Dublin!

Well, i was gonna take a break from writing about my travels since its been taking me over two months to finish it but i suddenly got an urge to write about ireland so, well here it goes. DUBLIN!
After spending a night in an airport and what felt like a 10 minute flight since i slept through all of it i arrived at the dublin airport and made my way to the hostel we had booked for the night alone since Gus wasnt going to get in for about 5 hours. Once i reached my hostel, which was no easy feat let me tell you, i asked the nice lady at the front desk to recommend a place to eat and she pointed me in the direction of a restaurant. Unfortunately i was still pretty out of it when i got to the restaurant and the hostess' accent was so thick i couldnt really understand her and after an embarrassing miscommunication or two she cocked her head to the side and said "are you alright dear?" At that point i just gave up trying to understand what was happening and took a seat at bar and got myself some food and a guinness.
Now, i liked dublin, but let me just say this, dublin is a real child of the industrial revolution but its like that child who came back home after college and now lives with you and who every few weeks you have to bail out of jail after they've been found passed out on the street in a the pile of someone else's vomit. The river that runs through dublin is also one of the most unimpressive rivers you'll ever see (much like most of dublin's notable landmarks like the o'connell bridge or dublin castle). in particular, at low tide, the Liffey river reminds you of what your stomach must look like the morning after bar hopping which seems oddly fitting, black and full of bikes, road cones and other garbage which you have no idea how it got there. Now that i think about it i really wish i had taken a picture of it in all its lackluster glory.
After a hectic first night and homeless second day me and Gus finally found a free room, unfortunately it was an hour bus ride out of the city in a suburb-ish type town and it was in a real (and expensive) hotel...we were disappointed until we got there and realized that a nice night in a hotel was probably exactly what we needed to finally relax. After settling in and taking some showers finally we went to the town center and watched the world cup rugby match in a bar. This was pretty fun, plus since we hadn't eaten in a while we were feeling pretty good after three beers. This bar was also where i heard the first of three crazy things on our trip in Ireland. I asked the bar tender what a good dark irish beer was besides guinness that i could get. He thought for a sec and then in all seriousness said "well we have heineken." So from then on the running joke was that in Ireland hieneken should take a line from the pork industry and advertise themselves as "the other dark beer".
The next day Ian finally arrived me and that night we went out in dublin with a little bit more vigor (it was sunday but luckily for us a sunday in dublin sees more action than copenhagen on a friday). To start off the night and save some money we picked up some beers from a convenience store. That's where Gus picked up this hilarious beer can which we didn't notice until we had drank a few beers at which point we thought the saying on it was the funniest thing ever and if you could have tasted it you'd understand how appropriate it really was. There wasn't too much to tell about the rest of the night, we found some finnish beer though that was around 12 or 14% alcohol which we figured we had to get, and thats when we learned why no one in their right mind makes beer with that much alcohol in it. It tasted like a shot of vodka mixed with beer...so basically like sin packaged in a fancy bottle.



After we woke up the next morning we made it out to Europes 4th largest stadium where the gaelic games are held. Gus made this choice and i'm not gonna lie i was skeptical at first but happy that he did. On our way there we found this lovely picture spray painted on the side of a building, just in case anyone was worried the IRA is still kickin' in the slums of dublin. This is also where i heard the second crazy thing in Dublin. As we were walking to the stadium down some random and slightly worrying backstreet a kid, no more than 7 years old, rode up to us on a bike and yelled what sounded like "EY, wunnaboyahboyk", after asking him what he said he shouted the same intelligible phrase back at us so we just walked away. It took us a good half an hour to finally figure out what we think he had said which was "hey, want to buy a bike?" so evidently he was trying to sell all three of us the one childrens bike he was riding. This made us really wonder how hard up this kid was for some cash and we figured that in that neighborhood there was a good chance he would have used the money for either booze or to feed his three kids.
The next day we made our way to the guinness factory. Since we got there at 10am and thought the bar where you can get a free guinness didn't open until noon we took our dear sweet time going through the 6 floors of exhibits on the self guided tour. Me and Ian even ate some raw hops on one of the floors although we weren't sure if you were supposed to. It turned out we were wrong about the bar too and it had been open the whole time, but we weren't too upset because if we hadn't taken our time we wouldn't have found this hilariously racist old guinness ad. (josh, i bet you'll laugh the hardest at this)

This is a photo of the guinness bar which is on the seventh floor of the building and gives a nice view of the whole city. Despite it not being the most picturesque city it was still a great view so we had a good time hanging out and getting our buzz on. Yeah, i know it was only one beer but they were pretty big and yet again we hadn't eaten in at least 12 hours.







(thats me in the lead!)












Finally, we took what turned out to be a 45 minute walk through a park to get to the old Magazine Fort. When we got there Gus was a little bit angry that i had dragged him all the way out there but me and Ian thought it was a pretty fitting site since we had yet to be impressed by any of dublin's touristy landmarks. Around this area is where i really had to go to the bathroom and almost walked into a small tunnel before some bottles clanked and warned me that a renegade homeless man was in there. I figured if this guy was willing to walk nearly an hour just to get some peace and quiet i probably didn't want to be the one to disturb him especially by exposing myself to him.
So that was about the extent of our stay in dublin. We had one more night, and went out a little bit and then caught a midday train up to Belfast. Oh right and the final running joke we had while we were in dublin happened...mm i dont remember which night, but we were eating at a restaurant and Ian ordered a hamburger and foolishly (but very politely) asked the waitress "could i just get some fries instead of chips if you have them?" And because me and Gus and the waitress are less polite we all laughed at him for a while before telling him that they were the same thing. Then Ian put the icing on the cake and said in his texan accent "thank god i didn't ask for freedom fries at least." (but don't worry he doesnt actually call them that) So from then on we got a kick out of referring to 'chips' as 'freedom fries' instead.

Vienna!

Soo, i found some more free time and i figured what the heck, lets do another post! Plus Dave was complaining about being bored while he's in class so Dave, this ones for you.

Now the bus ride from Budapest to Vienna was much better than the 23 hour one from Copenhagen to Budapest plus it was short enough that there was no need to try and get some sleep on the bus which we all appreciated. Once we arrived we also had a very busy schedule and right after checking in we hit the metro to go to either the zoo or the palace...i don't remember the name of it since it was about 3 weeks ago now, but thats less than important because by the time we got there we didn't have time to actually go in an see what it looked like inside, which made our whole trip out there pretty pointless. Evidently our tour leaders didn't know how long it would take to get to these destinations using the rail systems in Vienna because the zoo kids had the same thing happen.
There was also a big difference between the metro in Vienna and in Copenhagen. Seeing as i come from Maine and have had little experience on subways and such i was kinda bragging about my amazing train surfing abilities to some of the other kids, but what i didn't realize was how much rougher the Vienna metro was and so of course i ended up sticking my foot in my mouth as i prepared to show off my skills. It turns out that the Vienna tracks are not nearly as straight...or as smooth...and they go much faster...but in my defense we were standing at the pivot point between two of the cars...either way i got thrown across to the other side of the car and almost landed on some unsuspecting Venetian (I believe thats the correct term).
Once we finally got to the palace we only had enough time to take a few pictures of the outside of the palace which was big but not breathtaking from the outside really (i mean its Europe after a while you're really forced to raise your standards) but thats the picture above. What was nice though was to compensate for being brought all the way out there only to head right back our tour leaders bought us some drinks from the bar/cafe which was located just inside the gates where i'm assuming some stables used to be (which its pretty weird that there was one inside the palace area now that i think about it). While we were sitting outside enjoying our drinks we started to notice that these little birds would come right up to you and one of the girls almost got one to eat out of her hand, except this very annoying young child would watch for when a big group of birds would get together and then run at them to try and catch one and so he kept ruining the pictures i was trying to take to show how unafraid these birds were. The best picture i have is the one you see there and it doesn't really show how close they are but there was a guy sending a text message on his phone whose shoulder was just out of the frame so he was about 2 feet away from that bird perched there. I've never seen any birds besides pigeons with the cahonees (i betting that isn't spelled right) to get this close to people.

So one of the other big sites we saw was the Hapsburg winter palace in Vienna which are the next two pictures here. These are two different entrances to this massive place and it was kind of funny because we didn't know it until the second day we were there and got a tour through the palace but we had actually been given a few lectures in this place the previous day but we went through the entrance in the first picture and then the second day we went in through the one in the second picture, so we were pretty impressed when we realized that it was all one place. The lectures we heard were also pretty interesting and i suppose i should mention them since they were some of the few truly educational things we did on our long study tour. One of the people was the representative from the US at this organization, whose name escapes me now and one that no one has probably ever heard of since none of us had on the trip (which seemed to really bother the lady who first spoke to us, but seriously, is that my fault? i blame fox news because if they don't tell me about it i assume its not worth knowing). At any rate the US guy just told us about the US policies that he was supposed to be trying to push there and the Russian representative was supposed to be there at the same time to do the same actually but he backed out, which was too bad because i was picturing a kind of Rocky IV scenario when they got in the same room... but with words.
We also got a lecture on human trafficking which as i'm sure you could guess really just left you with a warm fuzzy feeling...oh who am i kidding it was one of the most depressing things i've ever sat through. It was also creepy to hear the woman giving the presentation talk about such horrible things with such ease. Although, I was glad to hear that those 12 year old girls with babies on the side of the street actually probably didn't have those babies themselves and that was the only way they could take care of them, but at the same time those babies were sold to human traffickers by the real mothers' fathers who couldn't stand the shame of their daughters getting pregnant out of wedlock and refusing to get it 'taken care of' sooo...yeah, even that wasn't much of a silver lining to the whole thing.

Other than that our Vienna trip went by pretty fast and there wasn't too much else to say about it. There was this nice restaurant/bar/cafe kinda place that a few of us went to a few times and heres a picture of us hanging out there, we're a little dressed up because of the meetings we had gone to in the day. This was also the place where i've eaten the rawest hamburger to date, although this was the bad kind of raw, raw to the point of being completely untouched by heat at the center...but i had had a few drinks and realized this after i was halfway through so..i just kept going.
Oh and one last funny thing about the trip here, as we got a walking tour through downtown Vienna one of our tour leaders was with our group (we had split into two groups) and she was constantly taking pictures of everything we do, and from multiple angles. By the time we were about half way through we all agreed we felt a little bit like we were being hounded by the paparazzi and we amazed at her commitment to capture, literally, every minute of our trip. Actually, another funny thing, me and two other kids got left behind by our tour guide while we were taking pictures inside a church for literally no more than one minute longer than everyone else, i know this because i was actually following someone out of the church but i was about 200 feet behind them...i'm not quite sure what was more impressive, the fact that within a minute a 70 year old woman was able to successful lead 20 kids more than a block down a street and turn a corner before i was able to walk 200 feet to get outside the church, or the fact that they didn't realize three kids were missing for over 20 minutes. Luckily one of the girls remembered where the tour lady had said we would end and we were able to find our way there.
Oh and the 12 hours between when i split up with this trip and when i arrived in Dublin was fairly uneventful..i just wandered the streets of vienna for a few hours...drank for a few hours alone in a bar with my pack...and then slept in the Vienna airport until my flight at noon the next day...that part was pretty boring.

Budapest!

Soo, where to begin here. well i think i should fist explain that my long study tour started with a 23 hour bus ride from copenhagen to budapest (thats in Hungary for all of you non-geography majors). Surprisingly the bus ride wasnt that bad, in fact if was a pretty good bonding time for all of the highschool-esque clicks that formed on the trip. It was also a very informational time where i learned a lot, and i might even be so bold as to say too much, about some of the people i was traveling with. The major downside to the whole bus ride was the impossibility of finding a comfortable way of sleeping even if you had two seats to yourself. If it wasnt a belt buckle keeping you awake it was and arm rest and if it wasnt an arm rest it was your neighbors foot which somehow worked its way onto your second seat from across the isle. In one daring attempt i had actually swung my feet at odd angles up against the bus window while my head hung off the end of the other seat right in the middle of the isle (i was desperate). All was going well until someone walking back from the bathroom walked straight into my head, but let me tell you those 15 minutes of sleep i got were glorious and worth the injury.
Ok but enough about the bus ride lets get to Budapest, oh but before i do i should say that the amount of pictures i have from the first two days of my trip is, well, zero. I accidentally deleted my memory card on the second night in a misguided attempt and determining how much space i had left on my camera. If i remember correctly there were some of a cathederal...quite picturesque actually (kind of lord of the rings looking), and then some of the parliament building and maybe a palace or two...oh right and there were actually a lot from when me and some kids went walking across the city and climbed a hill and got all these great pictures right as the sun was setting of the city and of these monuments we had climbed to see...yeah those would have been amazing. I really think you guys would have enjoyed some of those...but what can you do, lets just focus on the amazing pictures i DO have.
Where my pictures start off is when we went on a tour of the old castle caves under the old castle hill in Budapest, which sounded pretty interesting i thought. But, it was amazing how wrong i could be. It turns out the tour we took actually had very little to do with the historical aspects of the caves and instead focused on the symbolic meaning of different rooms in the caves and how they related to the History of Hungary. To give you an example, at one point we were actually told to walk down a pitch-black dead end tunnel to give us a feeling of what it felt like when when the Hapsburgs took over Hungary. I did feel a sense of despair at this point in the tour but it was less because my connection to the symbolic history of Hungary and more due to the fact that that was when i realized how bull shit this tour was and that we still had another half an hour of it left to go.
There was one redeming part of the tour and that was when we entered a room that traps a lot of moister and so the walls and ceilings were covered with some kind of sliming mold or fungus. I noticed that some people had stuck coins onto the ceiling in this mold stuff so me and this other girl began to smoosh coins into it as well, which was surprisingly entertaining. The small gold circle near the top of this picture is one of the many coins we stuck into the cave mold. Id say all together we stuck maybe 100 florence worth on that ceiling, but we weren't sweating it since the exchange rate is something like 150 florence to the dollar. A fun little fact about my stay in Budapest is that the first night i was there i pulled out 10,000 florence (about 57 dollars) which i was given in a single bill from the atm and which lasted me the 3 days i was in Budapest. In situations like that is it any wonder that sometimes foreign currencies feel like monopoly money?. Drinks at a bar were around 1.50-2 dollars and so even a night out on the town ended up being absurdly cheap. This is where it would have been wise to do my gift shopping but instead all i bought was a Budapest t-shirt for myself...but just think of it like this, if i do get you a gift now it will be of much higher quality.
Ok i realize this has been heavy on the words and light on pictures so far. So lets get some pictures in here. This ones of the hill i mentioned climbing earlier which has a gigantic statue on top which, if i remember correctly, had something to do with liberty. Sorry thats all i got...it was very beautiful though, and from the top of the hill you could get some very impressive pictures of the city...which i of course deleted not long after taking them.











This is just a picture of three of the kids i hung out with the most on my trips to Budapest and Vienna. From left to right we have: Meg (she goes to to an all girls school and really hates it when you call it that), Debbie and Sam (who is from Portland and goes to school at RIT, strange coincidences huh?). One night in Budapest though me and Sam ended up going out with a different group of girls and we thought it would be fairly easy to find a bar so we just started wandering through the city. After about an hour we found our selves in the sketchier part of town where homeless people, prostitutes and all night liquor stores became quite common. We actually got to see a 'lady of the night' doing that classic leaning into a car window pose at a red stop light...i was really upset that i didnt have my camera at that point, although in retrospect that probably would have only caused trouble. The last thing i needed after an hour and a half of wandering in a strange city in the freezing cold was to be slapped araund by a Budapestian pimp. (Budapestian might not be a real word but a google search didn't provide me with an answer so i figured i'd just make one up)
This last picture is just one that i like. i took it from the window in our Budapest hostel. I dont really have any interesting stories relating to our hostel, although it was very strange how in Hungary they have lots of American TV shows and movies on TV but they are all dubbed in Hungarian unlike in Denmark where they usually just use subtitles. One night when me and Sam were waiting for someone to ask us to do something we just laid around and watched 2 Fast 2 Furious in Hungarian. It was strange how after about 15 minutes i completely forgot that it was in a different language because it was so easy to follow what was happening even though i had never seen the movie before...i guess Paul Walkers amazing acting abilities transcend human language, kind of like Cirque de Soliel...

Arhus and Kolding continued!

Well, its a rainy depressing day here in denmark so i figure ill just keep going on these posts and at least finish up my short study tour stuff for now, arent you guys lucky.
Heres a picture of a field we came across on our way to Arhus, i thought it seemed very classically danish. This was on our way to try and get to a beach...after about half an hour of walking we ended up coming across a small little village which appeared to be in the middle of no where. then after another 45 minutes of walking and getting lost we actually ended up right back here in this same field at which point our tour leader finally admitted she had no idea where we were. but it was nice to get some walking at least and it was helping all of us get over our hangovers.


At this point our tour leader also decided that we might as well break out the bottle of liqueur which she had got for us to all take small shots of once we reached the beach. But since that was clearly not going to happen we ended up just taking them in this field... as you can see the sheep got quite friendly after we hung around for a little bit. For some reason the Danes love licorice flavor in everything and this liqueur was no exception, we all agreed it was terrible but who is gonna look a gift horse in the mouth?








We also visited a museum while we were in Arhus, and this picture is for my family specifically. In the modern art section of the museum i found this picture and luckily read the plaque next to it and noticed that this is actually a photo of some store fronts in Butte, Montana. pretty exciting eh?






This was one of the main attractions of the museum. Its entitle 'boy' (no surprise there) and this thing is gigantic and incredibly life like. I took a few close-up shots of his feet to show how detailed it was, there was even dirt under his toenails...i actually was looking through my photos when i was picking out ones to post and i was really confused because i didnt remember taking pictures of my feet and it took me a little while to realize that it was actually a picture of this sculpture. I dont know how tall this kid would be if he was standing up but if i remember correctly he's about 15-20 feet tall just in that crouched position.











We also stopped by one of those old time villages where everyone dresses up like theyre from the 1800s and pretends to be real town members. This is a picture of my scavenger hunt team (Ben, me, Gus and Leah). I dont know why, but i decided that we should really be into the scavenger hunt and so i forced them to participate as well. But my excitement was contagious evidently because by the end we were all pretty into it and finished in record time...or well not really record time, but we were the first ones done. AND our hard work paid off because we won, placing 1st out of the three teams that actually competed (and thats still impressive, i dont care what you say). Unfortunately our prize was just a bag full of candy which was half full of, you guessed it, licorice flavored candies...the victory was still pretty sweet though, no pun intended. (actually now that i think about it, i do intend that pun...)
Well there you have it, that was my short study tour to western denmark in a nutshell. Im sure theres a lot of stuff that i left out but hey, i gotta save something tell all of you when i actually see you in person right? anyway that gives you a little flavor at least. Sorry that last post was a little lame, i feel like im getting back into the groove though. Plus, we can only get better right? and ive still got a ton of photos cos we havent even hit my LONG study tour yet...

Arhus and Kolding

So, right after i started this blog and did the first brief post we had to go leave for our travel break, hence the extremely long time in between posts (oh and the week before i left we had exams which meant i had 5 tests and a presentation all in one week)...but im back! so lets get things started eh?
to start here is some pictures from my short study tour which i realized i never posted before.
Our study tour went to western denmark to the towns of Arhus and Kolding. it was pretty fun when we went to the first town Kolding, we went to meet some kids who were seniors in "highschool" but who were actually just a year younger than most people in our program (other than me of course haha) and we all got invited to go to a house party that first night of our trip. So of course we all though "whens the next time we'll get to go to a danish house part?" so we all went. It turned out however, that the term "house" party had been applied rather loosely, and it was actually taking place in a small 2 room apartment...so the night began with 30 americans, 10 danes, and a little bit of alcohol and one small apartment, how could that not lead to good times?
my night was fairly tame, got a little tipsy, danced to some JT (get a little alcohol in me and evidently i become a big JT fan), played some game where the whole point was just to not get shocked (which is suprisingly fun) and then went to a "strip club"...thats how it was described but that was not what it was. Me and Gus got a little pressured into that last option but we thought everyone who was left at the party was going so we figured, what the hell...but when we got in there only 5 or so other kids had went in. At any rate, when 3am rolled around me and Gus figured we should probably get some sleep since we still had a 45 minute walk back to our hostel and had to be up and ready at 8:30.
Ben, another friend who was rooming with us, had a bit more interesting of a night. although originally he was quite shy at the party, he ended up hooking up with the girl whose apartment it was...this happened out in the bushes next to the building...then when they came back she had forgotten her keys and everyone had already left to go to the "strip club"/to sleep so they were locked out and she had to call her parents to come let her in. Ben said her parents where surprisingly cool about the 2am call, having a random american boy hanging out alone with her, and the tower of beer cans her friends had created on her kitchen table...so that was good for him. plus he ended up sleeping there for a while and she actually walked him back at 6:30, which was actually very nice of her although a bit weird for a girl to do.
There is one other kid who had the craziest night out of all of us, but it would take forever to describe everything that happened that night and the next day so i'll save that for when i see you guys in person. To give you an idea though, this is a picture of him after not sleeping that night, and drinking three more beers on the bus ride to the tallest hill in denmark...









oh right and so on a completely different note, that picture up top is of the tallest "mountain" in denmark, they built that tower to make it more impressive than it is i think, because if you look at this picture to the left you'll see the view...which is about as good as it could be (even if there was no fog) from a hill that is probably less than a 1000 feet tall. but this gives you a good idea of how flat denmark is. Oh and its important that i said this was the tallest "mountain" in denmark, because this is actually not the highest point in denmark, but evidently when you are at the highest point in denmark you are in the middle of a sloping field or something...so denmark is definitely not known for its rugged terrain. When we were told we were going to be hiking tallest hill in denmark we were all prepared for at least a 30 minute hike...it actually took us more like 3 minutes, it was disappointing yet so hilarious at the same time, id say i was pleasantly surprised by the whole thing.

Riots!!

ok, so as i've learned in multiple classes the danish are not known for rioting, or prone to violence in general. prime example, you'd think a transition from absolute monarchy to democracy would have to be at least a little blood, right? (remember france?) well not in denmark, the nobles asked nicely and the king said 'yeah ok i guess that does sound good' it probably did help that the king was a little slow in the head, as in he had the mental capacity of an 8 year old...either way the point remains. So as you might expect people are pretty surprised when riots break out, since they basically never do. buuut, when the government kicked out some punk and goth kids who were living in a house that the government owned over a decade ago before selling it to a church, well theres a chance for some riots. turns out a few months ago the church decided it wanted to finally use the proporty but those young punks and hooligans that lived there werent prepared to give it up. and so they let the malotov cocktails fly, and things got a little crazy...so on the 6 month anniversary which was a little bit ago they started getting rowdy again because they didnt like the deal the government proposed which was giving them roughly 3 million dollars to buy a new building. So they decided to have protests every thursday and this was the second one. I was hoping to be dodging tear gas and police on horses...well everything started out good, this picture shows the crowed running toward the main square in Copenhagen. at this point music was blasting, guys on megaphones were screaming, and the punks were running. All the good makings for a riot right?? how could things go wrong? well lets look at the rest of the pictures i have.....
ooo, they're getting closer...and still lookin' pretty into it. oh also at this point police were driving all around blocking off streets, things were looking pretty good...










...was anyone else disappointed with that finish?
everyone just stopped and started smoking and drinking...i even saw a baby carriage...my hopes of seeing a real riot were dashed, and i couldnt have been more disappointed. the danes are just too well off to have much to complain about for very long.

So i finally have pictures to post

so heres what you see if you step out of the front of the building i live in in my "kollegium", we call individual buildings "blocks". that might be an old folks home, and that willow tree you see half of is actually on a small island in the canal. Also that building complex over there (you cant see it in this picture though) houses the local "kommune" where you go to register as a resident of the community. I order to make you feel more at ease with this slightly Orwellian way of doing things you get a "CPR card" which gets you free medical care, thats right even for me. So lets hope any major illnesses i will get for the rest of my life occur in the next 3 months so i can get them taken care of for free...

now if you turn right this is what you'll see, this is our canal that runs in front of our buildings, pretty sweet eh? also you cant tell from this picture but the visibility of that water is probably about 4 inches yet somehow fish survive and if you're out there for a few minutes your bound to hear at least one jump...perhaps gasping for air. one day i actually saw and not just heard a fish and it was surprisingly large, i didnt have my tape measure out but i'd guess about 7-8 inches.




and then if you are at the opposite end of my block and you can see all the rows of buildings...some people have likened it to a concentration camp, but i think that might be a little extreme. I mean we do have a sauna, which i use quite regularly. oh also evidently we live in the "slums" of copenhagen, but really there arent any real slums in denmark because everyone gets payed nearly the same, i should do some fact checking but someone told me that although there is no official minimum wage because unions are still really strong here there is essentially a 19US$ equivalent minimum wage for most jobs...so there are some pics of where i live...i would take some of my room but they're less impressive than UofR dorms so really whats the point.