Reaching 20 countries!!

Denmark is in green, Sweden in orange

I spent this weekend in Denmark and Sweden.  Denmark was country #19 and Sweden was country #20!!  I have now spent time in twenty countries on four continents!!  Only 174 more to go....

This was one last trip before heading back to the States.  Zeba and I left for Denmark on Wednesday afternoon, and we stayed with my uncles friend in Copenhagen.

Here is our story:

Wednesday:
We left Bremen on Wednesday afternoon.  We were planning to take a train to Hamburg, and catch our bus there.  We heard that the train drivers were striking, so out of concern of getting there on time, we left as early as we could.  Since I had class at 8 am, the earliest we could leave was 11:30.  We got to Hamburg no problem, with about two hours before our bus!

In Copenhagen, Denmark

The bus was great!  We had business class seats(which for some reason cost less then regular seats...) so we had wifi and a free snack!  In order to get to Copenhagen, we had to cross the Baltic Sea.  By ferry.  This was a 45 minute ride on a huge ferry, which had a mall inside.  It was a lot of fun getting to see the Baltic.  We got back on land and continued our journey.

When we arrived in Copenhagen, Denmark, our host had a wonderful dinner prepared for us!  We ate pork sausage like things, delicious (not-American) potato salad and tomatoes!  After dinner we went on a walk around Copenhagen, and our host took us to Tivoli Gardens.  Tivoli is a beautiful place, that kind of reminded me of Disneyland, but I think I like it better then Disney!

Thursday:

In the Cannon Museum!

Thursday morning our host left for her parents house.  We had the apartment to our self until late Friday night!  On Thursday we explored Copenhagen, went to two museums and on a boat tour!  We also ate delicious sandwiches and Belgium waffles! (mine had ice cream on it!)

The first museum we went to was the Denmark National Museum.  It had artifacts and information from Denmark and European history.  It was very interesting, and apparently Pokemon is a part of history...
The second museum was a cannon museum.  I liked this museum, it had cannons from all throughout history!

In Christiana.  I was scared because
there were signs everywhere saying not
to take pictures...due to the drugs
being sold in the area

Friday:
On Friday we were going to go to Sweden, but we woke up too late...so we relaxed till mid afternoon and then we decided to walk around the city again.  We went to a part of the city called Christiana.  Christiana used to be a military place, for defending Copenhagen.  But in the 70's hippies took over it and built interesting buildings.  Today it is a place with art, interesting buildings, music, and a flea market.  It also is a place where you can find marijuana....lots and lots of marijuana...

Saturday:

Me, in country #20!!

On Saturday we finally went to Sweden!  Sweden is the 20th country I have spent time in!  We left in the early afternoon, and got on a train to Malmo, Sweden.  We weren't sure what to do there, we didn't even have any of the Swedish Currency.  So the first thing we did was exchange money.  Then we wondered around the city, and found a boat tour.  We went on the tour and learned a bit about Sweden!  Then we sat in a coffee shop and ate delicious cheesecake.  At around 6 pm we headed back to Denmark.

Denmark Storm

Going back to Denmark was quite chaotic.  The storm started in Sweden, but while we were there it was just a lot of thunder and lightning.  By the time we reached Denmark, it was crazy rain.  They say that in those two hours Denmark got as much rain as they usually get in two months.  155 mm, or 6 inches.  The trams were not running on time, so we were stuck at the tram station for a while.  But eventually we made it to our final stop.  Problem was that the stop was about a 15 minute walk from our house.  The water on the roads was about 5 inches deep.  And it was raining very hard.  We were soaked within seconds.  Lightning was going every couple of seconds, and the thunder was very very loud.  Zeba, who is from India, described it as a monsoon.  We eventually made it home, and showed up at our hosts apartment soaked!  But she graciously let us in, and helped us get dried off.  And she had even made us dinner :)

Sunday:

Under the castle!

Sunday morning Zeba and I went to an art museum.  It had really beautiful paintings and statues.  We started realizing the affects of the night before's storm when I received a text from our host, telling us that her basement had flooded and she had to save what she could.  We got home to find everything mostly okay, and then we headed off to a castle.  As we drove to and from the castle, which was north of Copenhagen, we saw more of the storms effects.  People all through town were draining water from their stores and basements, and their ruined items laid on the sidewalk.  The power was out in some places, and many of the highways and roads were flooded.  Getting there and back took about a half an hour longer then it should have.  But the drive was along the Baltic Sea, and was quite beautiful.

The castle was beautiful.  It was near Sweden, and we could see Sweden's coast across the Baltic.  (The castle even had cannons pointed towards Sweden :D)  We explored below the castle, where the soldiers lived.  There were winding, dark halls.  It was really cool, but kind of creepy!  We also explored the ballrooms and royal apartments.

Traveling home:
That night we left for Germany at 11:45 pm.  Somehow, amazingly, on a bus full of people from Africa, India, Europe and other places, I managed to sit next to a guy from California...he was taking his last, and first, trip before heading off to medical school.  We talked for a couple of hours, and got to know each other quite well.  Funny thing is neither of us thought to introduce ourselves till an hour into our conversation!

At the Baltic! Not at 1 am though...
this was the first time we crossed!

At around 2 am our bus had to cross the Baltic Sea, by ferry.  This meant that we had to get off of the bus. Luckily the ferry is huge, and has stores and restaurants.  So I got a bite to eat and sat down with Zeba and two other young traveler's we had met, one who was on our bus and one on the bus in front of us.  It was a lot of fun getting to know other young travelers!

After the ferry, at 3 am, I fell asleep...kind of...I fell as asleep as you can when you are squished in a tiny space on a bus and there is lightning going off every few seconds....we arrived in Hamburg at 5 am, and had an hour to wait for a train to Bremen.  The best part of the story?  I had class at 8...I arrived in Bremen at 7:30 am and went straight to class, I was the first person there!

Prayer requests:
-Pray for my landlady's and I's relationship.  I will post more later about what happened, but to sum it up: She tried to kick me out yesterday.  I have been praying that God will use me to show her Jesus through my attitude and lack of cussing or yelling at her even when she is frustrating me and causing a lot of stress in my life.  Please join me in praying about this.
-Pray for me as I finish up homework and get ready to travel back to America in one week!!
-Pray for me to have patience as I am very excited for Blue Slide Camp and almost cannot stand waiting three more weeks for it!
-Pray for me and the other camp staff as we prepare for camp!  Also pray for the campers, that they will grow in their relationship with God!

Praises:
-Praise God that I was able to reach 20 countries!! There were times in the last 4.5 months that It thought I wouldn't reach my goal, but I would pray about it, and now I have!
-Praise God that the e. coli outbreak is mostly over!