Switzerland/France (cheese, wine, chocolate)

By the time I get around to updating this I usually forget all the interesting details. Switzerland was the tits. Went with a New Zealander named Steve. We stayed at his friend Monique's house. And by house I mean her host family/ nazi slave driver's place. They were in Paris for the week and she had some horror stories about the kids and mom. She had decided to leave while they were on their vacation and move in with her Dad in Wales. Anyway before they left she said a friend would be painting the house all week and NO ONE was supposed to stay in the house. Of course Monique failed to mention this until we arrived. Between dodging the painter we took tours at CERN (biggest particle accelerator on the planet), the UN, and drove to the tallest peak in Europe, Mont Blanc. Our tour guide was a physicist named Bill Murray. Bill was a guy who probably couldn't tie his own shoes but new how to smash electrons together to try and find antimatter. I could tell he was running numbers in his head the whole time. The perfect tour guide for the occasion. On the tour some annoying Asian guy who thought he knew everything (he knew nothing) asked how far the other detection site was. Mr. Murray calmly answered 27 over pi kilometers away. It didn't register to me that he meant the circle was 27 km in circumference so the diameter was 27/pi (obvious right?). I thought he was talking about some town. After the tour we had a fondue dinner. I've never eaten so much melted cheese in my life. I paid dearly for this the next day but the dinner was well worth it. We rented a car but missed the bus to the airport to pick it up so we hitchhiked. I didn't think the 3 of us had a chance, but 5 minutes later we were sitting in a French girls car. It was my favorite part of the trip. We got the car and drove to Chamonix/Mont Blanc. Deciding it was a good idea to sleep in the car, a Fiat Panda, we went out in Chamonix and had a blast. Everyone was down to party and the bars were real cool. All three of us were pretty drunk when we realized it was 20 degrees and the car was the size of a microwave. Next time I'll pony up the cash and get a hostel but oh well. Anything for the adventure. The drive back in the morning was gorgeous. We drove through mountains for hours and along the coast of Lake Geneva. We stopped at a couple bakeries and chocolate shops along the way. I've never had so much good wine, chocolate, and cheese in my life. After we returned the car we spent some time in Geneva and saw the sites. We went in this fur coat shop and I thought it was a good idea to put on a 26,000 dollar fur coat. The owner of the place was about to call the cops so we bounced. Every store we went in to, the workers just stared us down until we left. For good reason I guess since everything was ridiculously pricey. Anyway me and Steve took a midnight bus to the airport and slept there until our flight at 5 a.m. Taxis were about 40 euro so we decided to skip it. Paid off since I spent the extra cash at the Duty Free shop on cheap Absolut and Swiss Chocolate. All in all it's good to be back in the CPH. Apologies for the book of a post.

Copenhagen Round 1

Well clearly this blog is a self fulfilling prophecy. I knew I wouldn't keep it updated often so apologies for all you people dying to know what's happening with me and my super interesting life. Copenhagen has been amazing so far. The people are awesome and as friendly as they come. The Danish class I am taking is also fun, but the language is impossible. They only pronounce half the letters in the words which makes learning the language hard. Not too mention the Chicago accent I'm told I have makes me sound ridiculous speaking Danish. I'm excited for real classes to start so a bunch of German kids can't snicker at me saying Hi my name is Patrick in Danish. Nah the kids in my class are awesome, we laugh so much it makes the lessons bearable. There are 3 Germans, a Russian, a New Zelander, a Canadian, a Lithuanian, a Polish girl, 5 Americans, and 2 Italians. Lots of different languages being spoken all the time but they all speak great English too. Last night was the first International party at the Student Bar and almost everyone went. It was awesome seeing all the shy kids in class let loose a little. I of course let loose a lot and succeeded in being the funny dancing American. Needless to say today's class smelled like a brewery. Everyone was useless and with our test a week away the teacher wasn't too pleased. We tried to explain to her that it was inevitable and in my case she was pretty darn lucky I made the trek to hear her babble for 3 hours. Stories are always a side effect of going out so here goes. I got super lost and wandered the streets of Copenhagen for about an hour last night. I actually enjoyed it until I realized how tired I was and I was probably walking farther away from my place. I lost all dignity and called a cab. The bar was awesome and as always I was a dancing fiend. I blew the Danes away with my dance moves. I left in search of fast food and realized 24 hour McD's are purely American. I just wanted a damn McChicken so bad. No wonder everyone in Denmark is in good shape. They can't gorge on fast food at 4 in the morning and they zoom around on bikes all the time. Unfortunately my favorite part of bikes, seeing insane bike accidents, rarely happens. Nothing is funnier then seeing a guy get trucked by an Asian girl flying to class in CU. Oh well you can't have everything. I have been putting off my homework for about 5 hours now so I'm going to have to get on that. Hope everyone enjoyed their X-mas breaks.

Copenhagen

I arrived in Copenhagen on the 1st not knowing where I was living or if anyone was meeting me at the airport. I didn't have a phone or any Danish money. Pretty well prepared otherwise. I had a terrible hangover and probably looked like a bum who hadn't shaved in a week. The night before me, Mark, and his two crazy girl cousins went to a club called Earth in Derry. We waited in the "cue" for about an hour before getting into the most crowded place I'd ever been. I was fairly sober and so was Mark. He had planned on not getting drunk because of the long ride we had at 5:30 in the morning the next day. Well I warned him that wouldn't last long and sure enough 4 or 5 Goldschlager shots later we were both feeling a lot better about the night. We lost his cousins immediately but found our Ulster Project friend Catherine and her friends. We basically took shots in between songs as we danced for 4 hours. Not a good idea when I was flying the next day but I slept the whole car ride with Eamonn (Mark's uncle) and Mark. Eventually on my own in the Dublin airport I felt completely lost. The place was a zoo because they had gotten like 2 millimeters of snow and had canceled tons of flights. 2 mm! It was a joke. Every worker in the airport was too hungover to be helpful and I waited in hours of lines but finally got on my flight. Again I slept the whole time and after I got my bags I went to leave and this girl was waiting for me with a sign with my name on it. Her name was Nina and was awesome. She had my key to the apartment that I had no clue was reserved for me until July. Once I unpacked and got my apartment set up I was once again lost. Still no phone, no internet, no money etc so I did what I do best, I slept. I slept from around 5:30 pm to 11:30 am the next day. I guess I needed it. Then I explored the city, got a cell phone, outlet converter and groceries. After that I had nothing to do and no one to talk to so I read a 500 page book. Seriously all I did was read for hours. Now it's Sunday the 3rd and I'm in an Internet Gaming Facility. Didn't know they existed but it's the only place with internet. It's filled with criminal looking guys and a handful of 7 year olds playing World Of Warcraft. So scary so I'm gonna end there and get the hell out of here. Pretty boring first days in CPH I gues, but class starts tomorrow so hopefully I'll have more interesting stories.