Two days til the fam comes!

So my family comes on Saturday and I am SOOOO excited!!!! We're taking the first weekend of my Spring break (its the same as Nick's break) and going around Copenhagen and Stockholm. It's funny how much being away makes you miss home. I thought I wouldve gotten used to it going to school nine hours from home but being on the other side of the world is totally different. I can't wait to see you guys!!!!!

Living a Disney Movie

So this past weekend I went to a ball in honor of the newest members of the Queens Guard getting there commission which was a fantastic adventure. Unfortuantely even though I promised to do a good job with picture taking this is one time where I really forgot. The day started out with the guys starting a march around Copenhagen, which ended in them going to their new base and getting recognized by the Queen. Very exciting. Then they came back to the Hotel where they started their march and proceeded to throw one heck of a party. It started out with a REALLY formal cocktail hour and dinner, where we were required to wear oober fancy dresses and follow all sorts of random Danish etiquette rules. It was fun and definitely an experience I'll never forget!

Us with our dates. My friend Erica (light blue dress) is dating Jonas (the one hanging on her) and she set me and my friend Jess (silver dress) up with our boys Niels and Thomas. It actually worked out really well, the guys are all really cool and spoiled us more than I've ever been spoiled before. Next prom I'm taking a Dane for sure ;)

Me and Niels, my date. He's a really cool guy, expect to see more of him ;)

Me and Jess getting ready in the hotel room. The Royal Guard put the entire company up in fancy hotel rooms at the scandic down town so while the boys were out marching around in the rain we got to sit and watch movies on demand (courtesy of the queen) and drink champange. Not a bad deal.

Us at dinner, it doesn't look oober fancy from here but thats olny because they had already cleared away 6 of the 10 peices of silverware every person at the table had. Still tons of fun tho!!!

After the fancy dinner there was some down time were we were supposed to change into our party dresses and get ready for the fete. The rest of the evening was basically just a huge dance party that lasted until the wee hours of the morning. It was a blast!!!

Making Plans

I'm trying to make plans for a random weekend in April and me and my friends are literally running out of places to go cheaply. There's four of us and every place we suggested people either had plans to go or had been before. Some of the more adventurous suggestions have been Cyprus, and Casablanca, but the airfare will kill us, plus a 10 hour flight is a bit too much for a weekend. Still dare to dream right?

So we're trying to decide between Lisbon and Dublin or maybe another city in Ireland. I went to Ireland with my family senior year of high school and it was amazing so I don't mind going back, but it'd be nice to see somewhere new. Therefore, I'm somewhat in the Lisbon camp just because I've never been before but one of my friends is spending her summer in Portugal so I don't want to be unfair to her. What do you think? Any suggestions on places? Here are the places that we can't go:

Stockholm
Oslo
Prague
Berlin
Paris
Venice
Nice
Mersailles
Barcelona
Vienna
Salzburg
Budapest
Dubrovnik
Split
Florence
Rome
Athens
Istambul
London
Edinburgh
Amsterdam
Brussels

Any ideas?

Roman Holiday

Trip: 6


Life:16


Even th. ough I've been to Rome before it still floors you when you see the Collusium at the end of a street or walk into St. Peter's Basillica. There really is no place like it in the world as far as sights go and then on top of that you have the food and the weather. I'm not entirely sure why my ancestors ever left italy to be quite honest. Here are some pictures!

Me in front of the Forum, enjoying the most vitamin D I've gotten since I left Charleston ;)

With my amigo's right in front of the Collusium.

Stolen goods beeing displayed in Piazza Del Popollo. sorry Egypt, but at least they're taking care of it? It makes a good picture no matter how questionable crusader booty is. Plus about half the cool things in Rome come from ye olde thefts.

My travel buddies Megan, Ethan, and Jillian in front of the Trevi Fountain. Its cool enough during the day time but at night its wayyy less crouded and looks almost cooler.

I thought this was a really cool shot of the light coming into St. Peters, we went there for Mass on Sunday which is a really worthwhile thing to do if you have time when you visit Rome and shockingly uncrowded. In Italian of course, but you get the idea. Actually while it was going on I realized that this is what church was like for so many Catholics for so many centuries, mass in a language you can't understand. The feelings are still conveys of course but its difficult to get the message of the surmon. Interesting thing to do anyway.

The Pope. Nuff said.

Love it. This statue always reminds me of my Grandmother's house because she has a mini one somewhere in the piles of stuff upstairs. It gets the message across in minature but in real life its just so moving.

Belgian Adventures :)

Trip: 5

Life: 16

Let me start by saying I really really loved Brussels. Like I could see myself living there. It wasnt the most beautiful city I've ever seen but it was extremely diverse and just vibrant and alive every night of the week. Plus I think coming from Copenhagen, I couldn't get over the 60 degree weather. Its the little things in life ;)


European Parliment, one of the academic stops on our trip. As dorky as this is the academic stuff was pretty impressive they did a really good job setting things up for us. We met with the Danish leader of the Social Dems, a pretty major party in the EU, met with the Danish member of the Council, the US mission to the EU, the head of the US mission to NATO and our political actors. Not bad for 4 days.


Mussels in Brussels! No joke this is actually THE THING to get here, its like their national dish or something. My program took us all out ot this great seafood restaurant and hooked us up. Also you have to eat them with french fries, don't ask me why. They were really fantastic though, worth going back for.

My political interview group, Jesse looks like he's going to a wedding.

They took us to a CHOCOLATE factory. yet another reason to love belgium. It was actually really cool, I love how my program takes us on cultural excursions on all of our trips we really get to do some rediculous but awesome stuff.

Mannekin Pis. Belgian art at its finest. They LOVE this small peeing man, its like a national icon. Very odd.

The Catherdral

Grand place at night, right by our hotel. Its in the center of town and around on all the side streets are great restuarants clubs and pubs. Its def the place to start if you visit Brussels.

The Netherlands!!!

Trip: 4

Life: 15

Sorry its been so long I just got back from my long study tour last night, first stop THE NETHERLANDS!! Very exciting. We started in the Hague, which was unlike any city I'd ever been to before. It was VERY clean and it went from really new buildings/ cool modern archetecture to old row houses to peace palaces? I dunno its a bit strange, it seemed like a city that had been entirely intentionally structured, so everything seemed to work seemlessly but i wasn't really able to get a feel for the culture at all. It was an interesting time to be in the Netherlands as many of you may know because their coalition government just resigned over inreconcilable differences over the War in Afghanistan. The collapse has kind of made the Dutch people loose some faith in the Christian Democrats and Labor who were behind the dissolvement so an extremely right wing party who's entire platform is based on Anti- Muslim policies may gain power after the next election. Very interesting, and in my opinion REALLY irresponsible on the part of the current government. Alright enough politics here are the pictures!

the metro outside our hotel, like I said very chic new age architecture dominated half of the city.

The "peace palace" our second visit in the Hague, where the International Court of Arbitration and the ICJ are housed, created in 1899 to end conflicts between states. It was the brain child of Czar Nicholas II in an attempt to prevent small disputes between states from turning into wars... not very effective but still a pertty building.

Second stop in the Netherlands was at a Trappist monestary. Only 6 Trappist breweries still exist in the world today so it was very cool. Basically the idea behind it is that benedictine monks believe that hard work and prayer are the way to go in life, so they like to be 100% self sufficent. And a while back it occured to some genious monk that the easiest way to make enough money to keep a monestary running was to brew great beer. And the Trappist tradition was born.

(Jesus and the beer kettle)

Me and some new friends at the beer tasting! Very good is I may say so myself, and a fun time. That was it for the Netherlands, next stop Belgium!