Bornholm - Day 1!

haven't been here for a while, but that's because i went to Bornholm!

soo let's start with Friday morning - woke up at 4:30 am, packed my lunch and headed to the metro and rode the s-tog to central station!

then we took the bus to the ferry port
which is apparently in Sweden cause we crossed the Øresund bridge - the ferry port is in Ystad
and then off to Rønne (biggest town on Bornholm)

and the ferry was seriously nice! i haven't seen such a nice ferry for just a 90 min ride

we went outside and as the ferry picked up speed it got windier and winder and even though it hadn't reached it's top speed yet, we were already having trouble walking back inside haha
it also has slot machines and some store on it that was kinda like a duty free shop i guess since they kept advertising the stuff on the ferry - like perfume, jewelry and stuff like that

when we arrived we went on a bus tour, which was pretty interesting - saw lots of random stuff and learned lots of random stuff about Bornholm

for example, i think the guide said there were 45 windmills on Bornholm

and it has the only stones in Denmark? i think - anyways, it's the only place with stones to use to build stuff

our first stop was...some place with a beach lol - i really don't remember the name

the sand was so pretty and white and the water was so clear!

then i ate some soft ice cream covered in cocoa powder - it was soo good =D

next, we visited the town of Svaneke where there is a glass blowing "factory" and an ice cream "factory"

i use the quotations cause they aren't the factories that we think of - more like a shop that has people glass blowing
poor dudes - it was sooo hot in that shop...and it was really hot outside too (ok, it was only in the upper 70s, but there were NO clouds)

and here's the mini ice cream shop that makes their own ice cream (aka the "factory") - i tried some blueberry and raspberry ice cream - i thought they were just ok though =\

they at least have a window where you can look into their kitchen - so i guess that's the factory part

then Claire and I went back to this other shop across from the glass blowing factory and made our own sandblasted glass cup! you buy a glass plate/cup/etc. and then you stick stickers on it in whatever design you want and then you take it to a sandblasting machine and you can sandblast it yourself

so what i ended up with is a cup with a square/geometric design
wish i had more time though - i had to stick all the stickers on in like 20-25 minutes cause we had to catch the bus - we ended up being like 5 minutes late...haha

then off to the bus which, everyone soon realized, was a baking oven since there's NO AC - so we're all sitting there sweaty and gross suffocating in that bus - and the windows don't open either
isn't that nice?

yea basically, nobody ever wanted to go back on the bus

but anyways, onwards to more interesting things i saw on the bus

this triangular structure was designed by the same dude who designed the Sydney Opera House
i forgot what it was for =| well that, and the fact that sometimes i had no idea what our tour guide was saying

next stop: a round church! don't know which one it is, but according to the tour guide, Bornholm has four of the seven round churches in Denmark

i didn't go inside since it costs money and i wanted to eat my lunch - chicken sandwich with tomatoes, veggies from my salad mix and pesto sauce - it was pretty good, i'm actually surprised at the stuff i make here with my limited amount of groceries haha
and behind the church was a souvenir shop that had a pretty gazebo

then it was off to our hostel - Feriecenter Såndkas

we had 3 hours of free time so we went to the beach!

we dipped our feet in the water (which was super cold - well to me it was super cold) and lay/slept on the rocks (yes, i put on sunscreen)
next: dinner time! it said on our schedule that we were having goulash with beef, but we ended up eating chicken with (Danish) curry

it was interesting cause it doesn't taste like the Jap/Indian curry that we're all used to
i didn't even know it was curry until one of the social coordinators, Martin (you'll hear about him later) told me that he thinks they switched the two

dessert: rhubarb (pudding?) with whipped cream! with some tea ♥i thought it was really good (please ignore the peas...i had to use the same plate haha)

and as if we weren't tired enough from waking up at 5 in the morning, we had an activity planned that night - but it turned out to be very interesting and fun =)

we visited Hammershus fortress! which is the largest fortress in northern Europe

we had a tour guide who told us many many many stories about the castle - i can't remember them all, but i'll put all the stuff i remember about it on fb
it has a gorgeous view =)

one hilarious moment was when we were outside and bees were flying all around us - everyone was like running around, ducking, and waving their arms around (imagine college dudes running around running away from bees - it was pretty hilarious - we all started laughing and our guide gave up telling us a story cause we were laughing so much hahaha)

oh yea, there's also lots of sheep there, so during this one part, our tour guide was talking and a sheep would "baaa" everyone once in a awhile haha so cute!

we stayed there for about 2 hours and saw the sun set and got back to the hostel around 10:30 pm? and i was part of the first group so the second group came back even later @-@

all my roommates were in the second group (they randomly choose your roommates - mine were Mary, Ann, and Karianne - who also happens to be my suitemate) and when they all got back, everyone immediately got ready for bed and slept

so there is the end of my first day in Bornholm - i didn't really get a good nights sleep cause it was super hot =(

but overall, a nice first day in Bornholm - the next day is definitely more disastrous =|

and i'm going to stop here and leave you hanging cause i'm tired and i need to go sleep! :P

brilliant scenery and beer

they go well together right? haha

anyways, i'm going to make this quick since i have to sleep...maybe this will just be a brief overview of my day

went to class, ate lunch, met up with Dora and Mario, went to H&M at Frederiksberg Centret

where i bought this skirt for 50 kr (by now you should know how much usd that is)

after that, went to Vor Frelsers Kirke aka Church of Our Saviour (near Christianshavn metro stop) and went up the spiral tower to see the wonderful views of Copenhagen =)

the wonderful thing about Copenhagen is how colorful the buildings are so it's always so pretty!

just one of the awesome views of Copenhagen

then we rode the S-tog to Enghave - we saw a building with Carlsberg on it...but it wasn't the museum lol
so we end up walking into that area around the building and then saw signs stating "visit Carlsberg" so we followed that and kept walking and walking and walking until FINALLY we reach the museum

nothing much to see at the museum - it was the room of many beer bottles from all over the world first, then various exhibits on the history of Carlsberg, how they make beer (which wasn't that interesting since it was just a video), barrel making, and other such stuff

oh yea but one interesting thing is that the big barrels they use(d?) needed to be maintained, so men used to climb in to clean them o_o

then after walking through the museum we got our complimentary beers - i drank mine with an empty stomach...which was not smart lol i got kinda dizzy and then turned red later =|

so instead of getting one of those flavored beers i got a sprite =( i wanted to try some but oh well

we walked to Valby since it was really close (around 15-20 min away?) and Mario cooked fried rice for us for dinner haha it was pretty good except he put the wrong kind of meet or too much pepper in it cause it was really spicy - but i've never tasted spicy fried rice before, so it was interesting lol

then hung around there for a while and went home to prepare my lunch for tomorrow (chicken sandwich w/tomatoes and lettuce and pesto) and pack and upload photos and stuff

so now, i must sleep....i only have 3 hours! ahhh leaving for my weekend trip to Bornholm at 6 am o_o

see ya sunday! cheers!

random note: Mario said that the origin of knocking glasses and saying "cheers" was to prevent poisoning, since when you knock glasses/mugs together, some of your beer sloshes into others, so you can't poison someone's beer cause you'll poison other people or yourself as well - very interesting, i didn't know that

World Cup semi-finals!

ah so many sad Germans =(

i came home kinda late yesterday and was dead tired, soo i'm updating today!

first half of my day was boring - watched make it or break it and pretty little liars, went to class, worked on our marketing group project (this one guy insists on making things so complex! i have NO idea why since it's not even for a grade, but he just wants to be more detailed - me? i don't really care so much for something that's not even going to be for a grade - different mentalities i guess)

SOO after that frustrating meeting i ate dinner and then met up with Dora at Kongens Nytorv - then we sat around Ofelia Beach to wait for the Valby people to come

and while we were waiting, Dora asked this man in green

if all the little coke cans that he was picking up were for free - and he said yes! and even asked us if we wanted some, so we were like "sure!"

then he says that he'll go bring us some! haha and even asked if we wanted regular coke or coke zero - so nice =)

and we sat by a mini soccer field - there were these little kids playing soccer

i have to admit, it's so different seeing so many people who can actually handle a soccer ball really well - unlike in the US where everyone is basically just throwing a football around

so the Valby-ers finally come and then the game finally starts!
Dora and i probably should have saved some spots since we got there so early - there were sooo many people!

random cute picture: these people put headphones on their baby haha - so cute

first half came and went - during the half time break, we stood up to stretch and then all these people came and then it got even more packed! ahhh

we were all pretty squished

and then Spain scored =(

and Germany lost =(

yup, my German friends were sad, but some people were rooting for Spain, so they were happy haha

all in all, super fun (minus the crowdedness and the inhaling second-hand smoke for 3 hours part) - especially listening/watching the German fans! haha they have so many chants and songs - i taped some of them but i'm not going to upload them

one so is like, "now, let's score....(in German of course)" over and over and another is just "deutscheland, deutschland,..." over and over again haha

after the game we went to this tiny bar, and most of us went in for like 2 minutes and came out and just waited for other people (apparently they were using the bathroom?)

some people stayed out some more, but i had class in the morning so a bunch of us left!

and now i part with a sparkling picture of Nyhavn at night =)

gonna go out now! tata for now!

free day! >>> shopping!

ok so when i have free day i usually go shopping or window shopping haha

went to class today, and i must say, i really hate 2.5 hr blocks of classes - it's so dull even though we have two breaks

i got my CBS student id today though - yes it's an ugly picture i know haha

after class i went to eat another bagel sandwich from the CBS canteen and then went to the porcelain factory outlet again to look at stuff with Gloria and Claire

then Gloria and i headed downtown again!

highlight: we saw this guy - Gloria asked if he was real lol

...in case some of you don't get it - it wasn't windy outside, he flipped his tie up and raised his coat up with wires? or something

we went into another store that was connected with another Royal Copenhagen store - it has all these interesting design stuff and i saw this haha - it's a laptop bag

then ZARA! where i bought this dress

129 kr (around $22)
i don't think that's a bad price for a dress right? (it was more than 50% off!)
and it has POCKETS!

and then i went grocery shopping cause i have no food haha

went home, did laundry for the first time which was a confusing experience cause the handouts they gave out on how to do the laundry did not match up - and it totally sucked cause one of the washing machines was broken and there's only three

but oh well at least i got it done

and as requested from mai, here's a slice of my cake that i ate tonight

yay! and that's my day! gotta do some marketing stuff and plan which museums Claire and i are going to lol

relax day!

so today was a relax day for me =)

although i should be preparing for my presentation next wednesday i have absolutely no idea what the professor wants so i just don't want to do it anymore lol

so today i woke up at 11 am after sleeping for a super long time (slept at 12:30 am) cause of the exhausting day yesterday haha

i got ready by 1-ish and went to the porcelain outlet (Royal Copenhagen outlet i'm guessing) next to my dorm and looked around - they have so many pretty and delicate things! like all these tea cups have pretty thin/slim handles

i didn't know if i could take pictures but i took some blurry ones on my iphone haha

i asked one lady what the sign meant for this tea cup set and she told me that it was like, the second run? second set? or something like that because these were not perfect - like in the design, there might be a flower that was drawn too small or something - so each of them are unique
i thought that was pretty cool and she was nice enough to tell me what things meant =) but anyways, stuff there are waaaaaaaaay expensive - a really really pretty tea cup can be around $60 or more

then i went back to my dorm and got my stuff for school and went looking around at stuff at Frederiksberg Centret again haha

then i went to marketing class - which was soooooooooooo boring - my gosh that class is boring - i think it's one of the most boring classes i've ever taken in my life - it's partially due to the professor too though (he's nice, but super boring)

and i talked to another girl in class about the textbook we're using and she hates it too haha so i'm not the only one (then the girl next to me also told me she hated it) it's seriously so dry and there's no color and no pictures T_T

a group presented today and at the end people actually asked questions - my gosh some people asked so many questions - like in the US, at least everyone is courteous enough to NOT ask questions cause they know nobody wants to stay in class or prolong the boredom - evidently some people just don't get it here

i was seriously thinking shut up already, i'm dying of boredom when some people were STILL asking questions

after class our group got together to talk about our project

yea, i really don't understand wth we're supposed to do - the instructions are so vague - i hate that
i mean i get enough vague instructions at McCombs - especially in MIS, i don't need anymore!

then Gloria and i went to fotex - i bought a cake there =) when we were looking at cakes, we asked what one of them was and the girl just asks us if we want samples and we said sure

and she gave me like a slice! A SLICE! they don't do that in america! Danes are so generous with their samples - love it!it kind of tastes like one of those cakes you can find at whole foods but of course it's way cheaper here - it was only 30 kr for this big one (around $6)

this will be my dessert for the next two weeks!

after fotex, we went back to Gloria's residence, Valby, they were having a bbq but i didn't participate in that since i had no idea what to bring

Gloria cooked for me =) rice noodles with some soup and tomatoes and chicken - it was pretty good

then Claire and i started planning our trips lol we're probably going to Malmo in Sweden for a day and we planned all our trips to the museums in Copenhagen that have free admission

i think she and i are the only ones that actually want to go to museums haha

then i went back to my dorm and ate some of my cake with tea :) feels like home

yup so that's my day! nothing exciting really

random note: some people here really don't wear deodorant

random note 2: did you know that there's no word for please in Danish? apparently they don't really care about the polite things - like on the street they basically expect you to move for them - i'd be walking and this guy would be walking towards me and as they get closer, they won't move at all so yea, if i don't move i bet you they'd just run into you

and if you think you can get run over in China with their crazy driving, think again - here in Copenhagen if you don't move, they'll seriously run you over - they just keep going! i think i've almost been run over like twice now - no joke

Dyrehaven and Bakken!

Went to Dyrehaven today aka the deer park/garden!

woke up early to make ham/egg sandwiches for my lunch and headed out around 9:35 am in order to get to kobenhavn station at 10 am - we decided to go at 10 am yesterday, but Claire woke up late, and they ended up coming later

but that's ok cause there's always people to meet and hang out with

so first things first, arrived at kobenhavn station and rode the s-tog with the ISUP social program coordinators to Klampenborg - apparently the s-tog is free every first sunday of each month (not sure if it's only that train/route though)

arrived at the park and met with a ton of greenery - we walked for about 20-30 minutes in order to reach the place where we hung out for the day - i got girl scout flashbacks - bleh i hate camping and the outdoors lol

it wasn't all that bad since we saw some deer on the way!

when we reached the hunting house where the royal family used? to go to when they went hunting - these grounds used to be private hunting grounds, but i think one of the social coordinators said that they opened it up to the public within the past 2 years (i might be wrong)

view in front of the house

behind the house you can see the sea!

then our small group of people when to go sit on a couple logs behind the house to wait for the other groups to come and some people started playing twister while i decided to sit and read =)


more people came, and i ended up playing a card game called 'president' with a group of people

when Gloria and Claire finally came i went to go sit and chat with them and we ate our lunches

after that we decided to go walk around - and dude i'm glad we did cause we saw a huge herd of deer next to the road!

and we got to see them pretty up close! =)

i took some videos too haha they're so cute with all their little tails swishing about

next we walked to this house with a little lake next to it and there was a swan swimming in it

funny story: we got really close to the water edge and then the swan started coming towards us and Gloria was like oh look it's coming towards us! aww it's so friendly!
and it keeps coming closer and getting out of the lake and i'm like uh either that or it might be attacking us lol

it keeps coming closer and moving faster so we ran away from the lake lol - the people sitting by the lake must have been like wth? why are those 3 asian girls running away haha

then we went over to the other swan and the little ducklings - so cute!

and when the momma swan waddles over to us the little ducklings follow her haha

then papa swan decides to join them...cause i'm pretty sure it thought we were going to hurt it's babies or something

sidenote: there were also these two hk girls (i'm guessing hk girls cause they spoke cantonese) who were seriously annoying - like they kept saying the little ducklings were "mo liu" cause they didn't do anything and stuff, and i'm like, well wtf do you want them to do? they're not here for your entertainment! and seriously it's like they can't keep silent at all since they kept spewing out word vomit and saying oh is it going to poke me? and the other girl would be like, well if it does then poke it back it can't hurt you blah blah blah - their conversation is what's "mo liu" if you ask me

yea but of course, it just sounds a lot more annoying in cantonese, and they just remind me of how shallow some hk girls can be

ok mini rant over

so our little excursion came to an end and we went back to the hang out area where people were throwing around a football, playing roundball (whatever that is), and talking and stuff

we left and went to Bakken amusement park around 3:30 pm - another long trek back to the entrance of the park!

Bakken! it's the oldest amusement park in the world! and i guess you can definitely tell haha it looked kinda more like a mini carnival to me rather than an amusement park since it had so many arcade games and food stands


high note: i got ice cream! they put whipped cream and strawberry jam on top! never had that before, but it was good =) nougat + marcipan flavor
this was so far the cheapest ice cream i've seen (every stand basically has around the same flavors but 2 scoops usually cost around 26-30 dkk, so this being 23 dkk was pretty cheap)

i guess danish people really like to sit down and eat and stuff cause Bakken has a lot of little restaurants as well where you can sit outside, eat, and chillax

we basically just walked around and looked at all the stalls and stuff since the rides are pretty expensive (and not that exciting)

it's a pretty small place (maybe just a tad bigger than the Houston Rodeo? it took us only about an hour to see everything

we left around 5 pm, and i headed back to Porcelaenshavn, fixed myself a quick dinner and read for marketing...it's so boring

but anyways - dead tired but had a fun day! when in your life can you be that close to about 50+ deers? =)