amsterdam!

soo i just got back after an amazing weekend in amsterdam!
thursday night/friday morning we left the train station in lund at 1AM and we began a very very looong night. we got to copenhagen around 230AM and had to wait about 4 hours just sitting on the airport ground till we could check in for our flight. so we passed our time playing cards and trying to sleep. then at about 7AM it was time to fly!
we got to amsterdam around 9 and started off trying to find our hostel, the flying pig downtown. we found the place and it was amazing! so much fun. we had the best time there and the people were so nice and helpful. they had pool tables, a kitchen, computers with internet and skype! they served a free breakfast every morning, comfy beds, and they had amazing snacks that we could buy (we all fell in love with the toasties).
after checking in, we decided to go around the city a bit. it was raining but we're used to that now thanks to sweden.
we decided to go on a canal tour but once on board all of us ended up just passing out. we were so tired after being up for almost 3o hours. so after wasting 10euro on that canal tour, we decided to go back to the flying pig and take a nap.
so after a refreshing nap we went upstairs and hung out with all the people at the hostel and we met a lot of really nice people from all over the world!
the next day we woke up early hoping to take a bike tour, but we managed our time wrong and it took us longer to get to the meeting point so we didnt end up making it there in time. so instead we had a museum day. we started off at the rijks museum. it was in this amazing building and it had lots of rembrandt artwork.
afterwards we got some lunch and then headed to the van gogh museum. the museum was amazing. getting to see all the paintings that i had only seen in books so it was a lot of fun. we started getting restless from looking at paintings all day so towards the end we started making up our own titles to the paintings and trying to interpret what the artist was trying to say. then we tried to look for the "iamsterdam" sign. i wanted to get a picture with it so desperately. we searched all over for it, but we couldnt find out where it was! i had seen a picture of where it was supposed to be but it wasnt there so i was upset! so finally we asked someone and they told us that the city moves the sign every so often and they had just moved it the week before! they had moved it to the outskirts of town by the olympic stadium! so im sad to say we never got to it! :(
so after a long day of museums we went and got some dinner and headed back to the hostel. we spent the evening at the hostel again. it was so much fun and the people were so friendly that we ended up never making it out even though we planned on it!
the next morning we woke up again to try and do the bike tour, but this time it was raining and windy so the guide told us that we would probably enjoy the tour more if we came back the next day. soooo we decided to go to madame tussauds wax museum which turned out to be very entertaining! it was a little creepy how realistic some of the wax celebrities looked but it was fun to take pictures!
afterwards we went back to the hostel to clean up and get ready to go to the anne frank house. we got a little lost trying to find the place, but we got there eventually. the place was amazing and it was weird to think that we were in a place that we had all read about and where so much history had taken place. it was very powerful and afterwards to make ourselves feel better we went to the hard rock cafe to stuff ourselves. we had the most amazing dinner and ate waaay too much!
afterwards we went back to the hostel and met with some of the people we had met there and decided to take a tour of the red light district. it was so weird and funny and unbelievable that something like that exists. it was completely different from what i thought.
the next morning we woke up early (again!) to finally take the bike tour! it was soo much fun. we got to go all throughout the countryside and see a totally different side of amsterdam! we got to see a windmill, a cheese factory, and clog factory. the cheese place was amazing. its this little family owned place and they made amazing cheese! we each bought some and plan to have a wine and cheese night!
the tour lasted about 4 hours and it was probably one of our favorite things we did while in amsterdam. afterwards our trip sadly was over. we went back to the flying pig and packed our bags and headed back to the airport!
it was an amazing trip and the girls were so much fun! we had such a great time together and were sad when it all had to end! but fortunately for me i still have 2 more trips coming up! london next weekend and budapest in 3 weeks!
oh and we are so fortunate that we took our trip when we did! we used the airline sterling, and yesterday the company went bankrupt! so all flights are cancelled and everyone lost their money! so we could have been stuck in amsterdam with no way to get home (that wouldnt have been so bad!) and if i had planned another trip with them i would have lost all that money! i know a lot of people that had travel plans for this coming weekend who are now out of plane tickets and are not getting reimbursed for their loses! ah im just glad that didnt happen to us!
so this weekend i have a couple of papers i need to work on and then a week from today i leave for LONDON!!!
i hope its a little warmer there! its been so cold here lately like in the low 30's and it gets dark at around 4:30!
hope california is a little warmer and everyone has a good halloween!
miss you lots
love you more

train station 1AM

enormous wooden shoe

rijksmuseumsoo many canals!world peace at the wax museum.

the start of our bike tour!

our bike gang.windmill!the clog and cheese factory!

fall in lund

hey all
the weather has been really nice this week and the trees are all changing color and it looks beautiful here! not too much to report, i leave for amsterdam in 2 weeks so im excited about that. i thought i would just post some pictures of where i live and the people that i've met here so you can kinda get an idea of my life!

miss you lots
love you more

my desk. obviously.

the view from my window. and all my shoes!

my bed. and maps of sweden that i've used to decorate my walls.

the corridor room.

the kitchen. it continues on to the other side and has another oven/stove.

another view of the common room.

the library. it looks so pretty now that the leaves are changing from green to red.

the road i take to and from school everyday.

some of the uc girls i've met here. this is when we were at malmo for the music festival. iris (ucla) in the left corner, tiffany (ucsc), sarah (ucsb), me, and emi (ucsc).

my amazing mentor fatimah!

pierre! he's from france. and will remind you constantly that france is the best place.

me and raphael (from france) and jake (ucsb)

a lot of uc kids!

weekend visitors!

so this weekend darin came to visit! it was an exciting weekend trying to show him all the exciting points of lund (there aren't that many). i showed him the campus and we just walked around the time and i showed him some of the nations, lund cathedral, nova lund, and a lot more. all my friends here were able to meet him and it was a lot of fun.
on sunday we awoke to POURING rain! it was windy, rainy, and looked like it wasn't going to let up. but that didn't stop us from going to copenhagen! so me, darin, and tiffany walked to the train station (a 15 minute walk) in the rain and got completely soaked. fortunately we were able to dry off on the 45 train ride to denmark.
once there it was still pouring and we were trying to figure out which bus we needed to take to get to carlsberg brewery. we searched everywhere, and looked at 3 different maps but couldn't figure it out! so we ended up just taking a cab and shelling out 75DEK.
once there we paid about 50DEK (a little less than $10) and took the tour of the brewery. we were able to see the history of carlsberg and how they make the beer. we even got to go out to the stables and see the horses! woo hoo!
after that we went up to their bar area and they had this table that had these bottles that had different scents (citrus, oak, coffee, chocolate, corn, smoke, toasted bread, apples, banana...) and you marked on a paper which ones you liked. then next to the bar they had a list of all of their beers and it listed which scents were in each of the beers and you were able to pick a beer by the aroma combination in it. i got the carlsberg hvede (cloves, caramel, red apples) and teh saaz blonde (hopps, citrus, cloves, banana). both were really good!
by this time the weather had cleared up and we were able to explore copenhagen a little bit! we walked back to the center of town and looked around a bit. by now we were starving so we went to a little place for dinner and had some burgers before having to head back to the train station.
darin had to get back to the airport so he could check in for his flight so we all got back on the train, tired but full, and dropped off darin at the airport. tiffany and i passed out and slept the entire way back to lund. all in all a great weekend!
i start my next class in 2 weeks so i'm excited to have something to do during the week! but not excited that i'm going to have to be biking more outside! its already getting super cold. a few of the nights drop down into the high 30's and i'm just terrified to think that its only october! i'm scared of how cold its going to be once november and december roll around! i had to bust out my big down jacket this weekend! it finally happened!
hope you all are staying warm back home!
miss you lots
love you more!

darin in sweden!

at carlsberg learning how to make beer.

carlberg's little mermaid. probably the best beer in the world.

smelling all the different things that could be in the beers.

fun way to end the weekend!

long week

so the past few days have been a little hard here, but yesterday tiffany and i decided to take a little trip to copenhagen! it was much needed and it was a lot of fun to get out of lund and be somewhere new for the day.
we left and got to copenhagen around noon and set off for the planetarium! we watched a 3d movie on dinosaur sea monsters. we were in a huge imax, dome theater and there were only 4 of us in the whole place! it was really fun though and before the movie they did this little presentation on the stars and planets which was interesting. i was sad that we didnt get to keep the 3d glasses which was disappointing but oh well. after the movie we explored the place a little bit and they had some pretty cool little exhibits and they even had this video game where you had to move on this green screen and then they put you into a video game and you had to move to make your character move. it was fun.
after that tiffany and i just wandered around a bit and ate this really good chocolate strawberry pastery thing. then we went to this little part of copenhagen called christiania which is like this little "freetown" that isn't governed by danish law. its just a little hippie town, a mix of santa cruz san francisco and berkley something out of the 60's. it was a little sketchy so we didnt spend too long there, but it was a new part that we got to see! they dont let you take pictures inside christiana im not sure why but all over the place they had no camera signs.
so after we left there we walked around a little bit more, but we were getting tired since we had been walking around for about 7 hours so we decided to go to the hard rock cafe. it tasted so good after a long day of walking and it was nice to just sit and relax for a little bit.
afterwards we headed home and our day adventure came to an end.
tonight i think some of the girls and i are getting together and making dinner together and having wine so im excited to have a girls night! these are the girls that i am going with to amsterdam so i'm really excited for us to all travel together it should be a lot of fun! i told them about the mike's bike tour in amsterdam and everyone seemed pretty excited about it so hopefully we can fit that into our schedule! i also saw this thing called boom chicago, its this comedy night club that some people from SNL and madTV have performed at so maybe we'll include that in our trip as well. who knows.
i'm excited to start traveling. i like it here in sweden, but it gets a little lonely sometimes and since i onoly have school 2 days a week for 2 hours it gets a little boring here so i'm struggling to find things to fill my time. tiffany and i are going to look into joining the gym here so that might give me something to do!
hope all is well in california and that everyone is excited to start school.
i'll leave you guys with some pictures from my trip yesterday and from my serving job last weekend at the nations.

miss you lots.
love you more.

playing the intense green screen game

thats me on the right hand corner of the screen

our 3d glasses before the sea monster movie

christiania

random foot statue in the middle of lund

getting ready to serve for the 60 person dinner

our amazing uniforms

colder days

today i have officially been in sweden for a month. somedays it feels a lot longer, and other times it feels like days go by really slowly.
the cold weather has begun. it is in the mid 50's everyday and its hard to believe that this is just the beginning!
my days haven't been filled with anything exciting recently. i'm ready to get out and travel! the other day i signed up for one of the student nation's (hallands) so i'm excited to see what sort of events and activities they'll host. when i went to sign up i put down that i wouldn't mind working at one of the events, and so they asked me and one of my friends to serve a 3 course dinner on friday! i'm slightly terrified since i know little to no swedish and i've never done any sort of dinner serving, but oh well just another chance to embarrass myself.
hallands hosted a new members dinner last night. they served a traditional thursday meal (even though it was wednesday...) of pea soup and pancakes. the pea soup was sooo good but different than what i'm used to (it was yellow...). and the pancakes were good (they're like crepes). and so it was fun to spend the evening there with some of my friends and there was lots of singing and joking so i think i made the right choice with this nation!
darin is here in 3 weeks so i'm excited to have a familiar face with me in sweden! i'm not sure what we're going to do while he's here....maybe a trip to malmo or copenhagen. i'm not sure! but we'll figure something out! i'm also really excited that i'm going to be able to go and visit him too! i love london and so i'm excited to see his favorite spots and see some new places!
i also got an e-mail from sterling airlines telling me that the flight time for our return trip from amsterdam has been changed so i hope that the new time still works for everyone! it doesnt' really matter to me since i don't have any classes then, but i don't want this to ruin our trip!
i watched the SNL skit of tina fey portraying sarah palin and i thought it was great! "global warming is just god hugging us a little closer...". all of my swedish corridor mates have been asking about my thoughts on the election and so its interesting to see what they think of the candidtates.
well i hope you all are doing wonderfully back at home and i hope to have more entertaining news once this weekend is over!

miss you lots.
love you more.

going to the zoo, zoo, zoo how about you, you, you?

hi hi hi
spent the day at the zoo! we took a 20 minute train ride to the town höör. from there it was about a 3 mile walk to the zoo! this wasn't your average zoo, this was skanes djurpark and it houses over 75 different nordic animals. the park was beautiful full of trees, and the animals had wide open spaces to frolic in and what not. it was fun seeing animals you don't typically see at a normal zoo. it was fun to just walk around and be in the sun, but i could definently tell that the weather is starting to get colder and that our days of sunshine are coming to an end. unfortunately the drop in temperature and being out all day made me get the beginnings of a cold and i'm going through my tissue supply fast. so tomorrow i'm just going to sleep and eat lots of soup and orange juice!
in my swedish culture class we got divided up into groups of 4 and we have to find something in the swedish culture that is odd or different and report on the significance of it. our teacher gave us the example of toilets; everyone uses them everyday, but many countires have different customs and different styles of toilets that can confuse an outsider. she showed us a whole slideshow of toilets from around the world. it was a funny example but made a lot of sense so i'm excited to see what the rest of the sememester will be like! my group is supposed to get together somtime this week and figure out what topic we're going to present on so hopefully we can come up with something good!
tiffany and i are going to buy our tickets for budapest tomorrow so i'm excited that i have 3 great trips planned! i'm really excited to have darin here in a few weeks! i think once i start traveling my time here is going to fly by!

hope you all are having fun back in the states and are enjoying the california heat!

miss you lots.
love you more.

coooooooooows! i felt right at home.

vince came to the zoo with me. :)

fooooxes

emo bear. he didn't move the whole time we were there.

mooooose!

me and the moose

at least i'm not a little bird.

i'm not sure what this is. but it was kinda hideous. in a cute way.

rainy days

hi everyone!

so its started to rain here and going outside doesn't seem very appealing so i thought i would update you all on the past few days.

on monday i started my first class. its called Swedish Society and Everyday Life. every lecture we are going to cover a different aspect of swedish life; some of the topics are perspectives on swedish modernity, culture analysis, food and national identity (i thought mom would like that topic), habits and customs...so it should be pretty interesting and let me gain a better grasp on the life here and i figure there's no better time to learn about the swedes then when i'm actually here! i'm also the only person in there from california (actually the only one from the US) which seems odd since there are so many UC students here, but i think its going to be a good opportunity to meet some new people! the class only meets mon and fri for about 2 hours so its like i have two weekend. i have tues, wed, and thurs off and also the regular weekend. i'm going to have to find things to occupy my time!

there's a site where you can bid on tickets to stockholm and they are waaaaaaaaay cheaper than buying them at the station or online (online or at the station is around $100 round trip, but through the auction site you can get them for about $40 round trip) but the only problem is that they're for the next day, so you have to be ready to leave. so i think i might try to do that, but since everyone else has class i might just have to do some traveling on my own. but that might be nice since i'd get to see everything that i would want to see, so we'll see!

yesterday and today i just wandered around lund and i've been looking for a cheap bookstore, but everything is so expensive! paperback books cost about $20 and i don't really want to spend that much! so tiffany and sarah and i were talking about getting library cards so we could check out there selection annnnnnnd they'd be free! my favorite price! today i went to max burger, its the largest swedish fast food chain. it was pretty good, but i'm used to 99cent cheeseburgers and what not, but a fast food meal here still costs around $10! but it was fun and actually really good, but still doesn't compare to in-n-out!

this weekend me and some of the girls were talking about going to this park reservation where they have mooses! we thought that would be exciting and they have some trails you can hike, so hopefully the weather clears up by then so we can go explore!

i thought i'd post some pictures of some of the university buildings here so you can see what my actual school looks like!

this is the main building. they have statues of random people all over the place.

this is where they hold their graduations and what not.

the AF building. there is where we came when we first arrived and had registration.

the library. so pretty. i went in the other day and couldn't really figure out anything. i couldn't even figure out how to get on the computer. hopefully i'll figure it out soon! there's a cafe inside and a falafal place.

lund cathedral
this is a big mound on campus. really weird story behind it. i guess a long time ago one of the buildings became infested with rats, so the students decided to kill them and get rid of them. so this is where they buried them. so this mound is actually a pile of dead rats.
this is part of my mentor group. theres about 25 people in the group total. it's all international students; some from australia, england, germany, austria...so its a great place to meet people and my mentors are great and plan lots of events for us and dinners and game nights so its a lot of fun. this was one of the nights where we went to one of the nations.

miss you lots.
love you more.