#9 - Replace "Cope" In "Copenhagen" With Your Favorite Verb

Last weekend, I went to Copenhagen, Denmark with three other lovely girls. It hadn't originally made it on my list of places to see, but I got invited and I liked the group that was going, and heard Copenhagen was a great city. For the trip, however, we did something a little unorthodox for vagabond college students: we stayed in a five-star Marriott. 

Now, why in the name of many divinities would four college students do that, you may be asking?

After surveying the Copenhagen hostels and realizing that we were most likely going to be paying anywhere from 35-50 euro for two nights, Bralow (my own personal Lord and Savior) nonchalantly mentioned that her parents had Marriott rewards, and we could check the prices on that--just for fun. So, we do, and lo and behold, two nights in a five star hotel is 45 euro, as opposed to a potentially grimy hostel for just a few euro less. Needless to say, we booked it.

We took an overnight train to Copenhagen and didn't bother to spring for a couchette/sleeping car. Huge mistake. Even for someone like me--and I can generally sleep anywhere if I'm tired enough--trying to sleep in the seats was excruciating. I'd left the Castle coughing a lot, and on the overnight train (when I should've been sleeping...) I started to feel the tingle in my nose, that ominous sensation that can only mean sniffles. Once we arrived at Copenhagen, I had a head cold to be sure, but since those are easily survivable, we checked in, dropped our stuff, and all headed out for a walk and some lunch. The walking was nice; we saw the Little Mermaid statue (underwhelming) and had two great meals before and after. MAN dinner was so good; we went to a Mediterranean Vegetarian Buffet and it was amazing. Then, we went back and, after a stint in the hotel's steam room and sauna (!!!!!!), passed out in the million thread-count sheets.

And I woke up with a fever.

If I were going to get a fever on any travel trip, my immune system's choice to crap out while I was staying in a five-star hotel was a fine, fine choice. Saturday, instead of walking around in the cold and having to stand in several museums, I laid in an astoundingly comfortable bed all day, lounging in my Marriott robe that I got in the steam room and that accidentally made its way into my backpack when we left. I had as much ice as I could possible want and one of two English-speaking channels playing random but entertaining movies all day. I even got room service for dinner!

Sunday, they got up and went to another museum, while I got up and packed, still feeling a bit feverish. Then, we walked around outside after checking out of the hotel. Had another GREAT vegetarian meal--a vegetarian breakfast at this quiet little café--and saw Christiania, which is/was a hippie commune in the center of Copenhagen. Now, it's just a real sketch "artists' colony" where a bunch of scary, thin drug dealers glare at you from barrel fires. After that, we headed to the train station for another horribly uncomfortable overnight train.

Unfortunately, I have NO pictures whatsoever from Copenhagen--and not because I was bed-ridden most of the time. My camera batteries died right before leaving, and since it takes a lot for me to get my camera out anyway, I decided to just leave it at home for a weekend. 

It's weird to think that I've got less than a month here--only one more real trip on my own before my family comes to visit me. It's to London though, just me and Bralow, so it should be a winner.

#8 - Czech'd Ourselves Before We Almost Wrecked Ourselves (In Heidelberg)

Our school "spring trip" was to Prague, Czech Republic this year! I was personally very excited about getting to go to Prague, since I'd always been envious of my high school peers: they went to Prague our senior year and all got "Czech Me Out" t-shirts--and I wanted one really badly.

Needless to say, I GOT ONE. 

Besides my cheesy souvenir, Prague was great. It's a really interesting city because it's such a melting pot of different things: culture, architecture, art, people, etc. I spent most of my time in Prague with my World Since 1914 history class, but over the weekend I got to see a tour of the city, the Cathedral at the Prague Castle, Terezin (a Jewish ghetto and prison right outside of Prague), an awful American-made museum on Communism, AND I fought the power here at the Castle to be allowed to go off on my own one afternoon to see the Mucha museum. Alfons Mucha, essentially the father of Art Nouveau, is by far my favorite artist, and it was great to be able to walk through his tiny museum and really take my time, by myself. 

A Mucha stained glass window in the Cathedral.

Photo credit: Nick Heller.

After our organized Prague trip ended on Monday, Rebecca Bradshaw and I headed out to Germany, where we decided to go for our "spring break" of six days. We chose to do this 1) because we both had Eurail, which meant we didn't have to pay for ANY travel for six days, 2) we're both acting students, and Germany's got a great theatre reputation. So we did five cities in six days: Dresden, Berlin, Göttingen, Heidelberg, and Munich. Dresden was my favorite, and Heidelberg probably my least favorite, only because we walked around in the dark for three hours in the pouring rain with our backpacks on trying to find a hostel--and then the hostel a) sucked and b) was expensive. We saw shows in Dresden, Berlin and Munich--the Munich show, at the Kammerspiele, was by far the best. It was an absolutely incredible physical comedy that would be much easier for me to gush about in person, so I will.

The view from the Heidelberg Castle.

All in all, the trip was great. The Germans--though we'd heard from some of our peers that they could be a bit harsh--were incredibly nice the whole trip, and the country is really beautiful. Not to mention, German actors literally get 10-15 minute curtain calls. Like, no joke. Why on earth am I trying to become an actor in the United States?

For my very few Prague and Germany pictures, click here!

#7 - Welcome to my office!

Interlaken, Switzerland.

Daaaaaaang.

Yeah, so. Kelly and I decided to do our own thing in Switzerland this weekend, but since I had to see a show for a class, we couldn't leave until Friday morning. This meant traveling from 8AM to 6PM, consequentially cutting out a lot of time in Interlaken. Thankfully, unless you're partaking in one of the many high-adrenaline, blood-pumping, why-in-God's-name-am-I-doing-this extreme sports, there's not a lot to do. So, Friday night, we found our hostel (the Funny Farm...classy naming, I know) where we were greeted by an ENORMOUS SAINT BERNARD. Yes, the hostels in Switzerland have dogs. Particularly large dogs. Yes, I spent a lot of time in the public lobby of a highly populated hostel baby-talking and practically rolling around with a big, hairy, smelly dog. I talked about that Saint Bernard a whole lot while we were there. After putting down our stuff and silently deciding that our Iowan roommates were, frankly, boring, we headed to the Thai restaurant right down the street (Saint Bernard? A Thai restaurant? Interlaken is practically Lynchburg, VA) for dinner. Mmmmmmm. After that, we attempted to play card games with the 36-carded deck the generous bartender at the hostel had given us, and then we went upstairs and studied for mid-terms until approximately 10:45.

Then, Saturday, we got up fairly early and walked around the shops. I looked for an antique bookstore everywhere, feeling that since I was in the Swiss Alps, maybe I could find a copy of Heidi for my mother; alas, there are not many bookstores in Interlaken, and the ones that do are mostly too small to carry any copies of the novel. We got a quick lunch at the Thai restaurant (YES it was that good) and then met up with our skydiving group.

Yeah, skydiving.

It was pretty phenomenal. We flew to 13,000 feet, I sat on the stairs of an open plane and my instructor barrel-rolled us into the sky over the Swiss Alps. Free-fall for approximately 53 seconds, where I made no sounds--just grinned like an idiot--and the parachute was pulled at 4,000 feet. After that was about 5-7 minutes of airtime, where my ruggedly handsome Australian instructor Mick did as many tricks (aka spinning around a LOT) as he could to try and frighten me. He couldn't. But he did tell me, in the midst of our 4,000 feet-high conversation, that before he skydove for a living, he used to work in an underground coal mine. How's that for poignancy?

To see the rest of my Interlaken pictures--and there aren't that many--go here!