I haven’t taken any photos in a few days, so I haven’t posted. And now I have class in twenty minutes, so really, I still should be not posting. Oh well.

So yesterday morning I find out that I’ve been put in the intermediate class rather than the beginner class. Clearly, this is a terrible mistake, as I know about as much Estonian as.. well, your average American, I suppose. Heck, just your average person. But then I figure that I’d rather get my face punched in a difficult class than risk spending the summer cutting up construction paper.

Well, anyhow, that’s not really how I feel, but I am going to wait until today’s class is over to see if I need to go to the lower class. I held my own yesterday, if only barely, so maybe it’s not terrible.

One funny thing we did was an exercise where there were a bunch of simple arithmetic problems, like 5+3=… and we would have to read them aloud in Estonian, along with the answers. There’s something kind of awesome about a bunch of adults struggling and giggling over the difficulty of telling someone one of those simple answers. The equation I got was seriously 1+1, and I couldn’t stop myself from totes LOLing before I could get out the answer.

Anyhow, I’m going to go to class now. I have my camera with me, so I will try to get some pictures out. Also: I finally went running again! Yee-haw! Now it’s like three times in a month, but I think now that I have a real schedule, I’ll do better. Imma be a runnin’ machine!!!! Kbye!

This isn't from my trip, but it's cool.

Last day of the Suttstravaganza was yesterday.  It was the first rainy day we’d had the entire trip, almost as if Mother Nature was trying to help ease us out of our fun.

We started off the day with a breakfast at the hotel, which included the best fruit salad I’d had in the entire trip.  Also probably the only fruit salad, but whatever.  We took a trip out of the city to see some of the cool castles.  The first one we went to was Cronborg Castle, which was up north where the straight between Denmark is the narrowest.  Christian IV, who was responsible for practically everything cool in Copenhagen, charged ships to pass through the straight.  The fee was based on the value of the cargo, and the Danes had the right to buy whatever  was in the boat, discouraging the captain from undervaluing their haul.  Pretty crafty.

I wonder if we could encourage people  to fully report their income in the US by having a raffle, where one in every hundred people randomly get a rebate of twice whatever the total they pay is.  Did I just solve all of our financial problems?  Probably.

After  that, we drove around some fancy suburban parts along the waterr, and then goofed around in a city called, I think, Elsinore.  then to Fredensborg castle, which means something like the Castle of Peace.  The king, again Christian IV, probably, made the castle and gave it that name after losing a war to Sweden.  Dad and I didn’t quite understand the connection, but it’s something like the king saying “Hey subjects: sorry I got all of your sons and fathers killed in that war.  If it makes  you feel any better, I’m going to name my new house Peaceville.  We cool now?”

We had to go to the airport straight from that castle.  We got there early enough to give us time to spend our last Danish kroners, which was nice.   I bought some mixed nuts that cost like 6 dollars for about a half a cup, but it used the last of my money, which made it seem reasonable.  I still have some Norwegian money…  so that’s something.

My flight was pleasant, and the hostel I stayed at was…  fine.  It was quiet, but it was kinda dirty and a little stuffy, whatever.  Now I’m at another hostel tonight, and finally I move into my  semi-permanent place near the university.  As usual, here are some pictures.

…but they are delicious.

It's like an open faced toaster strudel.

H. canoli, but I am tired!!!

I had some serious trouble with the photos. I had to do the captions three times cause I kept accidentally screwing something up without saving. Anyhow, in lieu of my awesome commentary, i’m going to just go to bed.

we woke up, came to copenhagen, drove around, boated around, had dinner. deal with it. i’m sleepy. And it’s barely 11. Bad traveller, bad!

Did anyone else notice that I saw a rainbow last night and freaked out like I was a little girl? I totally did.

Also, did anyone else notice that the hotel we stayed in last night loved the color purple? I totally did.

Here are pictures that prove both those two things.

Bergen. Every time I hear the name of the town, I imagine in sung like “Berwyn” in the Monster Trux song. If that means little to you, sorry, deal with it.

The day started with a shower in the bizarre curtainless bathroom, which bathroom also features a see-through door. Not a fan, though that the bathroom also features a towel-warmer almost makes up for it.

Upon getting ready to leave, my dad noticed my passport sitting on the desk, and suggested I put it away. I responded, “Oh yeah, right, thanks,” or something like that. Then I noticed my dad’s hearing aide (which I’m still rather sure is a prop/excuse to ignore people) and I suggested he put it on. He responded, “I said you should put your passport away.” Maybe it’s not a prop after all.

Our tour included some churches, as tours do, but one of them featured a pretty cool organ WHICH WAS ACTUALLY BEING PLAYED. Organs are cool. (If you agree, you might check out The Lioness by Songs: Ohia.) Also, it had some cool stained glass.

We got a lot more nice views, toured a Hanseatic Museum, and I did laundry.  I actually had a dude do my laundry for me, which is awesome and lazy, but it was only acouple bucks extra, so I figured what the heck?  I’ve been doubling up days for my undergarments, just FYI, but no more!  We also took a weird little train up to the top of a nice lookout and were able to see all the little sites from the so-called bird’s eye view that the kids are all raving about.

Only saw one v40.

Also went to a Grieg museum, who was a turn of the (last) century Norwegian composer.  He was a big deal right around when Norway became free from Swedish rule, and is credited for helping inspire a real Norwegian identity.  It’s funny that Norway has a history longer than most Americans can imagine, but it’s been dominated by other countries for 400 of the last 500 years.  In fact, they refer to the 400 years of Swedish/Danish rule as something like a very heavy nap deep sleep or something, and around 1907, I think, they woke up/regained their independence.  Point being, they had to work to create a strong national identity, and Grieg was one of the dudes that helped it happen.

Here are the pictures.  We had relatively nice weather, though we did get rained on a bit.  NBD.  Actually, yesterday was the first day in 60 it hadn’t rained, so that we had a mostly beautiful day is something to be grateful for.