Trip Developments

I don't really know what to write about and I have a pile of homework as tall as the Eiffel Tower (what's up, flying to Paris TOMORROW MORNING)...so, logically, I'm writing a blog entry.

A handful of people here are planning a trip to Kiruna, which is a small town in Lapland that a lot of people visit in the winter to see the Northern Lights, dog sledding, a hotel made of ice (which, surprisingly, is named the "ice hotel"), and get a little taste of the Arctic Circle. As I'll be just getting back from the city of lights, I thought I'd take a couple days and recover before I jumped on a 14 hour train right to the top of the world. So I will not be a part of this trip (though it sounds phenomenal).

A trip to the Czech Republic is in the works as well. One of my American friends knows someone studying in Prague (or Praha--I'm working on calling places and people by their native language names) and figured the roundtrip would cost under $200. A European world capital for a couple hundred? Pretty tempting. The "downside" is that we'd be crashing on a floor. But, I have to admit, I'd crash on floors every night of my life if it meant I could explore the world every day of my life. But I've been reading a lot of travel books lately, just compilations of travel tips and short stories, and Prague seems to be a pretty frequent destination for adventure-seekers.

Amsterdam is, obviously, also on our short list. I have a friend from Colorado studying there at the moment, and she's generously offered another crashable floor for a couple nights. Only an idiot would turn that down. Come July, Amsterdam is changing their laws to ban foreigners from accessing their more...herbal...commodities. I think a couple of us were talking about experiencing the Netherlands before this very unique capability is stripped away. Sooo...I might get into a bit of trouble for this paragraph.

Copenhagen would be so beautiful in early spring! Denmark is another very popular vacation destination for Swedes, and everything I've seen and heard leads me to believe that it's a charming, gorgeous, friendly place to visit. I have a friend from home currently studying around there, so the Danish capital is definitely someplace I'd want to see in the future. I'm also kinda hoping to see Elsinore and nerd out a little.

In the back of my mind, I'm thinking about pushing London in sometime between Prague and Amsterdam. One of my really good friends from Colorado was thinking about coming to visit Great Britain over his break and I wouldn't miss the chance to see the Tower of London, Abbey Road, and Big Ben. And him...I guess I'd also like to see him. We had joked about "meeting in the middle", but I guess he's getting the short end of the stick with his 7 hour transatlantic flight versus my 2 hour jump over to England. London is also generally considered the cheapest and easiest city to fly to and from the United States, so if anyone out there was hoping to wander around Europe and didn't know where to start...might I suggest London?

I'm slowly realizing that this is probably going to be one of the greatest years of my entire life. Traveling on a dime, seeing unbelievable places with people that are equally excited about that street sign in Dutch or the little kid in the supermarket that's speaking rapid Swedish. I know it's one of the cheesiest, most vague things ever spoken, but I think I'm falling in love with the world.

Thank you for reading!