Happy (almost) New Year!

The theme of tonight's party was so cute, I have to share it.

It was a New Year's party, celebrating the almost last hour of the almost last day of the almost last month of 2008. Cute, right? (so we counted down when the clock almost hit 11). Lots of dancing, lots of fun.

My almost new year resolution? Keep my room clean. Boring but oh so necessary. My room is a disaster.

My host dad told me that tonight there would be "really a lot of trouble". I asked him why and he said because it's almost Christmas, which means that the Danes start doing Christmas lunches. Which means that people get really drunk (or at least drunker than Danes normally get...which already is very drunk), and then cause trouble. ha.

I have a Christmas lunch of my own tomorrow. The doctor that teaches Human Health and Disease invited us all over to eat lunch and make Christmas decorations. I'm excited.

Cultural experience of the day:

Eating raw salted herring on rugbrød and drinking snaps (akvavit) for lunch.

Happy Thanksgiving

Yesterday was my first Thanksgiving out of the United States. It was pretty great. I woke up early in the morning to make stuffing. Making it was kind of an ordeal, between taking a bus to the grocery store and searching desperately for chicken stock (it doesn't exist here actually, I had to use a bouillon cube thingy). But it turned out great! I was impressed with myself.

For the actual dinner I went to DIK Kollegium, where some friends were hosting a pot luck thankgiving. My stuffing was a hit, and there was tons of delicious food. There were about 30 of us there, and it was a good mix of Danes, Americans and others (someone from Sweden, one from Finland, two from Poland...) At one point we had everyone raise their hand who was attending their first Thanksgiving, and about half did.

It wasn't anything like my usual Thanksgiving, but it was a good one. Of the many many things I'm thankful for, the newest one is Denmark. I'm so happy to be here and I'm sad that I only have a couple of weeks left!

Photos from Budapest

(some of these pictures are my friend Karen's... she graciously agreed to let me post them!)

Turkey photos

Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been very busy. Here are some photos from my trip to Turkey. Enjoy!

Back from the travel break!

I'm back in Copenhagen. It feels good to be sitting here in my bed. These past 3 weeks have been great, a perfect way to end my 20th year (turning 21 tomorrow!) It's weird to think that this time last year I wasn't even planning on studying abroad. I'm excited to see what my 21st year will bring...

Expect Turkey updates in the next couple of days, especially because one of my assignments for my Turkey at the Crossroads course is to write three blog entries. Also, Copenhagen is cold. I miss this morning when I wore a swimsuit and hung out on a boat off the coast in the Aegean Sea.