Odense!

ok, i really should be preparing for my exam, but i realize that i really should write my blog entry on our trip to Odense

but before i begin, i'm wondering if my writing style bothers people ._. cause i read some of my friends' blogs and they all write in complete sentences with proper punctuation, capitalization and such so i'm wondering if the way i write is bothering people...but if it is, i'm still not going to change =P (at least i know the difference between there, they're, their and too, to, two!)

Tuesday - so i had class, but i left 30 min early to meet up with Dora and Amy (we were just reviewing in class - don't worry)

i did buy a mini sandwich and croissant from fotex before i went though - the croissant was sooooo good :)

we actually forgot to get off at Norreport and had to ride back one station lol looks like those 3 long days in Berlin made us forget the metro

anyways, our tickets were so expensive! X| i think it came out to be 396 dkk per person! but then again, Odense is pretty far away - you have to cross the sea to get there...that's probably why it was so expensive haha

it takes about 1 hour 15 minutes to get there by train

but i think it was worth a visit even though Odense is a really tiny town

our first stop (after wandering around cause we were a little lost): the H.C. Andersen Museum

the admission price is actually 60 dkk but "children" 0-17 yrs old get in free and i got away with being 17 yrs old =P yay for saving money! haha

all the pictures are up on facebook, so you can take a look there - but i honestly didn't know that H.C. Andersen wrote sooo many of the fairytales that i read when i was little! he wrote The Emperor's New Clothes, The Ugly Duckling, Thumbellina, The Princess and the Pea, and a lot of other stories

and i also found out that the book i read, Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier is based on one of his fairytales as well

we spent around an hour in the museum which included a history of his entire life with a couple artifacts, a library of his work translated into different languages (apparently they say he's the author with the work translated into the most languages - i think it was over 150?), a replica of his childhood home, and some of his paper cutouts (i thought they were really cool)

Dora and i also sat down and listened to a recording of The Emperor's New Clothes - it was pretty nice and childhood memories came back =)

then we headed outside to watch the show - it was basically a run down of some of his fairytales accompanied by song and dance and some words, but all the performers spoke in Danish

the narrator though spoke in Danish, English and German haha so after a slur of Danish, you'd hear, "The Princess and the Pea!" and then some German

my favorite is definitely the mini performance of The Emperor's New Clothes cause the guy who played the emperor was hilarious


so after this performance, we went to Sct. Albani Kirke and walked/sat around the garden behind it

and then we went to look at Hans Christian Andersen's childhood home, but since it was closed already we just looked at the outside

random note: while walking along the street, we heard someone blasting techno music from inside their apartment - A LOT of people listen to techno music here (i always hear it coming out of cars when i leave my window open)...it's kinda weird lol

next: shopping! =)

but like i said, it's a small town so there really wasn't anything to buy, but there was some interesting window shopping

i did get a strawberry and vanilla swirl of soft ice coated in chocolate =D

it was good except my experience was kinda ruined by the massive amount of flying ants (you know, those big ones with white wings?)/flies flying around the shopping street

so after that, we went to another church - Sct. Hans Kirke

it's near the King's Garden? and we were thinking about hanging out there but it turned out to be small and there weren't that many flowers either haha - we were like...this is it?

but even if it was nice, we really wanted to get away from all the flying ants

i really like visiting the churches here cause they're so beautiful - you don't really see churches with beautiful carvings and such in the US

Dora saw that there was a museum for Denmark's most famous composer? and we walked to the museum which is also near the Odense Concert Hall
the museum had already closed so once again, we just looked inside lol

then we took the train back to CPH and ate at some restaurant in Norreport that all the ISUP students seem to know about cause it's cheap Sat-Tues haha

if you buy a drink, everything else is 50% off so i bought a frozen limonade that had lime, lemon, ice, elderflower, and MINT in it =) it kinda tasted like something you'd be able to drink at a Vietnamese restaurant or something but it was still pretty tasty despite it's weird green color

my meal was a big plate of really really really really really good lasagna =) it was nice and hot and the cheese wasn't that heavy and the inside was like some cannellonis that i ate in a good Italian restaurant in Austin

so yup, i finished the whole thing cause it was that good =)

then we headed back to Porcelaenshavn with really full stomachs!

random note: another thing that i noticed (i don't know if i've mentioned it before since i always forget what random tidbits i've written and which ones i have written haha) is that people in grocery stores place the "next customer" divider thing after they place their things on the conveyor belt (so i'd place the divider between my things and the customer after me)

i have no idea if this is just their way of dividing things or being nice to the person after them - i just thought i was interesting since we always place the divider between our own things and the person before us in line

while i'm here, i'll just write about what i did yesterday (Thursday) - i went to Kongens Nytorv after class to look at the sales one last time (didn't buy anything cause there isn't really anything left worth buying)

but i did buy a ridiculously yummy tasting belgian waffle with soft ice on top =) haha more ice cream!

looks yummy right? :D it was

then back home to work on marketing...which i should be doing now - i read information about our exams and we have to be in the examination room 30 min before the exam or we can't take it! 30 min??? i have no idea why we even need to be there that early considering the exam lasts 4 hours but oh well, i'll have to be there at early next week!

Berlin - Day 2 and 3!

the start of day 2 begins with breakfast at the hostel - then we took a bus to Brandenburg Gate (which, as I already said, is where they announced the tearing down of the Berlin wall) cause that was where our walking guided tour started and Youth Olympic Day was starting when we got there

interesting fact about the statue up on top of the gate: Napoleon actually liked the statue when the French defeated the Prussian army that he had it taken back to France with him

and then when the Prussian army defeated the French later on, they took it back and renamed the statue Victoria symbolizing their victory over France

the next stop of the guided tour was the Holocaust Memorial

it's basically an area with a whole bunch of gray blocks that are the same width and length but different heights

the architect wanted it to be a place where you could walk around and wanted it to promote thought so it's not a big memorial with some words on it

some people think that the big blocks represent coffins and then there are some more abstract interpretations like one person thought the height of the bars represented anti-Semitic feelings across time (highest during the war and the lowest near the end of the war with some anti-Semitic attitudes still present today)
but anyways, it's up to your interpretation

there's also actually a museum underneath the memorial but we didn't get to go down

next stop: over Hitler's Bunker
underneath this area is actually a bunker where Hitler and his new wife (i think the guide said Hitler married his long time mistress shortly before) shot themselves - some people say that he also took a cyanide capsule just in case
Hitler doesn't actually have a final resting place (his ashes were spread out somewhere) so this is the closest thing to his final resting place

and the apartment buildings behind were luxury apartments built in East Germany in order to show off to West Germany - but it didn't really work since they look so drab anyways
then we stopped at this building cause our tour guide (her name is Ice - cause her parents thought her eyes were colored like Ice) liked it - the bullet holes remain from when it was taken in during WWII

and most of the bullet holes are around the first floor cause that's how you capture a building - all the shooters will be on the first floor and you shoot at them so they die or move up into the second floor

then you send your army in and take the first floor when most everyone on the first floor is dead or has fled to the second floor - then you go to the second floor, trapping everyone else on the third floor where they can't escape - and then you take the third floor

so Ice commented that when people in scary movies keep running upstairs, thereby trapping themselves, they're stupid haha

next, i think we went to what used to be the Luftwaffe Headquarters?
there was a mural depicting socialism as a grand happy fest, when in reality it was miserable
i think there was a protest outside of the building during the Soviet government's and over 200 people? were massacred so they put this photo outside to contrast it with the mural inside
and this is also the last building with traditional Nazi architecture - basically HUUUGE buildings and you can see the windows are smaller at the top to make the building seem even bigger - and Ice said that the door handle would be up near her chest and the doors really tall

basically, it's to make you seem really insignificant and small
yea, not a happy place - and still not a very happy place since it's now the tax office hahathen we saw a part of the Berlin next stop: Checkpoint Charlie

the most well-known of the different checkpoints along the Berlin wall
lots of people tried to sneak through to West Germany
one way was paying a diplomat so you could sit in their trunk (which wasn't a good idea since they eventually started searching trunks) and a cleverer way was sewing yourself up inside a seat (which was very uncomfortable since you might have to stay there for hours waiting to get through but at least you got in to West Germany)
sad story time: there once was a young teenager (Peter Fechter) who worked in a building that was near the wall, so him and his friend planned to escape to West Germany

they waited until everyone left their building on one work day and jumped out the window over the main wall and onto the death strip (basically a strip of land between the main wall and another lower fence that was topped with barbed wire where you got shot at) and although his friend made it over the fence, Peter got shot in the pelvis and fell back into East Germany

there were actually hundreds of people who witnessed this (including journalists), but nobody from the west side could help him and the guards on the east side didn't do anything either - so they listened to Peter crying out for help for over an hour until he bled to death

next: Gendarmenmarkt
this is the French Cathedral built for the French Huguenots who went to Germany during the persecution in France
Konzerthaus Berlin

the German Cathedral next: Bebelplatz where the Book Burning Memorial is
there's a sheet of plexiglass in the middle of the square and you can look down inside it and the memorial is basically empty white shelves that would be enough to house the 20,000 books that were burned (many of which were original copies)
St. Hedwig's Cathedral
Humboldt University - the oldest university in Berlin and also where Albert Einstein taughtnext:Neue Wache (New Guard House) with the statue "Mother with her Dead Son"
then the Berlin Cathedral
and Altes Museum we concluded our tour at the cathedral, and then we went with Ice (and took the tram) to go eat some German pork schnitzel - it was pretty good =)
then we went to a shopping area by tram - there was an H&M there =) except there really wasn't anything to buy since it was a small store

but the area around it was pretty nice

then we took the U-bahn back to our hostel and shopped on Kurfürstendamm
sales at H&M aren't as good as the ones in CPH, but i'm guessing that's because the sales are coming to an end

i did end up buying a t-shirt for €7.95 and a belt for €5 at H&M

but ZARA always has awesome sales =) bought skinny jeans for €10 and a t-shirt for €6.99

there was another ZARA down the street, but we didn't have enough time to go in there =( i was really really disappointed =( cause i really really wanted to go in lol

but i guess our dinner made up for it - super cheap meal since we got soup, salad, a main course, and dessert all for only €9.90! (the pictures are up on fb)

and then we went to a souvenir shop where i bought a cup - which was so expensive >< music ="\" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizh6__lqRQLX1xqieEAbGzg48Qz1AZzmFzJRg5MfUdHJxPmoHju0TiiSwXBpQhAtYtyNFkMD6YmaRbUA2ABx_oN_JJpBKz2oyYWzNBHW4vdx2zi6WhHEAip1QqYd5jF1FqtlkKrygB7_U/s1600/P1050385.JPG">
and so ends a loooong exhausting, but pretty fun day in Berlin

at least i had a good nights sleep because we now had the window open, so it was cooler and i put in my earplugs so i didn't hear all the traffic down below - i think i literally slept like a log cause i remember falling asleep in one position and when i woke up, i was in the exact same position lol

ate breakfast, packed up, ended up leaving my mirror there i think - cause i can't find it anywhere =(, and then we left on the bus to go to Sachsenhausen concentration camp - and all of the pictures and depressing information is all on facebook - i really don't want to type it all out again cause it made me feel pretty depressed all over again

anyways, afterward was the looong bus trip back to CPH - we stopped at a rest stop and i bought some chocolate and an ice cream bar =D
then we watched Zoolander on the bus - which is always enjoyable cause that movie is so ridiculous and funny haha
next was onto the ferry and then back onto the bus to ride back to CPH where we all saw the beautiful sunset =)
and we surprisingly got back on time - we arrived back at Dalgas Have around 11:15 pm (the schedule said 11 pm)

and finally, took the metro back to Fasavej and walked back to Porcelaenshavn~

Berlin - Day 1!

Friday - woke up, made lunch and headed to the parking lot at Dalgas Have (CBS building) with Amy and Dora

then came the loooooooooooong bus ride - about 2 hours to the ferry (i listened to Just The Way You Are by Bruno Mars the entire way haha)
next, 50 min on the ferry (it's a nice ferry just like the other one to Bornholm - it has duty free shopping and a cafe)then the longest bus ride in my entire life x_x at least there was some pretty scenery

i think we got off the ferry around 10:30? am and didn't get to the hostel until...like 4 pm - we did stop at a rest stop for about 40 min - but still a freakishly long bus ride and i didn't sleep much - i did watch coyote ugly though lol

and we didn't even get our rooms until like...4:40 pm so we didn't have free time at all =( the schedule said we would get there at 3 pm and have free time until 5:30, BUT since we weren't taking the bus to the restaurant anymore, we had to meet earlier at 5 - so essentially we didn't get any free time and spent 9 hours just getting to Berlin

our hostel (AO Hostel)

at least the restaurant was pretty cool - it's called White Trash Fast Food

i think we all had a bit of cultural confusion considering it was a restaurant in Germany called White Trash Fast Food and it looked like a Chinese restaurant

anyways, the food was pretty good
i got a Long Island Iced Tea - i swear i couldn't even taste the iced tea lol
first course: cold tomato soup with garlic bread (their garlic bread was really good!)
main course: King Elvis Supreme Burger (beef, cheddar cheese, sauerkraut, bacon, bbq sauce)
dessert: brownie bomb! with ice cream and whipped cream - it was ok since i've had better

we also got a free jäger shot since they took so long with our food - we got there around 7? maybe a little earlier?, got our burgers at 8 and got our dessert at 9, so yea, we sat at that restaurant for like...3 1/2 hours

then we decided to go to Brandenburg Tor/Bradenburg Gate instead of going to the "club" in the restaurant downstairs

i'm glad i went though cause it was really pretty at night! =) too bad they were setting up for Youth Olympic Day so all this stuff was in the way =(
then we headed back to the hostel, but took a little walk around the central station (even though everything was closed) when we had to switch trains

then back to the hostel where we all promptly collapsed from exhaustion EXCEPT for the fact that it was INSANELY hot and stuffy in our room cause we thought our window didn't open (it had a lock on it so we thought it didn't - but when i tried to open it the next day out of desperation, it turned out that it did open but the locks prevent anyone from opening it up all the way) so i didn't sleep very well the entire night x_x

so two nights of only a couple hours of sleep = very dark circles and huge baggies under eyes

but anyways, that was the first day - kinda exciting, kinda not - i don't think it really hit me that we were in Germany haha