Copenhagen and London

COPENHAGEN, Denmark

This post has been a long time coming.  I cannot say enough good things about Copenhagen.  I've been there twice now if you count being in the airport on my very first flight to Berlin over a month ago.  I went to Copenhagen for the long weekend that had for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  It's nice being at a school where they celebrate both German and American Holidays! Twice the breaks.  Three of us decided pretty last minute that we should go somewhere and we all settled on Demark!  We stayed a really nice Hostel (Danmark Hostel) I would absolutely recommend it to any travelers.  It was right in the middle of downtown and is pretty new.  It was only a 5 min. walk from the main street (pedestrian street) that runs right through the city pretty much connecting it all!  We pretty much spent the weekend sight seeing and eating delicious crepes & pastries.  It just so happened to be the Queen of Denmark's 40th anniversary of being Queen, and we accidentally stumbled across her parade.  It was SO COOL.  She was so cute.  I said that out loud while we were watching her go by in her carriage and a man next to me started laughing, so I kind of looked at him and smiled because I didn't know if he was laughing at me or not.  He kept laughing and finally said, American, huh?  I said yeah! He proceeded to laugh some more and repeat the word cute over and over again.  I just smiled awkwardly and laughed a little too, and he finally told me that only an American would call the queen cute.  Woops.  It ended up that we were always at the right place at the right time without planning on it because we saw the royal family arrive at the Amalienburg Palace later that day and then saw the queen again leaving church the next day.  She really was cute, a sweet little old lady always dressed in fur.  The people would gather and wave a bunch of Denmark flags.  It was a cool experience! We got to see the Little Mermaid Statue on the Baltic Sea which was beautiful.  We ate good food at the little pubs and ducked in and out of little shops because it was so cold.  For some reason we keep going North on our breaks where it is even colder than Berlin.  One night we were able to meet up with Mrs. Guffey, a long-time family friend's cousin, Hattie Anderson, an extremely kind and precious woman who grew up in Georgia but married a man from Denmark and has lived there for a long time! We loved getting to sit a talk with her about her family and life in Denmark.  She lives on an island about an hour ferry ride away.  She treated us so special like we had known her forever, and we were so grateful for our time with her! Thanks Mrs. Guffey :)  Our trip was so wonderful Denmark was beautiful.  I loved the canals & sunshine.


LONDON & OXFORD, England

England really stole my heart.  I've always liked the idea of England, mainly because of the accents and movies like The Holiday & Love Actually.  After visiting though I can say that I love a lot more than the British accent.  Krissy and I had a week off last week for Winter Break.  We decided to take the first 4 days to rest and hang out in Berlin before leaving Tuesday evening for London Gatwick Airport.  We made it safely around 11pm Tuesday night and we had just planned on taking a quick taxi to our hotel and waiting until the next day to figure out the public transport system.  WELL to our surprise London Gatwick was about an hour taxi ride to the city center of London where our hotel was.  Mental note: When traveling check the distance from the airport to the hotel ahead of time.  Although it was a costly cab ride we decided it'd be safer than wandering around the tube stations with a large suitcase until the wee hours of the morning.  Besides, me and Krissy have a bad history with night time public transportation, haha. We met Roger our Indian cab driver and he very kindly opened the doors to his Mercedes cab (all of the cabs were Mercedes) and offered to take our bags.  I hopped in the back seat and Krissy went around to what is normally the passenger side and opened the door.  With one foot already in the door Krissy realized that she was actually getting into the driver's seat.  hahaha.  So confusing.  Roger was very friendly, but easily offended and Krissy and I tried to keep conversation light because we couldn't ever tell if he was being sarcastic or if he was really going to drop us off in the middle of Hyde Park.  Ay yi yi.  We arrived at the hotel a little past 1am and went straight to bed!  The next morning, we got to see Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, Big Ben, The Parliament Building, The London Eye and many more beautiful buildings and historical monuments.  It was incredible! Westminster Abbey and the Parliament Buildings were breathtaking.  I wish that I could've seen the streets filled for the Royal Wedding last year.  We had heard before we left that the food in London isn't very tasty, but we didn't have any problems finding good places to eat! Neither of us like fish.. so fish & chips was out of the question.  OH and I guess the whole chips=french fries thing has always been way over my head.  I was surprised when I ordered chips, something that you rarely find in Berlin, and received a plate of fries, haha.  The next day we went and visited some more of the city.  We went to see the London Bridge and sang London Bridge is Falling Down on it.  That was definitely a highlight.  We ventured down under the bridge and found the cutest little borough! It had tons of little market shops and restaurants on the water.  We got a coffee at a coffee roastery under the London Bridge!  We took the tube to Notting Hill, Kensington & Chelsea which are some of the high end neighborhoods.  It was beautiful and reminded me some of the neighborhoods in San Francisco.  We found half price tickets to see Wicked at the Apollo Theatre for that night and it was so good!! ALSO: We ate lunch at Chipotle... ( I know, I know.  It's Tex-mex from America in London)  We couldn't help it though.  So yummy.  The last day we were there we took a train from Oxford to London.  It was a beautiful ride through some of the English country side.  I felt like I was in a movie.  We made it to Oxford and found our way over to Christ Church where we got to meet up with Mary Catherine, her husband Syman & their daughter Laney and Mrs. Caldwell who was also visiting!  Syman is studying at Oxford and they were so nice to tour us around and take us to lunch in his college dining hall, which was the fanciest dining hall I've ever seen, it was straight out of Harry Potter.  It was such a blessing to see familiar faces from home and spend a few hours with friends! We got to see so many incredible buildings, some that date back to the 1300s!  I've never seen anything like it.  We also got to see where they filmed the infirmary & the Great Hall in Harry Potter, which was so cool.  It all made me miss Andie and Lp, because I felt like they should be there acting out the entire movie and quoting it word for word... which I sadly cannot do.  After leaving Oxford we went back to London, on the wrong train.  Oops.  Thank goodness the first one we got on stopped in Reading and we were able to switch back to the original which stopped behind it minutes later.  Back in London we went to Platform 9 3/4 and had a photo shoot.  We had to catch a train back to the airport really early the next morning so we decided to go to bed early!  We were to fly out of London Luton Airport (which was also an hour away, but in the other direction) but this time we were prepared.  We bought a train ticket that was to leave at 4:30 AM, and we could get to the train station by using the tube (subway).  We roll out of the hotel and walk to the tube station at 4am to find an iron gate blocking the doorway... we still half asleep panic and ask the worker why we can get in and he informs us that it doesn't open on Saturdays until 5am.  OH NOOO.  We run with our suitcase back to the hotel and have them call us a cab.  Cab comes, doesn't take VISA, we don't have any more pounds because we can't use them in Germany.  Stop at ATM, he drops us off outside the train station, we run inside past the ticket officers who wave us through without even checking our tickets, thank the Lord.  They must see this happen all the time.  We step onto our train at 4:28 as it leaves 2 min. later.  We made it just in time! WHEW.  We were glad to arrive home that morning!  London and Oxford were amazing, I would definitely LOVE to go back there.

It was so nice to speak English for a week and be able to communicate easily with others.  It was also nice to be in 40 degree weather instead of -4, which is what it has been here in Berlin the past two days.  It's getting warmer though and it has been sunny!! I would rather it be freezing and sunny any day then for it to be warm and gray like it has been!

I cannot believe that I've been here for over a month.  I'm continuing to learn so much about Germany, it's food and it's people.  I'm still glad to be here.  It is challenging at times but I still find it best to laugh it all off.  I still love my students and am getting more teaching responsibilities everyday! I miss everyone at home but time is going by so fast here! I feel like I'll be back in no time!