Week 11 At SVF

FALL BREAK PART 2

October 29th - November 4th

Before we left for Hamburg we decided to explore a little bit more in Copenhagen. We woke up early, packed up our backpacks, finished the rest of our breakfast from the morning before and headed back out. We took a train to the central center of Copenhagen where we decided to have some lunch at a typical Danish meal. We ordered coffee and I ordered a meal with three different open faced sandwiches; a traditional meatball with pickles and herring, one with lettuce, brie cheese, and tomato, and another one with roast beef and a sunny side egg. Jack also ordered a plate with multiple different types of traditional Danish herring. After lunch we decided to explore some more and go to a museum. We walked to the Rosenborg Castle which was built in 1606 during the renaissance as a country summerhouse, however in 1710 it was used a residency building for the royal family. Today there was a museum in the Castle which we walked through. It was especially interesting for me to see the marching band instruments used in the royal band and see some of the pieces that they played. After we walked out of the castle and realized that we needed to get to our bus to Hamburg. We realized we only had around 15 minutes to find and walk to the station. We ran as fast as we could to the station and realized we needed to take a train to the station so we would be very late to our bus. When we finally found the place where the bus was to pick us up we had already missed our bus. We discussed a little bit of what to do next before deciding to just buy a new bus ticket and arrive very late in Hamburg. Because of this we had a bunch of time to kill before our next bus. We decided to go to a cafe for some Fika. We found a place to sit where we both ordered a Mexican Coffee, which we were very curious about. After we stayed at this cafe for a while we got up and walked around to try and find some place for dinner and for me to find a sticker (I had a mission to get a sticker from every country we were in). We found a sticker and a cheap place to eat dinner. We stayed at the dinner place for over an hour and then walked back to the bus station. We boarded the bus and decided that because we were arriving at around 3am and then needed to board our next bus to Darmstadt it wasn't worth spending the time and money to get to our airbnb that we had reserved. We were both incredibly stressed but then came to the conclusion that we would be more surprised if something didn't go wrong on this trip and just accepted the fact that this trip was not going to be exactly like we planned. So we called the hosts and canceled. We slept as much as we could on the buses and then arrived in the central station in Hamburg. We walked around the station and tried to find a place open 24hours to sleep and wait for our next bus. The only place we could find was a McDonalds which was incredibly packed with people as Halloween was around the corner and it looked like people were constantly stopping at McDonalds before/after their celebrations. We watched Harry Potter and ate some of the food that we had bought at the grocery store in Copenhagen. When it was time for us to get to our bus, we left the McDonalds and found the bus station. We got on our bus and immediately fell asleep. We arrived in Darmstadt around 3pm, got off the bus (almost didn't) and met up with my friend Carolina that I had met in High School where she was an international student. The three of us got on the tram to her house and when we got there it was extremely relaxing and calming to finally be in someones home and be around familiar faces. We set up our beds and dropped off our stuff, and then decided to bike to the coffee shop where Carolina worked to have some coffee and some cake. It was a short bike ride and the coffee was delicious. It was nice to see the city of Darmstadt and see where Carolina worked. I think it was also nice for Jack to speak some German with a native speaker. We left the coffee shop and biked back to Carolinas house to have a home-cooked German dinner called Raclette which is a dish of melted cheese, salami, tomatoes, unions, corn, pepper, rosemary, and potatoes. It was amazing to have a warm meal with a family. After dinner we had a German beer called apple wine (which was weird considering it was called wine but was more of a beer). It was actually quite good. Then we decided to go to bed as we were both running on around 4 hours of sleep in a bus. The next day we woke up to a table filled with bread, cake, jam, coffee, and donuts. We ate our wonderful breakfast and then got ready to explore the day in Frankfurt. We walked to the train station, boarded our train and got to the central station. When we got there we decided to get some lunch of traditional German Bratwurst. I ordered the standard sausage with mustard and Jack ordered a curry Bratwurst which were both amazing. After we sat and ate we got up and walked to the Senckenberg Natural History Museum. Along the way we found the Hammering Man statue which towered over the street. We took some pictures and then headed to the museum. The museum was great because we got see a lot of history about various animals and see what the animals were called in German. After the museum we walked to a cafe to have some fika and rest for a bit. The cafe was incredibly cute and the staff was really polite. We sat and drank our coffee; when we went in to pay, we had some extra crowns from Sweden and told the cashier we were studying in Sweden. She was really interested in the Swedish crowns so we gave her a few and she gave us a free chocolate croissant. We thanked her and then headed on our way. We found an art museum that we tried to walk to but when we got to the other side of the bridge we realized that the 'art museum' was just a graffiti skate park. It was still pretty cool to see the street art but it was not what we were expecting. we took some pictures and then walked by the water a little bit. We texted Carolina about plans to celebrate Halloween and she told us she would buy us some Döner which is a Turkish kebab dish made with meat, lettuce, tomato, and kebab sauce. We were excited to try it and headed to the train station. We got on our train but then were confused about which stop to get off and realized that we got off too early. We sat at the station for a while and realized my phone was going to die; which was rather scary because Jack didn't have data and my phone was the only way we would know how to get back to Carolinas house. We called her and she told us to get on the bus that was right outside the station. We missed the first one but then boarded the second one. It took us all the way back to Darmstadt where we met up with Carolina, bought the Döner and then walked back to her house. We ate dinner, and then got ready to go out and celebrate Halloween. We met up with one of Carolinas friends and tried multiple different bars to get into but it was rather hard considering it was a holiday and all the bars were way too crowded. We did however meet up with some of Carolinas other friends where Jack got to practice more of his German and Carolinas friends got to practice more of their English. After this, we decided to go back to her house because the train would stop running after 2am. We got back to her house, showered and went to bed. The next day we woke up early, had another amazing breakfast and then biked to a Kranichstein which was a beautiful building surrounded by a lake. There was also a garden on the other side where a lot of people have their weddings because there is already an isle leading up to an arch. After this we biked back to her house through a wide, beautiful, green forest. When we got back to her house we needed to quickly get our things together to head to the train station to go to Luxembourg. Carolina took us to the station in Darmstadt where we bought some classic German beer to try while we were waiting for our train to Luxembourg. Carolina also got us some traditional German Christmas cookies which we took with us. We got to the central station and had some time to kill so we got some quick lunch and drank one of the beers that we had. Then we went to catch our train. We took the train to Luxembourg and arrived at around 9:30pm. When we got off our bus to get to the hostel we ran into someone else staying in the hostel we were; she was from Canada and her name was Charlotte.We checked into our hostel and then decided to go out for dinner. We found a really nice restaurant where we ordered a white wine (which was the best I had ever had), and I ordered a salad which was amazing, and a potato dish with dip, cheese, salami and bacon. The food we had was unforgettable. We then left the restaurant to walk around. The restaurant was up a spiral staircase outside in a beautiful ally. Luxembourg quickly became our favorite country that we had been to so far. We explored the magnificent city for a while where we found a tower to walk up to and look out over the city. It was small but the view and the vibe of the country was worth every second. Even the graffitied alleyways were more beautiful than I ever could've guessed. After we explored the city we went back to the hostel and went to bed. The next day we woke up and ate breakfast at the hostel with Charlotte (of course asked her to sign our wine bottle) and packed up our bags and checked out of the hostel. We had some time to kill before our train to Paris so we explored more of the city in the light and took some nice pictures of the locks on some of the bridges and the view of the city. It was clear, bright and was absolutely nothing to complain about. After we explored and took our pictures we stopped in a souvenir shop to get a sticker and gifts for family and friends. We then got to our train to arrive in Paris. We had a quick stop in Metz and then took blablacar (Similar to Uber or Lyft but for Europe) to Paris. When we got to Metz we wasted some time that we had at a cafe near the station. Jack was especially excited to get to order food and speak in French. Our car arrived and we headed on our way. However, around halfway to Paris our car broke down and we had to stop and get it towed. It took us much longer to get to Paris but it was okay because we got to talk with the other passenger and the driver. We ended up having to drive back to Metz to take a train to Paris. When we arrived in Paris we checked into our hostel and went up to our room. We were sharing a room with four other people. We met a boy named Kenny who was also from the States traveling Europe for his fall break. He was studying in Italy with two others who were also staying in the hostel. He invited us to dinner with the other two boys and the other two people staying in our room. We agreed and went to a fondue place in the city. It was wonderful to get to meet other people our age and eat some really nice food. Jack and I decided to split the cheese fondue and the duck fondue; it was exquisite. After we tried to take the train back to the hostel as we were all pretty tired but we ended up missing the train and had to take an Uber back to the hostel as the walk would have been around over an hour. We got back to the hostel and just went to bed to have energy to explore Paris the next day. On Thursday we woke up early, showered and headed out to the city. We walked around to try and find a place to eat breakfast. We found a cute cafe where we got eggs, croissant, grapefruit juice, and coffee. After breakfast we walked to the central station to try and get to the Eiffel Tower and the Arc De Triumph. When we got off the train we walked to the area where the Eiffel Tower was and I was really excited. We walked up and I could see the Eiffel Tower through the trees. We walked up but decided that it was too crowded to go to the top because we had wanted to see as much as we could and didn't want it to take up all of our time. We stood by the Eiffel Tower and took a bunch of pictures. We then walked by a bridge where we saw all the locks with the hearts and signatures on them. We took pictures here as well and could see the Eiffel Tower from the bridge. The scene looked straight out of a photograph. It didn't seem real it was so beautiful. After we left the bridge we decided to go to the Arc De Triumph. When we reached the Arc we took the pictures that we wanted and then decided to walk to a cafe to get some crepes. We looked up a place on google and started walking. When we got there we realized that they also had escargot. We decided to order some red wine, escargot and crepes. We started laughing at ourselves because it seemed like such a silly order; it was wonderful nonetheless. After we finished our 'French Fika' we decided we wanted to walk to a garden so we started walking. When we reached the garden we sat on a bench and talked for a while and took some pictures. After this we decided to walk around some more. We stumbled across a cheap place where we decided to get a Croque Monsuier, which is like a grilled cheese with ham and cheese baked into the bread, quiche and macaroons. After we finished dinner we walked back to our hostel but stopped by some stores to shop. When we got back to our hostel I decided to go to bed as I was really tired but Jack went down to the bar that was in our hostel with the boys we had met the previous night. The two people who were traveling together who were staying in our room signed our wine bottle that morning before leaving, but we had forgotten to ask the boys we met to sign our wine bottle. The next morning we woke up, had breakfast in the hostel and then checked out. We walked with our big backpacks to the train station to get to the country side of northern France called Artre. Artre was so small that there was no train that went directly there so we had to get dropped off at a city around an hour walk away. However, we found out that the next bus going the closest to the town would take a couple hours to arrive so we decided to just walk the hour. About ten minutes into the walk Jack thought it would be a good idea to try and hitchhike so he found some cardboard and wrote the town Artre on it and we continued our walk. However, this didn't matter because around fifteen minutes later we had to walk about a mile through the country where there were no cars. It was okay though because the country was so beautiful and pure. When we arrived we found the Bed and Breakfast we were staying at and it was the cutest place we had ever been. The elderly couple we were staying with were the sweetest people but they didn't realize that we had a reservation; luckily they a room available so they sent us out to explore the town so they could get it ready for us. We explored the small town and it was quiet and peaceful. We watched a father and his daughter feed the chickens in a small farm. We walked around and talked before going back to the room. The elderly couple led us up the stairs into our room. We had a bathroom down the hall to ourselves and a room that was filled with antiques. It was a very cozy room. We then got ready as it was a lot warmer than we thought and set out to find a place to get dinner. When we found a place it was rather odd because the town was so remote and old but we ended up finding a really nice hotel with a restaurant in it and decided to eat there. We ordered a lot of seafood (which was weird for me considering I don't like seafood) but it was amazing anyway. We sat, ate and talked for a long time. It was wonderful. After this we walked back to our room, showered and then went to bed. When we woke up breakfast was prepared and sitting on the table for us. It was a feast. There was french toast, coffee, yogurt, crepes, jam, and juice. We were so thankful for the couple letting us stay here for the night and it was definitely a highlight to stay in Artre. They even offered to drive us to the train station so we wouldn't have to walk a mile to get there as well. Jack of course translated for me as they were speaking French the whole time. When we got to the station we payed the lady we were staying with, thanked her, and got on the train. We took the train to the bus station in Belgium where we were to take a bus to Amsterdam. We took an Uber to our hostel which was right across the street from the Van Gogh museum. We checked in, and then decided to go to sleep so we would have a little bit of energy for the last days of our trip. We woke up Sunday morning and were planning on spending the day going to museums. We walked to the Rijksmuseum which was right outside our hostel. We were planning on going to the Van Gogh museum but because we had limited funds we decided to just go to the Rijksmuseum which had Van Gogh in it as well. It was wonderful to see the museum there were many artists I had never heard of which I am now a fan of (I will post pictures). After the museum we walked to the torture museum was actually rather interesting. After this we walked to the cheese museum where I nearly had a meltdown trying to decide which type of cheese to bring home to my cheese connoisseur family. I decided on a truffle goat cheese and a small cheese cutter with the city of Amsterdam engraved in the handle. After the cheese museum we decided we were both really hungry. We walked back to the hostel to change and figure out where we were going. We found a place and started walking there. When we got there we were seated and I decided again to order a bunch of seafood. We ordered the oysters to split before our main course, along with a bottle of white wine. I ordered the salmon with bearnaise sauce and Jack ordered the duck. After dinner we walked back to the hostel and decided to just stay in and watch some videos before bed. Monday morning we woke up, had breakfast in the hostel and decided to go to the Ann Frank House. However, when we walked there we realized you needed to make reservations before going and there were no tickets available. I was really disappointed as I wanted to go to to this museum in particular. However, we decided to go to the Heineken experience instead. We made our reservations and walked there. We took some amazing pictures of the water and the boats on the way there. When we got there we learned the history of the beer, how its made and even got two free drinks. After this we walked to a grocery store to get some stuff for a cheap lunch. We sat in the park near our hostel ate lunch and finally drank our bottle of wine that had become our traveling companion for the past week. After lunch we started walking back to our hostel; we stopped in a store really quick however, because I found a dress in the store window that looked really pretty and I wanted to try it on. After this we walked to get my sticker and then went to check out of our hostel. We got our bags and took an Uber to the airport where we would fly back to Sweden at 8:30pm. We finally arrived back in Gothenburg around midnight but couldn't get a ride back to Jönköping till 6am because Kajsa's boyfriend Jacob would be flying out of Gothenburg early in the morning back to the States and so we would just get a ride back to school with Kajsa and Linnea who drove them to the airport. We had to kill a bunch of time in the airport sleeping and watching Netflix. When they finally arrived we got in the cold car, and drove back to school too tired to process the life-changing trip we had experienced. We got back to campus around 7:30am, fell asleep and then later woke up in the afternoon. My experience backpacking around Europe was truly one of the best times of my life that I won't soon forgot. Thank you for everyone who helped make my trip to Europe a possibility and thank you all who is keeping up with my blog! I love hearing that you are enjoying keeping up with my time here. I enjoy your feedback and wishful thoughts. Thank you so much!