i hate goodbyes.

i never know what to say or do.. and it doesn't hit me until long after the person has gone.

i know, i've been TERRIBLE with updating.

i do, however, have photo albums posted for you all to see.

this one is from my eastern europe tour:
http://uci.facebook.com/album.php?aid=503&id=311400004

a week later, we headed to barcelona:
http://uci.facebook.com/album.php?aid=503&id=311400004

erica and i departed for prague, bussed it over to vienna, and then to bratislava. it was wonderful. we met up with helen in prague and i think that made our stay even more enjoyable. i can see myself living there. vienna was beautiful; the buildings were incedibly grandiose and lavish. erica had to fly out of the bratislava airport so we took the bus there and hung out for a couple of hours before parting ways. as a last stop i made it to budapest and spent two nights there. not too much to see in terms of sights, so i spent the latter half of my day at the thermal baths.

i came back to copenhagen for a day and left again for barcelona the next morning. i would have to say that it was the perfect end to my travels. not much sightseeing was done, and i thoroughly enjoyed it. sometimes traveling can get uber-tiring with waking up early and making it to all the museums and sights and taking a superfluous amount of pictures that you don't even know what they're of when you look through them again. sam, ian, and i flew into the city and met up with dave. the first three days were devoted to the primavera sound festival. now, i am not a huge fan of festivals, but this was the best one i've been to yet. the venue was huge, and there weren't too many people. you could get to a stage 15 minutes before a band started playing and you could easily make your way up to the front. i saw many acts that i thought i would never think twice to see (because either of ticket sales or just $$). the (good) acts usually started around 9pm, and we wouldn't get back to our apartment until 6 in the morning. our days were spent lazing around the beach and walking around the city.

ian and dave left us after the festival, and we stayed with an acquaintance of sam's. needless to say, we were a bit reluctant to stay in an apartment with people we didn't know, but it turned out to be the most amazing time. right now i am planning on going back next year. those we hung out with are british and i found myself speaking with an english accent at times. i love it.

+++++++++

and so now i sit here in my room at 916pm, and the sky doesn't get completely dark until after midnight. today is the 15th, and i leave in five days.

it goes without saying that i am upset. ever since i came back from barcelona i haven't been able to sleep properly and i feel nauseous a lot of the time. i honestly had a great time here, and i must say that extending my stay here was the best decision i've ever made in my life.

it's unfortunate that the best friends i have here will be thousands of miles away come wednesday. i, however, do believe that i will see again those i truly care about, whether it be in a year or a couple.

i can't say that i'm not dreading going home either, because i have friends and summer school and everything else lined up.

life is beautiful.

"so you're going to be traveling for two weeks and then come back for two weeks? wow."

i leave for prague tomorrow.

it hit me. hard.

i think i pretty much have the best friends ever here.

it's pretty awesome seeing your whole floor get wayystered out of their minds and holding a dance party in 10-1. [we had a tour de cuisine and i drank a bit more than anticipated*] and then taking it downstairs to the bar where you dance some more and rasmus accidentally pushes me over and i hit my head and i start crying and then i can't stop sobbing because i have to leave in a month. rasmus is probably the best boy ever because he spent two hours of his life at three in the morning trying to console me.

that's it.

* the tour de cuisine consists of visiting every kitchen on the floor [there are 5] and spending half an hour in each. the kitchen provides everybody drinks and it's appropriately decorated according to a theme.


ian's kitchen's theme? america! of course they had that team america song playing and i discovered that i suck immensely at flip cup.


yes, precisely.


we had a "don't touch the floor + tag" theme? hahaha. drunken twister was involved.


big R and mia


<3 max & jessica


i love these boys.

ps- mange tak til jessica for the photos!
pps- i realized i need to take more pictures.. of people.. and of the city. starting... now.

basically, i love my life (here) and i never want to leave.

highlights:
+ travel in two weeks to prague/vienna/budapest, and then a whole week in barcelona where i get to see 3435 of my favorite bands and lie on the beach!!!
+ new bff luca; i'm so lucky to have met my male counterpart. it's very rare that i click with somebody so well. we get lazy and watch movies and smoke and talk about life and eat.
+ hygglie and dance parties the overall laid-back atmosphere
+ student life in europe, period.
+ i'm really going to miss my bike
+ yesterday marked the official inauguration of my dormitory. to me, that just meant free food and beer for twelve hours straight.
+ i like beer... way too much
+ i attended a Shabbat dinner tonight. um, which poor college student would turn down free alcohol and a 5-course meal? anyhow, it turned out to be a more than enriching experience for me; i'm learning a lot about judaism. i love customs, culture, tradition. the feeling of community makes it even better.

i have two papers to write in two weeks. wish me luck (i'll need it, considering all the distractions i have at the moment)

xx

stockholm, berlin, og mere

wow.. where do i begin?

i've been terribly lazy with updating this thing. and for that i apologize, but i don't know who's reading this anymore anyway? then again it might be good to have this for my own reference in the future.

it's tuesday night after easter weekend. thank goodness easter is over with, because all the grocery stores were closed from thursday through monday! i was practically living off instant noodles the whole weekend. not that i celebrated it to begin with anyway... i just recall that when i was younger my older cousins would hide eggs in my backyard. sometimes they were plastic and filled with candy. i didn't even find out until a couple years ago that this is just as big as christmas. except that my family doesn't celebrate christmas, either.

and so i attended seder this year instead. today was passover, and i was enlightened by my jewish friends with a quasi-traditional meal. matzah ball soup is extremely good; i am impressed with ian and sam and max and everybody else who pulled this off for all 18 of us. i don't have pictures. just lots of leftover wine.

i do, however, have pictures from stockholm. overdue pictures from stockholm, and those from the trip to berlin made with jonas last weekend.

berlin:


world clock in alexanderplads


the only touristy picture of me in front (i mean behind) the brandenburg gate


smell jars! the stasi (their equivalent of the CIA or KGB) kept a file on practically everybody living in east berlin during the cold war... and this included your sweat on a rag during interrogations


first meal in germany. macaroni (tubes!) was surprisingly good. it was kind of a dumpy bar after 10pm so i wasn't expecting much.

THE FOOD THERE WAS SO GOOD. SO CHEAP. but too bad jonas doesn't like sushi :(


selvfølgelig!


if i can recall correctly, this is where lynly did her "liberation!" monologue


we climbed the tv tower.

in sum, i love berlin. despite having only spent two whole days there, we got a lot done. jonas wouldn't let me see knut, the first polar bear born at the berlin zoo in 30 years. i think i will resent him forever for that. rich history, diverse culture.. i could see myself living there. mange tak to jonas for a great trip.

aaaaaand then theres stockholm from latter january with cindy!


our hostel... on a shitty boat.


this city was simply breathtaking. way bigger than copenhagen than i thought it would be. we were lucky enough to have clear skies on our side during the whole trip.


gamla stan, the old city


it was freakin cold though, but i took this opportunity to make my first snow angel outside skansen, the open air museum.


he tried to eat me.


the city from yet another tv tower




traditional swedish dessert called semla. we saw them everywhere, and we couldn't find swedish meatballs, so we settled on this. it has marzipan inside! mmm marzipan.

i love my life right now.

i booked my ticket back to america yesterday. i go back on june 20th.

tomorrow i'll be planning my trip to prague/vienna with erica :)

thats it for now, bye.

love, me

lately i've been thinking too much about how i'm going to have to leave again in three months. i've almost cried everytime. so let's not think about it.

denmark has been way too good to me. i turned 22 last thursday. my good friend judith took me out to brunch, and we were going to visit louisiana, the modern art museum. and then i got my purse stolen. it only costs around $1000 to replace everything inside. i didn't let it get to me. eh, shit happens, right? correct. my day only got better. mia and samantha made mojitos and nachos with me after i got back from the police station. that night everyone was there and they threw me a huge fest complete with three different kinds of homemade ice cream, two cakes, one pie, brownies, everything. i couldn't have been luckier. my gut couldn't have been luckier. hah. and then i found out that i got a shitload of money from uci.. more than enough to compensate for the lost contents of my purse.

i held a dinner party last saturday. it was successful, there were 14 of us, and i only spent a little over $100. for wine, appetizers, chicken, the works. then i made the right decision to go down to the bar and i actually had fun. huh, imagine that. i didn't come back up until 430 in the morning. european boys are so much fun to dance with. i also met a wonderful italian, so i'm hoping that this is a potential.

i don't know, everything has been pretty much a blur to me.

i wish i still had my camera. i'll go shopping next week, after my final. right, my final. i still have 8 chapters to read. guh. wish me luck. after that, i've only got two papers left. i love my life.

i'm pretty sure that i'm still going to berlin with jonas for easter break. come the weekend of april 22nd and the UC study center is paying for a weekend trip to helsinki?! oh, and sam and i booked our tickets to primavera sound in barcelona. three days of music until 4 in the morning!! jesus, it's going to be amazinggggg.

did i mention that i love my life? i am so lucky to have the friends that i do now.

i'm done being ghey, so it's back to studying, i guess.

om ungdomshuset

I don't know how much everyone has been keeping up with the Danish news in the States, but things here in Copenhagen have been pretty out of control. Frankly, i don't know how to feel. There have been riots in different parts of the city since Thursday. My italian neighbor got arrested and who knows for how much longer he'll be in jail and i know that his dad is worried sick and cannot do anything about it. This is even bigger than when the people rioted against the EU movement in '92. Random cars in the streets are being set on fire, windows are broken and possessions stolen, people are throwing bricks and lighting barricades on fire, and shopkeepers don't have a place for work anymore. Who is even the victim? The kids of Ungdomshuset? The bystanders who just happen to be living or working in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or dare i even say, the police? The police are merely doing their job, but apparently they have not been handling the situation very well. Ungdomshuset literally translates to "The youth house," and kids have been squatting there since the early 80's. The city sold the house around 2000 to a Christian group who then obtained a court order to have everybody evicted. This finally was executed last December, and I had not heard anything about it, maybe except through Mia when she'd tell me what the police sirens are all about. It's kind of fucked up that the city would turn around and sell a building that's in use. It breaks my heart that these people are now homeless, a symbol of counterculture is destroyed, and even more so that private property is being destroyed when it is completely and utterly unnecessary.

I actually haven't been out to see the damage done. I was gone this weekend, and I don't know if i'd want to go. It's a big thing here. It's surreal to believe that i'm (somewhat) a part of this all. I think about half of those arrested were actually foreigners around Northern Europe. It makes me livid that people don't even know WHY they're here to "demonstrate" or to participate in all of these riots. Perhaps they are here just for the opportunity to be belligerent. I understand that these people want to make a point, but to throw BRICKS? Please, could you be any more juvenile. Who knows. I don't know, it's late. More later, maybe.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6418565.stm

The guy behind the bulldozers must feel like he has the worst job ever right now.

I know i promised an update long ago. I suck. SOON!

hey, what do i do for spring break...?

i can tell that this is going to be an awesome semester.

been going to the gym, started school [thank god for intellectual stimulation?!], meeting a lot of the new semester kids, will start applying for jobs and/or look for internships/volunteer work.

i shall provide you with a proper update later about stockholm, classes, feeling international, etc. etc. i'm just letting you know that i'm alive....










proof that i am still in copenhagen.

it's 430am, bye.

det er snevejr i dag!

well, it has finally happened. the first day of real snow this season in copenhagen. f global warming; i was beginning to believe that this may not happen at all. it's a good reminder that winter does not always have to be so gloomy and drab during these months... which is all that it's been up until now! i felt like a tourist all over again taking pictures of the snowstorm. it's really pretty; i think this might be my first experience in this weather [if you should exclude seattle, but that wasn't anything big and i was only visiting].

a small note: it's a bit harder to bike in the snow than it seems. it's slushy, icy, and when the pellets hit your face, it's not the best thing in the world. it's only 2pm and i feel like i've gotten some things accomplished. though i went to bed at 230am, i somehow woke up at 6 and couldn't fall back asleep. christina went to the bank, did some grocery shopping, picked up her bike from the train station, and ran a couple of other errands.

i had no idea how out of shape i was until i started riding across all of the 5 degree slope that one should call a bridge across the canal! for those of you who know copenhagen, there are no hills at all, for which i am eternally grateful. i hope i get off my ass to ride to the gym in a couple of hours.




first picture ever of my bike! finn christensen is the second one from the left


view from my room


Big R and i are going to be the first ones to build a snowman in this courtyard.

i can say that i love winter now.

mine klasser

schedule for spring 2007:

danish cinema, tues 3-5pm
philisophical foundations of neuroscience, weds 10-1pm
child abuse and neglect in a nat'l and global perspective, fri 12-2pm

no complaints with this course list. i feel that i should be a bit concerned because the latter are master's classes.
here's to a better and more enriching semester!

hard to believe that it's the end of january already. i was in albertson's last week [in america, duh] and was wondering why there was shit on sale for valentine's already. then i realized ew it's next month. um applications for a winter bf [ghey] still being accepted. even fake ones.

oohh what to do today

hej igen

my nap at 6pm ended up being six hours long. imagine that, being wide awake at 2.44am. i need melatonin. and a normal sleep schedule again.

i felt a bit bad that i had to tell people that i spent the majority of yesterday hiding out in my room. it was super seeing everybody, though. i really missed this place. i fucking love it.

apparently a good number of international students moved in. MANY, many italians. apparently there's also been a lot of action and drama going on already. i can tell that this is going to be an awesome semester. lynly, i think something is going on in two weekends that will top craaazy julefest! sorry america, it looks like i'll have to put you on hold.

from now on the original rasmus will be referred to as Big R.

oh and HEY: i got a new skype number because my old one expired two weeks ago.

(714) 709-4492 call me once in awhile yeah?

xoxoxo

HJEM.

it's noon right now, when it should be 3am. i flew in at about 9am, and i still haven't seen anybody. except this one italian guy on my floor, davide. he's nice. apparently another rasmus moved in as well.

it's weird being back. i may be feeling a surge of loneliness already. it could just be me being ghey, of course. eh, whatevs. as soon as i see everybody else i think it'll be okay. it's fucking cold in my room, and i need to get my radiator fixed. it smells like construction, just like when i initially moved in. this is a pointless post, but i figured i should finally make an update.

i feel like an asshole for not updating about my trip to amsterdam/leiden/utrecht/nederland. it's just laziness, i swear. i just want to say that it's my favorite place thus far, and i think i will be going back. esp for the heineken experience, consdering we missed it two days in a row. fucken lynly.



what to do this semester? find a job? hahaha. finally look for someplace to volunteer? make friends with the new international kids, thats for sure. drink more, that's for sure. oh and right, i'm going to join the gym here. my priorities for travel this semester include iceland, prague, stockholm, and berlin. for now, at least. it would be nice if i could make it to spain, but money sucks.

i miss you already!

okay naptime, byeee.