Jan 26th - Onto Week 2!

Hey Everyone!

It's been a while since I posted last, but I've been SUPER busy here!  We have tons of activities that are planned each day and night from the buddy crew so there's not much time to sit around.  I guess I left off last with the boat cruise that we took... so long ago now haha.

Since then:

We took the time on Saturday afternoon to go and see what Christiania was all about and wow - what a different world!  When we were walking towards it, I said to my friend, "Hmm, do you think we'll know when we're in the area?  Or will we just pass through without even noticing?"  Let me tell you, you know!  I WISH I could have taken picture inside, but everywhere is posted "NO PHOTOS" so I really didn't want to risk someone smashing my camera.  It was crazy though, there was huge oil barrels everywhere that made little fire pits, all the housing buildings were graffettii'ed (but nice artwork not vandalized), and next to the hotdog stand and t-shirt stand is the marijuana stand - yes, marijuana.  It's legal in that little area :S Needless to say though, as soon as the sun started to go down, it was time to get the heck out of Christiania!  Here's a pic of the entrance...

On Sundays in Denmark it is a rest day and nothing is open, so we decided that it would be a perfect day to head into downtown Copenhagen by the canals and harbour to sightsee! It was awesome :)  It was certainly quite the walk, and pretty chilly by the seaside - but for all those who live in Ottawa, I shouldn't be complaining about the cold lol.  The thing about European cities (I remember from Stolkholm as well) is the architecture of the buildings, it's amazing!  In Denmark, they were telling us that they always try and keep re-using the old buildings since it costs just as much to renovate it from the inside as it does to tear it down and build a new modern building.  They are so old and have so much history that it would be terrible to tear them down.  During the walk I was amazed at just the buildings themselves! The first stop was the harbour port which was beautiful - it's in all of the picture you see when you google "Denmark" because of all the colourful houses and the ships.  I <3 it!  It leads to the main canal that goes into Copenhagen, and was one of the first ports that was dug out during the construction of the canal. 

After the port we walked along the canal and saw the Opera House from across the water, which is super pretty at night.  The next stop was the Royal Palace.  It's not like Buckingham Palace where it's all one big building, in Copenhagen there are 4 smaller buildings all in the same location.  Apparently one is where the Queen lives and the other is for the Prince and Princess - not too sure what the other 2 are for.  So the first picture is by the entrance to the Royal Palace and then is the classic picture with the guards.  It was funny because the guy was moving his head/eyes but would not say a word obviously, and we were each trying to take a pic but no one wanted to be the one to get in trouble for going too close.  So each picture one of us is a little bit closer than the last person lol.  He just kept starring but not saying anything - kind of intimidating! The funnier moment was when a few of the girls tried to take a picture in between two guards and just as they were posing a bell sounded and the two guards SMACKED their guns on the ground simultaneously and I swear the girls all had a stroke right there - it would have been funnier if that was caught on camera!

Finally, we reached the last stop - one of the most significant tourist attractions in Copenhagen...any guesses? 

The Little Mermaid! I couldn't believe how little she was! And you were allowed to go right up and take pictures!  My buddy told me that apparently it is common for people to steal her head...a little weird lol

Well I have so much more to write, but I have to get ready for tonights activity which is Danish folk dancing.  Should be a thriller... 

I'll be sure to wrap up this weeks' activities on my next blog!

Miss everyone,

JT :)

Jan - 20th (Already lost track of Day #)

Ok... So I know it's been a while since my last blog in Paris airport, and here's the deal why:

AIR FRANCE LOST MY LUGGAGE!

What a stressful few days!  Now, I know this stuff happens 28740986 times a day, but the story behind it is what made it so frustrating for me...

We had to load the airplane from the tarmack in Paris, and I just so happened to look over and saw my 2 big red bags sitting on the baggage trolley after all the other bags had been loaded on the plane.  I went over to the attendant, and said to her, "Ma'am, I believe those are my bags sitting on the trolley, can you please make sure they get on the airplane?".  Well she treated me like I'm dumb and said, "Well miss, in this airport people tend to have many similar bags, it's probably not yours".  Since they're pretty generic red suitcases, I figured she may have a point,  but I was 99.999% sure they were mine.  Regardless, I boarded the plane, looked out my window, and STILL saw them there!  This time, I could see the little Canadian tags I put on them so I knew 100% they were mine, so I called the stewardess over and explained to her that those ARE my bags and that they really needed to be on the plane since I was heading to a foreign country for 6 months and I live in Canada.  She was nice and went to take care of it for me (or so I thought) and then after talking to the baggage people from the front of the plane, she came back to me and said, "There you go sweety, it's all taken care of, nothing to worry about".  Pffft. I turned my head for 2 minutes and when I looked back out the window the trolley was gone, so I assumed it went around to the other side of the plane to be loaded and I relaxed a little bit.  After arrival in Paris airport: no bags. 

Not only did I not have clean clothes, but I didn't have toiletries or my adapters for my computer so I was literally stranded with nothing!  Oh, atleast the airline gives you a grooming kit to get by without your luggage; the only thing is that the makers of the kit felt it was more important to have 2 Q-tips, rather than shampoo/conditioner!  ATLEAST people in rez helped me out!

Anyways the bags arrived yesterday afternoon so my story gets to the good parts now..  After getting off the plane at 6:00ish and being dead tired, I met up with my Danish buddy - who is awesome!  He got me back to my place - which I totally appreciated because after that luggage mess, the LAST thing I wanted to do was attempt to use the subway system! Then since I had nothing to unload, we went directly to the intro night activity which was just a small meet'n'greet at the campus pub.

The next day I started my Danish crash course - wow what an incomprehendable langauge! There's not even a chance that I'll remember how to say "my name is..." by the end of the week!! But atleast I've been able to meet people through it.  On Tuesday night, we did a boat cruise on the canals - Copenhagen's canals kick Ottawa's canals' butt! It was AMAZING! I want to do it again during the day though, because NONE of my pictures turned out unfortunately.  I saw upclose the Mermaid - who has returned from her World Tour in China.  The statue is actually SO small! 

Wednesday night was the international buffet night, so everyone had to bring a dish from their home country.  We made pancakes just so we could have the maple syrup, and nanaimo bars (which we were missing ingredients for, but still was one of the most popular dishes haha).  The other Canadian people in my rez made poutine and it was actually really funny to see other peoples' disgusted faces when they heard what it was, but then how they loved it when they tried it! 

My rez is primarily Canadian/American, and it's Day 4 and there's a BIG rivalry when it comes to beer pong/flip cup/beer baseball.  I'm not kidding... last night in beer baseball it went into 12 innings when the Americans beat us.  Geeeze, I can't even imagine the pressure Olympians have after the intensity of representing our country in a drinking game!

I have soo much to say, but this is already taking forever and you're probably sick of reading it already so I'll end it here, but just to ease everyone's mind, I'm LOVING it now that my luggage situation is settled and I'm meeting more people.  My rez is great! In fact - I believe that the whole switching rez situation somewhat made us closer.  We call eachother the Svanevej family now :)

Well, I'm going to try and travel Copenhagen a bit this weekend so I should have pics to come!

Miss everyone!

(Boat Tour at night, stunning lights, but pics didn't turn out well)



JT:)

Day 2 - Jan 17

I'm exhausted!

I got on the plane around 9ish (Canadian time) and got off the plane this morning in Paris at 9:30am Paris time (3:30am Canadian time!) and I didn't get to sleep once on the plane.  That can definitely be attributed to nerves and excitement! 

So now for the 6 hour layover...  I tried to get Air France to switch me onto the convenient 12:45 flight to Copenhagen, but of course, the plane was full in economy class and 500 euros was not happening for a first class ticket! So I had to wait, and they also wouldn't let me in the fancy lounge (which I only wanted so I could shower lol) so I'm stuck in the main airport with every other regular flying customer.  Thank God for Christine (my cousin for those of you who don't know) who burned me all of Glee Season 1 because that's helped speed up the flight/layover :) 

To Steph and Christie: I got a Christie seat on the airplane!! Yeah, the window seat that I was highly looking forward to ended up being a blank empty space full of airplane wall! Couldn't believe it...jokes on me haha.  But it all worked out because the plane was empty so I snuck across the plane and grabbed a real window seat on the other side. 

I was really looking forward to the landing in Paris, but unfortunately it was SUPER foggy... like soooo foggy that I didn't see anything until we were on the runway!  I was super ambitious during the landing too.  I had created all these plans to taxi into Paris and hang out at the Eiffel Tower for a couple hours during the layover; however, those plans didn't work out A) because of weather, B) because it's much further of a hike than I had anticipated.   So in the end, it means sitting here typing this blog, finally posting it, and watching more Glee for the final 2 hours.

Before I left, Jessica and Janet wrote me amazing letters that I wasn't allowed to read until on the airplane, and I saved them for the layover.  Your letters brought a tear to my eye :) Thanks so much for them <3

Well, that's all I have to say for now!  I'll try to write back tomorrow... tonight I get to look forward to an evening of Danish Hygge (whatever that is....)!

Aurevoir de Paris!

JT :)

P.S. Picture from the airplane is pending, I don't feel like messing around with the cords right now lol

It's Finally Here!!

JAN 16 - Day 1!

Today is the day...possibly why it's 3:48am and I am not asleep yet.  I can't stop thinking about what's ahead! 

I figured I had to start a blog since everyone else I know on an exchange did...  I guess as time goes on I will come up with some better things to write about, but for the next 40 hours or so (in my pilot post) you'll be reading about some rather uneventful moments a.k.a. my 6 hour layover in the Paris airport.

Well, this is about the extent of what I am able to blog about at this ridiculous hour of the morning...stay tuned for more on whether or not I was successfully able to pack 2 suitcases under 50lbs each!

FARVEL!  ...."Bye" in Danish, according to answers.com :)