Le weekend à Copenhague (et en Suisse!)

I apologize for taking so long to post about the wonderfully magical weekend in Copenhagen, but, with the second week of classes hogging my time during the day and draining me of all energy, I haven't had enough free time or the will to write.  I am still finding myself constantly exhausted, and I suspect it's from taking 2 to 2 1/2-hour classes in French at a time (it takes a lot of energy to sit for that long and listen to someone speak to you in French, sometimes about incredibly boring topics!).  The way they deal with classes is just totally different here; instead of meeting a couple of times a week for an hour each meeting, they meet once a week for 2 to 2 1/2 hours.  It is really tiring, especially if you have a couple of classes in a row.  Luckily for me, though, I have the schedule that most college students would kill for; aside from one day, when I start at 9, I don't start until either 10, 12, or 1, and am usually finished by 6 at the latest (one day I finish at 7).  I'm not sure that I like taking classes that late, but I am embracing my newfound ability to sleep in a little bit!

So after a tiring first week of classes, Jinah and I took a train on Thursday night from Strasbourg to Basel, Switzerland (home of Roger Federer, not that I'm proud that I know that).  We instantly fell in love with Switzerland, because, first of all, the nice man at passport control gave us stamps for our passports (even though I'm pretty sure the office was closed for the night by the time we got in).  And then, a mere block outside of the train station, we found STARBUCKS!!!  Now, as most of you know, I'm not a coffee drinker, but I DO love their skim hot chocolate.  And being that there are no Starbucks to be found in Strasbourg (I'm pretty sure Paris is the only place in France where they have them), we were thrilled.  We actually stopped twice, once before our train/flight on Friday morning, and then during one of our layovers on Sunday.  On Thursday night, we stayed in a hostel in Basel, right by the train station.  Now that was my first hostel experience, and I guess I had an image in my mind of hostels as sketchy and dirty, but this one was the complete opposite.  It was a YMCA hostel, and it was clean.  And the people were incredibly nice!  Actually, we got to know the other women who were staying in our room.  There were three of them: one from Ireland, one from France, and one from Belgium, and since we all got in at around the same time and none of us had had dinner, we ordered pizza together and chatted.  

On Friday morning, we were up bright and early.  After a quick stop at Starbucks, we were on the train headed for Zurich.  That train is actually included in the flight, for whatever reason.  We were pleasantly surprised by how efficient and quick check-in was at the airport (yet another reason to love the Swiss!).  Once we got to Copenhagen, we met up with Jinah's friend Lauren (who was technically the person we were going to visit; she is from the Bay Area as well, but is spending this year in Denmark, playing badminton for a club over there).  She was actually the one that procured free lodging for us for the weekend, too.  Over the summer, she and her family were at Yosemite and met a Danish family.  When Lauren mentioned that she would be spending some time in Denmark, they said, "Oh, well you have to come stay with us!," and luckily, they were willing to take in two other people too!  Susanne, Karl, and their adorable 7 year-old son Philip were incredibly sweet, and prepared these enormous breakfasts for us to enjoy together on Saturday and Sunday morning.

On Saturday, we had a ridiculously packed day: I had heard about a weekend flea market and decided I wanted to check it out (because you never know what kinds of treasures you'll find at a flea market!), so we did, and ended up finding a bunch of really cool vintage postcards!  Then, we walked to Assistens Kirkegaard, the cemetery where many a famous Dane is buried (including Niels Bohr, Hans Christian Andersen, and Søren Kirkegaard).  We were unable to find the latter's grave (the signs were really cryptic, and were literally pointing in opposite directions), and both Bohr's and Andersen's graves were a bit of a letdown, mostly because some idiots had decided to put graffiti all over them (and rather lewd graffiti, might I add; they seem to be especially fond of graffiti in Copenhagen).  After grabbing some lunch, we embarked on a long trek to Amalienborg, the royal palace, via Stroget (the largest pedestrian walkway in the world, if I'm not mistaken) and Nyhavn, the area along one of the canals with brightly-colored houses (see above picture).  The palace was really beautiful, and, even though they didn't speak, I could tell the guards had a lot more personality than the ones at Buckingham Palace.  For instance, one smartass decided he was going to walk along with one of the guards, only on his hands.  It was actually pretty funny, and I looked at the other guard and saw a definite smile!  

We then passed by Marble Church (where we saw a newly-married couple emerge from) en route to the Little Mermaid statue, which was so pretty!  And of course, we all did the requisite photo ops, making our way out to the rocks surrounding the statue (or, in Lauren's case, attempting to imitate her pose).  After that, we headed back home, having spent almost all day walking (my feet were practically begging to be cut off by the end of the day), passing quickly by Rosenborg Castle on the way.  

The next morning, we opted for a nice, leisurely breakfast, since we had a 2 o'clock flight that didn't allow us any time to do more sightseeing in the morning.  Once we arrived back in Zurich, we had about an hour-and-a-half to wait until our train back to Basel (and then another hour in Basel waiting for our train to Colmar, and another 45 minutes waiting for the one back to Strasbourg).  It was an exhausting travel day, and we didn't get home until after midnight.  But I'm so glad I went (even though I've decided that that will be my one big trip for the semester), because who knows when I'll get another chance to visit Copenhagen.  I'm not going to lie, it was so nice to have a break from speaking French almost all the time, because everyone in Denmark speaks English!  It's a good thing too, because Danish is really impossible to pronounce, so I feel like it would be incredibly difficult to learn.  For instance, in Danish, Copenhagen is written København, but pronounced koo-ben-hauen.  Very strange.  We found that they randomly add a lot of vowel sounds, but luckily for us, we didn't have to worry about butchering anything.  

Since I've been back in Strasbourg, I've started to feel a bit of homesickness coming on.  I think part of it has to do with the fact that I'm so exhausted, because I know from past experience that when I get excessively tired, I get homesick or upset.  But, even if that weren't the case, I really do miss everyone at home; people are celebrating birthdays, and while I love that they include me in Facebook event invitations to their birthday parties, it makes me really upset that I can't be there (and this has happened several times, so don't think I'm singling people out!).  And every day, when I look at the Washington Post online, there is news of the DOW sinking lower and lower by the day, and I feel guilty for being abroad and spending all of this money (true, it is the same price as Georgetown tuition, so we would be paying for it anyway, but there are a lot of extra expenses- necessary expenses, but extra ones nonetheless) when the future is so uncertain for so many people.  I'm sad I'm not in D.C. for all of the election festivities, because if I were back on campus right now, I would have joined the student group that is working so hard right now to get Obama elected.  It's hard to sit back and not be an active participant in what is going on in my country right now (even though I have registered for my absentee ballot, which is the important part!).  And, obviously, I'm freaking out a little bit, because basketball is starting in a few weeks, and I will not be there for the adrenaline rush of sprinting for our seats (I had gotten pretty good by the end of last season!) and of cheering for my beloved team.  Lastly, my brother is in the process of applying to college, and I want to be there, looking over his college essays and feeding him words of encouragement.  Like I said in one of my earliest entries, it's a hard realization that life goes on without you, both at home and at school.

And all of my Georgetown professors always told us that French people (or really, students at any university where they have exchange students, for that matter) are reluctant to make friends with visiting students, because they know that they're going to be gone at the end of the semester.  It makes sense, and I'm sure I would feel the same way.  But on the other hand, it feels like all I'm meeting are English-speaking students, and, while my French is definitely improving, having a lot of English-speaking friends makes it tempting to speak English outside of classes.  We'll see.  It's still early on in the year.  

I really don't think I can write any more... there will probably be another entry after our trip to Nice this coming weekend (all of the Georgetown girls, and our program director, Susan, are going).  In the meantime, the ALDS starts tonight, so GO SOX!!!!!

Sending you my love,

Kristen