hello. i'm 1/8 Danish.

Greetings! This is becoming a common trend, but once again I am far behind on keeping up with this blog...

The weekend of March 20th-22nd I was in the country of Denmark! And it was absolutely fantastic...We started off on a school field trip to London for the day. We saw lots of great stuff, we went to the National Gallery and St Paul's Cathedral (which was amazingly beautiful!). At about 3:30pm, my friend Rachel and I ran from our group to Liverpool Street train station. From there we rode to Stansted airport for a 6pm flight to DENMARK! It was another Ryanair flight, so sketchy as usual:) But great, we heard our first Danish from the flight attendants, so that's always exciting. Rachel has a friend in Denmark named Mette, who stayed with their family through exchange last year. I was fortunate enough to be invited to go with Rachel and stay with Mette's family, which I appreciate so much because it was a great trip! We had little expectations for when we arrived, all we really knew was that someone was picking us up from the airport. When we got off the plane, there was someone holding up a sign that said Rachel's name, and sure enough, it was Mette's sisters boyfriend Mads (pronounced Mas) there to bring us to Mette's house. Naesbjerg was the town that we stayed in. We got lost a little bit in the country of Denmark, but eventually we picked Mette up from work (at the Shell gas station! ha!) and her and Rachel reunited. Then we went straight to her house, getting there at about 10, where we hunkered down for the night. We chatted, ate some pasta and watched a movie in Danish with English subtitles.

Trafalgar Square in London

St Paul's Cathedral, London

Inside of St Paul's (not mine...obviously...we weren't allowed to take photos)

Mette's House

Saturday morning we got up and had a Danish breakfast that Mette's mom prepared for us (we really appreciated everything they did, they were great to us:)). We had bread with spread, a hard boiled egg with a wet yolk (they had these little spoons to carve it out), some liver spread stuff that they made us try and then told us what it was (not that bad), and meat. Then we went to town and Mette showed us around a bit. We also go to explore her yard (with her dogs! i was so happy to see dogs!) which was huge and she had a man made lake in the back. It actually wasn't that different looking from a house that's in the country in the states. After that we played some SingStar (a karaoke video game), in which I attempted horribly to sing Danish songs I had never heard before. I failed miserably, but it was quite entertaining...then we got ready for the Disco! They had a birthday party planned at a club (or disco) for Mette's middle sister. I always think that I bring clothes that are fine to go out in, but the locals are always different in every country, so I borrowed a dress of Mette's to go out. It was very fun, but the Danish don't dance as much as I would have liked...:) We met some new people and had a great time.

One of Mette's sisters was doing a school paper on beer brewery's, so she asked if we wanted to tag along while she did an interview. It was a super cute little side street brewery...and they gave us free beer!

Hops? Yeast? I have no idea...I don't speak danish:) Apparently they leave the extras out and farmers come to get them and feed them to the animals

A Danish church

At a McDonalds in Denmark, Mette insisted we go in, and since this was our new favorite word (slash, the only one we could remember, and said in response to EVERYTHING), we thought we should take a photo with the rubbish bin

At the disco

New friends!

Rachel, me and Mette

Sunday we left around 8 or so to get to our flight which left at 10 I think? Once back in London, we took the train back to Grantham, and then a cab back to the manor. Overall it was a great weekend, and sure enough I came back saying that it was my favorite. But that happens every weekend:)

The landscape of where we were in Denmark was actually really similar to Minnesota. We weren't in a big touristy area so I like to say we saw the real Denmark:) Farming was a big thing in the area we were in, and it was really fun to see the local life rather than the tourism aspect. Those are my favorite types of trips by far.

I thought it was interesting too that seeing people walking down the streets, and passing by clothing shops, you can tell that the style in Denmark (especially for young people) is different than that of England. I think as Americans we think that European style is kinda all the same, or at least I sometimes do, and it's not at all. It seemed to be a tad more casual there, but perhaps it was the location of Denmark we were in too. The houses and architecture were also very different from England...I love how each country is a different style.

Mette explained to us how expensive it was in Denmark compared to the USA. We didn't really notice it because the exchange to the Danish Krone conversion is kind of hard to calculate compared to the Euro or the Pound. One US dollar is about 5.6 Krone, so everything seemed super expensive anyway. But Mette showed us that everything really is more expensive...a tube of mascara that would be $3 in the states was about $20 there! And Converse shoes that would be $40 in the states were over $100 there. It was very interesting...of course they get paid more so it doesn't affect them...but it's VERY cheap for them to live in the US!

The original Legoland was also in Denmark...close to the Billund airport where we flew in...just for the record, on behalf of my new Danish friends:)


This was a short post I feel, but I feel rushed for time a tad...Love to all:)

the extras of life

I suppose there are some other things going on around here besides traveling that I could mention...I have been super sick for awhile now. I don't really know what it is, I thought it was a cold, but i still have this super painful sore throat that wakes me up at night...i suppose I should probably get that checked out?

Anyway I'll just mention a few things and then pop some pictures in

We had a field trip to Belvoir Castle (the Brits pronounce it beaver...it looks nothing like it...we make fun of them a lot...it's one of those English things...ha). It's where the movie Young Victoria was filmed, which I am going to on Tuesday with my Meet-A-Family (I don't know if I mentioned them yet...but it's a program we can join...I have an elderly couple that we meet with once or every other week to do random things...we have had dinner, watched mama mia and gone to a play etc).

...a few weeks ago we had a St Patricks day party

We had our second British Studies exam...since it's my only real class, it's legit for me. Everyone else takes them pretty seriously too...here are some friend attempting to study...we didn't accomplish much. But I got a B+ on the first one, so I'm not too worried about the one we took last week. It's three essay questions on topics such as King Alfred and the Industrial Revolution in England in the 19th century...SOOOOOO exciting yeah? hehe

last week Wednesday night after our test we had a Black and White Masquerade...so fun to dress up and bask in the beauty of the manor:)

We had the dance in our beautiful Great Hall...which is basically our living room...oh the life I live:)

We were also lucky enough to have a farmer bring some lambs to campus last week...that was very exciting for all of us!

Basically my time consists of going to class, doing A LOT of freaking art (currently we are making prints in my studio art class by cutting our of linoleum blocks and in my drawing class we are working with black and white pastels...I enjoy it...but it's a lot), watching a movie every once and awhile, having dance parties in the bistro, training and planing to destinations on the weekend, and a lot of walking. It's a great life, and I will never complain:). This week (or 2.5 days i should say, since we leave for Paris on Wednesday afternoon) I have to focus our term paper due, a presentation and my yearbook pages that are all due next week...EEK! But I def can't complain, since there are people here that have it far worse with school work! Someday soon I have to get back to reality and register for classes for Fall at Eau Claire (so weird to think about)...and I'm starting to stress about finding a sub leaser for my house in Eau Claire...I am for sure not living there...so hopefully I can find someone...or else I will be paying $300 a month for an invisible person! YA WHOO! not. But, life is great now, and that's what's important. We want to live in the moment:)

Once I have more spare moments I will write about Denmark! For now, I shall shower and finish my classes for the day! Peace and Love to all:)

Bruisin' my knees in the Lake District

During the weekend of March 12th-15th I went on a school trip to the Lake District, in northern England. I already mentioned a tad about it, but it's a national park that has amazing outdoor adventure potential. We left Thursday night and got to the hostel called YHA Ambelside in the town of Ambelside. I was a in a six person room with some other harlaxtoners. It was a very nice hostel...I judge this by the sheets coming a bag. That's always nice...it makes it seem a little cleaner:) And there were families staying there, so that made me feel better as well. Since we got there late, we couldn't really explore much. We found the dock outside our hostel, and pestered the swan that was chilling there for a bit. A few of us a walked down the lake shore a bit, but after awhile we hit the sack to be rested for adventures the next day.

The hostel

My big purchase for the weekend...a buff...

Friday morning we got an excellent breakfast, ham, eggs, cereal etc. A few friends and I took off around 10am for a hike. We started with a pretty large group, but somewhere along the way we split off into 5-which was much calmer. We followed a 6.5 mile hike which led us through a forest, then up this huge mountain, then back around a different town, through another forest, and back to our hostel. The mountain was freezing cold and rainy, but still fun because it was so rewarding to climb all the way up. Even though it was so foggy we couldn't see the ground...We didn't stay up there for too long (apparently my rain jacket isn't actually waterproof...hmmm?). We made our way down the mountain and unto another path. We ended up in a little village and took a tea break at a little pub there. We warmed up a tad and ate our bag lunches. After that we walked on through the path and was lead through some great places. We returned to the village around 4pm. We changed and then headed into town. I got some fish and chips for dinner with a friend, and then at 6pm a bunch of us ended up at the local movie theater to see Slumdog Millionaire...which was so good! I recommend it to everyone! After the movie we just chilled with some others and had an early night to get ready for the next day of activities.

On the way up the mountain

Friday morning we had breakfast again, and then I was convinced to do some organized activities. I was just going to independently hike with people, but since some people couldn't come, I decided to take their place mountain hiking (we did have to pay for the activities...but it was worth it:)). It was a great hike, and we are so lucky with the weather here! It was beautiful blue skies, and I had some great photo ops! On the way down the mountain, I was convinced to do another activity for the second part of the day. So I stayed around and joined a group for Ghyll Scrambling which is basically waterfall hiking. It was incredible. We got soaking wet, but we knew that going into it. We try to wear waterproof clothing, but it doesn't really help much, you get soaking anyway. We made our way up the fall, and end activity of climbing this super high waterfall. Like, in the middle of it. We were tied on obviously, but we were legit climbing it. It was freezing mountain water, and though it was a great hiking spot (easy to find spots to climb etc) you couldn't feel your fingers ATALL! It was so scary, but exhilarating at the same time. It was great. Then we made our way back down...at some points he would lead us to a special spot and say, OK let go, and we would be totally submerged in this pool of water. SO COLD! EEEK! After we were back down, we changed into warm clothes and made our way back to the hostel.

View from hiking

Our own personal mountain man

Crossing the riverGhyll Scrambling gear

We could see the first ghyll scramblers from hiking

One of the waterfalls we climbed...this is just the beginning!

We were so dead when we got back to Ambelside...but we found a great little place to have pizza for dinner. The plan was to eat, and then stay for some live music. But the music sucked, and we were basically falling asleep in our chairs. So we pulled another late night and I was so excited to sleep. We left the next morning around 10am!


It was a great weekend! I still have a bit to catch up on here....but i'm getting closer!
Love to all:)

Sprechen Sie Englisch?

I'm feeling a little homesick today, so hello America! Know that I miss you lots;) This week has been mellow, I think that's why it hit me a little bit. There are also a lot of visiting relatives here this week, so that made me slightly depressed and jealous:) I have a little more than a month and a half left, which is so crazy! The weeks seem so short since we have 4 days of class and then trips...tomorrow I'm already leaving again for Lake District England. It's in northern England, and they compare it to Yellowstone (but it's a quarter of the size and gets the same amount of visitors!). Apparently it's beautiful...we could have signed up for all kinds of activities like kayaking and mountain climbing etc, but since I don't have any supplies for that kind of stuff, I decided I'm just going to hike independently with some others.

On March 6th-8th I went to Munich, Germany! We left Thursday night from Harlaxton, ate a bag lunch in town, and then took a train (about three hours with changes) to London Stansted Airport. We made the genius decision to spend the night in the airport since our flight was scheduled to be at 7am. It actually was way better than I expected. We wandered around like hobos for a bit, until I asked some ladies at a Starbucks where the best place to sleep was. They told me not to say I heard it from them, but gave us an idea. We found a little restaurant thing that was deserted until the next afternoon. It wasn't in the middle of the airport, but it was definitely centrally located enough that there were constantly travelers coming through. We found a circle booth, and then two long booths. I slept in the circle booth with all of our bags under the table (I slept with my arm around my bags). We slept from about 11-5am, I only woke up a few times, so it wasn't as bad as I expected by any means. We went straight to the gate and then waited for two hours for our flight to board. Lucky for us, the plane was delayed for technical problems, but only an hour (though it seemed longer:)). The flight to Munich as about 2 hours long. Once at the airport, our coordinators didn't exactly know what we were supposed to do...but eventually we found the S (train/subway thing) which brought us to the train station (that was 7.60 euro for the train ticket, but they didn't even check ever! So really we could have not bought tickets probably...). From the train station, the person responsible for our hostel didn't know where to go, so we ended up asking people on the street, and eventually got there. It was only a block or two away from the train station, so great location. We were a little nervous about not being able to speak German, but it went a lot smoother than we expected. We couldn't tell if they liked it if we asked if they could speak English first, or if we just started asking right away. When we asked first, they just stared like we were idiots. But if we just started speaking, they would do the same thing. It was all very confusing, but they were generally very kind about it:)

On the train to the airport, how mature:)

Sleeping in the airport

So...we don't speak German....?

The "hippie lounge" in the hostel

Our room

The hostel was super duper nice! It was called Wombats and was 20 Euro a night for a 6 bedroom with a bathroom. The sheets even came in pre-wrapped bags, so that made it feel super clean. We also got lockers, so that was nice. There was a cool little bar too, and we each got a free drink (a small one, but still...). And a middle room that was hippie central, there were bean bags all over and hammocks and fake trees, it was very funny. Once we got settled in, it was already about 2pm, and we still planned to get to Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site, so we made our way to the S station again. The ride there was about 30min, then a shuttle took us to the site (free shuttle and no entrance fee). I guess I don't really know what to say about it, without sounding depressing. I will say it was sad, but not what I expected. But I'm sure it didn't help that there were literally hundreds of high school students there for a field trip screaming and being incredibly disrespectful towards the entire place...so that took away some of the feel.

We caught the shuttle back when the site closed at 5. We found our way back the the hostel, freshened up, asked reception where a good easting establishment was, and we were on our way! We walked only about 10 minutes and found the Augustana. It was great! Good atmosphere, and the waiter even brought us English menus (thank goodness...). We had our traditional Bavarian meals..mine was called the Schwabenteller (filet of pork with wild mushroom sauce and over baked cheese with roasted potatoes and salad-yeah i wrote down the description....) and an Augustiner Hell draft beer. It was a wonderful meal. We had to ask for our check around 8:30 since we are impatient Americans in a country where you're actually supposed to hang around after the meal and enjoy one anther's company...hehe:) (but seriously...i can tell the difference when we are at restaurants). After that we made our way back to our new home, some of the others hung out in the room, my friend Abby and I went to check out the Wombats bar (the bar in the basement of the hostel). It was super cute and there were people from all over the world just chillin down there. I felt like I was walking into a movie or something. I slept like a rock, and it was wonderful...

My Bavarian meal....yum

We woke up Saturday morning and caught a 3hr train to Neuschwanstein Castle. It was the castle that supposedly inspired Cinderella, but they didn't say anything about that in the tour, so we were a little confused. Since it was snowing all morning, there were no shuttles to get up to the castle. It was only about a 20min hike up, so it wasn't bad. The castle was really cool, but I wasn't feeling well all day so it was a tad harder to enjoy it, but I still had fun! We took a tour and learned that the castle was actually never completed because King Ludwig II turned out to be insane and brought somewhere else. Apparently he died and it's still a mystery today. HMMM how interesting...

On the train back from the castle

We got back around 7pm and found some pizza for dinner. My friend Abby and I had 2 huge pieces left over and wanted to save them for the next day. Problem, there was no fridge. So, we pondered in the room for a bit, here's what we came up with;

Abby: We could put it outside the window?
Samara: There's no ledge...:(
A: There's a rough to the store below...?
S: Hmm...We could make a pulley system and lay it on the rough and pull it up in the morning!
A: (laughing, probably thinking i'm joking)...um do you have string?
S: (slightly defeated expression)....no....BUT I HAVE FLOSS!

Pizza in a bag with floss

Pizza hanging out the window...

SO...we hung our pizza out the window. It worked great! We laughed probably the entire time...then while the other girls rested in the hostel, Abby and I explored downtown Munich. It was super cute! We were bummed though, since it was night, we really wished we could see it in the daylight, but we already had to leave the next morning. That was one of the first times it really hit me that a weekend is just not long enough to explore a whole new country...especially one in which I don't speak the language-it's so exciting! So we walked a lot, found a really neat cathedral looking building. We had no idea what it was, but we had some elaborate guesses...turns out it's the town hall called Neuses Rathaus. It has shops in the bottom and a restaurant inside. It was really beautiful. We walked some more, took some photos, stole some balloons of a building, and then headed to bed.

The next morning we woke for a 6am train to the airport. Overall it was a wonderful trip, but much too short:)

Miss everyone even more than last time! The time is flying buy...and I'm soaking it all in the best I can!

LOVE TO ALL!