horses, we signed up for a trail ride through the lava fields.  The woman leading the tour was so passionate about the horses, and you could tell how much she loved sharing her passion with others.  The best part was that since it's so cold, you can borrow basically a big snowsuit to keep warm.  I was hesitant at first, but finally Rita convinced me, reminding me of all the times we've been jealous of the small Danish children who walk around all winter wearing similar outfits.  Although the ride started out a little rough- my horse decided to sit down while I was riding her- I upgraded to a speedy little horse and the rest of the ride went smoothly.

Snowsuits

My horse- not the one who sat on me.

After the ride, they like to roll around.  Funniest thing ever.

Iceland horses also have a funny gait unique to them called "tolting."  As they're doing it, they only have one out of four feet on the ground- check it out!  It's so smooth and comfortable.

Blue Lagoon:  The Blue Lagoon is a huge geothermic bath near the airport, and it is a must-see in Iceland.  Rita and I had been looking forward to the Blue Lagoon all week, and nothing- not even a blizzard, was going to stop us from enjoying the hot springs.  One highlight of the afternoon was definitely having the workers take pity on us and give us bathrobes (which were otherwise $9 to rent) for free, and also locating the special silica mud outside in the pool to smear all over our faces.  Besides being pelted by hail in the violent horizontal winds, and even though it smelled like sulfur, it makes for a good story.

Can't even begin to describe how cold it was..

After the Blue Lagoon, we met up with Paula and her friends for dinner.  By the way, Iceland has the best fish and chips.

Red ling with crispy potatoes and basil/garlic dip 

Hej, roommate!

Thursday morning, Rita got up bright and early to catch her flight to Ireland to meet up with our roommate Meaghan, and I began the next phase of the Iceland adventures- solo traveling!

Boston Birthday

I was lucky enough to spend the first week of travel break, also the week of my 21st birthday, in the lovely state of Massachusetts with some of my favorite people in the world!

This was the absolute best for a number of reasons.  Not only did I get to surprise Amy at Stonehill, as well as most other Stonehill friends who had no idea I was coming to America, but I also got to see my friend Samantha who has been one of my closest friends since 2nd grade and of course my parents!

...And I got to turn 21 in a country where it was actually significant.  C'mon, you have to give me that, it's pretty exciting.

Definitely one of the best birthdays ever thanks to amazing family and friends!  Here are some highlights of our adventures:

• Fire and Ice:  If you've never been to this restaurant, I would highly recommend it!  They have a few locations over the US, but over the summer my friends and I went to the locations in either Boston or Providence.  Check out the website if you're interested, but basically the concept is that you pick out a bunch of food from a "salad bar" type thing- pasta, veggies, meat, fish, sauces, etc, and you take it to a huge round stove ("fire"... get it?) in the middle where the cooks prepare your creation right in front of you!  (And it's all-you-can-eat so obviously I love it).  Samantha might have mentioned that it was my birthday, so the cook called me behind the counter and had me mix up my own meal while all the other customers sang to me.  Embarrassing, but I loved it.  My parents even treated me to my first legal beverage (the "ice" part)- the specialty of the day, a lemon blueberry margarita.  In retrospect, I don't know why I chose this particular drink, as I don't really care for blueberries, but the waitress seemed enthusiastic about it so I decided to give it a try.  It wasn't too bad after all!

• Mike's Pastry:  Another Boston favorite, and one of the most famous bakeries in Boston's North End.  DELICIOUS canoli.  Whenever we go to the city, we insist on making a stop there.  Since Samantha had never been, it was an absolute must.  We were stuffed, so we took our canoli to go, and we went back to the hotel to enjoy dessert.  My family back in PA had surprised me earlier in the day with an edible arrangement and a bottle of pink champagne- they're the best, and they made sure I finished off my birthday in style!

• The Sam Adam's Brewery:  Like I said, I love brewery tours.  Being newly legal, I thought that it would be the perfect opportunity to check out a US brewery.  The tour itself was good, and the samples were enjoyable, but the most memorable part of the event was what happened on our train ride into the city.  Danielle met up with us at the train station, and together with Samantha and my parents, we hopped on the Red Line.  After about two stops, a local character boards the train and sits down next to my dad.  As we plod along, she begins removing pieces of what might have been the greasiest fried chicken in the world straight from her purse.  Okay, lunch on the go, whatever.  But as she finishes extracting all the meat from a chicken wing, she not-so-subtly reaches down and tosses the bones under the train seat.  Needless to say, we were revolted, but what could we do?  We continued to sit there across from this woman, with my poor father right next to her.  Finally, she realized a man was staring at her and proceeded to ask if he had a problem, and he could clean it up himself if he wanted to.  I could think of about 578493 things that man would probably rather have done.  Anyway, she finally exited the train, leaving traces of her snack behind.  I don't think any of us will ever see a chicken wing the same ever again.

• Doyle's:  After the brewery tour, the lovely people at Sam Adam's are kind enough to provide a trolley to take the impressionable tourists to the restaurant they are closely affiliated- Doyle's.  At Doyle's, you can get some varieties of Sam Adams on tap that aren't available anywhere else.  Pretty cool, and we were pretty hungry, so we decided to take advantage.  We boarded the trolley, and our enthusiastic driver explained the menu at Doyle's, made some recommendations, and then proceeded to transform our vehicle into a party trolley, blasting "Fireburnin'" by Sean Kingston through the streets.  They were right though- I ordered half cherry wheat beer and half of the "Chocolate Bock" which tasted pretty similar to a chocolate covered cherry.  Delicious.

Parents on the party trolley

Early Saturday morning, it was time for Samantha to head back to Pennsylvania.  :(  My flight to Iceland didn't leave until 9pm, so I met up with Amy to have lunch and grab one last coffee before packing up my things and taking off for one more month abroad.

With that being said- even with all the fun beverages I enjoyed in moderation over the week, NOTHING compared to my medium french vanilla iced coffee with milk.  Dunkin Donuts- you win.