Jet Lag, Round Two

OK, I’m just going to have to admit it to myself. I am no longer in Scotland. Friday morning, I fly from Edinburgh to Newark. My flight is delayed an hour, and I’m convinced it’s the gods telling me, “Stay here, stay here!” And they’re telling me this in more ways than one. An American man I’ve been speaking to for about 5 minutes asks if I’m Scottish. See? I’m so acclimated to the culture here that my own kind no longer recognises my accent or me. I’d better stay.

Finally and rather unfortunately, our flight departs. I may or may not have cried one little tear as I felt the plane wheels leave Scottish soil.

11 hours later, it’s 5 hours later. Jet lag? Definitely. When I wake up Saturday morning, I have no idea where or who I am, or what time it is, though this is not an entirely abnormal occurrence. It’s light outside, but in Scotland at this time of year, this could be anywhere from two in the morning to midnight. I stumble around and hear some strange voices coming from downstairs. Reverse culture shock? Maybe a little. Observe:

Top 10 Things I Find Strange to Find Strange at Home

10. People wear sweatpants? In real life? Really? Wait, I do too? Weird.

9. Where have all the cobblestones gone?

8. People drive all the time, everywhere.

7. It’s been a while since I’ve seen someone drink coffee instead of tea. Also, in cafés, tea comes only in mugs, not in pots. This is a very, very sad thing.

6. Sunshine and 58 degrees? Really? Is this the equator? Am I being punk’d?

5. American beers are very, very small.

4. American money is very, very dull. Also, Scotland is the only country I know of in which the appearance of notes (bills) depends on what bank it comes out of. Seriously, the banks make their own notes. We should really get on that. And here, all green, all the time? Really? I want Scotland’s purple, blue and even orange notes back.

3. Crossing the street. It’s. So. Hard. Every time I look right, I think I’m going to die, not only because I’m looking right, but also because the cars and the streets themselves are enormous.

2. Everything is bigger. Not only cars and streets, but also houses, sidewalks, humans, dogs, clothes, shoes, plates, tea cups, grocery stores, and probably a lot more I haven’t seen yet. Only one thing is smaller: swimming pools. 25 yards suddenly seems rather short.

1. Language. No one says “cheers,” “queue,” “flat” and “half five” anymore. I miss Scottish accents, and, I might as well admit it, being the person people ask about goings on in the States, being the person who has the cool accent.

0. When I look out my bedroom window I no longer see St Andrews Castle and the North Sea. Instead, it’s the roof of my garage.

I’ve been experiencing a bit of culture shock at home, too. I’d almost forgotten about chores and have gotten too used to people emptying my rubbish bins every day. Now, I have to empty my own trash cans. “Check your spelling on your blog,” my mom is telling me now. “We’ve been laughing at your mistakes all this time.” As annoying as it sometimes is, it’s good to have someone look out for me again, especially when it comes to my lacklustre spelling skills.

I think possibly what’s even odder is how quickly I acclimated to things here in the UK. I’ve been eating UK-style, cutting something and keeping the fork in the left hand, knife in the right, without even realising it. I say “cheers.” But in all honesty, I think it will be easier than I’d like it to be to switch back to the way things always were before.

That said, of course I learned a lot these past four months, and because I am back in the States and my study abroad experience is at its end, it’s time to think seriously. When I get back to Knox I’m going to have to fill out some sort of form telling the administration how living in Scotland added to my academic experience at a liberal arts college, so I figure I’d better start now.

Top 8 Things I Have Learned in Scotland

8. If you take the bus/subway the wrong way, just turn around and head back.

7. Investing in a compass would probably be a good life choice.

6. Only order beer on tap – it’s much fresher this way: in Scotland, they literally pull it up from the tubs in which it’s fermenting.

5. You may speak the same language as another person, but that doesn’t mean you can understand them, and you can still accidentally order the wrong thing in a restaurant.

4. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are actually Scottish.

3. The United States is a very large, young country.

2. Sometimes it’s OK to mess up.

1. Scotland is not England, and it is very, very wrong to think so. Actually, you should be careful about saying anything to this affect aloud, as the Scots are rather sensitive about their nationality as Scottish, sometimes as British, depending on who you ask, and certainly not as English. This is why I want to say something to the American next to me in the airport who just asked his companion, “Is Scotland a country?”, but he also asked, shortly afterward, “Why is moonshine so dangerous?”, so I think he may be a lost cause.

It may be easy to see why the English cut their country off where they did. Scottish terrain is more treacherous; real mountains take the place of England’s rolling hills. Less of the land is farmable. It’s colder. It may rain more. The winters are darker and longer. Anyone would probably say, “oh you can have that half, I’ll take this one.” (Isn’t this a rule we learn as children, anyway: one person cuts, the other gets to choose their half?) But if the winters are darker and longer, this means the summers are longer, too, and lighter. The mountains are beautiful. If it’s easy to see why the English took the better half, it’s perhaps easier to see why the Scots love their country fiercely. The English didn’t like the weather, the landscape, the remoteness of Scotland, but that’s exactly why the Scots love it. While I had to tell the American at the airport, no, I’m not Scottish, I feel some sort of identity connection with the Scots, because that’s exactly what I love about this country, as well. Hopefully, I’ll be back.

Stirling Castle, Round Two and Edinburgh, Round Two, or Still Pretending I’m Not Back in the States

Wednesday night I’m staying in a hostel in Edinburgh, and I have all day Thursday to hang around Scotland before I leave for the States Friday morning. I decide that I want to see Stirling Castle again, now that the family’s quarters are refurbished and open again.

I take the bus and am a bit sad seeing the Scottish countryside, knowing it’s the last time I will for a while. But when my bus pulls into the station, I have the wits to check out a map first this time. And if I’ve learned anything in Scotland, it’s that if you’re trying to find a castle, go up.

Why is it that whenever you have no worldly clue where you’re going there are no signs to be seen, and when you do know where you’re headed, all the signs in the world appeared? Of course, little signs for the castle poke up all around me. I suppose it’s encouraging that they’re pointed in the direction I was headed, anyway.

I make it to the castle easily, and it really is nice that I’ve been here before, because I get to make my way quickly through all the things I’ve already seen, and slowly through whatever I haven’t, namely, the royal apartments.

They’re undoubtedly worth my time. They’ve been refurbished to look exactly as they originally did (discovered by years of painstaking research – but I want that job) and everything was painted, dyed, made, etc. by hand, as it would have been done originally. They also have the cheesy little dressed-up tour guides who call you “milady,” which I secretly love, though I don’t follow a tour group.

Here’s the king’s reception room:

and its ceiling:



As well as the king's private bedroom.




The queen has her own bedroom





and reception room, as well





Needless to say, it was some pretty sweet digs. And although my camera died in the middle of my self-guided, rather slow tour, it luckily died right after I took the last picture in the royal apartments, the only thing I didn’t have pictures of from my first visit. It seems that some luck followed me on this trip, after all.

Though I don’t have pictures in this entry (see “Seeing Scotland”), I did check out the rest of the castle for a second time. I also went to see the inside of that church I missed on my first trip, and it was pretty beautiful. I went to the Campbell again, just for kicks, and because that’s what I do, and it’s included in my ticket, so why not? I ran into a nice American couple who were very interested as to why I would spend 5 months in Scotland and not England or any place else, for that matter.

Of course, my chat reminds me that, yes, I do have to leave. I find the bus rather easily, because I know where it is and because I’m following those invisible signs that only people who have already been to the bus station can see. I’m feeling a bit like Jack Sparrow at this point.

Back in the hostel that night, I’m looking over pictures and blog entries, listening to backpackers’ stories, marvelling at how people can be in this whole country for only two weeks and think it’s a long time to travel, when I still feel like I’ve missed so much of Scotland. It is time, though, and I am going to be glad to get back home.

Fine Scottish Cuisine, or, My Excuse to Not Write About Going Home Yet

During my excursions to various other European countries, I’m always curious about what kinds of foods people eat. And while, yes, I love food much more than is remotely healthy, a country’s daily cuisine says a lot about the country itself. On that note, I realised I haven’t written about Scottish cuisine yet. It’s quite different than any country I’ve been too (even England), so here goes.

BREAKFAST: sausage, Canadian bacon, baked beans, sautéed mushrooms, fried tomatoes, AND some kind of potato. Another favourite is black sausage, also known as blood pudding, which includes parts of animals you didn’t even want to know existed. Including blood. Personally, I think it’s disgusting, and don’t feel very badly about this, since a lot of the Scottish people I’ve meet agree. This, or a filled roll, which means a hot roll with bacon, sausage, egg or all of the above. The Scots do not skimp on breakfast.

Nor do they skimp on LUNCH, also called high tea. For lunch it’s often chicken and potatoes, or lamb and potatoes, or fish and potatoes, or beef and potatoes, or just potatoes. Sometimes we have fish, chips and peas with salt and vinegar. Occasionally, we were offered a particularly Scottish Scottish delicacy: haggis. If you don’t already know what’s in it, you’d do yourself a favour not to find out. As a tour bus driver said to me several months ago when I first ventured into the highlands, if you’ve eaten a hot dog, you should have no problem with haggis. I took this advice to heart and ate my fair share of haggis here. If the Brits think one thing is disgusting, it’s a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Of course, jelly here is always called jam (if you say jelly it means Jello – I learned this the hard way); nevertheless, they even think peanut butter and jam is gross. This makes me a little sad. I’m pretty sure PB&J’s defined my childhood.

SNACKS: While the French pride themselves on their fine cheese and wine, the Germans are into litres of beer and salty pretzel bread, and the Danes like a lot of pickled herring and pastries, the Scots figure that if they fry anything it will taste good. This includes Mars Bars, a true Scottish delicacy. When a friend and I buy one fried Mars Bar between the two of us, the man who sells it to us says, “The hospital’s by Morrison’s.” Despite these encouraging words, we ate the national food, declaring it delicious, but sickening. We were both pretty sure we could feel our arteries clogging as the treat made its way through us.

AFTERNOON TEA: This is not as common as it used to be, but occasionally we had afternoon tea in hall, usually on a Sunday. The Scots drink their tea (usually Scottish breakfast or Earl Grey) with shortbread, biscuits or small cakes.

DINNER (or tea): See lunch. Sometimes we also have Sheppard’s Pie.

DESSERT: sticky toffee pudding, chocolate cake, some other random things with sugar in them.

DRINKS: Whiskey, whiskey and whiskey are popular Scottish drinks. Also, beer. The Scots only drink one non-alcoholic beverage, and that’s Irn Bru. It’s basically liquid cotton candy, and, in my opinion, it’s pretty disgusting. Also, of course, there’s tea. With breakfast, in the afternoon, all the time, tea. The Brits drink theirs with cream, but I haven’t acclimated so much, and still prefer mine black.

While the Scots may not have extremely fine cuisine, nor are they known for their food, I’m probably going to miss the food here a little bit. Mostly breakfast. What counts, they make well; that is, whiskey and beer. I’m not sure that, upon my return to the States, I’ll be able to stomach Jack Daniels or Miller Lite. Contrary to popular belief, Scottish and English beer are very different, and Scottish is better. The Scots themselves might use this as a metaphor for much more than just beer, but I’ll leave that up to you to decide.

An American in Paris, Besançon, Strasbourg, Colmar, Nice, Toulon and Sanary Sur Mer

My semi-valid reason for not having posted: loads of work and a lack of Internet, as you will see when several posts suddenly show up within days of each other. Onward.

It’s my last day in St Andrews and most of the other JSA’s have already left. It’s just me and a bunch of people who are going to come back next year without me. I don’t deny it: I’m feeling a little depressed. Also, it’s raining, which does little to help the mood.

My goodbyes don’t take long; everyone has to be out of the dorm by 10 this morning. I say goodbye to Dawn, my cleaning lady, and the porter, neither of whom I could understand very well my first day here, but who welcomed me nonetheless, and who I’ve seen every day since getting here, and therefore now understand clearly. We pretend we’ll see each other again. I say goodbye to all my friends. We’ll visit, we say, and thank God (or at least Mark Zukerberg) for Skype and Facebook.

Eventually, everyone’s gone. I catch the bus. I’m headed to Edinburgh airport, but not to go back to the States just yet. I’m visiting my friend Emilie, who lives in France.

I take the bus to Edinburgh, another to the airport, a plane to Paris, and the metro to meet Emilie. Since I’m arriving fairly late after all that travelling, we head straight for the goods: dinner. We pop into a wine and tapas place Emilie, her boyfriend and his friend know via the Internet is having some sort of half price night tonight. Emilie and I share a cheese board with some delicious, strong cheese, some foie gras, a French classic, and French sausage. This, topped off with literally the best wine I’ve ever had, made for a night.

The next morning, Sunday, Emilie and her boyfriend are headed to the tennis matches in Paris, to which they got tickets a while ago. While they’re ogling Roger Federer, I ogle some works by Manet, Monet, Degas, Van Gogh and, my personal favourite, Cézanne, in the Musée d’Orsay.

Though I’m no visual artist, I am an avid art appreciator, and spend all day in the museum. I see literally everything, including an impressive amount of paintings I recognise from my art history book. There’s a special exhibit on Manet, and since I got the student ticket and it’s only two euros more and I’m at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, I splurge. Since I’m alone, I can spend all the time I want, which, in all honesty, includes about five minutes at each of Cézanne’s works and a lot of time at the Manets.

This takes my whole day and Emilie, her boyfriend, his roommates and I have a picnic dinner on the roof of their flat in the Paris suburbs that night. We can see a very tiny Eiffel Tower from our spot.

Monday Emilie and I spend a last day in Paris, visiting the fairly new Centre Pompidue, a center for often interactive modern art.

The centre does a good job of blurring the lines between visual, media, film, audio, literary and spoken word arts, one of its main purposes as a museum.

After visiting the Pompidue, we wander over to the Louvre, which I’ve already seen on my last visit to Paris, but which has a big park next to it with a large fountain, which we sit next to, just relaxing. The last time I was here it was much cooler and cloudier, so it’s nice to be able to sit outside enjoying the weather.

Eventually, we decide that any more lollygagging would waste our final day in Paris, so we get up and meander over to the Opera house, which I’ve wanted to see since March. Along the way, we stop by President Sarkozy’s house,

where there’s something big going on. Alas, the guards are typical Parisians, and very rudely tell us we can’t stand very close to the house. Apparently, someone important is inside meeting with the president.

We move on to explore the rest of Paris’s super-rich district, a very beautiful, incredibly up-scale neighbourhood, of course. We finally make it to the Opera House, which is every bit as awesome (in the true sense of the word) as Phantom of the Opera makes it out to be.

Unfortunately, though Emilie and I try desperately to get into the auditorium (we’ve made it there only a short while after the room is closed to those of us without tickets to that night’s show), the Parisian opera guards are not to be schmoozed. Flatly, we are told that since we are not ticket holders, the stage room is closed. And my general rule of thumb is, when a big scary rude person who doesn’t speak the same language you do kicks you out of their building, enjoy some cultural cuisine and try not to feel stupid. Good thing it’s dinnertime. Emilie and I meet her boyfriend, who works very near the opera, for a nice little dinner, our last in Paris.

The next morning dawns bright and early; Emilie and I are taking the train back to her hometown, Besançon, which will be the starting point for our travels over the rest of the week. On the train I sleep, try to read French newspapers, and practice useful phrases in French like “Do you speak English?,” “Where is the bathroom?,” “Speak more slowly please,” and “Actually, I am Canadian.”

Arriving in Besançon, which is in the West of France next to Switzerland, where I get to stay at Emilie’s house, we first explore a bit of downtown, checking out buildings and such, which are very different than in Paris (each city here in Europe, as in the States, most of the time, as an entirely different feel from the last), and our evening ends with a music concert in the rain with some of Emilie’s French friends.

The rock concert features Namasté, Julien Doré, and another band I’ve forgotten the name of. It’s an enjoyable concert, fun to hear what the French are singing and listening to, though a lot of what they play between acts is American music.

Wednesday, Emilie, her friend Marieke and I take another train to Strasbourg, a French town right next to the German border. The architecture there is undeniably German

and I get to see a lot of it since one of the first things we do is take a boat tour on the river through the city. All my pictures from this turn out green because I have to take them through the window of the boat, but we get to see the European Parliament, which is pretty neat.

Also, this church was amazing:

and housed an even more amazing astronomical clock.

I let go of my no-taking-pictures-in-church rule just for this clock.

We spend that night in a hotel in Strasbourg, and the next day head to Colmar, a nearby, similarly German-influenced town. It looks much the same as Strasbourg

and we mostly wander around, checking out the pretty buildings and equally attractive gardens.

We take the train back to Besançon that night, and for dinner Emilie and I make crêpes; she lets me use her family’s crêpe machine, and I make real French crêpes for the first time.

On Friday, Emilie and I trek around Besançon, seeing cool places like where she goes to school, at the Université de Franche-Comté (Franche-Comté is the name of her region)

and where Victor Hugo was born.

On the whole, Besançon is a beautiful French town.

Emilie, her friend Charlotte and I visit the Citadelle, an old fort type structure which now holds a museum for this region, and a museum of the WWII Resistance, which is comprehensive and informative. Also, there’s a zoo, which I think is pretty cool to house in an old fort. Emilie says the French mentality is, there’s no other place big enough to put a zoo, and what else are we using this space for? I kind of like the idea, though it’s a bit strange to me, seeing these old, old walls surrounding a zoo.

Here’s the whole Citadelle:

While these runes have been left, as the runes I’ve seen in Scotland have been left, not having been touched since they were no longer used by the people who built them, in France, they aren’t left solely for the purpose of being runes. I’m not sure which use for the old abbeys and forts I like better, the experiences visiting them being so completely different, but somehow fundamentally the same.

After our trip to the Citadelle, Emilie and I have a night train to catch to Nice, where we’ll be spending Saturday. We don’t get a sleeping car, so sleeping on the seats is uncomfortable, but Nice is more than worth it.

It’s a beautiful city, warm, right on a bright blue Mediterranean Sea, and it’s covered in palm trees.

Emilie and I explore the city (she’s never been here either) and eat lunch on this pretty little street.

Here in the south of France, the buildings, as the water and the sunlight, are brighter than anywhere else I’ve been in France so far, and loads brighter than anything I’ve ever seen in Scotland.

We spend only the day in Nice, and that evening take the train to Toulon, where Emilie’s friends live, and where we’ll spend Sunday. We walk along Toulon’s seaside

and eat bowls of mussels at one of the restaurants right on the water. We drive a little ways, to Sanary Sur Mer (Sanary on the Sea) and that’s where I get in the Mediterranean Sea for the first time.

It’s bathwater compared to my last open water adventure, the North Sea, but we’re kicked out of the water after a short while because of some storms that have churned it up. Lame.

After a little while, it looks like those storms are about to come back, so we head home to Toulon, and watch the French Open on TV, Nadal v. Federer. Emilie tells me the French like Federer better because Nadal wins to much. I just like Federer because he’s Swiss and speaks a billion languages, but everyone in the room is cheering for the same person (though he looses), and that’s all that matters. It’s a fun night, all of us cheering together, and though each can barely understand the other’s language, we’re having a lovely time.

Eventually, though, we do have to leave Toulon on the night train (this time we have sleeper cars – score), and I have to ask Emilie to teach me another French phrase I should have practiced on that first train ride: “Thank you for letting me stay at your house.” Luckily, her friends understand me, and we’re off, back to Emilie’s.

On Monday, Emilie has some appointments, so I go to the Besançon art museum, small, but with a good collection of a number works I haven’t seen or heard of before (for me, art nerd that I am, it’s always a good time to discover new works). By the time I’m out of the museum and Emilie’s back from her appointment, it’s raining, though, so we decide to see a film at the cinema: Midnight in Paris. Luckily, they’ve left it in English and just have French subtitles up, so it’s easy for me to watch. It’s a good film, really, and though I had my doubts at first, I enjoyed it thoroughly and recommend it. That evening, we see a beautiful church, which I really like seeing in the dusk.

Tuesday is my last day in France, and Emilie and I take some last looks around Besançon. We sleep in. I buy some souvenirs. We go out to lunch. We see Besançon from the top of a hill.

We go to her friend Charlotte’s house again, and have dinner. A calm, pretty all-encompassing of the city, last day in Besançon.

And on Wednesday, fter eight hours of travel, including a crazy French man who freaked out airport security, it’s easy to tell I’m back in Edinburgh: it’s 10 degrees centigrade and pouring rain. Home, sweet home. I pop into a café and order hot tea and a bacon and egg roll, and though I loved France and think their food is the best I’ve ever had, it’s good to be home, cozy and eating simply. Or back where I feel at home, anyway. On Friday I’m leaving for real.

I Return Home, So To Speak

OK, so I've never actually been to Denmark, never mind lived there, but it's where my great-grandfather is from and, after English, Danish makes up the second-largest part of my ancestry, so it's close enough to returning home.

I spent several days in Copenhagen with a friend from Knox, Rachel, who is studying there this term. Though it feels like years ago, luckily, while I was there, I wrote everything down. And now, lucky you, I have pictures.

Day 1: I arrive in Copenhagen after lots of travel, and meet Rachel, who is also arriving from a vacation in Barcelona, at the airport. There are flower stands all over the city, and we look for one Rachel knows is quality, so I can bring her host family flowers, as a thank you for letting me stay with them.

Rachel's host mom meets us at the train station and is incredibly nice. Also, like everyone here in Denmark, she speakes English, an added bonus. Rachel's host parents and we eat what is described to me as a typical Danish meal for dinner: open face sandwiches with whatever you want to put on them, including some liver, which the cat also loves. Rachel and I almost immediately conk out for the night.

Day 2: We begin the day with a Danish breakfast: Mousli, liquid yogurt and orange juice, which was also what I found for breakfast foods in Germany. Rachel and I head downtown to watch the changing of the guards at Amalienborg, the palace where the Danish royal family lives.

It's like any other guard changing ceremony, fun to watch, and Rachel and I do so for a while before leaving to check out the famous Little Mermaid statue, based on the Andersen fairy tale. It's small, but very pretty, a landmark of Copenhagen.

Upon noticing other tourists and walkers enjoying ice cream cones, Rachel and I, not to be outdone, decide to get some for ourselves, and since we're without our parents, we get ice cream before our lunch of street vendor hot dogs, a much more common phenomenon here in Denmark than in Scotland.

Since today is our simply-walk-around-and-check-things-out day, Rachel and I wander down Strøget, the pedestrian/fancy designer shops street, and check out Nyhavn, or New Harbour. She also shows me where she goes to school here, the Danish Institute for Study Abroad, as well as the famous round tower of Copenhagen.

Here's the view from the top:

Rounding off our day full of walking, we check out in one of the pastry shops that makes Denmark famous (Lagkagehuset, this one is called) and enjoy a real danish before heading back home for the night, enjoying a nice dinner with her family, and finally meeting her host sister and brother, Andreas, 12 and Rebecca, 10, who were staying with their grandmother in another part of Denmark before now.

We play a bit of football (soccer, as I haven't heard it called in a while) and it's interesting to watch this new style of parenting. The Danes are firm believers in not letting their children win, as American parents do so often, as well as not letting them feel they're better than anyone else. Throughout my trip, I ask Rachel and her parents a lot of dumb questions about how children are graded at school and about special education and extra help in school (taken seriously) and gifted programs (non-existant).

Day 3: Rachel and I sleep in, as we've been up late and have both been walking and traveling. Once again, we make our way downtown, and this time our first errand is lunch. We find pizza slices and eat them in the square downtown, and immediately begin the seach for some sunscreen, primarily for me, since my skin is unnaturally pale. It's a long search, during which I get sunburnt, anyway, and which is broken in the middle by Rachel's proclimation, "if we can't find sunscreen, let's get ice cream instead," which is exactly what we end up doing. This, and we buy a hat.

We take a boat tour along the canal and see some new sights of Copenhagen, like these:

After the tour, of course we get another pastry, in true Danish style, or perhaps in true tourist style, and see a film at the Copenhagen cinema, the grand theatre. Rachel humors me and we watch a korean film, Poetry, which Rachel says is a typical film to show in a Danish theatre: one with a sad ending. And the ending certainly is sad - it's not something you'd ever see in mainstream America - but the film is excellent, as far as I'm concerned. Since it's a little late when we get out of the film, the café we wanted to eat in after the show is closed, so we walk through a lit up, nighttime Copenhagen instead, especially enjoying the lit-up amusement park, Tivoli

and then head home to eat there.

Day 4: Saturday morning we realise we don't have time to do much in the city, since Rachel's parents have planned a big, Danish Easter dinner for that afternoon. Rachel's been reading my blog, so she suggests we go visit the famous cemetery before dinner. The bikeride there takes a little under half an hour, and we walk around the huge cemetery for a while, which is also quite the tourist attraction and a sort of park - people are lying about under the trees. We see the most famous grave there, that of Hans Christian Andersen,

and marvel at the cemetery itself, which is huge, airy and sunny.

We bike back and enjoy a delicious Easter dinner and some company from the people Rachel's parents have invited over, who, Rachel admits, are speaking English much more than they normally would, since the two of us are there. Our dinner, which everyone insists is a typical Danish Easter dinner (though, of course, the Danes are hardly religious) consists of lots of different types of liver, which we put on brown bread, pickled herring, a Danish treat lots of people apparently don't like but which I thought was delicious, and various other delicacies: olives and other types of meat and fish, including locks filled with avocado, two of my favorites, as well as Easter beer and shots of cognac. Needless to say, everyone has a good time.

We finish with dessert, lots of fruit, cheese and some sweet nuts, and play a fun game which is a lot like bowling (everyone rolls balls down the grass and tries to get their ball closest to a previously marked point). I lose.

Day 5: Rachel has been wanting to show me the Glyptotech, and has been wanting to see it herself, so we begin the day here. There's lots of cool art in this museum and even more cool architecture, one reason Rachel wants to see it; her Modern Danish Design professor told her class that it was one of the buildings Rachel and the rest of the study abroaders had to see before leaving Denmark. Indeed, the architecture is pretty incredible. Case in point:

So we enjoyed the Glyptotech immensly. Rachel likes architecture; I like art museums. What more could we want? Following in that vein, we stopped by a place called the Book Café. Now, really, I ask you, what more could you want? Since Rachel insisted throughout my trip that she take several pictures with me in them so people checking out my Facebook/blog/photo albums could have some real proof I was actually here, here's me in the book café:

True to its name, its walls are literally lined with books. Basically, it looks like my house, except they're constantly serving people food and drink. Sweet deal. After a lovely meal, we head home for some football with the kids and one of their friends, who love the sport, though they get knocked down a whole lot. Though the three of them put together are a quarter of my size, they easily cream me.

Day 6: Christiania. Unless you're from Denmark or have been there, this may not mean a whole lot to you, but it's the most-visited tourist site in Copenhagen, which is funny because it's not extraordinarily attractive. Formerly military barraks, the buildings in now-Christiania were gradually abandoned as the military moved out. Of course, poor Danes thought, "Well, now, isn't that a wasted building I wouldn't have to pay rent on if I just snuk in and lived there." And that's what they did. Christiania is still a free state today, and though its super-hippie residents do have to pay to use the land there, they don't technically pay rent. It's just as well - those who don't live in the former military barraks handmake their houses out of anything and everything they can find, making for an interesting landscape.

Rachel and I spent a lovely morning and part of the afternoon there, checking out the creativity and innovation the free state allows, buying some souveniers, and drinking Christiania's own, signature beer.

Unfortunately, reality reared its ugly head, and I eventually had to leave Christiania, its warmth, its sunlight, its open-container laws and its grafitti, for colder, grayer, less socialist Scotland. After a short flight and a long busride, I was back where it felt like home - modern, white buildings and designs replaced with beautiful, Medieval, majestic stone, realising once again after my travels, that it really is good to be home.