The Map

I have this map of Denmark, and after I visit a city, I make a box around it to signify that I have been there. The past few weeks, I have crossed off more cities than I can count. The most recent are Ebeltoft and København (Copenhagen). I went to Ebeltoft this past weekend to spend the night at a summerhouse with a few of my exchange student friends. Ebeltoft is on the Jutland but on the eastern coast so it is a very beautiful town. Unfortunately, I missed my bus so by the time I made it there, my friends had already seen the town and were waiting for me to head back to the summerhouse. However, I did get to see other coastal towns from the bus window and they were beautiful. I tried to take pictures, but as my iPhone camera is not superior and I was moving, none of them turned out well. I also realized that I still haven't gotten used to seeing the ocean. Before coming to Denmark, I could count the number of times I had seen the ocean on one hand. Now if I travel an hour in any direction I find it right in front of me. I have this tendency to stare at it and think about its magnitude and power. I often think of the quote "if you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into you." This normally reminds me that staring for extended periods of time into the blue horizon may be a little weird so I advert my eyes to something else.

At 5:30 on Tuesday morning, Christian, Claire and I took off for KBH. Christian had a meeting so he invited us along for the day. The four hour car ride was essentially silent, as Claire and I slept the majority of the way. We were dropped off just a few meters from the Little Mermaid. Thinking that it would be a big, lovely sculpture, with a beautiful, Ocean background, I was utterly disappointed. While the statue is beautiful, it isn't extraordinary and is quite small. The background consisted of little small stretch of water and then factories on the opposite shore. We spent a few minutes here than continued on our way. Because we didn't have any true objectives, besides finding a cafe to have breakfast in, we spent the majority of our day getting blissfully lost and taking pictures. We made our way back to the meeting point around 2:30 and were shortly on our way to avoid rush hour. My first trip to KBH probably wasn't spent in the best way possible, but I saw a lot of the city and had a great day.

As a quick update on a few posts back where I wrote about the things I was struggling with, I am still petrified of switching to only Danish in ten short days, but I keep reminding myself that it is going to have to be done eventually, and my progress in Danish has come a long way. As for lack of excitement, I can say that overall my last few weeks have been pretty exciting. I had full weeks and weekends and now it is nice to have a few days to just lay on the couch. Lastly, my homesickness has essentially vanished. I miss home, but I love my life here in Denmark and I wouldn't trade that for the world.

Shoutout to Rikke, my Danish classmate, because she told me that if I mentioned her in my blog, she might actually read it. Also, she's not weird.

"At rejse er at leve"
'To travel is to live"

The Summerhouse Crew, minus Cal and Didi.

Bus ride home from Ebeltoft.

The Little Mermaid.

Nyhavn. 

Part of the Happy Wall.

And you wonder why we come back fat.