Signing off

I’m writing this wrap-up blog post on the plane home.  Somehow the plane movie (a poorly acted drama about that one-armed surfer girl) just isn’t doing it for me.  I was supposed to have my own screen and therefore my choice of movies, but yesterday US Airways switched our aircraft so instead of being on the giant, nice overseas plane we’re on an old, crappy plane that you’d be bummed if you only had to take it across the United States. Plus they messed up everyone’s seats and infuriated a whole plane of people – who pretty much all banded together against the nasty flight attendant who was yelling at everyone and rearranged seats so they could sit with the people they had originally booked seats with. Plus there’s a 50-50 chance we’re going to miss our connection because we were an hour late taking off. You’ll get an [angry] update if that happens…

Update: we didn’t miss the flight but we were this close to doing so. We had an extremely stressful day.

First things first: Copenhagen.  We had atrocious weather the whole time we were there. We didn’t even glimpse the sun – though judging by the color of the Danes’ skin, they don’t see the sun much either.  I was also a bit underwhelmed by Copenhagen.   The city didn’t have the character that the other cities had.  Amsterdam was by far my favorite, and Mark’s favorite was Brussels – but Copenhagen was a bit blah compared to the rest.  However, we still did some pretty sweet stuff, and I had a good time.

The first day we were there we walked down the main pedestrian shopping street (Lego store! I even wore my earrings!) and explored a bit.  In the town hall there’s an old, elaborate clock that measures everything from the time to the hours of daylight to the rotation of the solar system – pretty amazing.  The highlight of the day though was a giant tower (there are lots of giant towers to climb in Copenhagen) in the center of the city.  Apparently however many centuries back there was a king who was too lazy to climb stairs to go up to his observatory.  So he had a tower constructed that was a giant spiraling ramp so he could ride his horse to the top; unfortunately, the tower is no longer historically accurate, as we had to walk up the ramp rather than ride horses.  Afterward we found a couple really nice parks and then went to see the famous statue of the Little Mermaid, which is in Copenhagen because Hans Christian Andersen lived there – also, Copenhagen won’t let you forget this, as there are statues of him all over the place. Every time we saw a statue of a man in the distance I guessed that it was Andersen. I was right most of the time.

If you’ve ever seen a picture of Copenhagen, it’s probably a canal with bright-colored building and docked sailboats. That’s what one street in Copenhagen looks like. The rest does not look like that at all; it’s mostly plain buildings and few canals.  But we ate on that street for dinner (where Mark was served a whole fish, lungs and eyeballs included).  It’s so chilly and icky in this city that almost all restaurants (outdoor and indoor) come equipped with blankets for the customers. No joke.  There are usually two blankets per table.

The next day the weather was worse, but we went and saw the changing of the guard at the royal palace, tried Copenhagen’s specialty for lunch (an open-faced sandwich of all different varieties that is called a smo-something but is not called a smorgasbord – but that’s what I kept calling it, despite being reminded by Mark that that’s Swedish), climbed up another tower which had a spiral staircase on the outside of the tower (one of the only times I’ve gotten shaky knees climbing a tower), and went to Christiana.  Christiana is the area in the city that was set up in the 60s by some hippies who didn’t want to follow the law.  Basically weed is legal in the area and it’s separate from the rest of the city – but open to tourists, as long as they don’t take pictures.  Despite the fact that there were tons of tourists and we were there in the middle of the day, I was not a fan of this area. We didn’t stay long.

Overall, Copenhagen had some cool and pretty attractions – it simply wasn’t my favorite, and probably wouldn’t be somewhere I’d recommend that people visit.  Plus, despite how beautiful and blond all the Danes are, they aren’t nearly as friendly as the Dutch.

Sunday we went back to Paris for one last day.  It was also the last day of the Tour de France, aka my favorite sporting event besides NFL playoffs and the Super Bowl, so we went down to the Champs-Elysees to watch the last leg of the Tour. We – and several thousand Frenchman and tourists standing around us – saw the bikers go by. We were at the end of the Champs-Elysees, by the Arc du Triomphe and had a great view of them as they made the U-turn in from of the Arc.  I’m really glad I got to see that.  That evening I went with Mark and his family (who he was meeting up with in Paris since he is going to travel with them for another week) to meet some relatives in Paris that he didn’t know he had, and then he and I went to dinner with Emily and her brother to catch up.  I headed to the airport with Emily and her brother this morning – and that’s a wrap on Europe!

Do blogs need conclusions? I’ve got to sign off in some way.  There are a million more things I could say about Lyon and my weekend trips and this last excursion, but you probably wouldn’t want to hear all million of them.  I’m so glad I got to study in France, despite the fact that I now need a break from the French for awhile, and I loved all the people I made friends with.  And my trip at the end was awesome – I can’t even complain about the hostels too much. J

So thanks for reading!