First of all, let me just say.... HORRAY FOR OBAMA!

Last night I went to my friend's kollegium to watch the election coverage.  The Danish students who live there had planned a whole big party... they were all decked out in Obama shirts and buttons, there were posters and red white and blue streamers all over the walls, and they had made a map of the US on a whiteboard and colored in each state red or blue as the results came in.  (Oh, and they had a big picture of Sarah Palin taped onto a trash can lid for people to throw trash at... maybe a bit offensive to some but clever nonetheless).  CNN coverage was projected onto a big screen, and everyone was so into it, it was so adorable and fun.  I really felt like I was back in America, that's how much the Danes care about the election.  It is a really awesome thing to see the world so involved with the election and even better so have foreigners congratulate me, saying "you finally got it right!"  This may sound a bit dramatic, but I sincerely felt more proud than ever to be and American as the results rolled in and the Danes high-fived all of us, thanking us for helping to bring about a much-needed political change.

So now that my political rant is over, I will get on to recapping my three week trip....

First stop, LONDON!

Anyone who knows me well already knows of my undying love for London, starting with the fateful troop 1776 trip in the summer of 2005 and continuing with my senior trip with my dear friend Jessica the next summer.  Needless to say, I was beyond thrilled to be going back.  This time, I went with my Communication and Mass Media program, all 40-something of us plus our two fearless teachers, Marie and Jakob.  Seeing as it was an 'academic' trip, I wasn't quite sure how the itinerary would be planned out, but it turned out that we had a perfect balance of academic visits (all of which actually turned out to be fun, like the trips to Oxford and the BBC), cultural experiences (Spamalot!!!) and free time.   I had a few friends in the group, but by the end of the week we were all super close and having a blast together.  

The first day we basically just took a big walking and bus tour around the city, which was fun because there was a lot of stuff that I hadn't seen before like the London Bridge and the Tower of London that we got to see and hear the history of.  The next day, we went to Petticoat Lane Market, which was super fun but sort of a mistake because I didn't have the money or room in my luggage to be shopping at ridiculously cute little booths in a ridiculously cute little market.  But I restrained myself... sort of.  Or at least justified my purchases as all being one of a kind London type things, which is true.  But anyway...

We went to the Tate Modern after that, which I had been to before and I am not so much a fan of modern art but it's always fun to wander around museums anyway.  And then was one of my favorite things, the London Eye.  I have always wanted to go but never really gotten the opportunity so it was perfect that they had it planned out for us.  We went at sunset and had beautiful views of the whole city (that's where I took the picture above), and you can fit a lot of people in the pods that take you around so we had a blast.  

Other things we did throughout the week included a tour of the BBC; I wasn't very excited about it because who wants to LEARN when they are on VACATION?, but the building was very cool and high tech, and a lot of people in our program are interested in TV journalism so it was especially great for them.  We saw the British museum as well, which is probably my favorite historical museum because of it's awesome ancient Egypt exhibit featuring the Rosetta Stone, and the ancient Greece and Rome exhibits as well.  And, as I said, we spent a day in Oxford and had a kooky tour guide who showed us where parts of Harry Potter had been filmed and insisted that we reenact them (sounds dorky was was pretty entertaining, especially when the teachers got involved).  

Here is our leader Jakob as Malfoy sneaking up on Harry

And who could forget Spamalot?  This was one of the highlights of my trip, I would say.  I always liked Monty Python, but this musical really took the humor and ridiculousness up a notch.  Very, very entertaining.  And the sad thing is that I would love to see it again but I know that it would not be quite as good anywhere else.  Oh well, another reason to go back to London someday!

We ate VERY well on this trip.  The three-course meals at fancy restaurants was a big change from my grilled cheese for every meal thing I had going on before I had left Copenhagen.  And, of course, the good eating would continue for the remainder of the three weeks.  Needless to say, my stomach is not very happy with my upon my return to my meager eating lifestyle in Denmark.  

The nights out were fun, of course.  I was able to meet up with some of my Santa Clara friends like Megan and Nadine, at it was wonderful to see familiar faces.  One of the nights we went out we ran into a German bachelor party doing a pub crawl, that was pretty entertaining.  They were having people paint the face of the bachelor, so of course I decided to paint the faces of all of them with hearts and glitter and very mature things like "I like guys."  Heh.  It is fun just to go to pubs in London and talk to people; British people are probably as nice as they come.  So anyway, London was, as you can tell, a BLAST.  I will update later on the rest of the break, and I leave you with this picture of my artistic masterpiece...