London, England

So before St. Patty's day and a trip to Ireland it was off to London. London is HUGE.. like I spent a few days there and was not nearly done with being a tourist in the city. The main method of transportation is the Tube, and the infamous quite "Mind the Gap". Our hostel was just off the Piccadilly line.. which was headed to Cockfosters.. imagine the jokes all week ;)


The night that we arrived we were all quite exhausted from class that day, and Justin and Charlie were missing.. so we got ready for bed. Of course no sooner than we laid down they burst in looking for us and convinced us to go out for a night on the city with them. This was around 1am. By the time Megan and I changed and headed out it was a bit later and they were convinced that we would be able to find somewhere to go. Apparently people are given jobs in London to take tourists around to bars and clubs.. so we followed one of them. However, we were out so late that getting into any place was impossible and it was just a night of walking in circles. We had planned on getting up early the next morning and being tourists.. but of course that never happened...

Day 2 included us figuring out how to work the public transportation system and then just hopping on random buses and seeing where they took us. Eventually we ended up at the London Eye and decided to go for a ride on it. This was quite entertaining. You can see everything in the city from it and it was pretty much amazing.. they also take a picture of everyone in your tube, but we were clueless and got a good laugh out of the picture after we got off. After that it was a night tour of the city and back to the hostel for some fun. My night ended at the hostel.


Day 3 - We rode the double decker bus around the town, hopped off it here and there and even got to do a river cruise!! Some of the stops we made it to were London's Bridge, the London Tower, Parliment, Big Ben, Museums, parks, pretty streets, it just keeps going. It was a fun time and we had a lot of fun together. Oh and of course lots of pictures were taken :)

The last day we had our flight to Dublin, so we wandered to see Westminister Abbey and the Changing of the Guards but then we were off to Ireland for the St. Patty's celebrations. London was really nice, I just need to head back to see a bit more of the UK.

Been a while

Oh wow.. all i have to say is that I claimed to be horrible at keeping this post thing going.. I get lazy or distracted or too much work. So now I suppose that I have no excuses not to update the blog. Since Poland I have been off to England, Ireland, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain and France. Yea it seems like a LOT.

So I will attempt in my next few days of boredom to update you all on each of the adventures. One entry at a time, hoping that I can remember everything that happened.. it's be a LONG time since London and Dublin.

Poland

As always it has been a while since I have updated my blog.. Sorry!! So since the last update I made it to Poland, England, and Ireland.. a crazy 2 weeks by far. This entry is only to be about Poland since well it would be too long to include all three and you'd probably get bored of me.

So.. Poland..

We (my friends Amber, Beth, and I) flew into Warsaw Friday evening (two fridays ago now). That night we figured out the bus and hopped on to find our way to the lovely Backpackers hostel. It was my first hostel experience.. so it was slightly scary and exciting at the same time. Amber being the lovely navigator she is found our way to the hostel where we proceeded to simply pass out. The next morning it was time to wake up and be on our way to Krakow. We arrived, dropped off all of our gear in the City Hostel and were off to discover what Krakow had to offer. Well my suggestion is definately go to Krakow if you want to see the Polish culture. Not only were the buildings just simply gorgeous.. but the Polish culture is very apparent as well.

One of the first stops, of course, was to find some perogies.. and they were pretty delicious.. we all enjoyed quite a bit :) Then off to discover the culture. In the centre of Krakow is a market of sorts. It is a building packed with vendors selling traditional polish clothing and items as well as the touristy materials as well. We all collected our souveniers and went to discover a Polish Castle.
The architecture of the Castle that we saw was just crazy. Our conclusion is that all of the different eras added their own touch onto the church that was located in it. Of course the grounds of the Castle were gorgeous.. But since we got there around sundown we were kicked out before we truely got to explore the castle. After leaving the castle we walked around the centre city a bit more and admired all of the buildings and architecture and parks.

That evening we decided to grab some dinner and then head off to a local pub. Well we decided it was a good idea to follow a group of guys that turned off the road and went through a hallway. We found ourselves in the middle of a beautiful courtyard with an adorable pub coming off of it. We stayed there for a little while and of course tried out some of the local drinks. The most popular one seems to be their local grass vodka mixed with some apple juice. It was quite delicious. The conversations we had there were quite entertaining and made me love those two weirdos a bit more.

The next morning the plan was to be up early and head off to Auschwitz. We did this and took the train to the city that the camp was located in. Upon arriving we noticed that all the tourists were in the same state as we were.. Everyone only knew english.. and well the people there didn't. Auschwitz was no where to be seen.. no signs or anything pointing out where we should go. So part of the group decided to take a stab at having a conversation with someone that knew no english at all.

The result of this adventure was a map that was drawn and we tried our best to follow it. After walking a little of a mile we somehow found our way into the camp and we were all quite relieved. Walking around the camp is quite shocking. We were unable to discover everything that there is to be seen there, however a lot of it sunk in and was pretty shocking. It is an experience that I am happy I never had to go through.

After walking around it was time to head back to Warsaw. Now, as I had previously mentioned.. No one there spoke English, not even the ticket place for the trains. So we attempted to ask them how to get there and they sent us on 3 connecting trians. Some how the one station we went to did not have the correct connection so we found ourselves traveling way longer than we were supposed to and eventually by a few miracles found our way home. Tip.. if lost in poland ask the younger kids.. like my age and younger.. they all know english.. anyone older.. not so much! Oh yea.. and from the train.. all the houses we saw were brightly colored.. like the one below..
So once we finally made it back to Warsaw we again checked into the hostel. We still hadn't had dinner even though it was 11pm thanks to the train mix-ups. So we headed off to a Cafe that serves breakfast 23 hours a day. They close from 5-6am. We enjoyed a delicious breakfast and had a little bit of coffee. Then the exhausting day of traveling hit us and we were off to bed by 1am.

The next day was exploring Warsaw in the morning and then shopping and heading back to DTU. Warsaw has a very limited area that looks pretty, but we managed to find it. Essentially, go to the old city and the mall. The old city was really pretty, but my camera died so I still need to steal those pictures from Amber. The mall just has amazing architecture, and being an architecture jukie.. I thoroughly enjoyed sitting in the food court at lunch and looking at the structure of the building.

That is about all (all.. quite a bit..) of the information about my Poland trip.. Back to the homeland as all my friends have teased me about :)

Miss you all!!

-Kristyn

Future Plans

So I feel like I haven't traveled all that much.. but that is going to change very soon :)

The next few stops are as follows :

• Poland (Warsaw and Krakow) - March 6-9
• England - March 11-14
• Ireland (St. Patty's Day!) - March 14-17
• Paris?? - Hoping for easter break !!

Then where ever my little heart desires.. I'd love to make it to Spain and Italy as well!

Miss you all!!

<3>

Sweden (Malmo)

I'll write about this later (hopefully in the next few days).. for now i'm writing my next post, but here's a few Sweden pics

Helsingor

Okay, so I'm sure youhave all noiced I really don't update this all that often.. Sorry! I just get lazy some times.

So a few weekends ago we headed North in Denmark up to Helsingor. Helsingor is a cute little town and Hamlet's castle is located there. So the first picture shows you the cute town that we had to walk through to get to the castle. It has shops and restaurants and of course.. pubs. So yea, after walking through the town a few kilometers we arrived at the castle, which from the outside is quite gorgeous :).

Now you can see a few of the outside images I took. We went in and got to walk all around the grounds of the castle. Then we paid to take a tour of the insides of the castle. The upstairs was the basics.. the bedrooms, ballrooms, feasthalls, etc. Then we went into the chapel which looked quite equisite and then the basement.

I forget the name for the basement, but it was where the soldiers were put to hide out (it was really dark and creepy). The guys of course loved the darkness of the basement and proceeded to hide behind every corner and jumpu out to scare the crap out of all the girls. It was alright.. I just paid more attention to where they were going. So here are a few more pictures of the Castle.

Okay, so there's a bunch of pictures.. I still haven't found a good photo site to upload the rest of them onto. After the castle it was back into town and to the ferry to continue our trip off to Malmo, Sweden. A weekend of traveling :)

ok random pics

So I was told that it never snows in Denmark.. proved them wrong with this picture :)

My favorite beverage here!! It's a chick drink.. but the guys i hang with drink it

(does this say something about them?!? think so.. lol)

So this is where me and some of the girls I met during orientation cook every now and then. Took a picture of the first week.

PS they have a playboy poster in the kitchen! weird?

Our delicious first supper! Asian food! Oh and the Korean girl in our group is like this is nothing like what we cook at home.. love it!!

Volleyball?!?

Of course one of the first things that I had to do while here was to find a volleyball team (yes mom I'm crazy)! So one of the guys in my kitchen is on the team and well I followed him to practice. Apparently volleyball is NOT a popular sport in Denmark.. slightly upsetting. Oh and I got to a tech school here, so there's still no girls!! But they do have a co-ed team, so well I joined :)

The team is pretty cool. After the first practice (2 mondays ago) they were like so yea you're coming to the tourney this weekend.. right???? Well of course I went! The team is a lot of fun to hang out with, and once I was comfortable enough with them I learned that when they start speaking Danish around me it's fine to either yell English at them.. or to just ask WHAT?? and they immediately switch to English. The only person that hasn't gotten used to this is the coach.. but he'll get it soon.

After the tourney we all hung out and got some pizza and beers. That was pretty fun :) and well they were all catching each other for speaking Danish more than I was, it's nice to know that they're trying!! So I was teaching them some slang.. of course for nothing appropriate but hey we're college kids.. that's what we do!! Hmm I'm not sure what else.. volleyball is fun !!

Oh and thanks to volleyball I'm learning some danish.. I now can count to 25! well i guess 29 actually but I'll just credit to 25 because that's the one thing the coach refuses to put into english. Apparently it's too confusing!! Haha oh well! So that's all for now I guess. I may write again tomorrow to show some pictures like of idk stuff.. and my room for those of you that have been bugging me about that!

I miss all of you!! (oh and volleyball pics eventually.. when the team posts them)

<3 kristyn

Classes...

So yes.. It's been a while since I last posted anything here.. sorry!! I've been enjoying life here but classes take up a bunch of time and I have now added a few extra courses in case I don't do well in the one (it's a grad level course). So now I have class Monday afternoon and all day Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

Picture from an adventure:

Classes here work a bit different than they do at home. At RPI we have that mismass of choosing a schedule and making classes work together. Here most classes at the levels I'm at are offered once a semester. To make it even easier in choosing classes there are 10 blocks you can have class. It's either 8am-12 or 1-4pm. So easy!! RPI should learn a thing or two :).

So yea it almost seems that you have nothing to do for the classes until you look at the readings that you have to do. There are days that I have over 100 pages to read just for one class!! Scary right? Oh and the worst part.. since there is no hw for classes (at least not mandatory work) you actually have to do all the readings. They expect you to pretty much know what they're reviewing for the class before you even get there!!

So what classes am I taking? I know you're just thrilled to find out!! (Haha or skip this part).

The courses I'm registered for are:

-Advanced Geotechnical Engineering (the one I think I'll fail). Basically I skipped a level of class in order to be in this one.. because the middle level is offered in Danish only. It'll be an adventure!

-Structural Design: Seems pretty interesting.. minus that the lecturer makes it difficult to stay awake. My first assignment? A powerpoint presentation on the Mohr's circle.

- FEM Light: it's some structural course I was told is pretty cool.. today will be the first time to go.. I registered for it about 10 minutes ago!

- Development Projects in Companies: A studio-esque course.. we have to develop a product and explain company principles or something around it.. fun.. maybe?
- Virtual Construction: must be my favorite course. It's allll day wednesday.. but you get to make a building and have clients and basically just pretend that you're a contractor.. lots of work but it should be pretty cool!

So yea.. it should be an interesting semester.. no final exams (I think).. but that means that I'll probably have a lot of work during the week. But nothing will stop me from traveling Europe!! (Except perhaps money.. but we'll see)

Random Pictures

arriving in denmark!! (with wayy too much luggage)

My form of a danish symbol

A large group of the Americans (RPI ones that is)

I have arrived!

Hello again,

So apparently Denmark did not welcome me very gracefully. The first day that I arrived we were supposed to receive our rooming assignments. Well we arrived at approximately h800 (8am) denmark time. Since I could not seem to sleep on the plane for more than 5ish minutes I did not get to sleep because we left 530pm New York time. Then the only way to avoid jet lag is by staying awake until it is actually bed time. I couldn't sleep the night before I flew out in anticipation.. so between all of those awake hours I'll just say that I had about zero sleep in me for WAY too long.

Okay, so back the the accomodation mishappenings. I arrived and was one of the first ones to get in line at the office, and they told me oh no you're going to have to wait til we finish going through everyone else. That is not what you want to hear when all you really want to do is go take a nap. So finally after they gave all the other like 15 people their rooming assignments they're like oh we found a room for you (i still don't know why I was taken out of my original room in the first place) and they gave me the key.

So then the next part of the adventure was carrying all my luggage the fairly long distance up to the dorm room that they had assigned me. After lugging it all the way there, yes my key worked, but I walked in and there was someone already in there!! Lucky for me it was one of the girls here from RPI that I already know, but still pretty creepy and it was only like h830. So back down to the accomodations office I went, and when I arrived I received a bunch of giggles and they were like we wondered how long it would take you to come back, we realized after you were gone for like 10 minute, my luggage was probably only half way to the original room at that point.

So they then searched again for an open room for me, and half hour later they gave me a new room, of course all the way accross Kampax, which is my dorming complex. So after lugging my luggage for another 5 minutes I arrived at my new room, which of course smells just like an abandoned room that a guy had lived in.. yum! So I preceeded to spray the room with my perfume.. all fixed! After all that drama, I must say that I do like my room quite a bit, and most of the people in my kitchen (or hallway for americans) seem pretty fun to be around. So now I love my room.

Adventures.. this week has been our orientation week.. the first day was somewhat a traditional orientation, the morning consisted of breakfast (they eat bread and cheese.. weird!), followed by a tour, and course registering. The afternoon consisted of listening to hysterical exchange students that have been here and then a scavenger hunt. My favorite activity was after the scavenger hunt. We all gathered back together in the meeting room in the canteen for it, I'll show you a picture to get an idea. We all had to build supporting structures from a bag of goodies.

Here is my structure (top) and one of the other group's structure with the measuring weights (bottom)
So basically you can see from the structures, we were given cups, balloons, straws, foil, tape, string and a few other things and told the winning structure had a formula to determine who actually won. We tied for the most number of beers, however i think the other team had us by quite a few cm.

So the night life is quite interesting here in Denmark, the Danes are absolutely insane (Family shouldn't read this!!). Basically the Danish mentallity is that you should go out every night and party until 5am. This has been proven hard to do since we have events at 9am every day for orientation week. But the 2nd night I was here we had international night at the campus pub, so we joined them for an interesting night. Well, these international kids are insane!! They drink me way under the table, but then again most people wouldn't have much difficulty trying to do that.

This picture is one of my favorite ways of drinking beer here. It's called a beer tower. Basically it's a huge tube of beer with it's own tap and you tend to split it between your friends. Now I really am not all that crazy with so much alcohol, but hey you have to try everthing once! So the culture here is pretty amazing! It seems like the point of the introduction week is to acquaint us with the culture, since every single night ends at a bar or a party, kind of crazy!!

So last night we headed out to the Student house in downtown Copenhagen. It was pretty nice, the end of our tour through Copenhagen, which I unfortunately forgot my camera for :(. But I will go again and take pictures!! We sat on the Mermaid in our tour groups and took pictures, quite fun then wandered around and let me say the architecture in that city is BEAUTIFUL!! I was in heaven, such a dork, but so happy. I can't wait to go back and see it again. One of the girls i met here, Amber, is a civil engineer as well so we plan on going back there (i think) and being in awe all day. I think that it should be quite fun!!

Alright well I must head out and hope to find the rest of my group shortly, I don't want to end up being on my own for the duration of the day. I miss you all!!

Kristyn

Thinking of Denmark

No, I'm not in Denmark yet, however I do hop onto the plane in 6 days. Scary? Somewhat. I have not really even begun to think about what all I need to pack for this adventure, instead I spent the past weekend up at RPI having one last hurrah with all of my friends.

Tommorrow I'm going to get my hair cut, and oh boy I do mean cut. I intend on donating at least 10 inches of my hair to Locks of Love. Since second grade my hair has been below my shoulders, so this is somewhat terrifying to me. However, I'm changing things up so why not go crazy. Right?

So I suppose my first task tomorrow should be figuring out what in the world I will be bringing with me on this trip. I'm only allowed two suitcases.. two! I need to pack my entire life into these two suitcases. That's five months worth of everything and well I'm quite indecisive when it comes to what I'm going to wear. Hopefully my mother will sit there yelling at me when I do finally pack up the bags, but who knows if she will.

Let's see I'm not going to bore you with my boring home life right now, however it is my goal to write at least once or twice a week while I am in Denmark, perhaps even post a few pictures along the way as well. So if you miss me (I know many of you will) take a look at this site every now and then and you can catch up on my (hopefully) thrilling experience of studying abroad. I know you're jealous :P.

Oh and by the way just because I say that I intend on updating this blog once a week, there are no promises. I tend to be easily distracted by everything going on. So I hope you enjoy reading this and I shall miss all of you, but come July, or August for some I will be back to seeing all of your lovely faces again.