First stop: Baden-Württemberg area

What can I say? I fell in love with southern Germany. Maybe it was the perfect weather and fresh spring green and flowers and blue skies, but it was one of the prettiest places I've ever been. And for some reason, I wasn't expecting to love it so much. Having no expectations makes a new place even better, I think.

I started off flying to Stuttgart from Copenhagen on Saturday, April 9,

where I met Simone, a good family friend, and Nikki. We stayed with Simone in her cute little apartment for the next three nights, and got to explore lots of smaller towns around the German countryside. The first night we saw Tübingen, an old university town similar to the more famous Heidelberg. Nikki and I discovered radler, which is a beer/lemonade mix (which I personally like better than regular beer...). We had this quite often over the next week! It was beautiful at night with all the buildings lit up along the river, with a great atmosphere.

The next day, we traveled to Ludwigsburg (we became very good at the German train system by the end of the week!) and saw the palace there. It's one of the largest Baroque palaces in Germany and the gardens surrounding it are absolutely gorgeous. There was also an old car show in Ludwigsburg, which was fun to see. The weather was perfect and the flowers were all in full bloom. There was a children's fairy tale garden to explore, complete with a tower that had Rapunzel's hair coming down. There is seriously nothing more adorable than a little girl exclaiming "Rapunzel Rapunzel, let down your hair!" in German. I think we could have easily just sat in the garden all day, soaking up the sun and people-watching. We also stopped in Stuttgart to explore it in the evening, but by that point my heels were in protest from wearing my flats and I could barely walk, so we didn't stay for too long...oh, the pains of wearing cute shoes. Stuttgart was definitely a little less quaint and more industrial, but it was still fun to see everyone out in the good weather, sunning on the grass in the main square.

On Monday we took the train to Konstanz, which is a cute little town on a beautiful lake on the border of Germany and Switzerland. It was another gorgeous day and I even

got a little sunburned! There were great views and we went on a paddleboat out on the lake and ate ice cream and drank radler and even hopped over the border to Switzerland (but it wasn't very exciting). We were going to get our passports stamped as proof, but the guy wasn't at the window so we gave up. Ah well. I really enjoyed just walking around all these little German towns and soaking in all the German culture without being in all the places overrun with tourists. I think it made me appreciate Germany a lot more than if I had just gone to the big cities. I also loved traveling by train everywhere because the German countryside was so beautiful. Rolling green hills spotted with yellow and white and pink, with little red-roofed houses nestled in-between, church spires rising above them. I would happily move to any of these towns and live there! Seriously, every place I go, I just want to live there.

Next on the itinerary: Munich!

Frilandsmuseet

I'm sitting on the back patio in the sun and it's 19°C again and I'm wearing shorts! (although the sun makes it a bit hard to see the computer screen and keeps reminding me how dirty my screen really is.) We'll see how long my battery can last.... (probably not long.)

Today my host family took me to the Open Air Museum (Frilandsmuseet), about a 25 minute drive from Copenhagen. It was SO COOL. It's basically a large area of land (over 86 acres, according to the website) that you can walk around and they've taken different old houses from around Denmark and put them back together exactly as they were. There are houses there from the 1600s and you can just walk in and look around! This is exactly the type of history I love and it was so fascinating to see what it was like to live on a farm in Jutland a few hundred years ago. They also had houses and stores from the early 1900s, and some farm animals (including some baby goats and sheep that I wanted to steal). Even better--it's free, and a great place to go on a walk or have a picnic! It's the type of place I could keep going back to and discover new things...I didn't even see all the houses while I was there, there were too many! (The website says there are over 50 farms, houses, and mills from every region in Denmark and the Faeroe Islands as well as the former Danish provinces of southern Sweden and northern Germany.) It made me want to just step back in time and see the kinds of people that lived in the houses, although I don't think I would want to stay long...a lot of the farms had the stables directly connected to the living quarters and there was no toilets or electricity. We also drove a scenic way home and I got to see some of the Danish countryside and some pretty lakes. I love this country so much! It was a lovely afternoon and I highly recommend seeing it if you ever visit Copenhagen and it's warm out.

Here's the website with some info if you're interested.

A lovely Easter day

There is so much to update on that I don't even know where to begin...so I will begin with now. Happy Easter (God påske)! Today is a gorgeous day in Copenhagen--it's 19°C here (that would be 66°F) and sunny! The flowers are finally out and everything is starting to turn green! I just got back from traveling yesterday, so it was a welcome sight that Copenhagen finally decided to have spring. (But, compared to Germany and England, it's still not quite as warm.) Yesterday after I got back, I took my first bike trip around the city (finally!). I loved it and I'll be doing that quite often for the last 3 weeks, I hope. (yes, only THREE weeks left.) I have two weeks of class left and a paper, which will be difficult to write if the weather continues to be this nice. At church this morning I got some flowers to take home with me so now they're brightening up my room as I sit here and eat a delicious chocolate easter bunny from my mom. I was very excited that the outside part of the botanical gardens are finally looking like gardens...they're so nice to walk around now!

I think I'm going to do separate posts for each area I visited in Europe, so I will be posting them in installments over the next week! For now, though, I will enjoy this beautiful Sunday and sit out in the sun. I have to work on my tan!

Bicycle culture

I feel like I should make another post since I won't be around for the next two weeks...

This week has been relatively uneventful since the majority of it was spent writing the two big papers I had put off. It didn't help that I was pretty sick the week before, so I got kind of behind. But, it's done now! All I have left now until the end of the semester is one final and one paper. Hooray!

I had a really great guest lecture today in my Copenhagen urban history class about livability and today's bicyling culture in Copenhagen. It was really interesting and made me realize how unique Copenhagen is as a city. Did you know that at the morning peak on weekdays, there is more bike traffic than cars? That's very unique in the world. Their bike lanes are consistent and user friendly and there are so many little details (like the little ramps to go down the Metro stairs and covered places to park bikes) that make it such a great place to cycle. A lot of cities around the world are starting to adopt the "Copenhagen model" for bike lanes. (including NYC!) Also, people from every social status cycle, whether they're wealthy or poor. There is no green hippie status associated with biking here! There's a whole website called "Cycle Chic" that follows bike fashion around the world, but especially Copenhagen (I've put in a random picture from there to give you an idea of normal fashion on bicycles here). Even the crown prince bikes his kid to daycare! Not only is it cheaper, it cuts down on commuting times, which means the Danes get more time at home with family and food. This is one of the reasons Denmark is the "happiest place in the world"! Cycling also makes you live longer if you do it every day.

...I really need to start biking soon! For sure after I get back from my travel break. It's just been too cold for me to brave it before. (Not that the cold stops most Danes...they'll go out in a blizzard.)

Also, side note: about 21 inner Copenhagens fit into Manhattan. Just to give you an idea of how compact and small Copenhagen really is!

Today on the bus, a man came on with the usual pram, put the brake on it, and then just went to the back of the bus where there was a spare seat without even worrying about his child. I love Danes and their trustfulness!

Tomorrow begins my two week travel break!! Basic itinerary: Stuttgart, Munich, Salzburg (BIRTHDAY!), Bath, London (very briefly). The first week I'll be with Nikki and the second week I'll be with Liza! (Both friends from Denison, for those of you who don't know.) I feel completely prepared and I'm not even nervous this time around--just excited! I finally get to feel more like an independent world traveler. (Yes, I know I've been traveling already. But this is the first long trip that I've actually planned completely on my own!) Also, the weather will be about ten degrees warmer than Denmark and then by the time I get back, spring will be in high gear! I love spring!

Time is going so fast...

It is entirely the wrong time to be writing a blog post--I'm in the Black Diamond writing a paper (down to the wire) and this is the last thing I should be doing. So, I'll try to make this relatively quick. (Ha.)

Last weekend I was in Edinburgh, and it was SO lovely! Whenever I visit a new place, I just want to live there for at least a year. I'm very determined to go back to Edinburgh someday--I think it might tie with Copenhagen as one of my favorite cities! Here is the facebook album with my pictures: Edinburgh (See how lazy I'm getting?)

I could easily spend a long time talking about what I did there, but I hope you'll forgive me because I'm short on time and you can get a pretty good idea of what I did by looking at the pictures. Thank you SO MUCH to Gavin and Alison for letting Nikki and I stay with you! We may or may not have been plotting on ways to take David (2 years old) with us because he was so sweet and adorable. (...is that creepy?)

Spring is emerging here (it's April now!), and today is a such a beautiful day! Unfortunately, I'm stuck inside writing this paper. But I will be going to the botanical gardens tomorrow, as usual, and I'm looking forward to see what has sprung up in the last two weeks since I've been there. Also, tomorrow my host family is cooking a Christmas dinner for my friends and I, so we can experience some Danish traditions. Christmas in April! I'm looking forward to that (I always look forward to food). If you can believe it, I'll be leaving in exactly one week for my two-week travel break to Germany and Austria. I have a lot of work to do before then, though! I'm writing a paper on bystanders in genocide, and it's actually really interesting. I just don't want to be stuck inside! I'm also just getting over a pretty terrible cold--on Tuesday I had a fever of 101 and I felt off all week, but it has been steadily improving since then and today is the first day I feel relatively normal, besides a cough. Thank goodness that didn't last any longer!

Ok, ok, I'll go back to my paper now!