Angelina's Study Abroad in Copenhagen

I have been having way too much fun this semester and it is now ready to come to an end 😢. I can't believe how fast it's gone by, but I'm excited to go home and see Alex, my friends, and my family ☺️. Here comes my final update from Copenhagen! Last week was my 20th birthday!! and I got to celebrate it in the best ways possible. On Friday I met up with some of my friends from my core course and we went on a picnic to the beach! They got me a cutie little card and a carrot cake muffin! It was so delicious 🤤. Then later that night we had a kollegium party and we stayed up until 3:00 in the morning on friday night/ saturday morning? It was so fun to giggle and chit chat and sit with all of my friends from both fifth and sixth floor for the start of such a great bday 🥹. When I woke up around 10:30 on saturday I went to sit in the kitchen and I saw none other than a camel and a donkey walking down the street. Don't ask me what was going on because genuinely I have no idea. It was pretty cool to see though 😆. Once everyone else got up and ready they started to make me a delicious scrumptious breakfast 🤤. Francesca and Raiden made some chocolate chip pancakes (and of course it turned into a competition of who made them better (it was francesca 🫣)). Angela made some scrambled eggs! and Katherine made these yummy breakfast sausages and some bacon 🤤. It was so yummy and it was so sweet of them and made me feel so loved 🥹. Next stop we made Emme came along and we went to make some bracelets! Francesca and I both made 2 and everyone else made one and it was frustrating at times but the final product is so cute ☺️.  We finished the day at pico pizza and we got some bust down pizzas, but then francesca started to feel unwell (somehow they paired two people with tummy problems even though neither of us said we had tummy problems in any of our paperwork 😆). After some bed rotting time we made our way to the kitchen to get ready to go out for the night! As I got ready my friends put candles in an ice cream cake to sing happy birthday to me again 🥰. We ended up convincing Alberte to join us for our night out and had an absolutely amazing time! It was so so soooo much fun and almost exactly how I wanted to spend my birthday (the only thing that was missing was alex, kendra, samara, and katie 😢). The rest of the weeks was full of stress of finals and many many goodbyes 😢. I got a couple of things done that I was hoping to do before leaving copenhagen and I'm so glad I did them. I went to Tivoli (an amusement park) with Ishika, Katherine, Angela, Raiden, and Francesca and it was so awesome! I was worried I wasn't going to like it because I usually don't have a great time at amusement parks, but I actually loved it! I even went on a roller coaster that did loop-de-loops IT WAS SO MUCH FUNNNNN!!!!! (alex should be glad to hear that because he was worried he would never have anybody to go to an amusement park with 😭). We really did have a good time there and it was honestly just such a pretty park to be in and even though it was busy it wasn't busy like the amusement parks in america which I felt added to the whole experience ☺️. One last thing about Tivoli as we were getting ready to leave a peacock came walking down the road and it reminded me of the time there was a peacock in front of the exit at the sioux falls zoo and we couldn't leave and I remember sabrina was scared of it 😂. Anyways, the next day I went to my first hot dog stand of copenhagen and as my grandma knows I've been meaning to go since like february, but I always got so nervous. So I finally worked up the guts and went and got one and although it was good it was nothing compared to the one in iceland 🤤🤤. After the hot dog Emme and I made our way to the living room cafe which was so full circle becuase that's the place that her and I first bonded 🥹. The rest of the day was pretty boring, but katherine and I went to go see francesca, raiden, angela, and ishika present class projects and the student festival and then we headed home for the day. Everything finished up yesterday though. Angela and I went on an 8 mile round trip bike ride to go see some ALPCAS!!! They were so cute and then we walked around 'the park for a while until we were ready to go back home for the day. It was the last big thing I did in copenhagen and I'm so glad I went back to see them. When cole and I went the first time we only saw the sheep 😢 so it was fun to go back and actually see the alpcas! We went out for kebabs last night and it felt so sad knowing I likely won't be back for many years. Today was full of last minute souvenirs and cleaning with francesca. It felt so weird to pack my whole life back up and get it ready for my plane ride home tomorrow 😢. I am so incredibly happy that I did this and chose to come here but there is so much sadness in my heart knowing that I will never have this experience in the same way ever again. I got so lucky being able to share a room with francesca and getting to live with the people I did. I remember being so nervous about making friends before I left and now I feel so sad having to leave the ones I did make. I truly fell in love with Copenhagen and I am so glad that I was able to feel at home in Amager for four months. I'm really going to miss all the laughs shared in the kitchen and all the collab meals we did and all the adventures that I went on. I will never forget this time of my life and I'm so happy I will get to look back at it with and feel happy and with no regrets from this semester ☺️.

Jokes on me I guess it still did take me half of a month to write a new post 🫣. The next one might end up coming when I'm in the airport coming home 😢. It's crazy how quickly this semester has flown I truly can't believe it's less than 2 weeks until I'm sleeping in my bed back at Gustavus 😧. ANYWAYS we'll focus on the last two weeks rather than the upcoming two! I left you guys hanging on packing for a trip last time... the trip was a week long class trip (with psychopharmacology) to Munich, Germany 🍻. It was honestly a lot better and more entertaining than I anticipated which was such a pleasant surprise. The first stop we made (which I feel was not great planning) was to the Dachau concentration camp memorial. The only downfall of this trip was that we went directly from the airport which we woke up around 6:00 to make this flight (which is in fact tooooo early for college students 🫣). It was honestly such a unique experience and very sad I could feel that my soul was heavy thinking about the atrocities that occurred at this site. I won't go too much in to detail about this stop because it really is something you have to experience rather than read about. After this visit we went to check into our hotel which was in fact in the red light district of munich (I was worried I would scare my grandma to death if I shared this information 🤭). I'm not really sure why they chose this hotel when DIS has plenty of money to put us up in a different area of Munich, but okay I guess. Me and some of my class friends (Chloe (my on the trip roommate) and Maeve ☺️) got some dinner after settling down. This was also tricky because we came in on a Sunday which meant basically nothing was open for dinner 😢. We went to this decently yummy Vietnamese place for dinner which was nice becuase it didn't sit in my stomach luckily. We didn't do much else that night because we had a pretty long day by this point and had to be up decently early for the next activity in the morning. The next day was pretty boring in the morning too, but not everything can be exciting on a class trip I suppose 😕. That afternoon we had to ourselves, but unfortunately it was absolutely downpouring which did not get us excited to go do anything outside. We were planning on going on a hike in the bavarian alps, but we didn't want to buy a train ticket and go for an hour and a half just for the trails to be way too muddy 😢. We ended up exploring the city center for a bit and then heading back to the hotel to rest before dinner. We went to this scrumptious italian restuarant for dinner this night and I had some of the best pizza ever!!!! so yummy 🤤. We ended this night back at the hotel for an early bed time around 10. Sunday and Monday were the only days we had weather that we could handle without a jacket (74 and 60 ☀️) so none of us were looking forward to the weather the rest of the week 😭. Tuesday morning we woke up and it was literally snowing... BRUH 😧. We had a lecture by our professor about the use of meth in the war and we walked around the city while this lecture was going while it was windy and raining which was not super fun, but the content was interesting nonetheless. We ended the walk at one of the famous beer gardens except they didn't let us get any beer because we had an academic tour left 😢. Then we went to a childrens museum? not really sure, but I will always love an interactive museum that's free! We finished off the night at a poke bowl restaurant which I personally didn't really like and then only ate like half of unfortunately 😔. The next day when we woke up it was also snowing 😢. We started our day with lectures in Alois Alzheimer's lab which was pretty cool. We learned about animal research and what they are focusing on in their labs right now. In the afternoon we enjoyed a food walk with this crazy tour guide. She tried guessing which state we were all from and she asked if I was from an important state and I said.... no 😔 and she said SOUTH DAKOTA! 🤭 I was full for the rest of the night so I didn't really get anything else to eat. I did however go to this cute little bar (definetly pictured below) to watch the big champions league quarter final soccer game. They ended up winning which was so fun to be in this bar watching all the fans get so excited!! By the end of the game it was just be and my friend Ojas and we rushed back to our hotel to catch the last bit of the man city game too which ended in PKs and Man city lost 😕. We hung out with the rest of our class and then went to bed around midnight. Thursday was my least favorite day of academics... they made us go out and interview local germans about their health care system. Most of them didn't want to talk to us which was disappointing 😢. I understood though but after 6 interviews we decided that was enough and went and grabbed candy from the store and I rushed back to the hotel!! I had to get there in time to sign up for my classes for next semester which thankfully I got all of the ones I was hoping for 🙏! After I signed up for classes we went to meet up with our class for a beer tour were we all maybe had a bit too much, but we were in munich!!! We finished the night at another beer garden where I got vienna schnitzel and a pretzel 🤤. (I had a total of 10 pretzels by the end of the week 😂). The last day we toured the olympic park stadium and took a little walk along the glass roof of the stadium!!! so awesome!! We finished off the day giving presentations about our interviews and how the week went for our group and then headed to the airport! needless to say I was so happy to be back at the end of the week 🥰. (I'm going to add my road trip after some pictures for you!)

I don't even know where to begin! I feel like it's been forever since I last said anything on here!! Much like I mentioned before I have had non stop class work. It's almost like I'm actually taking college courses while I'm in Denmark 🫣. Anyways besides all the exams and papers I've done recently, Franny and I took an awesome trip to Amsterdam last weekend! It was incredible. The best part was getting to see the tulips, but seeing Amsterdam was the only trip I had on my bucket list before coming to Europe ☺️. I was so happy I got to share this experience with another person and I'm especially glad I got to share it with Francesca 🥰. We went on a canal cruise and explored all the places our favorite dutch people (Sophie and David 🤭) told us to go to it was honestly just so incredible to get to be in a place I had only ever heard about from my grandparents ☺️. Honestly there was only a week between when Fran and I got back until I left for my next trip (aka where I am now (don't worry I'll tell you all about it soon) 🫣). Honestly not a super ton happened in the past week as I was basically a shut in with my exams this week. I will say I did get out on Wednesday and had a nice brunch with Francesca and Raiden and then went walking downtown with Raiden in search of a cute light jacket (no luck). Then for dinner Raiden and I (jesus Raiden and I hung out all day today... here's your feature Raiden!!!) we made homemade chicken nuggets 🤤. They were soooooooooo yummy, but they were missing one key thing... RANCH. I had to dip them in some yucky BBQ sauce that I am trying to use up before the end of the semester. Anyways.... My next busy day (with things you may actually want to hear about) was Friday night. As a goodbye send off for frannys trip to meet up with her family Raiden, Francesca, and I all went to all you can eat sushi (and I think I may still be recovering 🤢). It was delicious and we all ate soooooo much, but by the time Saturday morning rolled around we were all feeling a little icky. Raiden seemed to get hit the worst and honestly I've just felt kind of nauseous with a few other tummy troubles. All this to say it was actually so yummy and I likely will not learn from my mistakes and will return again before leaving. Once we got home we watched a movie... friends with benefits which was actually quite good, but I ended up staying up way later than normal. For how late I stayed up, I got up that much later in the morning and started my busy day. I actually shocked myself at the end of the day how much I had done. I started the morning off with a quick trip to Hart bakery (sooo yummy, but honestly my favorite so far has been BUKA 🫣) I also quickly picked up a coffee from Prolog (best coffee I've had in my life 😫). I then had to run over to the student hub to print some papers I needed to sign for my job this summer!!! and I hurried back home to get ready for my picnic with Angela and Cole! I even went so far as to buy a picnic blanket 🫣. After Angie had finished her homework we headed to a flea market in Frederiksberg just to check it out (again no cute light spring jacket 😢). We then stopped in to the closest Netto to grab some food for our picnic and grabbed some really yummy snacks 🤤. We then went to search for a picnic spot and ended up in the middle of Frederiksberg Gardens. It was a gorgeous day outside and we spent so long just chit chatting and eating our little snacks and truly just enjoying one of the very few nice days we get in Copenhagen. After we were done with our snacking we made our way to the cisterne. IT WAS SO COOL, but sooooo eerie and spooky 👻. The cisternes are like this little group of tunnels by the frederiksberg palace. They are doing an odd exhibit there right now so that it was completely pitch black down there basically and you couldn;t see muhc, but Cole found it very calming and meditative. Angie and I were just trying not to fall into the water or get chased by some spooky creature 😂. On our way home we ended up walking past the zoo and I GOT TO SEE A BABY ELEPHANT 😍. It was so adorable and I don't know if I have ever seen a baby one before 🥲. Anyways we had one last activity for the night a couple hours after we got home. We went to Reffen and I BIKED for the first time in Copenhagen. It was so fun.... but it did start raining on us 7 minutes into the ride after we checked to make sure it wasn't supposed to rain 😔. I ended up getting a hot dog because it seemed to have the same things as the one in Iceland, but truly was not even close to as good 😢. We biked back home after our dinner and I finished packing for my trip and said goodbye to all of my friends 😭. Anyways I can't wait to share with you what I'm up to this week and you might even get a new post within the next week instead of waiting half of a month 😂.

First: Happy Easter!! Second: as exciting as it has been to live in Copenhagen and hangout here for the last week or two, my life here isn't as thrilling as chasing whales and exploring London. I decided there are a few things I've wanted to talk to you guys about in this post :) I am going to walk you through the next few paragraphs so you can decide what you want to read about 😚. The next paragraph is going to be my typical catch up when I tell you all the fun things I've seen and done and experienced (might be kind of short 😅). The paragraph after that is going to be me taking you through my journey of self discovery... how I learned how to make meals for myself that I enjoy and aren't just grilled cheese sandwiches because I am quite proud of this unexpected journey ☺️. The last paragraph I will be closing out with before all the pictures I know you are waiting for will be about some things I've learned about the world and myself and the unexpected surprises along the way (that you haven't gotten to hear about! 😁). Feel free to skip around this post and read only want you want or just look at the pictures if that's your favorite part (I like to think of it as a little treat at the end of all my typing as I add them in to the page ☺️).

Based on the picture could you tell where I went 🤭. This past weekend I traveled to the gorgeous country of Iceland! It was incredible and I had a lovely friend drop me off at my hotel and pick me back up before we all headed back to the airport. We landed on Friday around 4:00pm and the weather reminded me much of the lovely gorgeous weather of a midwest winter 😆. It was freezing rain and about 40 mph wind gusts as we stepped off the bus and it instantly took away my homesickness 😅. The first night I decided to go walking around Reykjavik just to explore a little bit. I found the most delicious and warming lobster soup while I searching. It was called Saegreifinn. If you are ever in Reykjavik and are looking for some stupendous bread along with a delicious bowl of soup I highly recommend going here and I recommend getting there early. I went right at 6:00 (right when they open for dinner time) and was done around 6:30 which was when it really started to fill up with people. After that despite all the cold weather I knew I needed to grab some ice cream 🫣. I went to a cute ice cream shop called Valdis and started my journey back to my hostel. As I was walking home the biggest snow flakes I have ever seen started to come down (see the blurry picture below 😆). I made it back to my hostel around 8:00 pm that night and I had a strong debate with myself if I should go try to get out of the light pollution and search for the northern lights. Unfortunately I decided against it because I was already cold and tired 😴. I also knew that I would have to wake up decently early the next morning and I had planned a northern lights tour for Saturday night anyways. Saturday morning came around and I walked over to the bus stop around 7:30 am! I was off to go see the golden circle. This trip included a stay at one of the lagoons that is geothermically heated (secret lagoon), the site of a crater, a geysir (unfortunately not pictured but I got an awesome video), a gorgeous waterfall, and one of the national parks that sits on both the North American tectonic plate and the Eurasian tectonic plate! Starting off with the crater we were able to walk all the way down right next to the water (that was frozen over). It was actually terrifying walking down the slippery stairs to get to the bottom I thought I was going to slide the whole way down instead of walking 😂. I will say once I got to the bottom I did in fact slide the rest of the way to the crater when I slipped and totally embarrassed myself 🫠.  The next stop after the crater was to the secret lagoon. It was so relaxing and honestly made me so tired for the rest of the trip. It was so nice that there was like nobody there unlike some of the more popular lagoons like blue lagoon and sky lagoon. It just made the whole experience so surreal and it looked so mystical watching the steam blow over the landscape outside of the lagoon. We then made our way to one of the most active geysers in the world. It erupted about every 5 minutes so we got to see it go off a couple of times which was incredible 😮 (unfortunately no good pictures were taken just a really cool video right as it was erupting 😁). Our next stop was to an incredible waterfall... the sun was shining which then projected a rainbow 🌈 which made it seem so magical ☺️. On our way to our last stop at the national park we stopped at an Icelandic horse farm. It was so cute getting to see them and our tour guide bought a container of food to feed them which was so much fun ☺️. Our last stop was then to the national park where we saw where the two plates are starting to separate from each other creating a large gap in between the two sides of the park. This was also where they used to hold parliamentary meetings so long ago which was cool to hear the history of the brutal Icelandic traditions 🫣.  Once we got back I went and ate the most life-changing hot dog of my whole life (it is in fact pictured below). I was told I had to eat skyr while I was in Iceland too which I will admit very yummy, but I don't really see the difference between skyr and regular yogurt. I had so much time after my tour ended at 6:30 because my northern lights tour was CANCELLED 😭😭. I ended up debating for hours and hours if I should go whale watching sunday morning or not. Can you guess what I decided.... I decided to go whale watching 🐳 and honestly it was the the most incredible thing I've ever done. It was the best choice I could have made especially since my tour was cancelled. We followed a humpback whale named Frodo and she CAME RIGHT NEXT TO THE BOAT. I cried (may have been from the 30 mph wind gusts straight into my eyes, but we will say it's because it was a magical moment). I also put on like a full snow suit which reminded me a lot of snowmobiling on the farm 🫣. After whale watching I met back up with my friends that were in Iceland at the same time and hit a moment of weakness when I got another hot dog 🤭. It was honestly such a great way to end the trip and everything I did was all so new to me which made it so extra super special ☺️

WARNING THIS MIGHT TAKE YOU FOREVER TO READ!!!!

This week was kind of full to be honest, but the actual weekdays were probably more boring than you may want to hear (but I am going to tell you anyways 🤭). The first part of the week I held my first ever lecture with 6 of my classmates. We ended up taking an hour and a half for the whole lecture which was really exciting because I was nervous half way through we wouldn't make the hour requirement. We got a really good grade which is of course always the end goal in a class. The presentation was on epilepsy which honestly I knew very little about before doing the research I needed to. Overall I think it went really well and I think we really got the grade we deserved :) The next day I had a field trip, but really it was just a guest lecture which was interesting, but I was not really in the listening mood I should have been. He talked to us about emergency care in Denmark which was truly very interesting and made me realize how important the patient care hours really are before becoming a doctor. After the lecture was done though, Katherine and I took a trip to the Museum of Copenhagen which is free every wednesday. It was really interesting and I think you would really like it, Papa. It told the history of Denmark all together along with the history of each individual neighborhood that makes up Copenhagen. There was also a really cool rotating exhibit about this famous artist named Antoni (I'll of course post pictures below 😁). My earliest class on thursday got canceled this week which was really nice because I was able to sleep in! This of course made the week go by even faster, but it did kind of mess up my schedule a little bit which made it harder to pay attention in my other classes. Friday finally came next!! I started out my day the best way possible and watched a movie over facetime with Alex 🥰. Since we are in such different time zones we unfortunately don't usually have our schedules align well enough for something like that. After that, I was so excited alllllll day long. I could not wait. I had so much energy I went on a two and a half mile walk and got back and still was pacing around my room. Francesca and I finally left for the Noah Kahan concert around 5:30 in order to get to the venue around 6:00. We got there and waited in line for about 45 minutes and we finally got in and got spots so close to the front. This was the most incredible experience of my whole life. I was so exhilarated the rest of the night I had so much energy when we got home still I could have stayed up the whole night and I did not have anything with any caffeine throughout the day ☺️. This concert experience made me so much more excited for my 3 concerts I planned for this summer 🫣. I had a very slow Saturday morning, but got all of my homework done so I could just hangout today. I also planned my whole itinerary for my UK trip I have coming up 😁 I am getting so so sooo excited for that! Saturday night Angela brought her mom and sister over and they made the most delicious dumplings for us which was so kind of them. It was so fun getting to meet them and see how similar Angela is to her twin 🤭. They are the sweetest little family (still sad we don't get to meet your dad, Angie 😢). It was really fun because Katherine had her girlfriend over too. It's so fun getting to see my friends bits and pieces of their life back home especially hearing all about these people too ☺️ it was so wholesome. Today was super packed full and lots of fun time with Raiden 😂. It was a gorgeous day outside so we took a walk to the beach and saw a couple of naked Danes doing a cold plunge 🫣. This is a no judgement zone, but let me tell you it caught me soooo off guard to see some random people's booty 😂. Raiden and I decided we wanted to organize a CLOTHED cold plunge with our floor if we ever have a weekend where it all lines up for us to do that 🫠. We walked quite the distance again so once we got home I made a very yummy smoothie and he made some udon (it was 4 pm). This meant we weren't super hungry by normal dinner time so we left to go see some of the installations of the light festival that happens every february in Copenhagen. They were so super cool and we went around to see them on Lime scooters 😂 🛴. It was truly a very fun experience, but we got absolutely drenched from the rain. I had probably one of the most fun weekends I've had here so far and I am really sad we won't get too many more where we are all home like this again :( This semester has already gone by so fast and I can't believe March is at the end of this week already. It makes me and Francesca so sad thinking about it, but it comes up in conversation at least once a week 😂.

Last week was Valentine's Day on Wednesday and Francesca's Birthday on Thursday! The last half of the week was definitely more interesting than the first half. The first few days were pretty boring as they just consisted of class and hanging out. On Wednesday I had no class so I was able to get all the ingredients for our dinner and decorate our room a little which was super fun! We made cute heart shaped pizza and Giulia made with all the red veggies she could think of :) we enjoyed our little meal and Charlotte baked some yummy cookies for us with jam in the middle. Before dinner I made the dough for some donuts that I was going to fry the next morning. I didn't want Francesca to know because they were for her birthday :) I made the glaze for the donuts after dinner and then we finished the night with the Hunger Games (not super valentines themed, but it was fun to be around everyone 🥰). The next morning I woke up around 6:30 and shaped the donuts and let them rise for two hours. Lucky for me my professor had canceled my 8:30 class which meant I was actually able to make these before Francesca was out of the room and I didn't have to be up crazy early. She had told me she didn't really care for cake, but that her favorite sweet treat was donuts 🍩. I have never made donuts before so I was really nervous they wouldn't turn out. I started frying them and I was just hoping they were good. I ended up giving Francesca some from the very first batch I fried and forgot to actually try them before setting them on a plate for her 🫠. She said they were so yummy and I had tried a few after the first batch and they were the best donuts I had ever had. I think I am going to have to make them again before I leave 🤤 or for sure when I get back. It was fun to put my energy into something like this since I spend most of my time doing homework and watching gossip girl in the cold weather 🫣. Thursday night we went out to dinner at Mæxico and it was so yummy. I got shrimp tacos and they were exactly what I wanted (dare I say better than McKenzie River 🫣). Angela got a really bad tummy ache while we were there and she tried to say it was food poisoning, but no one else was getting sick 😂. We didn't do much Friday, but we had a big day on Saturday. In the morning, Katherine, Angela, Emme, Francesca, and I went to do some pottery painting (I was too embarrassed to show my creation so pictured below is outline my plate left on the table when I finished painting 😢). We had a really good time and went home to rest before our big night out. We started getting all ready around 9 which was super fun and then we started playing games and David (one of the local residents) joined in and brought all of his friends. We had a really good time, but Emme and I came home early because it was too cold outside 🥶. We also lost Francesca to some of her other friends in the process so we didn't really want to be out anymore. It was kinda funny though because Francesca came home not too long after which I did not expect, but she hasn't been feeling too well anyways. Sunday I thought I only woke up at 10 am and my watch told me I did not wake up anytime throughout the night, but today I found a picture on my phone from Sunday at 7:15 am. I had to chuckle to myself because I have no recollection of taking the picture of the gorgeous sunrise pictured below. Overall it was a really fun weekend and Francesca and I are going to see Noah Kahan on Friday night!!! I can't wait to stay tuned for those updates :) 

This last week I spent in Malmo, Sweden! We left right after we got back from Milan last weekend and I am pooped 😴 We left on Monday at 10 am (I got back from Milan at 1:30 on Sunday mind you) for the hour long bus ride to right outside Malmo. We had our first academic event of the week at 2:00 which was a visit to the biomedical center at Lund University. It was really interesting and I ran into a PhD student who was actually originally from Minnesota! It was really interesting hearing her story about moving here for school and how she felt about the process (she may have slightly convinced me to further my eduction in Europe... 🫣).  After our visit to the biomedical center in Lund we went back to Malmo to check into our hotel and get ready for some dinner! We went to a nice restaurant that gave us some delicious food and played pentanque (aka bocce ball). It was really fun and I had a good time bonding with people from my core course. (I probably should have mentioned I went to Malmo with my psychopharmacology class to get a cultural understanding and background of the use of pharmaceuticals and brain disorders in Scandinavia as a part of the DIS program.) I was really worried before leaving because I hadn't talked much to the people in my class before this trip and we are spending a full week in Munich together later in the semester as well. This was honestly really telling of everyone's personalities and how we would all mesh. After our long and tiring games of pentanque we headed to get a sweet treat (a cookie and ice cream) and went back to the hotel. You will soon pick up a theme of many of these posts as my stomach quickly began to hurt after finishing my treat 😢. Nevertheless I would go back and get that dessert many times again 🤤. Because my tummy was hurting though I was able to stay up a little longer and talk to Alex again which was really quite lovely 🥰. We had a late wake up call so we were able to sleep in the next day and slow roll the morning which was really nice. We had breakfast provided by the hotel and got ready for the day. On Tuesday we went to a children's museum of life. This was a really cool experience because we were able to see how Sweden presents their information on mental health and overall wellness to the general population. This museum also gave us a little bit of a look into the past of Sweden and their medical inventions. Ventilators, X-ray technology, Dialysis were all inventions made in Lund which was incredible to learn a little bit more about the history of such well known creations especially when it comes to things that are used frequently in hospitals I will hopefully be working in one day. After the museum we went to another fancy restaurant where we were served a three course meal with the entree including rainbow trout and hollandaise sauce. It was all so yummy and it was so fun to have it all set and ready for us. This was technically our lunch, but we finished around 3:00 so we weren't really hungry by the time dinner time rolled around. So after these elaborate meals what I had for dinner on tuesday was some chips and chocolate and it truly hit the spot 🤤. We had a much earlier wake up call on Wednesday since it was our day to head back to Copenhagen. We started out the day by packing our stuff up and grabbing a quick breakfast from the hotel. We then went on our way to go see a viking museum, but we showed up and it was in fact closed. At this point we had realized that the booking for the viking museum was in Denmark and not Sweden so we set off for something else. We headed to the southern coast of Sweden near the baltic sea (I touched it no big deal 😎) and found a cute little lighthouse. We went and saw it and turned around and left 😔. We had places to be and those places were a gorgeous meal at a beachside restaurant and a forensic psychiatry unit where we got a tour and information on how the criminal justice system works in Sweden. It was interesting to see the quality of life and options these patients had of things to do at the facility. It was much more rehabilitating than it was punishing which was a unique contrast to some of the facilities in the united states. After this visit we headed back to Copenhagen where I felt at home again. I got the best sleep of my life that night because I was wanting my own bed again back in my little apartment. This incredible sleep was not long after I planned a trip to Iceland. I really want to see the northern lights so I figured what better to see them than to book a flight to Iceland so look out for an update about that in a few weeks 🤭. The rest of the week was filled with lectures and reuniting with my friends as we all went on trips to different places this week which was so sad and I missed them so much. It was quite upsetting because the day I got back a couple of my other friends left shortly after for their study tours 😢. They just got back today and I missed them so much :) I don't have too exciting of a week coming up so stay tuned in the next 10 ish days!

This last weekend was the first trip I went on out of Copenhagen! It was super exciting for me since I have never been to Europe. We chose Milan about a week and a half ago after deciding going to see the northern lights was too expensive 😔. We were in Milan for a total of 39 hours and we made the most of it by only sleeping a total of 10 hours the whole trip 🫣. We arrived in Milan on Friday night at around 9:00 and then took a bus to the city center which was another hour. Once we got to the city center we met up with Ishika and found a place to eat dinner. We walked to Osterio De Fourtunada and upon arrival the host asked us how many in our group and we said 7. He got a little nervous and ended up calling their other location that was 10 minutes away because there were bigger tables there. He ended up getting us in at that location so we made our little trek over there. Once we arrived we were sat down immediately which was so incredible. We were all starving since it was almost 11:00 at this point and the smell and look of the homemade pasta just made all of us sooo happy. They gave us some delicious bread as an appetizer and we ordered our pasta (I got the Cacio e pepe (pictured below) and it made my tummy so happy (or so I thought)). We finished dinner around 12:00 and we set out to find a sweet treat... there were none to be found 😭 at least not nearby at open at 12:30 in the morning. We decided it was in fact time to head to our airbnb so we started heading toward the big M that we all know as the metro. We made our way over to the entrance and found out it was closed for the night 😭. We ended up hopping on a cute little tram and made our 40 minute way to the airbnb. Luckily we were all full and excited for the next day that we were not yet grouchy with each other 🤭.  Once arriving at our airbnb it was time to figure out the bedding situation. Usually it's not too hard to figure out where people are going to sleep... but we had 7 people and only 5 real beds. After some arguing over the loft and the size of different beds we set up the sleeping arrangement. Raiden and I got the two beds up on the loft and Angela slept right below us (basically the best room ever see the pictures below). Katherine and Ishika shared the other bedroom and got the nice king sized bed. Francesca and Drew took the two couches in the living room (after Francesca felt defeated for Raiden's begging of one of the loft beds (coulda been the girl's gossip room 😔)). We ended up falling asleep around 3:00 which was a little late for me, but it was well worth it. It was unfortunate, however, because I was up an hour later with a tummy ache from the delicious pasta 😔. Not only did I wake up myself, but I ended up waking up Raiden, Angela, and Francesca all because we were in such close quarters 😭. To be fair Raiden woke up in a panic because he left his ring in the bathroom, but he thought he lost it 😂, but the Raiden scared me because I didn't expect anyone to wake up which then made me tell him that he scared me which woke up Francesca. Then Raiden and I got back to the room and he started telling me something that woke up Angela. This lead to all of us being a little extra tired in the morning 😢. We woke up around 7:00 on Saturday and had a slow roll out of bed. Once we got going we headed to the Duomo, but first grabbed some pastries and coffee from a small cafe nearby. I got a chocolate filled donut and it was the best donut I've had in my whole life and I will be dreaming about it for the next rest of my life 🤤. We then went to the Duomo and walked on the terraces and explored the Cathedral it was incredible. We got so many good pictures and the cathedral was gorgeous despite the scaffolding. After the Duomo we walked around the area for a bit and took a look at all the designer stores. We found some sandwiches for lunch and they were so good, but my stomach was hurting so bad after the coffee 😤 I ended up taking most of it back to eat once everything calmed down. We then headed to Navigli for some shopping and stopped at some tourist shops along the way. I wanted an "I ❤️ Milano" shirt, but ended up not getting one which I do regret now. For our last stop in Navigli Drew found an incredible coat that we were all impressed by and decided we should go home and rest for a little bit before getting dinner. This was a great rest and reset my tummy so I was feeling much better by the time we were ready to go out. For dinner on Saturday we headed to Testone for what we thought was pizza, but was instead this cool sandwich/pita/calzone almost instead. It was really yummy despite my initial hesitancy. Once we were done there we got some yummy crepes for dessert and went searching for a bar we liked. We ran across a nice bar after about 30 minutes of walking around and I ordered my first cocktail. It was so good it was a peach juice with vodka, lime, and a couple other ingredients (that I do not remember at all. I would recommend this place to anyone that wants to get a drink in Navigli because the atmosphere was also incredible, but I cannot remember the name 😔). We stayed there for a couple of hours before heading back to the airbnb. Again the metro line was closed so we took the tram all the way back which ended up being about a 40-60 minute journey. We ended back at the airbnb around 2:00 and had to get up at 6:45 for our flight. Honestly not much happened after that we made it to the airport way early and had breakfast there (Angela and I got our long awaited pizza and it was so good 🤤). We got on our plane and we were back in Copenhagen (home sweet home 🥰). Anyways I'll let you have a break from reading and give you a ton of pictures of our incredible weekend!!

It has been one very full week since the last time I have posted so get ready. Last Friday I had the day off from class and honestly spent most of the day doing homework and catching up for the week ahead of me (pretty boring). My floormates and I did go out for drinks Friday night though and stumbled across a cute little cafe (don't worry, family, I still have yet to have my first full drink and only drank lemonade on this night 🤭) . On saturday we went and explored a new neighborhood, Norrebro, which is just west of where we are staying. It was really fun and we stopped by a park (pictures below) where I absolutely got my butt wet (a parka does in fact fly up when you are on a slide don't let the length fool you 😖). We also stopped by the cemetery that Hans Christian Anderson was buried, but it was too muddy for my white shoes so I will have to go back to actually see his grave. We then stopped for kebab (bad choice I was up for several hours in the middle of the night) and it tasted so good for how badly it made me feel. We finished off the trip with some shopping in the vintage stores and I got a cute sweater (not pictured below unfortunately). For the rest of the night we watched barbie and talked about a trip to see the northern lights. Sunday was another homework study day. I just had a few readings to finish up so I went to joe and the juice and I asked the person behind the counter to just make me their favorite drink. This was a horrible decision as I got a pressed juice that contained bell pepper, ginger, turmeric, and other salty things that I would not get again in a juice 🤢. The rest of the day was spent looking for the cheapest flights to northern Norway; unfortunately the cheapest was $200. We decided that the northern lights were not worth that much money, and we decided instead to go south. We planned a trip to Milan! I cannot wait to go there will be seven of us on the trip and it was such a fun experience buying the tickets and finding an airbnb, I have never gotten to travel with friends in this capacity before so I am so excited. Monday and Tuesday looked very similar this week I had 3 classes on Monday which all went very smoothly and then proceeded to take the metro home all by myself for the first time (somehow I hadn't gone by myself despite being here for a week and a half). Unfortunately I didn't want to be by myself so I Facetimed one of my floormates to see what she was doing and in the process I forgot I actually had a stop I needed to get off on. I ended up walking back home because it was a gorgeous day and I got to see a bit more of Copenhagen that I hadn't seen before. Tuesday I attended two classes I had not been to yet which were my epigenetics class and neurological disorders and diseases. I really am looking forward to learning about both of these classes more especially as I have had a major interest in epigenetics since my senior year of high school. Wednesday got interesting again; I had my first field study of this semester (a field study is basically a field trip to somewhere that relates to the class in the simplest definition). I have to give a trigger warning to the pictures about this trip though. They are quite graphic and disturbing pictures of human body parts so just be aware! The museum was really quite interesting to me and our tour guide was even named Sabrina (I think it's the name because she reminded me a lot of my older sister ☺️). At the end of the night I met my visiting host (kind of like a host family, but I only meet with him once a month). He was very kind and prepared a meal of beef, potatoes, and green beans which was delicious along with a traditional danish dessert. The dessert is called citronformage, but despite the name was just made with some sugar, cream, and lemon zest. It reminded me of whipped yoplait yogurt it was so yummy 😁. Now we have finally made it to the present. Today was super filled for me! I went to my three classes and met two of my friends for lunch. All of my classes were really interesting and engaging rather than just straight lecture which was really good because I was feeling quite tired today. After my classes got out I walked about 20 minutes to Nytorv and saw the famous colorful buildings (yet again pictured below) which was a really pretty site to see and a very freeing walk. Then I walked another 20 minutes to see the famous little mermaid statue. I think the best part of seeing the statue was I got to facetime with Alex for an hour an a half and share the moment with him despite being 4,000 miles away from each other. It was a great walk and I hadn't yet gone exploring without my friends here yet which was a completely new experience for me. I really like to be around people and experience (especially new) things with those that I care about, but there is an appreciation to exploring by yourself that I had yet to discover. I took the metro home from a new station and taught my grandma how to video call on my way home which was fun to see her react to being able to see my face ☺️. Once I settled at home I rested for about an hour before helping (not so much) make a meal with my friends. We made crusted chicken, homemade gnocchi, green beans, a salad, and for dessert (the part I helped with) Katherine's amazing chocolate chip cookies. I think it's the way she browns the butter but these are the best cookies I have ever eaten in my life (sorry grandma 😅). I ended the night with an episode of percy jackson with Ishika and giggling with Francesca and finishing up this post. I have really had a great week and I hope you enjoyed catching up with me and enjoy the pictures below :)

The last few days have been crazy! Yesterday was super fun because we had our core course orientation. This was basically just a syllabus day, but classes had not officially started yet yesterday. After we were talked at for a while we went down to a coffee shop nearby (The Living Room) and it had such a cozy and intimate environment. We were able to meet students in both sections of the class and just talk about our experiences here and with neuroscience and just whatever we wanted to talk about. (we also got a free drink and cheese sandwich... SCORE!) Half the floor also went out and got some ramen for dinner last night which was really fun as a wind down before the crazy semester speeds past us. Onto today though which is what this was supposed to be about 🫣 It was the first day of classes so I woke up around 7:00 and left around 7:45 ish for my 8:30 class. I thought I was going to have to significantly change my schedule from Gustavus, but so far (one day into it) there hasn't been a ton of change. My first class was psychopharmacology which is a little intimidating because I don't have a neuroscience background, but I really can't wait to learn more about this subject. My professor has made the class easy to ask questions in and I've been really good about making friends with who I sit around and the people I sit by are really smart (or at least seem so) so I have plenty of resources near to me. My next class was right after and it was my anthropology of food course. I am so excited for this course because I feel I will be able to really understand Danish culture to a deeper extent despite not taking a language course. I also am super excited to show my friends the fun areas we explore in my class for good food (some pictures of the glass market/ torvehallerne are below). I got a small chocolate croissant which I wish I could have shared with my Grandma today, I just know she would love it, so if we can ever make it to europe together, Grandma, I know where we have to go :) After that I was able to meet up with some friends (aka my favorite people in europe aka some floor mates) for lunch at the student hub. I made a wrap and brought some fruit that I packed last night. After lunch I grabbed a chai and met Francesca (my roomie) for our developmental disorders class we have together. It was in such an odd location there was a sign that said "no DIS students to the left" and the class was in fact to the left 😔. It was kinda funny trying to find it. Then it was time to head back home so I overheard someone in my class had to hit the metro so I went up to him and made a new friend. He doubted my navigating skills to the M2 line, but my friends here know I am quite good with my sense of direction so he did in fact have to apologize when I got us there much quicker than him wandering around. We then talked all the way to my stop and he got off on the one after me so I'm looking forward to having a new friend to ride the metro with on the way home. I don't know why, but whenever I go somewhere that I know nobody I get so anxious I won't know how to make friends, and then I never have an issue. My family likes to make fun of me for that so maybe I should take their advice and realize it will all work out, but it's much more fun to freak out. After classes we watched some phineas and ferb and then got ready for dinner. We had a floor dinner tonight and decided on one every 2 weeks. I can't wait and I am so glad our floor is so fun and willing to do things together! We (I say we and I just cut up a cucumber 🙃) made tacos tonight and just talked for like 3 hours. I also live in a building with local residents who are just (mostly) Danish college aged students who are incredible. There are four on our floor and it is so fun to get to talk to them and it is such a unique experience to get to live with local residents who can tell us about American Tuesdays (I'll tell you all about it another time) and laugh at the other DIS students learning danish. It is so fun getting to know students from all across America and also people who are much more familiar with the area. I'm so glad Denmark is so similar to midwestern culture and living because I truly haven't experienced much culture shock and I truly was preparing for a big adjustment. I even find myself judging people already for not being on the right side of the escalator (stay on the right side if you are not walking up the escalator and just want to stand). Anyways I have been having a really great time already and I can't wait to continue to document my journey of the next four months so thank you for reading :) Also especially as the semester gets crazy I am hoping to get a post in about once a week and it will be awesome if I can do more, but don't expect too many otherwise they'll get boring and I want to keep you on your toes 😉

Today was coronation day! This was a really big deal in Copenhagen as the queen abdicated her throne and her son took over. It was so awesome to be in the city when this historical moment was happening. We didn't get to see much as there were crowds and crowds of people as pictured in the photo gallery we did get to see some of the horses that the police were riding on which was pretty awesome :). This all occurred around 2:00 ish so so much happened before. My roommate and I got ready and headed to a cute bakery about a block and a half away I tired the pastry that was the baristas favorite and it was very sweet and would not be able to tell you what it was called. We then walked back to our apartment and enjoyed our tea and little treat before heading on a scavenger hunt with what was supposed to be 6 people, but we made it a big group and it was basically our whole floor. This was really fun because we got to get to know each other really well and the city. We learned a lot about the recycling they do here in Denmark which is quite extensive and even took our first ride on the metro in copenhagen (my first time ever on anything like it). We didn't take it on our way downtown because it was so packed for the coronation so we took about a 45 minute walk. We hadn't originally planned to stop to see any of it, but we thought it was pretty important to. After about 30 minutes trying to get a view of anything we gave up and headed to the DIS student hub. We get a tour of the hub along with where any classes may be held which is super exciting as we get to start school on the 18th! We finally hit the metro for the way back to our apartment which was a really fun experience and we only have to change trains (or subways or whatever) once which will make an easy commute. We took about a 30-45 minute break before we were onto the next thing: groceries and shopping! We needed a few more things for the room and food to cook so we went to the mall. We left around 4:10 and it's only about a 2 minute walk away, but unfortunately the mall closed at 5:00 so we will be back another day. I have never had to cook for myself so this first round of grocery shopping was quite interesting. I grabbed enough for a couple of days and for lunches on my first two days so I didn't have to worry about it, but it's so close we'll be able to stop in for whatever we want for dinner that night if we choose! Tonight we actually didn't even make the food we bought and went to a cute burger shop and spent about 3 hours just talking. Naturally nobody in my group has been to south dakota so a lot of conversation was based around the fact it felt like -47 degrees Fahrenheit there and was a good old 33 degrees here. After dinner I sat with some of the people with fifth floor and we broke out a puzzle and if you know anything about me I love puzzles. We listened to music and just chit chatted while doing the puzzle for about 2 hours. It's been really awesome meeting new people and getting to know everyone so I can't wait to meet more people once our classes start! I also got to facetime alex for the first time today which I caught him at the end of practice, but it was so nice to see him and hear his voice :) long distance for 4 months is going to be so strange to us. 

I wish I could describe the feelings I felt on the plane and arriving to Copenhagen, but the best I can do is I feel like I have been having an out-of-body experience since first arriving at MSP. So many new adventures have already happened and I'm not even 24 hours from the start. Starting simply I have never flown out of MSP so I was quite lost, Alex and I parked and I had no idea we would have to take the tram just to get to my terminal. I also had never flown by myself before and the last time I flew was 6 years ago and I barely remember sitting on the plane. After saying goodbye to alex and passing through TSA, I ran into this super nice old man who honestly helped me more than he thought. It was such a simple thing, but all he did was talk to me about my trip and what I was doing and it calmed my nerves and helped me realize that this was all going to be okay. He also boosted my mood which helped me make a friend on my flight to Amsterdam. I realized that just basic airport small talk made my mood about 100x better so I brought that courtesy onto the person sitting next to me on the flight. Funny enough they were headed to Copenhagen with a layover in Amsterdam to. We ended up chit chatting now and again the whole flight which definitely helped during an 8.5 hour flight. I also got to see the northern lights for the first time on this plane ride. We were flying over Greenland and Alex was sweet enough to send me a text to let me know that they were quite bright and I ended up peering out my window to the views below (which these pictures do not do it justice).

A lot of what happened in the month of January was saying goodbye, packing, and crying :( The month started off saying goodbye to my grandparents and my mom's side of the family, and then gradually more and more goodbyes had to come. One of the hardest goodbyes for me was to my daycare that I worked at because that was the one thing I would not be coming back to. I wouldn't be seeing the kids that I watched grow from little two year olds to almost four year olds and that one was really hard for me. Honestly though the first few weeks of January were so jam packed that I still haven't had much time to process that these goodbyes are for more than just a week. For me the sadness and the homesickness and the missing has not yet kicked in and maybe that's one of the perks of traveling abroad alone. These feelings won't hit you until they really do and I think that's something unique to each individual. I will say the thing that helped me the most when saying goodbye was not dwelling on the goodbye to come in the last few minutes I got with my people. After a year and a half of mid-distance with Alex learning to not think about the goodbyes until they come was highly beneficial. If you are studying abroad that is my best piece of advice; which I know it's hard to not think about the inevitable (especially when you are a person who wants to plan for everything), but it really helps me think in the moment and about the see you later instead. 

Like I mentioned in my last post, May was full of uncertainty and stress. However, once most of that was settled came in the excitement. By the middle of July I was finally able to pick out my whole schedule for the spring semester, apply for whatever housing I wanted, get all my required documents in, and learn all about Copenhagen. A lot of what I was most curious about was how to dress and not look like a tourist so I wouldn't get pick pocketed. I spent months on this topic looking on google, on vogue, on tik tok, on instagram, on random magazines. By January I still had no idea what to pack. Writing this now I just landed today and still am not sure if I packed the right things. Besides all the fun stuff of my preparation also came looking for and applying to scholarships, receiving my passport, determining what I needed to do for a visa. If you are also a student that somehow stumbled across this little site of mine let me give you some insider information. Apply for scholarships that are specific towards your region or country, apply for Gilman (if you are eligible), and honestly just do some simple searches at your college or university and on google. This was the most beneficial for my preparation and looking for them early was especially helpful. I found the scholarships I wanted to apply for for the most part by the end of august so I didn't have to worry about looking for more as I was trying to start my courses for the fall. Most of the scholarships I applied for had a deadline of late September or early October for spring semester programs just as a heads-up. As for documentation make sure you fully understand your study abroad countries programs because Denmark allows citizens from certain countries to enter visa free for the first 90 days of their stay or something like that. So I didn't have to worry about any immigration business until after I arrived. Anywho, for me a lot of my packing was just clothes because the housing provided came fully furnished so packing was relatively easy in having a list. Going to a country like Denmark or any that has four seasons it was still tricking to determine what kinds of layers to bring. The packing list, thinking about packing, and scholarships applications/ decisions were the majority of what occupied my mind from September through January. A lot of it was just sitting and waiting which I do not do well so this fall semester I really learned what it meant to be patient.

Last January Alex brought up the idea of studying abroad in Australia and New Zealand. He always wanted to be a marine biologist so I thought that would be the perfect opportunity for him. By February or March he found out he was accepted to his program. During this process for him, I thought maybe I should also look into maybe studying abroad. I looked on the Gustavus website and found a program that had psychology, biology, and pre-medicine classes all in one. So I looked into it and I met with the study abroad advisor at Gustavus; he along with every professor and faculty member I talked with encouraged me to apply and see what happens. In early March I did exactly that and by April I found out my decision. I'm assuming you can guess what that decision was otherwise I wouldn't be writing this right now. For the program I had chosen there were, however, multiple stages of being accepted. I first was accepted by Gustavus in April and then I had to await the decision of the program provider, DIS. I got this decision in late May and that was finally when the ball started rolling. The whole end of the spring semester was a stressful waiting game to see if I would actually be going with this program. This stress mixed with final exam stress, moving out for the year, and Katie leaving :( definitely kept me busy. Overall the communication between Gustavus, DIS, and myself was very easy and I was able to get many of my questions answered which I know other programs are not as responsive which was really helpful.