June 8th -- Every journey has an end

Hi everyone!! Well, I am currently writing from up in the air on my second flight of the day, JFK -> MSP. Thanks to everyone who has kept up with me thus far as I have gone through this study abroad journey. I truly enjoyed building this website and attempting to write legitimate blog posts.This blog post comes from a more solemn place as I try to comprehend how three weeks can fly by in the blink of an eye, so bear with me as I try to put into words this incredible experience I had.

In every moment since accepting a position in this study abroad program up until I left for Copenhagen, I was nervous and afraid, with of course excitement interlaced in there. I was not alone concerned about traveling internationally, but doing so alone, or with people that I didn't really know. I was afraid that the group wouldn't get along or the dynamic would be off or we would just all do our own thing. I was stressed about taking a class in three weeks and how I was going to try to manage that on top of attempting to experience a new city. But most of all, I was putting myself way out of my comfort zone to travel all of the way across the world when I don't even like flying that much. I am listing out these fears because it reinforces the incredible journey of this trip.

These fears, although seemingly valid at the time, were completely unnecessary. This trip exceeded my wildest expectations completely. From minute one, the group just clicked. There is no way I can put into words how this group of students, with complete different personalities, somehow meshed so well together to become what I can only describe as a small family. I think it definitely helped that we were all from the same university, living under the same roof, and taking the same course. This gave us a common ground to bond with. I can truly say that I got to know each and every one of the students on the trip because we did everything together! We all had the same goals to explore everywhere and spend these three weeks as under the radar "tourists". The excitement among all of us for being in this new city was infectious and you couldn't help but love every minute of the trip.

I want to spend a few moments to thank some people. To Professor Jordan, I want to thank you for giving me this incredible opportunity. Thank you for trusting this group of students to run with a brand new computer science study abroad program to potentially continue this in the future. Thank you for the time and effort you put into the course. I can honestly say that I learned more in three weeks from this course than some other courses I have taken at school. I want to thank you for your passion toward this program and ensuring that we, as the students, were soaking up every moment of this city.

To the CS students at Store Kannikestraede, thank you for helping me make the most of each and every moment in the city. Thank you for pushing me outside of my comfort zone and helping me conquer fears. Thank you for your constant support and for creating an environment where we built each other up. I am so blessed and lucky to have been able to be a part of this specific group of people on this program. I am so excited for the friendships that were built that will continue into the school year. We should all be proud of the effort we put into this class and into making the most of three weeks in Copenhagen. Most importantly, thank you for helping make this trip the best three weeks of my life.

To my family, I want to thank you for supporting me in my decision to travel alone to Copenhagen. Thank you for encouraging me to go even when I had my doubts. Thank you for putting up with the six hour time difference and the fact that we could never perfectly time when to call one another :). As much as I love and will miss my time in Copenhagen, I am so excited to be home and see my family again.

This blog post only begins to scratch the surface of the impact this trip had on my life and hopefully, after I get some much needed sleep from all of the time differences, I can better put into words everything I am feeling. I will always be grateful for this opportunity and the experiences we as a group had together. So long Copenhagen, you were too good to us. Hope to be back one day.

Sat Jun 08 2019 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

June 6th, 2019 -- Final Pastries and Final Exams

Well, the time has come ladies and gentlemen. This is my final blog post from my place in Copenhagen because I'll most likely be writing my last, reflection-like blog post from the plane or one of the airports I will be waiting in. The last couple of days have been filled with trying to fit in as many of the bucket list items as possible before I have to leave this lovely city. Most importantly however, I want to start off by talking about the dinner we had with a Danish host family.

After class on Tuesday, a few of us travelled to Rosenburg Castle, the former residence of the royal family. We were able to travel into the castle, but the best part was touring the vaults at the bottom of the castle where all of the priceless jewelry was held. I actually saw a crown in real life and I am completely ecstatic about it. Honestly, I think I was really too excited about it considering those specific crowns are hardly ever worn anymore, but still. Following Rosenburg, I relaxed for a little while before heading out to the Danish family dinner.

The study abroad school in Copenhagen, DIS, set up dinners for each of my classmates to experience a traditional meal with a Danish family. We were split up into groups of 3-4 and travelled out, by taxi, to the homes. My host family was absolutely delightful! They're house was adorable and they were incredibly welcoming!! They also had the cutest puppy that had the most energy I have ever seen, but still cute. The family made us traditional Danish pork that we put into wraps with all of the "fixins" for a wrap. The meal was incredible and the dessert was also delicious. I can really only describe it as a strawberry soup with vanilla ice cream. It sounds odd, but trust me, it was amazing. We arrived at the home around 6:30pm and just chatted for hours until we suddenly realized it was 10:30 pm and we should probably head home. That is when the taxi fiasco began.

So, our host family called us a taxi that claimed to be 10 minutes away, but after getting lost a few times, showed up a half hour later. We got in the cab and the driver proceeded to tell us he was brand new and needed to speak with someone on the speakerphone, in full volume might I add. He requested that we pay in cash, but we only had a voucher given to us by DIS for the cab company. He kept insisting on the cash and claimed that his credit card machine was busted. Eventually, our host mom came over and spoke to him in Danish and told us to get out of the taxi. The host family called a new taxi and explained to us that this guy probably didn't own the taxi and was borrowing from a friend to make money off the record. It was a very odd experience and meant that we didn't get home until 12:15 am.

The following day was Wednesday meaning it was the only day of the week that Skt. Peder's Bageri makes their famous cinnamon rolls. These cinnamon rolls were seriously the best thing I had ever eaten. The outside of the roll was incredible, which is typically the worst part, so you can only imagine how amazing the actual cinnamon part was. We had class and then, because the weather was so beautiful, we all travelled out to the swimming area in the canal to enjoy the weather in the park. Believe or not, but I jumped off a 16 foot structure into the freezing cold canal!! It may have taken 15 minutes of convincing me to do so, but I am so proud of myself for doing it!!!

That night, a few of us went out to the cutest little Italian restaurant for dinner with my friends' parents who had just arrived. The owner was so excited we were there because apparently, not a lot of tourists come to the restaurant. The food was absolutely incredible and the atmosphere was adorably quaint. After dinner, my friend and I walked around the shopping street to end the beautiful summer day with some strawberry gelato.

Thursday is not as exciting to talk about because it was spent studying for the exam on Friday. All of us are pretty nervous about it, since we didn't really start studying until yesterday basically, but I think it will be ok. Also, we get to present our websites tomorrow, so I had to spend time wrapping up some loose ends on that. A few of us went to this cute little cafe for a while and I proceeded to get my final pastry of the trip :(. It's only fitting that the final pastry was named the "Danish Specialty". The rest of the night was filled with studying, some stress, and really fun breaks where we just goofed off together. Honestly, living with the other computer science students has been so fun and a really amazing experience! I am definitely going to miss it!

Well, wish me luck on the exam! The next time you'll hear from me, I will be on my way back to the states!!

Thu Jun 06 2019 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

June 5th, 2019 -- Final Week in Copenhagen!

I am slightly delayed in my blog posts because I have been trying to soak up every last minute of Copenhagen before I fly out Saturday. The time has flown incredibly quickly and I can't believe that this time three days from now, I will be back in the US. But, I will focus on the ending at the actual final day of the trip and instead focus on my recap of the last couple of days.

Sunday started out with a bit of a fiasco. Long story short, the fridge in our apartment is pretty terrible and does not easily close, so, as you can probably guess, the fridge was slightly open the ENTIRE night and all of my breakfast food went bad. Although that was really frustrating, it gave me a great excuse to go out for brunch, since I no longer had breakfast food. My friend, Anna, and I went to this cute cafe by our apartment called Paludan Bog and Cafe. The food was incredible! We each got the croque madame and everything about it was perfection. If you know me, you know I love all brunch food and this place did not disappoint [another common theme of my adventures in Copenhagen]. After brunch, I clearly had to get some groceries and then a group of us spent the entire day in the Tivoli Amusement Park!!

The Tivoli Amusement Park can only be described as like a very small scale Disney World. It is very unlike the amusement parks in America. The park was filled with flowers and cute outdoor seating arrangements with so many restaurants. The entire space was completely spotless and there was a lack of a crowd, which I thought was strange since it was such a beautiful weekend day. The rides in the park were pretty incredible, but also mainly terrifying. So many of the rides involved crazy heights and dangling from said heights. I was even persuaded to go on the drop tower, which was much higher on the ride than looking at it from the ground.

After riding all of the rides, we stopped for dinner in the Tivoli Food Hall inside the park. The food hall was really nice and had so many different kinds of food. You know this group loves a good food hall. This time, I got a poke bowl from this sushi restaurant in the food hall and of course, it was incredible. We stayed at the park until closing to watch this super cool light show in the water. I'm not really even sure how to describe it, but it was a neat experience!

Monday involved a reality check, realizing that the final was on Friday and I still needed to do the actual studying part. Also, finishing my website was on the agenda as well. After class, I went to The Living Room, which is a super cute cafe where I got the previously mentioned carrot cake. This time around, I tried their homemade chocolate chip banana muffins and homemade Strawberry/Raspberry lemonade. Both were incredible and it was a successful day of getting some work done. After the cafe, I worked on the practice final and my professor held office hours and him and his wife's airbnb. It was the cutest apartment ever and his wife, Mara, was so nice in giving us all snacks and pastries. The office were definitely needed to clear up a lot of the content, but I think I am feeling better about the final on Friday.

I will be posting another blog post on Thursday to recap Tuesday and Wednesday. I needed to split up the blog posts because Tuesday we had family dinner with a Danish family and had some fun adventures along the way. I will be posting my last blog post either Friday or Saturday to wrap up the trip. I can't believe I am this close to the end, but I am very excited to see my family :).

Wed Jun 05 2019 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

June 2nd, 2019 -- Heading to Sweden

Happy June everyone!! June for most means the start of summer coming very shortly, but for our class means only seven days left in such an amazing city. I honestly can't believe that I have already been here for two weeks because it feels like just yesterday that I was getting off of the plane from Amsterdam. The last two days have been incredible and ended with a day trip to Sweden!! So, I have now been to THREE European countries :):). This blog post is going to be a little shorter solely because it is really late and I woke up incredible early to get to Sweden this morning, but let me backtrack to Friday.

Friday was filled with a lot of firsts, and of course, more sightseeing. After a full day of class, most of us headed to the Royal Library to work on our websites for most of the afternoon. The Royal Library, aka Black Diamond, is this very sheek library that sits right on the canal. The view is absolutely incredible. From there, we decided to go with Kris and Mara to Reffen to visit the outdoor food hall. The best way to get to Reffen is by water taxi across the canal, so of course, that is exactly what we did. The amount of public transportation types I have tried in the last few days is more than I have ever been on I think, but the water taxi was BY FAR my favorite.

Reffen itself was a pretty amazing experience. Even though the activity was nonmandatory, every single student in the class came to hang out with Kris and Mara in such a cool area. The food hall consisted of about 20 food vendors with foods from all over the world. When I tell you that it took me a half hour to pick which food to get, that is not an overstatement. Honestly, it may be an understatement. Everything looked and smelled amazing, but I finally decided on a jerk chicken bowl from an incredible Jamaican food stand. I mean, the food was absolutely incredible. I have to say that every type of cuisine I have tried has been better in Denmark than in the US, even down to the pizza and burgers, and this was no exception. But of course, I had to end the meal with something sweet, so I got a waffle cone of gelato, one scoop of Nutella and one of Stracciatella. I don't even need to say how amazing that was.

Saturday provided a whole new adventure. Most of the group decided to take a day trip to Malmo, Sweden, which is just a 45 minute train ride from Copenhagen. Isn't it incredible that going 45 minutes anywhere in Europe could bring you to an entirely new country? We arrived in Malmo around 11 pm and stayed until about 6, and we went on the perfect day. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and the sun was shining! Malmo was such a cute city! It was an entirely different atmosphere than Copenhagen is. For starters, there are a lot fewer bikes, but more noticeably, it just seemed calmer in the city. Copenhagen is always bustling with locals, tourists, events, street art, etc., however, Malmo is much less touristy so it was pretty neat to walk in a much more "local" city. Thankfully, one of our group members researched the area and had a game plan for things to see or I think we would have just wandered around the city with nothing to do.

Our first stop was to one of the oldest churches in Sweden, St. Petri Church which had absolutely gorgeous architecture, design, and sculptures. Everything about the church was extremely peaceful and beautiful and a great first stop on our trip. We then wandered around to a few of the main squares to see some of the main city and eventually stopped for lunch at this incredible food truck festival. As you can see in these blogs, food halls are an extremely common theme. The festival was incredible and again had food from all different cuisines. After a few laps, I finally settled on these amazing freshly fried cod tacos. I can't even describe how incredible these tacos were. And again, dessert must be a part of the day. One of the stations at the festival was a homemade donut stand with donuts for only 2 dollars. I got this sugar donut filled with apple cinnamon custard and of course, it was incredible. The pastries and desserts in Europe never disappoint. The rest of the day was spent wandering around this beautiful park with this lake and an old windmill, perfect for picture taking.

I will be posting more pictures shortly so you can see more of all of the adventures I am talking about. I will be back in a few days with another blog post about my adventures at the coolest amusement park ever, Tivoli!!

Sun Jun 02 2019 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

May 31st, 2019 -- Taking In Every Moment

Blogging has been slightly delayed because of the craziness of each day. So all though I wish I could've kept more up to date, it's a good problem because there has been no time in the day with new activities and adventures! I have been keeping a log though in order for me to recap all of the new things! I left ya'll off on Tuesday where more touristy sightseeing continued :). A group of us went to Christiansborg Palace to tour all over the grounds. Christiansborg Palace is broken up into 4 different sections that you can tour: the horse stables, the kitchen, the Reception Rooms, and the ruins. We started in the horse stables which gave a history of carraiges that the royal family has used throughout the years. They even showcased some of the currently used carriages! Next stop was the kitchen in the Palace. This kitchen used to be used for any parties held in the and is still used today solely for staging the food used in parties. There was actually a video running in the kitchen with a chef who discussed the process of planning and making a dinner for over 100 people. It was so interesting to see the entire process from brainstorming the meal to actually trying to plate and serve all of the food while still hot.

The best part of the tour was the Reception Rooms, which basically allowed us to walk all around the palace and see how the royal family used to live in the palace. The architecture was absolutely gorgeous and the history of the building is crazy. The Christianborg Palace that we toured is the 3rd palace after the 1st and the 2nd burned down in devastating fires. This led directly into the last part of the tour, which was the ruins. This section was actually hidden in the basement of the palace and showed some of the stones from the buildings, as well as dioramas of the previous buildings. It was very quiet and eerie in the basement, considering we were the only ones down there. The last part of the castle we visited was climbing up the tower to look out over the city. We actually didn't really climb, but took two extremely tiny elevators to the top. When I say small elevators, I mean SUPER small. That was definitely not the best experience I have had, but the view was fantastic.

Tuesday night we went back to this cute food hall that just opened in central Copenhagen. The food is from every type of cuisine and the food hall was three stories tall. The location was perfect because it was hidden away from the city streets in a cute corner, making it seem like you were in this very eclectic area. There were so many choices of food to choose from like greek, italian, indian, mexican, danish, etc. I finally decided on a chicken gyro with fries and it did not disappoint. The way gyros are made in Denmark is with fries in the gyro and some sort of paprika salt on top, it was incredible!!

Wednesday finally slowed down a little bit and allowed me to take my time and enjoy the area around our apartment. The day started with a design museum tour with our class by a local Danish designer. The design museum showcased the most chairs I have ever seen in my life. The was an entire room filled wall to wall, entirely dedicated to the history of chairs. The best part of the museum was the current exhibit which featured a coloring station and I have never seen college students get so excited about coloring a picture. I think our professor was very proud of us. After class in the afternoon, a few of us tried a new cafe called The Living Room that had the best carrot cake I have ever had. This carrot cake is also featured in my photo gallery for your viewing pleasure. It's been nice trying new cafes this week because I am trying to get a lot of work done on my blog by adding new design elements, so hopefully you like the new changes :).

Thursday was another lowkey day but in the best way. The weather was the perfect cafe work day kind of weather because it was just a slightly rainy day. A few of us tried another new cafe, Coffee Industry Sweden where I got an apple cinnamon muffin and some amazing hot chocolate. It was such a cute little cafe that clearly a lot of locals frequented, solely based on the number of people in and out of the cafe in the 2 hours we were there. I honestly still can't believe I am here and am just trying to soak in each and every minute before we leave next Saturday. The amount of activities we are trying to fit in the next week is unreal, but we will definitely get them all done! I will be back very shortly with a new blog post since this one has been so delayed. Until then!!

Fri May 31 2019 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

May 28th, 2019 -- Exploring Copenhagen

I'm back again for another blog post! The last two days have been filled with the touristy sightseeing that I have been waiting to do. On Sunday, a few of us woke up early to head to Amalienborg Palace, the current residence of the royal family. On Sundays, people in Copenhagen can gather to watch the changing of the guard. It was a really neat experience to watch the traditions of how the guards march and how they orient themselves around the castle. The whole process was much longer than expected with so many people crowding around this one location. It was honestly pretty funny to watch the police officers try to get the crowd to stay behind one section and many of the locals/tourists were not having it. There was also one little boy, who was about 7-8, that tried to march along side of the guards as they changed locations. After watching the guards have a standoff for a while as one or two would change positions, the group decided to leave and head to another super touristy location, The Little Mermaid Statue.

The Little Mermaid Statue was inspired by Hans Christian Anderson's story of The Little Mermaid and has been in Copenhagen for a little over 100 years. The story behind the creation of the Little Mermaid is really neat and linked in this paragraph for anyone who is interested. I have to say that even though I am glad I made the trek to get some good photos of the statue, the statue itself was slightly underwhelming and much smaller than I had anticipated. Either way, it was a nice walk out there and a good way to spend the day. Sunday was fairly rainy, so the rest of the day just consisted of working on our assignments and kind of lounging around the apartment

Monday was a little bit of a rude awakening having to go to a full day of class. We did plenty of class the week prior, but it was broken up by study tours/excursions, so it felt a little different. However, the class itself was really cool because we started delving into how to develop a photo gallery in our blog, which you can access by clicking on the Gallery tab in the top right corner of the page. I do have to talk about the food we ate that day. So, a small group of us found this hole in the wall bakery that I believe is one of, if not the, oldest bakery in Copenhagen and it did NOT disappoint. I got this giant piece of homemade focaccia bread with pesto, arugula, sundried tomatos, and proscuitto on top. And of course, I had to end the lunch with a pastry, so I got this pastry that I can only title as a Nutella Explosion. The pastry itself was sort of a sugary crossiant ball, but when you opened it, it was just filled with nutella and was ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS. The hype of the food in Copenhagen is well deserved because the food is fantastic. I ended the day with a run around the grounds of a castle and some window shopping with a small group. We went to the Copenhagen equivalent of a Five Below store and had such a blast looking at all of the useless knick-knacks.

Can't wait to update you with the next few days!! Vi ses (See you soon)!

Tue May 28 2019 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

May 26th, 2019 -- New Adventures in Aarhus

For the last two days, our whole class took a mini study tour to a new city in Copenhagen, Aarhus. Before our final destination in Aarhus, we made a few stops along the way. Our first stop on Friday was to the Jelling Stones These stones date back to 950 and are engraved with words by King Gom and his father. The entire area was beautiful because it was created as a setting for a ship with an incredible garden and older church in the middle. The tour guide did a great job with the history of the stones, however it was so cold and rainy that day that we took a more expedited version of the tour. After the tour, we travelled to Aarhus Street Food for lunch, which had a huge selection of foods from all over the world including Ugandan, Mexican, Asian, Danish, etc. Everyone in the group got to taste the different cuisines and it was really interesting to see what people picked as their food of choice.

Back on the bus we went to travel to our actual destination, the Google office in Aarhus. This office is home to about 30 employees who developed the V8 engine for JavaScript. We sat down with one of the original employees in the office who talked us through current projects and coding practices for almost two hours. It was such a memorable experience. Not to mention that they also served us this traditional Danish apple cake, which of course was incredible! After google, we dropped our luggage at the hotel and explored Aarhus. Aarhus was such an incredible city because it seemed that you were travelling more around the locals, rather than just in tourist areas. My group happened upon this rooftop park and cafe, where you could walk on a glass awning over the city street. It was a beautiful day and perfect for sitting on the roof and watching the sunset.

On Saturday, we walked to the Aros Mueseum of Modern Art for a guided tour. This museum was incredible because along with the historical pieces of Denmark, there were also interactive exhibits to get you thinking about the world. My favorite was this malleable, technical exhibit that would change as you stepped around the room, trying to show you the impact your footprint has on the world. The most famous part of the muesum is the circular rainbow at the top of the museum, where you can walk around and experience the city in every color of the rainbow. This resulted in a 30 minute photo shoot for each of us to get as many pictures as possible. After the museum, it was back on the bus to a historic museum closer to Copenhagen. We stopped for lunch in the museum where I ordered an open-faced shrimp sandwich which honestly had about 80 shrimp on it. It was incredible :)

The museum itself was really cool. It talked about the history of Denmark, specifically with voyaging from different areas. A visitor could pick a historical story to follow around the museum and listen to that journey. The structure of the museum itself was also pretty neat. After exploring the inside of the museum, you could walk out and up the sloping roof, which was covered in grass to look out over the surrounding city. Overall, both museums were extremely different, but pretty incredible. After that last museum, we headed back to the bus for the 3.5 hour trek home to Copenhagen. Although the bus ride was long, the views were incredible. At one point, as we were crossing over a body of water, you couldn't see land from any direction, which I have never experienced on a bridge.

We were all pretty exhausted once we got home, so we made dinner and sat around the table for hours talking, laughing, and playing cards. It was definitely one of my favorite nights so far. I also tried a new ice cream flavor last night, Ferro Rocher, which I 100% recommend!! I am so excited to see where this adventure continues to take me :)

Until my next post!!

Sun May 26 2019 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

May 24th, 2019 -- Biking in Copenhagen is Scary

Every day in Copenhagen is a new adventure. I am so blessed to be a part of this Computer Science program because our days have been packed with back-to-back activities. I am finally able to sit down and write a new blog post as we are on a bus to Aarhus, Denmark to visit Google. We are also spending time visiting Aarhus food hall with foods from all over the world and a beautiful Modern Art Museum. It should definitely be an exciting couple of days and I am excited to travel to differnent parts of Denmark.

On Wednesday, the group started off an early day with a 2.5 hour guided bike tour around Copenhagen. Copenhagen is the most bikeable city in the world with dedicated bike lanes, sometimes larger than the car lanes. One of Copenhagen's largest initiaitives is to discourage driving in the city by limiting the parking opportunities and having less car lanes. The experience biking in Copenhagen is unlike any other. It was extremely indimidating trying to navigate through the city with bikers whose average speed is 10-12 mph, however it was definitely my favorite experience so far. We ended the bike tour in a beautiful city in which a small group of us found this hole in the wall pizza place that was honestly the best pizza I have ever had. We were truly put to the test however, when our small group had to navigate ourselves on bikes, 25 minutes from the city. fter our lunch break, we had class for about 2 hours and then walked to a beautiful park for a DIS welcome picnic. The best part was ending the day at a gelato stand with AMAZING gelato.

Believe it or not, Thursday was even busier and the weather was absolutely beautiful with not a cloud in the sky. Our class began the day learning about Danish culture from a DIS faculty member and it was a truly amazing experience. We learned about the primary values of trust and family in the communities, as well as an emphasis on hygge, which is basically focusing on being present with people by taking your time, putting your phones down, and being present in each others' lives. Due to the beautiful day, a few of us walked down to Nyhavn, a beautiful area on the canal to eat lunch and sit outside. We all tried these hot dog/sausage things from a local food court that were delicious and of course, we had to end the lunch with some gelato :). The rest of the afternoon consisted of class and walking around the city, enjoying the beautiful weather.

For dinner, we each made some sort of pasta dish or homemade meal, packed it up, and walked aobout half an hour to a park on the canal. Almost all of us made the trek to eat dinner with Kris and his wife, Mara. Kris brought a portable grill, something very famously used in Denmark, and mde us hot dogs to go with our dinners. It was a really beautiful evening as we got to watch the sunset over the canal. The craziest part is that the sun doesn't set until like 10 pm, but rises at 430 am. These are definitely the shortest nights I have ever experienced.

I am so excited to head to Aarhus and learn more about Danish culture in different areas of Denmark. I will update this blog again at the end of the weekend but until then tak for at checke ind (thank you for checking in).

Fri May 24 2019 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

May 21st, 2019 -- What a Beautiful City

The first two days in Copenhagen have been a blur. After what seemed like FOREVER traveling from Minneapolis to Boston to Amsterdam to Copenhagen, I finally arrived and the weather was absolutely beautiful!! The sun was shining and the temperature was a crisp 68 degrees. We took a bus from the airport through the streets of Copenhagen and got to see all of the beautiful architecture and fun areas to explore.

The dorm/apartment that my group is staying in is gorgeous and in central location to absolutely everything! We are five minutes from our classroom, downtown, and all of the cool restaurants and shops! It is so incredible that we actually get to walk everywhere! This city is incredible. Today, on the first day of class, we walked to a theatre, which used to house a circus for the Opening Ceremony to the program. Everywhere you turn, there is at least 40 bikers up and down the streets, most of them biking to work. Biking is a huge part of the culture in Copenhagen, but the amount of bikes in the area is overwhelming!

I also had my first pastry today :) at a cute coffee shop near our classroom. Everywhere you turn, there is a different coffee shop in one of the beautiful buildings, so I am very excited to try many of those! :):) After class, a small group of us went exploring around the city. Our first stop was to the Round Tower, which is the site of an old astronomy observatory that you can climb up to the top and look out over the city. We then strolled down to the famous shopping street, Stroget, and ended up at Nyhavn, which has these gorgeous colorful buildings lining the canal.

Today has already been packed, but there is still so much to do!!

Until next time!!

Tue May 21 2019 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

May 16th, 2019 -- Heading to Copenhagen

Hello all! Welcome to my travel blog where I will be detailing my Copenhagen Adventures over the next three weeks!! This travel blog will occur in realtime as I learn concepts in my Computer Science course to build out the website to its full potential.

This is my first time ever leaving the country, to the point that I did not get my passport until this Spring. I am so looking forward to experiencing another culture and understanding new perspectives outside of my own. The excitement for this trip is overwhelming, but it also comes with a lot of nerves as I venture out on my own for the next three weeks.

I couldn't be more excited to travel with Kris and this group of students learning about Modern Web Programming. The applicability of these concepts is amazing and I cannot wait to stretch my understanding of the internet to a new level.

Wish me luck as I leave the United States on May 19th! I am so glad you will be joining me on this journey and I will see you all back in the states on June 8th!

FARVEL! (Goodbye)

Thu May 16 2019 10:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)