It’s been about two years since I left Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Some say we are not moving on if we keep talking about our experience but I talked more about it this past weekend then I did all together in the past two years. God has a funny way of working things out and bringing people together again. I met my friend from Denmark through mutual friends in Phnom Penh. We spent lots of time together at the pool, out for drinks or just hanging out at home. When we said goodbye two years ago, I never would’ve guessed I would get the chance to visit her where she grew up, where she calls home.

I arrived in Copenhagen Thursday night and spent about a day and a half there before taking the train up to Aalborg, the student city of Denmark for another day and a half. This was one of the most relaxing weekends I’ve had. I stayed with my friends and therefore was able to sleep through the night without being waken by other travelers in a hostel. We made sure to take it easy and not rush around doing the touristy things. Most importantly, I just wanted to catch up with my friend on the last two years and believe me, it took all weekend.

In Copenhagen, I walked around town, ate hot dogs and Indian food but I didn’t see the Little Mermaid. (Apparently, she just came back from China… The shanghai world expo) The favorite place I visited in the city was Christiania. It is a freetown – self-proclaimed autonomous neighborhood of about 800 residents in the district of Christianshavn in Copenhagen.  It’s a city within a city. I got a mini tour of everything from the pusher street (drug selling street) to the small Kindergarten built for the 200 kids that live there. It was fascinating to learn about the history, the development and the continual struggles of this ‘city’. It’s nothing like the rest of Copenhagen, an absolute must-see if you happen to travel there! I could write a whole post on this, so I’ll just leave it at that.

In Aalborg, I first attended my friend’s fellowship on Sunday followed by driving 30 minutes to the Blokhus Beach in the West Coast of Northern Jutland. Going to fellowship was great. although the worship music was in Danish and everyone were strangers, I felt a sense of peace to be surrounded by brothers and sisters in Christ. it was nice to be in that setting for the first time since church in Hong Kong.

We spent the afternoon that day at the beach, and it was unbelievably beautiful. I have never heard of any summer beach towns in Denmark before, and didn’t expect much. It is pretty dead during the winter, not many businesses open but during the summer, it’s a major attraction. Many Danish and Germans go there during the summer, rent a house and spend a week or two there. I was once again marveled by God’s creation. The sand, the ocean and simply thankful to be walking side by side my friend. Physically, mentally and spiritually. I was even more thankful hat night when she cooked the best meal ever 🙂

And here I conclude: It was a fantastic weekend, and we talked a lot about life.

I’m about a week behind on my updates so I’ll try and keep it short. Time has been flying by, day after day I am realizing how little time I have left in Europe and it begins to scare me a little bit. It’s been such a fantastic semester. I’m so fortunate to get this chance to travel around Europe while studying, to be able to learn about the history of the world and meet all kinds of different people.

After our academic excursion in Prague, I spent my spring break in Madrid and Barcelona. The second I stepped into Spain, I felt a sense of peace. I felt super comfortable walking around and simply enjoyed the atmosphere of Madrid a whole lot. I went on a walking tour, flamenco tour and a pub crawl. Madrid welcomed us with great weather, blue skies and sunny. We only spent about 2-3 days there, which I definitely don’t feel is enough.

The bear and the Broccoli in the photo below is a Madrid symbol. It is actually a strawberry tree but it looks like a broccoli to me. It represents the Spanish lifestyle. The story is told as such: In the forest with all kinds of bears, all fighting for the same food or what not. The tree is planted so that the bears will just drink out of the tree, and once they keep drinking, they will soon get drunk and fall asleep – preventing any fighting between the bears. It’s pretty neat, if only world crisis can be solved as easily as that.

Our other stop for Spring Break was Barcelona, Catalonia. It’s a very interesting place and I am pretty sure I fell in love with Gaudi as soon as I saw La Sagrada Familia and Park Guell. Two MUST SEE places. Don’t call people from Barcelona Spanish, they will get offended. It is a way different feel that being in Madrid. It’s more laid back, beaches, touristy, but also lots of history. Again, we only spent a few days there so we didn’t get to see much. Unfortunately, one day was shot because it poured rain all day but it was good because I wasn’t feeling well that day.

Sant Jordi Diagonal Hostel. If you hit up Barcelona, for sure to stay there. It is a small hostel with perhaps about 30 or 40 guests. A few extremely friendly and out going staff, a cozy living and dining room, practical kitchen, free wifi and just a fantastic atmosphere. It was one of my favorite parts of Barcelona. I know that doesn’t say much about the city, but it meant a lot to me because I was feeling worn out by the end of that week. From Prague to Madrid to Barcelona. Flights at 6 in the morning, not sleeping, partying, sight seeing. I was looking forward to sitting, watching some tv and doing nothing. That was exactly what I was able to do at Sant Jordi. I highly recommend it.

As I mentioned earlier, I was pretty worn out by the end of Spring Break. As much as I loved Spain and would’ve loved to spend more time there, I was glad to be back at the Castle for a few days. Those few days were busy with school work and a surprise visit from a friend I met about 9 years ago. I have not seen him since then and he happened to be in the Netherlands.

I’m currently in Copenhagen, Denmark visiting friends I met during my gap year in Cambodia. I arrived the other night and it’s been relaxing. The houses are beautiful, very colorful around the streets and the lake was the perfect place to take a stroll and catch up on life. After staying in hostels all semester, it is quite nice to be in an home-y apartment once again… at least for a weekend.

More on Copenhagen later!

 

It’s currently 1am and I am sitting at the Prague airport camping out until flying to Milan in transit to Madrid in 5 hours. I’m not sure this airport having free wifi is the best idea for me but if I don’t write a post now, I might never do it. There would be too much to tell after a week long holiday.

Friday morning, all the Kasteel students, some of the teachers and three of our staff hopped on a plane to Prague. It was the second of our required academic excursions. The program they had set for us was packed and was set out to be quite tiring: lots and lots of walking. The Czech Republic has a lot of history but I never would have visited here on a weekend trip either by myself or with friends if it wasn’t for school.

The most beautiful thing I saw this weekend is the St. Vitus church in the Prague Castle. It is a Roman Catholic cathedral and the seat for the Archbishop. It was the most beautiful churches I’ve ever seen from the inside and out. As I stood there listening to Pieter lecture us about the history of this church, I couldn’t stop thinking about hundreds of people standing at this square admiring and worshiping God. The church is from the 13th century and took many years to finish to its current state. Back when they first started constructing it, the surrounding areas were all villagers: and boom, suddenly there is a beautiful and skillfully designed cathedral representing the importance of God and the depiction of heaven and hell for these people at the time. It was impossible for people not to believe in God after seeing this church because the depiction of hell and judgment day was so strong and that it also symbolized wealth (not 100 percent sure on this one)

I wish I had time to go to a service in that church, it would have been fantastic. From all the little details you could see on the outside to the stain glass windows as seen from the inside. It reminded me of the times I had to attend Catholic church because my brother was the alter boy. I hated it, I’m not sure I’ll really enjoy it now but I’ve learnt to appreciate it.

There is definitely much more to be said of Prague and all of its history, beauty and battles that went on but there’s nothing like seeing first hand the streets and the buildings that were used during the Second World War. Besides all the sight seeing we did, we got the chance to cook our own dinners in our hotel apartments. A few friends and I created a feast and it was delicious. I won’t have photos up until next week, but for now, just read!

I’ve been here for three nights thus far and I have probably slept less than ten hours in total. Prague doesn’t have too much of a night party scene, but we managed to find a good spot for some drinks, music and a great atmosphere. We got to know the staff from the Office of Student Affairs as well as the teachers more this trip which is great… to see them outside of an academic setting, and talk about things other than class materials.

Thank you OSA, teachers and the few other leaders that led our tours this weekend. They are all so intellectual, I am extremely lucky to have them as teachers as I go through Europe and learn about the history of what it is the way it is.

The end of academic excursion in Prague. The beginning of Spring Break in Madrid and Barcelona. Fumi Kamigama in about 10 hours. Life’s pretty awesome thus far. As for now… I’m going to get a few hours of sleep before tackling a morning of flights and a full day of activities.

Mom, Dad and Kevin, I miss and love you all!

This update will be a little longer than the previous ones because I missed last week. Two weeks ago, I went to Berlin, Germany with three of my friends from school. We had originally planned to be there for four days, but due to stupidly missing the bus because we took the wrong train- we had to stay an extra night and half a day. We had to book a new bus ticket, which sucked but I’m not complaining for that extra afternoon I got to spend in Berlin!

Berlin is by far the most lively city I’ve been to so far in Europe. It is a city that never sleeps. I’ve only been away from Hong Kong for just over a month, but it felt odd being somewhere that was so similar to Hong Kong in terms of liveliness. Berlin is also a very historical city, we took the chance to go to the Historical Museum, Topography of Terror and even went to the place Hitler committed suicide, which is now a car park. On my extra day, I went to the famous Berlin Zoo which is probably one of my favorite zoos I’ve been to. It was so big I didn’t even get a chance to see everything. I did enjoy seeing the gorillas and penguins though. The gorillas would look at you and smirk knowing that they’re being photographed. They’re just like humans! Or…. we’re just like them!

Berlin was definitely full of adventure, from spending hours at bars and clubs to missing our bus and having to figure that all out. By the time we got back to the Castle, it was Wednesday morning. Tackled two days of classes and homework, then I went off to Venice Friday night for the yearly Carnival! (Yes, I do go to school and I do have homework!)

Venice is beautiful and the festivity during Carnival is pretty darn awesome. We fell in love with the quint houses and the water surrounding it the moment we stepped into Venezia. It was pretty quiet Friday night, I guess everyone was resting up for Saturday’s day of parties! As we walked around Venice, we stopped looking at the guide books for places to go. It was enough to stroll through the streets, to see the different outfits people had on, to listen to the random band parades walking past us. There was also many people with open bottles of champagne in their hands starting in the morning. I wondered what it’d be like to be living in Venice experiencing this carnival. I guess for some it won’t be such a big deal, and perhaps for some they’ll even try to avoid it. It’s almost like the Rugby Sevens in HK every March, except it’s related to the history of Venice… so I guess it’s a little different. Good old Rugby Sevens, North stand, drinking non-stop day and night watching games of rugby over and over again. It’ll be at least a few years before I’ll be able to attend another one.

I know this update might not suffice and definitely does not explain everything I did and felt in both Berlin and Venice but it’ll have to do for now. These couple days are packed with midterms and papers, on top of all the little errands and things I should be doing. We are having a Carnival night tomorrow for American night because we’ll be missing the actual carnival this weekend. It should be fun, I’ll try and update with a few photos of the creative outfits we will pull off tomorrow.

For now, Ciao!