:: Friday, April 30, 2004 ::

Bag Packing The trip is only four days away! I went to Mountain Equipment Co-op to fetch some accessories that I will need for my trip. I also bought some Canadian flags to sow onto my bag packs. It took me several hours to pack today. Im almost finished, there still remains few more items to be bought such as a memory card for the digital camera. Lastly, Chris (my travel mate) and I will have to stop by the Czech embassy on Monday morning to pick up our passports. It looks like we no longer need a visa to enter the Czech Republic!

:: May 3, 2004 ::

Night before departure My plane leaves tomorrow at 4:30pm. It's been on my mind for the longest time and, I can't believe it's finally here, this trip that is. Everything is packed and ready to go. We will be landing in Montreal and then take another flight directly to Frankfurt, Germany. I took the opportunity to see some friends dear to my heart (don't worry, you are all dear to my heart!) during the last few days. Now I feel ready for the adventures and the experiences that await!

:: May 5, 2004 ::

Frankfurt 1 Our flight from Montreal was delayed by 3 hours because the maintenance crew could not get the cargo door to close and lock. However, they managed to eventually which was a relief. The flight was not too unpleasant except for the short encounter with some major wind turbulence at one point. The crew served dinner which consisted of chicken and rice with bread and a salad. Since Chris was a vegetarian, I agreed to exchange my bread and salad for his chicken. After dinner, I managed to get some sleep. Breakfast was eventuallz served when we were one hour away from landing in Frankfurt. It was just a little yogurt, coffee, orange juice and a carrot-ginger cake thing. Frankfurt airport is huge and it was a bit chaotic when we got there. Partly because both of us were new there and there were many people on our flight who were trying to figure out their flight connections since the departure from Montreal was delayed. We eventually found the douane and the luggage claims. We took the train to Frankfurt Main station and checked into our hostel called Stay and Learn. Then we were exhausted from the flight so we decided to rest up a little bit. After our rest we headed out for a stroll. We found a small Vietnamese restaurant downtown at which the food was quite good for a good price. I got to chat to our waitress a little bit as she also speaks Vietnamese. She was born there and visited Vancouver one time. The written language seems to be a problem for me right now as I cannot read German. So far I only know hello and thank you in German. On the other hand, everyone can at least understand spoken English so it's not all that bad. We will be getting up early tomorrow morning to take the train all the way up to Copenhagen, Denmark. It shall be a long train ride (takes pretty much all day).

:: May 5, 2004 ::

Copenhagen Sorry I havent had a chance to write in the past few days because so many things were happening ever since we arrived in Copenhagen Denmark. I’ll try to keep it short because there is a lot to write about. We took the train up to Copenhagen on May 6, with a short stop in Hamburg Germany to make a connection (switch trains). Then we crossed the German border on a ferry boat. The train actually got off its tracks and went into a huge ferry boat. The boat ride was nice because the air from the sea was so refreshing. We met up with Mia, one of Chris’s friend, at the central station in Copenhagen. Then went out to a Danish vegetarian restaurant downtown, quite an expensive meal. It was 71 Danish Kroners, which rougly translates to 14 Canadian dollars. After the meal we walked around downtown more. We went into this church where they have a kind of night mass. A woman starts singing from one of the upper wings. It was so relaxing just sitting there. The next day (May 7) we visited the Rosenborg castle where they store the crown jewels and we also visited a house that the royal family used to live in. We went on the canal tours of in Nyhavn (New Port), a part of Copenhagen. This is where a lot of the cafes and bars are located. Finally after the canal tours we headed back home to get ready for the Rock and Royal Concert. The prince of Denmark is getting married to an Australian girl. There is a whole bunch of events going on this upcoming week regarding the marriage. The concert is one of them. There were many bands who are popular in Denmark who played and some Australian bands. None of which I knew of however. There was a huge crowd in the stadium and we were standing for almost 5 hours to watch the concert. On the morning of May 8, we met up with some of Mia’s (our host) friends to go to Karen’s Blixen House located outside in the countryside (about a 30 minute bus ride from Copenhagen). She is a renowed Danish author who wrote Out of Africa which was made into a movie. The house is basically a museum where you can learn a bit more about her life, her work (paintings, writing, drawings) and her time. Overall, she had a very difficult life. Then all of us sat down for coffee and cake at the restaurant and discussed Canadian and Danish culture. After lunch, we headed towards Krongborg Castle, which is located in a northern town of Denmark. The castle was closing soon so we only managed to visit the catacombs. The catacombs was where the soldiers were stationned. It was very dark and damp there, and I could not possibly imagine to live in such conditions. We then headed back to Mia’s house by train. By that time we were so tired because we had such a full day. We managed to get some rest on the train and a little at home. Then we had to clean up because we are having a get together dinner with Mia’s friends. The dinner was very good. There was beer of course, typical of the Danish, they tend to drink a lot. It was great to be able to meet more people from here, they were all fun and we all had a really great time.

:: May 11, 2004 ::

More of Copenhagen I will have to keep this one brief as I dont have much time to write. On May 9th I visited the Zoo in Copenhagen. It was quite a large zoo and it had alot of interesting animals such as tigers, lions, elephants, snakes, frogs, and giraffes. I also took the opportunity to walk abit around town and figure out some things about the transportation in the city, such as the train. So I took the train back and forth after I left the zoo in the evening. The trains here run quite often so you never really have to wait long to catch one. The city also has a subway called Metro. It's controlled by computer and there is no conductor. On May 10th, Chris and I went to Sweden. We stopped in Malmo and walked around a bit. Then we took the train up to Helsingor a city near the sealine. It was pretty beautiful up there. We visited a big park and walked into a few old churches. Then we took the ferry back to Denmark and hopped on the train back to Copenhagen. In the evening we met up with Mia and had dinner and some very good ice cream in town. We also took the Metro just for fun. On May 11th, in the afternoon (earlier in the day) we walked around town. The town is really decorated with flowers and hearts and people are getting ready for the Royal Wedding. We went into shops that sells antiques and you can buy pretty odd things, such as someone's old poetry book or some old photographs. We also visited an old church with a very high tower. We climbed all of the steps and had a really nice view of the city at the top. There was also a funeral ceremony happening when we were there. Then we walked into Christiania, the hippie town. You can actually buy marijuana there, and all of the soft drugs, but you cant buy the hard drugs and people are actually against them. The marijuana is actually not legal, but people do it anyway. We got on some city bikes and biked around a bit. It's been a while since Ive been on a bike so mine was a bit wobbly. I almost bumped into a woman and she said 'You're dangerous, take care!' Everyone had a good laugh lol. We visited one of Chris's old friend Jesper in the evening. We had dinner with his family and we had quite alot of fun. There was alot of food and of course wine.

:: May 12, 2004 ::

Fakse Today we visited 3 museums in Copenhagen. The first one was the national art gallery and we looked at some old paintings from the 14th century. Then we headed to Thorvaldsens Museum and looked at beautiful statues, mostly of characters in mythology such as Venus. The last trip was to the National Museum but we only got a chance to look at the stone age exhibit as we were over saturated with information by that time. We then took Mia out for dinner and after dinner, we headed back to Mia's appartment and packed all our bags. We then hopped on the train to Fakse. Fakse is an small town outside in the country and we'll be staying with Benta for a few days. Benta is one of Chris's Mother friend from childhood. I am sure we'll be having alot of fun because Benta has quite a character.

:: May 14, 2004 ::

Around the Countryside Yesterday (May 13), we visited a castle near Fakse. We were not able to go into the castle because most of it was privately owned, but we had a nice walk in the huge garden. Today, Benta, drove us to Stevns Klint (Cliff) and we went into a church by a cliff. The church itself is very old and apparently it used to be alot bigger, but the cliff fell down and so did part of the church. You could walk down some of the steps to the beach below. It's not a sandy beach but rather a rocky one with alot of sea plants washed up by the shore. The view was beautiful, and you could smell the sea air. We also encountered a group of Swedish who were filming something along the shore of the beach. We came back to Fakse later in the afternoon. Chris and I went to the grocery store to fetch some things for dinner, as we are making dinner tonight, and Benta drove home to watch the Royal Wedding. We spent the rest of the day just relaxing.

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Week of May 16 - May 22

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Week of May 23 - May 29

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Week of May 30 - June 2