Happy New Year's!!

1 January:

Took the opportunity to sleep in.  When I checked the time, it was 11am.  Yay.  I heard Hanne wake up earlier, and I just lay around until she saw me on the computer.  She went to get breakfast and I sat around to start this post instead of writing about Berlin.  Just to get everything down while it’s still fresh.  Breakfast was pieces of Danish bread with butter and small sheets of chocolate.  That was good.  We also split a giant cinnamon pastry sprinkled with chocolate sauce.  That was also good.  Hanne asked why we called pastries Danishes in America, and I told her that a Danish was just a pastry with a hole on top for cream or fruit filling.  It’s just the name of a certain pastry and not a name for all pastries.

Then we hung about for a bit.  The plan was that I would finish up my blog post about Boxing Day, then I would get ready for the day, and we’ll head out to the town while It’s still daylight.  That’s what happened.  We walked into town because it was only a kilometer away, and that’s only about half a mile, so it’s not too bad.  It was a nice walk.  I saw some old buildings that were so old they were protected from renovations by law.  They were leaning a bit, but they were probably very straight back when they were new.  It was cool to see old buildings.  Then we walked to the Hans Christian Anderson house, which is the house he was born in.  There were a couple statues commemorating him throughout the town that we saw.  Statues we saw included the soldier with one leg and the woman with eggs on her head. 

Walked to the train station later where we inquired about how I should activate my Eurail Pass.  Hanne was nice enough to talk for me and I sat there and let her go.  The woman talked with another woman who said that we would have to do it today because they won’t be open that early tomorrow morning.  So we rushed back to her place, I got my ticket and passport, and we took the car back to the station.  I went in while Hanne parked the car and got that all sorted out.  I just have to write down my train number and destination every time I switch trains.  Gotta remember to do that otherwise I could get in trouble.  Uh oh.

From there, we walked around the small city center that included a bunch of shops.  It’s like an outdoor mall, that.  It was really cute and quaint, paved with bricks and no cars allowed.  Hanne said that she never saw anything like this in America but they seem to be all over Europe.  I said that no, America doesn’t have cool places like this often.  Madison has State Street which is similar but not really because no buses can fit through these small streets.  Also, there are quite a few cars that go through, but they’re mostly delivery cars or have special permits to be there.  Otherwise, State Street is entirely pedestrian.  There’s also an outdoor mall in Milwaukee, but the streets are full of cars because you drive through the mall to get to the parking garage.  So it’s not exactly pedestrian friendly in that sense.

We were going to shop for food in the supermarket for dinner, but that was closed.  Instead, we saw what Hanne had in her freezer, and given the options, we made spaghetti Bolognese with baguettes.  That was good.  Hanne admitted that she wasn’t an amazing miracle cook, but she could cook and that’s all that counts.  And I admit, the meal wasn’t all that special, but it was still good. 

From there, we proceeded to watch movies.  We first started with John Tucker Must Die because I’ve never seen that movie and always wanted to.  That was cute and typical high school chick flick.  We wanted another movie, so I went to pick one out.  Offered up 13 Going on 30 but Hanne said she saw that too many times.  She completely rejected 10 Things I Hate About You because her old roommate saw that once a month so she was sick of it.  So we watched Mean Girls instead, which was basically John Tucker Must Die with a different form.  Until the end.  The endings were slightly different.  But both were happy, at least.  Actually, I had a thing with John Tucker Must Die.  I thought some of the things were unbelievable.  Like when they were in the boat and didn’t have phone signal.  Dude, they were right next to the city.  They could have totally had signal!  Ugh.  Oh well, it’s a movie.

Somewhere between Hanne leaving for bed and now, I checked the times in my book, researched what the little symbols mean, and went to tell Hanne that my train was leaving later than expected because I’m traveling on a Sunday and they have different times on Sundays.  But that’s fine because I’ll still be getting into Lillehammer at around 8pm.  Which is fine.  The hostel is right next to the train station.  I told Hanne this, and we double checked to make sure my book was right, and she told me to not forget to request compensation if a train is delayed or anything.  So I should remember to do that.  And I shouldn’t worry about not speaking the language because everyone speaks English. 

Everyone speaks English in Scandinavia because it’s easier that way.  There isn’t a big cultural icon that comes from Scandinavia, everything goes there and they don’t have the voice acting talent to dub everything, I guess.  So it’s easier to watch movies with subtitles and learn English so they can communicate with the rest of the world.  It’s just easier.  That’s what I was told.

Called my parents then.  Talked for about thirty minutes.  The Rose Bowl is going on so the boys were watching that.  I told my parents I was nervous about my trip, and they said “Yeah, I would be too.  But you’ll do fine because you’re smart.”  It was very reassuring.  They told me to have fun skiing.  I kind of hope I meet a group of travelers to hang with for a day or two in the strange cities.  That would be really nice to do.  Sort of like what Krista did when I was in Italy.  She hung out with us for a day because we went to see some of the major things to see and she wanted to see them too.  Besides, we invited her along.  It’s better to travel in a group, you know?

I’m not upset if I didn’t get to see a lot of Denmark.  I saw quite a bit of the daily life of it, and it made me think of something I heard once.  It’s the idea that people are people no matter where you are in the world.  At the New Year’s party, people were talking and joking and having fun with strange antics just like my friends would back home.  People are people no matter what language you speak, what cultural traditions you uphold, no matter where you are in the world.  John Green, a renowned YA author and one of the vlogbrothers, told a story on the blog once.  He was sitting with his friend who could read Arabic and they were watching the news.  The story was about a house that was bombed in the Middle East.  In the background of the news reporter was the house and there was some graffiti on it.  Hank’s friend laughed, so he asked “What’s so funny.”  Apparently, the graffiti read “Happy birthday, sir, despite the circumstances.”

People are people just like you.  It’s a good thing to know.