Copenhagen (November 16-18)
Copenhagen was a really, really beautiful city and also a ridiculously expensive one. The coolest thing there was probably Tivoli, an AMAZING amusement park. Tivoli was really beautiful and I got a superwarm winter hat from a stand there. However, I also paid $12 to go on ONE ride. Granted, the ride was amazing because it was the swings and it took you up really high so that you could see over the whole city. But still. $12!!!!
The other awesome thing in Copenhagen was Christiania. Christiania is basically this little shantytown populated by hippies who refuse to pay taxes. They even have their own sort-of police force. They also sell a lot of hash there, some of which we smoked. It's not really legal, but apparently the government doesn't care because it keeps drugs out of the actual red light district. Also, you're not allowed to take pictures in Christiania, mainly because of the drug thing.
In Copenhagen I also learned my new favorite word ever: hyggelig. It's pronounced "hoogely" (no. clue.) and apparently the Danish say it all the time. It means "comfortable" or "warm."
Budapest (November 22-25)
The whole CET program went to Budapest for a long weekend, and it was an awesome time. Except for the first day...because our 6 hour bus ride ended up being 12 hours long. Our bus broke down after a little under 2 hours of driving, and we had to wait in a roadside restaurant for another 4 before a new bus came to get us. It was ridiculous and unfortunately it cut down on a few of the things we got to see there.
But what we did see was very cool. The second day we had a question/answer session with an English guy who works for the European Roma Rights Center. He was very interesting. Then we went to the little town of Szentendre, where there really wasn't much to see, except a cool ceramics museum.
The day after that we had a long but really good tour of Budapest. It actually used to be two cities, called Buda and Pest - they're separated by the Danube River. Budapest was one of my favorite cities we visited, probably because it was vaguely reminiscent of Prague. It wasn't a whole lot bigger in size, which I liked, and it also had a pretty river with a pretty castle on it.
A few of us also had a CRAZY dinner that night at a tiny restaurant where we were the only customers, a gypsy band played for us, the menu consisted of "meat or no-meat", and the food was LITERALLY homemade. It was incredibly weird.Geneva (November 29 - December 2
Geneva was one of my absolute favorite places I visited this semester. I liked the small size, loved the lake, and LOVED the food. The chocolate was predictably amazing. The first day, Rachel and I had a tour of the UN and then went to the Red Cross museum. We then walked all around the city and saw the Jet D'eau and the flower clock.
Our dinner that night was probably the best one I had all semester...and also the most expensive. Geneva was every bit as expensive as Copenhagen, and I bought so damn much that I spent over $400. Oops. The next day we went to a town further east into Switzerland called Lausanne. There we went to the International Olympics Museum, which was really cool. Lausanne was incredibly beautiful, and I think I liked it even more than Geneva. It was just the kind of place where I think it would be amazing to live.
Our last day in Geneva we had a lot of time before our flight so we went ice skating at the outdoor rink near the lake. It was awesome, except for the fact that we were the only people over age 10 without children, and that said children were like little bullets I had to dodge every 5 seconds. But all in all, it was a great trip.
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