Sylt.

So on the long weekend of May ( I KNOW A LONG TIME AGO, I HAVE BEEN BUSY WITH SCHOOL) we went to the cutesy island of Sylt. I wanted to do this post sooner ut got seriously sidetracked by actual work sadly, and nooo, blogging does not count as actual owrk, and as I am leaving today for the UK & co, I thought I should maybe put it up here. 

Carolyn and I just BARELY got on the train, sprinting and the whole shabang, to meet up with Marsha, Andy and PH on the regional train to Sylt! Famous for it's incredible beaches and quaint atmosphere. We had fish and chips and biked along the coastline and layed on the beach with a good book, of course surrounded by nude people. LOL. Anyways, I'm just going to steal the video that Carolyn put together and link it here so you can watch us in LIVE ACTION THIS TIME~ *gasp*

http://av.vimeo.com/72140/923/100612049.mp4?token=1340444214_14d9aa6362a88a6e240f1482a065950c

Now maybe I'll get to the Berlin, Prague and Munich posts before I leave! Although I doubt it.... c:

Tschuss~

Jena

København.

Whoa time for a new post on the travel blog? I THINK SO. About time right? Well mostly up to this point has been traveling around Hamburg, doing homework, and planning trips. Well and watching scary movies. But that's besides the point.

Anyroad, we (being Marsha, Peter and myself) decided to take a night bus to Copenhagen on Friday night. Because we thought that "Hey, if we're going to go to Copenhagen, then we'll GO to Copenhagen!" Right? Makes sense. So we packed our backpacks with bed linens for the hostel, an extra shirt, a toothbrush and camera. We were fully aware that the bus would arrive in Copenhagen at 5:30 in the morning. Meh. Little did we know that the bus would be so packed and smelly and hot.... Marsha and I certainly didn't sleep, unlike Peter.... But anyways, we all sat by weird people who wouldn't let us sit together and such. And then we took the ferry across... well, whatever sea that is, to Copenhagen, Denmark! :P

We arrived at the bus station at, 5:30AM, and it was FREEZING COLD. We were not expecting it to be that cold. It said 15 degrees on the weather website! Lies... All lies. And we were dead tired of course, having took Gravol, we were super groggy but I thought the cold would wake us up a bit. We managed to convert our Euros in Danish Kroner without much problems, and then managed to worm our way onto a bus that would take us to our hostel. I had printed out a google map from the hostel website and everything! And we found the hostel just fine! Turns out.... that that hostel was the wrong hostel, a different branch of the one we had apparently booked (although that one matched the picture on the website, I'll say). The lady pointed out where our hostel was, and it was like 4 blocks away from the bus station we were just at. DERP. So we took the bus back (with the same driver LOL) and then walked through the blizzard of wind to the actual hostel.

Marsha and the park by the wrong Hostel.

But the check in time for the hostel was between 2PM and 5PM, so we put our luggage in the luggage room and decided to kill some time. Keep in mind that it's like 7AM at this point. We decided to walk around and maybe try and find a café or something to eat at and wake up. Except nooooooothing was open, it was like a ghost town! Which is very unlike Hamburg, where there are always people, no matter what time of day or night or morning. We also had our experience with the kamikaze bikers of Denmark, they're... crazy. And merciless. Although I did read that Copenhagen was the most bike friendly city in the world. Which I would believe, they barely have any traffic at all! Anyroad, we walked around and then had to warm up in the hostel lobby again. So we decided to go to one of the museums, which had a lot of ancient artifacts. Except we were so tired, we were basically just wandering around like zombies. I don't really remember much of that museum... We even fell asleep for a little bit in one of the rooms, with mummies and movies and chairs and such. GO US. We then decided to walk around and take a boat tour through the harbour and canals of Copenhagen. But we waited at the wrong stop or something, or the weather was so bad that it didn't come. We waited for like half an hour at least but nothing came, so by that time we could check in at the hotel. We made our beds and did some research of where to eat.

I forget what building this is...

We don't look freezing at all!

In the hostel room

So then we went exploring and came across this lovely little café with delicious looking hot chocolate, so we took shelter in there for about an hour and listened to the somewhat muted band playing out side in the pouring rain. We then went to this traditional Danish restaurant, which was quaint. Had some steak with an egg on it (for Marsha and Peter) with some Copenhagen native Carlsburg beer. I had this smoekd salmon thing, that was also delicious with amazing cider. :)

We then wandered around and Peter wanted to go to the Planetarium, so we wandered in there, read some stuff about stars in Danish and put marbles in the black hole machine, and watched a movie about the hubble telescope in the imax theater! My first imax movie and I fell asleep..... I actually don't remember the end because all of us just woke up at the credits because the screen was so bright. :P Although I do remember the big close up shot of the Canada Arm *REPRESENT*.

We then decided to retire early for the night, because we were all so useless and tired all day. Which was weird, I've never felt like that in my life, and never have I fallen asleep in 3 public places in one day. I honestly went to bed at like 9:30 or something. Out like a light. For the first time ever all in time, I fell asleep before Marsha. Which never happens.

The next day, we hijacked some breakfast and decided to go on the free tour that the hostel had advertised. After some mishaps on finding the meeting place, we got to the starting square that has the Copenhagen town hall, or the Rådhus, and met our awesome Danish tour guide.

Rådhus, and giant flower pot.

Excited tour guide!

The free tour was fabulous. We learnt about a Danish 007 badass whose stories were so crazy that they were almost unbelievable. Like one where he apparently refueled this tiny farming plane while escaping to the UK while still flying... TWICE.. also he apparently almost assassinated Heinrich Himmler when Himmler was scheduled to stay a night in Copenhagen but didn't due to illness. He was poised and ready to shoot him with a crossbow (yeah that's right a crossbow) from the room across the street that had a view into Himmler's room. Wonder how things could have turned out differently eh?


The rest of the tour mostly consisted of seeing old buildings that had been built and rebuilt several times thanks to the awful fires Copenhagen seemed to be plagued with again and again and again. Finally they started to figure out to build things with stone. Derp.


We also saw where the prince and princess of Denmark live - they were home since the flag was flying, but unfortunately the queen was away. Jena and I both agree that something crazy should happen to us like how future the king and queen met. It's like a real life fairy tale :D

Badass Royal House!

We learnt about Hans Christian Anderson's life story and how he eventually came about writing all of those charming little stories. And of course we can't forget about Jacob Jacobsen - founder of Carlsberg beer! He also funded a lot of projects around Copenhagen as well.


After the tour our guide led us to this little place by the water that sold the most delicious hotdogs. It was like 2 or 3 euros for a beer and a hotdog but the hotdogs were so incredibly hard to eat. Seriously. Messier than eating crab almost. The salsa or whatever he put on just spilled everywhere. Oh well. Totally worth it.

Next stop was the museum that Jacob Jacobsen donated his collection to. It had stuff from all over the world (like Egypt etc) but it was mostly sculptures and although interesting I think Jena and I got fairly bored of it pretty quick. So we ended up sitting in the middle room that kind of reminded us of the secret society room at UBCO and stared at the awkward baby statue. And the Degas collection we were excited about turned out to be just a bunch of his bronze casting studies of the body. Which was kind of interesting I guess since you don't normally see that BUT I would have preferred the paintings obviously.

CREEPY BABY STATUE!

Then it was time to head over to the awesome hippie area of Copenhagen called Christiania or Freetown Christiania ^^ It took us awhile to walk there but we finally arrived to the 'Green Light District'. Now I've been to Amsterdam but this was quite different. First of all Marijuana is not legal in Denmark but the authorities just sort of turn a blind eye in Christiania so when you're walking through the area you're not allowed to take any photos and with good reason considering they just sell everything out in the open. It was certainly an interesting experience but we didn't stay long since we still had a lot of exploring to do. We set out to see the Opera House up close but somehow managed to walk the whole entire island.. it felt like it would never end. But on the bright side we did get on one of the ferries for free!


We skipped seeing the statue of the mermaid since it was a little out of our way.. I mean it's just a mermaid -_- and instead we headed towards the castle and its gardens. The castle itself wasn't all that impressive but it did have it's own mote and the weather and scenery were quite pleasant and worth the extra mile or two to get there.

Treeeess. 

Castle. Complete with moat.

After that we decided to head back to the hostel so we caught a bus grabbed our stuff and headed to where our big bus was supposed to stop. It took walking up and down the street before we figured out where it actually was supposed to stop. Once it came we got on an claimed several seats to ourselves, which proved to make our trip back to Hamburg much more pleasant than the trip there. XD

Oh man it felt pretty nice to be home in Hamburg again!~ Although it was (almost) just as cold. SKÅL!

-Jena & Marsha 

Classes.

SO. And then there were classes. Apparently the classes here in Germany are a lot different than the ones at home. Students here have to shop up to one or two classes, and then the teacher picks who gets to be in them, and you sign your name on a sheet that gets passed around, and if you don't get chosen then, oh well, too bad for you. Luckily, us international kids don't really have to worry too much about that. Our coordinator, Nir, keeps telling us: "Everything will be fine, everything will be fine." in a fairly laid back manner that we all happen to find a little stressful. Needless to say, I only need 30 ECTS to fufill my credits for this semester, same with Marsha. So we've decided to take:

"Grüsse von Hier" - Greetings from Here, 5 ECTS . This class is taught in English, although the English is very broken and actually quite hilarious in it's own way. It involves a lot of hand gestures and Italian words and German students offering the wrong words for certain things. But basically we have to make two comics, one in black and white and the other in colour, both two pages long about "place". Either about where you come from or the place that you are living, or a place you remember in your life. We're going to be submitting these comics to the Italian magazine, Internationale, and if your comic gets chosen to be publicated, then there is some sort of monetary prize that I don't remember. Easy right? Well, that could be debated. 

"Digitale Illustration" - Digital Illustration 5 ECTS. This class, oh this class. This one is taught in German, and it takes a bit of teamwork from Marsha and I to understand what is going on, which is a hilarious gongshow in itself. It requires me fooling around with the computer (which is in German, although I'm not too sure what WE were expecting), Marsha catching German words here and there, me catching the jist of things from the screen, and Marsha telling me what they read, since I can't see the TV screen very well. Hilarious indeed. No really, it is. I'm sure we could just ask the German students next to us, as pretty much everyone knows English, but we thought we would try it on our own for a while.

"International Workshop"- 5 ECTS. This class is taught by our coordinator Nir, and we have yet to do anything productive yet. We pretty much meet every Thursday and discuss what art openings are this week, although it is hard to understand when you don't know where any of the places are, let alone how to spell their names. :P

"Milch and Kohle- Die Mutter" -Milk and Coal- The Mother, 15 ECTS. This is the class that we really wanted to take. It's another comic class, that is taught in pretty much 3/4's English so far, and some German. This class is HUGE though. Huge. But awesome. From what I've gathered, we're going to be making a 16 page comic about Milk, Coal and the Mother, but in a more abstract and obtuse form of course. I'm pretty sure we're going to be printing these and some students will get to go to a comic festival either in Poland or in England. I think.

I mean, there's only been about two weeks of classes so far, and the school is very cool! It's an old hospital meant for mothers and their children, and it looks very much like an old hospital. One of these days I'll get to taking pictures. I just keep forgetting to bring my camera with me places. Woops. 

It's been crappy weather here a lot, which saddens me a bit, as it effects my motivation for going outside when it's cold and rainy outside... 

I also just keep collecting more paperwork here, the Germans and their paperwork! I had to get an organizational thing from Staples down the road to keep it all straight! Let's see, also went to a couple potlucks, art openings, The Hunger Games (in English of course) and wandering around downtown and through parks. Also went to the Teen Daze concert, which was amazing! Always happy to see another Canadian around these parts. Marsha and I have also been planning to go to Vienna, Prague and Munich in May! Also planning to go to a couple music festivals. We're hopefully going to b doing the UK in July, and some other places here and there. I would really like to go to Spain, Paris and Denmark too, and any other places that happen to pop up. Of course, we'll have to budget this all out, as it takes more planning that I thought it would to go to these places inexpensively.

Anyroad, that's about it for now! Easter consisted of a potluck with friends and Carolyn and I sharing a small amount of chocolate in the afternoon. 

EASTER CHOCOLATE YAY

-Jena

PS. One day when I get my tablet pen, I will make this blog look a little better than it does right now....

BERLIN.

So, this weekend I went to Berlin with a bunch of the other study abroad kids, (the Erasmus kids) and it was quite grande! On the first night, we checked into our hostel and went and had pizza as a group at an Italian restaurant. Funny enough, these people haven't taken us to a German restaurant, always restaurants from other cultures.... There is a tiny bar in the bottom of the hostel, so that was alright. Although I have to say, the hostel had the UGLIEST colour scheme I have ever seen in my life. It was like bright blue and yellow and orange and it hurt mein eyes. But that's besides the point.

The next day, we went on a walking tour with this British dude, and that was amazing! It was also really warm there, much to my pleasure. I'm talking like 20 degrees here! Lovely. We went and saw the famous Berlin gate, and many of the old buildings in Berlin. Most of them, as I learned, were bombed and destroyed in the wars though, so the city is working on rebuilding them. Which made me think also of Hamburg, which was also mostly bombed in the wars, but you cannot tell at all, as the city has been entirely rebuilt in only a matter of year, it's quite amazing really.

Anywho, we also saw the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe, which is quite a brilliant piece. It is just giant stone slabs of varying sizes, but they get taller and taller in towards the middle and shorter on the sides. You don't realize how tall they are until you are walking through the middle and you can't see around the corners and over top of the slabs. It's quite quiet and eerie in there and I love it a lot! Like I said, quite a genius design for the memorial of such things.

We also saw the remnants of the Berlin wall, which was also very fascinating. Little did I know, that the Berlin wall was actually quite a violent event, it wasn't just a wall put up in the middle of Berlin. Well, it WAS but it was much more than that. Thousands of people died trying to get over it, as they just shoot you and kill you on sight if you try. What a hard life. Jeez. After the walking tour, we just kind of walked around and saw some local concert type life on the canals. 

We went to the DDR museum on the last day, which, sadly, is not a museum about Dance Dance Revolution. It' about living a daily life in communist Germany, which could have been interesting, but I found the museum quite dull.

There are a lot of things that I didn't get to see in Berlin, that I wanted to, but didn't have time to, so I'm sure I'll take a trip back there in the future!

My roomate and I at the Berlin west gate!

The Memorial of the Murdered Jews in Europe

The spot where Hitler was burned

Berlin Wall.

Berlin Wall

Second Half of the First Week.

So, this post has come a little late, but I got a little behind.... Anyroad, the Miniateur Wonderland! It was lovely! There were tiny little airports, where planes actually took off and a tiny Hamburg, tiny Switzerland, and a tiny America! Very cool! 

Anyroad, that was about it for that week, besides getting more of my bearings straight and finally figuring out the trains. I've started to decorate my room with posters that I've been finding around Hamburg and museum brochures that I've been to/want to go to!

-Jena

The First Half Week.

Alright! The first week is over! Although it seems like a much longer time.... Anyroad, let's see.

We started the Hamburg program, in which we did a Scavenger Hunt around Hamburg on the first day.

This is me by the town hall!

We went to a museum that was about the emigrants from Germany who were going to America. I didn't really take pictures of that because it was kind of boring. :P Although I did take a picture of this (the questions that they asked you when you got to America):

ARE YOU AN ANARCHIST? haha DARNIT NOW I WON'T BE ABLE TO GET INTO AMERICA! That made me laugh. And then on the same day of the museum, we went on a ferry ride around the harbour, which was very cool, but very cold. They have tons of those cranes that lift cargo off of barges, and I like them  a lot. I think that's what I've taken the most pictures of. :P

Our ferry!

I've pretty much made it my hobby to get lost in Hamburg, since I'm so good at it. I'll post pictures of the other things we did once I upload them off my camera! Stay tuned for the Miniateur Wunderland!

Tschiuß!

-Jena

Look at this damn Ice Tea bottle.

This ice tea bottle is the size of MY ARM.

German McDonald's at the mall with Svenja!~

This is how people park here, willy nilly wherever. Half on the side walk and half on the street. No big deal.