My ABCs: Amsterdam, Brussels, Copenhagen, and Dungens

Hellooooo out there! I'm typing this at 12:11AM and I have to wake up at 4:30AM for my flight to Rome! See how dedicated I am to this? So let me try and condense the past two weeks into one itty bitty blog post: last Sunday I went to Amsterdam for 5 days and had a BLAST! I saw floating water markets, beautiful flower markets, and of course the Red Light District...but that's another story.

My friend Amelia and I rented bikes so we could better see the city, and one night her bike broke and we got separated, then my bike broke, and I found a group of random Dutch guys who helped me and then took me out partyin'! Fun fun. 

  *playing soccer with the children at a refugee school in Holland; one of the many highlights!*

After Amsterdam, I hopped on a bus all by myself to go to Brussels. I stayed there with a girl named Sietske who I found on the CouchSurfing website (you stay for free with someone and they help you around the city). She had a really bad cold though, but gave me great bits of info. I ended up spending my Saturday touring the city with no map and just stumbling across anything and everything Brussels had to offer, which included: belgian waffle with ice cream for breakfast, beautiful old buildings, parks, palaces, and the Manneken Pis (Brussels' biggest tourist attraction; Google it). 

I even ran across a group of girls studying in Italy (from America) and one of them was from Katy, TX! How crazy is that? Then this past Sunday I flew back to CPH to meet my parents :) Mom was sleeping at the table at Starbucks since they had to wait on me...so we grabbed some coffee and brunch STAT at my fave Danish breakfast place.

                                                      *in Norrebro Park near the hotel*

We spent the next couple of days touring the city and eating food that was way too expensive (aka normal for Copenhagen) and Monday night mom and dad got to meet my host family because they made us dinner! (lamb..I know, super nice, right?) 

This week was also great because I got to take the fam to places I've been wanting to go but hadn't had the chance to yet, like Vesterbro (the red light district of copenhagen) and Ida Davidsen's smorrebrod (open-faced sandwich shop). Then Thursday we hopped on a flight to Stockholm, which is so gorgeous. The weather was beautiful and we took a bus/boat tour of the city and even stopped by the Absolut Ice Bar, the famous bar made completely of ice! Yes, we look a bit like eskimos, and yes, you can only spend about 40 minutes in there before you're frozen stiff, but it's a must-see. OK I soooo wish I could write more because there's so much more to say but gah it's late! Vi ses i to uger! (I think that means see you in two weeks)