October in Aarhus!

Just uploaded some news about my trips. I have to finish up my blog about London but it should be up shortly! I just bought my tickets today for Paris for November 5th to the 8th! I am really excited for this trip, and it should be a lot of fun. I need to start focusing on school though because its hard not to sometimes. I can not believe that my stay here is already half-way through! It has been an amazing journey so far and I have met a lot of great people on this adventure.

Munich, Germany! (Oktoberfest!)

Friday, October 2^nd, 2009.

The group of us got into town at about 7 am. The train ride down was great because we had reserved beds so we could at least attempt to sleep on the way down. The first thing I did at the train station was grab some Starbucks! First time in all of Europe. Oh, on the way down from Aarhus we stopped in Hamburg which had very high security because of the terrorist threats so we saw lots of cops with guns! We also got kicked off a McDonald’s bench because we were eating Burger King and not McDonalds which was very funny. After we grabbed some coffee in Munich we waited for the Information center to open at 9 am so we could get some information. At around 930 is we decided to go and find our hotel and we used the Underground which was pretty cool. The hotel was only 3 stops away which was very nice. We had to be sneaky at the hotel room because we had not booked enough beds so we took a lot longer to just get into the hotel room. After we got ready at the hotel we caught the underground to go see the Olympic stadium from the 1972 Summer Olympics. The stadium was phenomenal, which was made up of glass panels supported by beams and was used in such a large scale! It was nice to see this monument even though it also reminded me of the Israeli athletes who were killed by Palestinian terrorists. After leaving the park we headed straight for Oktoberfest. We got kind of lost in town and ended up walking much more than we needed to. After we finally got to Oktoberfest we were overwhelmed because it was a giant festival/fair for adults! It was so much fun to see all of the people in lederhosen and the girls dressed up. We grabbed a few tables and drank a few steins of beer to celebrate the kick off to our weekend. A few of us ended up sleeping in another friends hotel for the night and waking up early to head back to our hotel in the morning.

Saturday, October 3^rd, 2009.

On Saturday morning we got dressed and showered and went off to go to Oktoberfest at about 830ish. I thought this was kind of early but when we got to the grounds all of the tents were full so we grabbed a table by entrance. It was crazy to be drinking beer so early in the morning but we met a lot of cool Germans and Italians and we did a lot of chanting. After a few hours of hanging out at the table I decided to head home because I felt like I was coming down with a cold. I was at the hotel around 2pm and them the rest of my friends came around 330pm and told me that they had lost our friend Chad! We all napped and then after waking up I decided to stay in for the night because I wasn’t feeling very well and I could also wait for Chad just in case he showed up. At about 11pm Chad walks through the door and tells me about his 20 mile walk around the city. The rest of the group came back at around midnight and were excited to see Chad!

Sunday, October 4^th, 2009

On Sunday we got up and headed back to Oktoberfest around 9 am and got a spot at a table in a tent. The environment was crazy and just like you see in movies. There was lots of chanting, singing, and chugging steins of beer! We grabbed some Fish and Chips and decided to head back to the hotel room for a bit because our friend Jaclyn was wasted because she had been hanging out with some Australians who bought her stein’s and chicken which was funny to see. At the hotel room I stayed for about an hour then packed my stuff because I was leaving at 715pm and the rest of them were just staying another night. I went to see some of the cool buildings that I had seen in a brochure. It was nice walking around town by myself and just listening to my iPod and taking pictures of all the cool architecture, and just people watching for a few hours. Grabbed a cup of coffee and went and sat on the steps of a monument and took in some time for relaxation and time to think about how lucky I am to be here. I went to the train station and met some people from Louisiana who had been backpacking for 2 weeks through Europe. The night train was lame though because I had to share it with some other people so I could not really sleep. After getting off at my stop in Kolding I missed the next train because the previous train I was on ran late so I sat in the station for an extra hour. After finally getting to Aarhus I went home and crashed because I was so tired and still a little sick. Overall it was a good trip and a lot of fun.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands!

Sunday, September 20^th, 2009

The bus dropped us off in Amsterdam at about 5:30 am and we had to wait to catch the bus till 7:25 am because it was a Sunday. It was not a lot of fun sleeping on the bus station floor for an hour. After we caught the bus we went to our hostel which was a 10 minute tram ride or 20 minute walk to the city center. We stayed at a hostel called Stay Okay, which was a very nice hostel with a good breakfast! We could not check into the hostel until 2pm though so we just dropped off our bags then headed into town to explore a little bit. Town was very nice and had really good architecture! We saw the palace and the city monument. We had a tour of the Rembrandt house and grabbed our first “special” muffin. It was a bust though. After that we decided to go back to our hostel and nap. After leaving the hostel and going back to the city

center we went back downtown and found the red light district. The red light district was something interesting, very different from the usual. We found a café called Stones Café and bought a space cake and a joint. We ate the space cake but could not feel anything so we decided to walk around. We found some places to eat and then we could feel everything! It was a strange feeling though because you are out of your element and in a different city so it was more trippy than usual. We caught the tram for the hostel and called it a night after getting lost in the red light district for an hour.

Monday, September 21^st, 2009

On Monday we got up early to catch a tour that started at 11 am. On this tour we walked around different parts of town and learned about different things like canals and how they stay smelling nice, shutting down of red light district and hash café’s, why the houses are tilted forward, and the buildings. After this we decided to try and find the other Spanish people but we couldn’t so went back to our hostel for naps. After the naps we started to walk back to the tram station and ended up running into the Spanish people. The Spanish people had been in the park next to our hostel eating mushrooms! They were tripping out and laughing so it was nice because we could lead them back to downtown. After downtown we walked around a bit with them and then went into a club where they offered us free shots! They played a lot of Spanish music at this club so it was fun just dancing and hanging out. After that Emily and I decided to head back to our hostel and meet up with Samantha.

Tuesday, September 22^nd, 2009

Tuesday morning we had to check out so we decided to just leave our bags there and just see more of the city, but the city near our hostel. We went to the park in front of the Van Gogh Museum which had the “I AMSTERDAM” giant letters. We then went to the Van Gogh Museum which was my favorite and saw a lot of different art pieces. After that we went to the Heineken Brewery where we got a tour. The tour was a lot of fun with lots of beer tasting and learning about the process of making beer. They had a trippy room in the tour with the ceiling made out of beer bottles and lots of TV’s playing different clips of random things. After this we went and grabbed our bags from the hostel and went to the bus station to wait for the bus. We ran into the Spanish people at the bus station and waiting for our night bus. Taking a 14 hour bus ride to Amsterdam is not a very good idea but was definitely worth it!