Burgers, Bikes, Bahns and Busses

How is week 3 already over? It seems like it was yesterday that we were slightly freaking out about what to expect from Norderney and now it's over!

Norderney was one of the strangest, but coolest experiences I will ever have. From riding around on our bikes like little kids in the parking lot, having a dance battle with actual little kids, or attempting to swim in the North Sea, I can definitely say I will probably not do any of that again. Starting off the trip at the Badehaus was one of the best things. I could have spent the entire day in the pools and have a new found love for sauna's. I even bought a ton of "Schlick" to take home to all of my friends. The bike tour might have been the death of me, with my bike only going to 3rd gear I didn't think I could actually make it up those hills. The mud flats were one of the coolest things though, and I'm really glad we were able to experience that, even if the shells hurt our feet.

Also, if I ever make the trek back to Norderney, I'll definitely make a pit stop at the ice cream shop. I think I'll probably crave that for the rest of my life!!

Leaving Norderney, well, was a treat to say the least. We got to hang out in Norden for a few hours and got to sea the other half of the national park that we explored on the bikes the previous day. I realized that every German city is extremely different from the next and you will probably have fun on a digging machine (Catherine.)  After exploring, we excitedly got on the train to head to Copenhagen!

We looked up everything to do, tried to decide where we were going to eat and the excitement was building. Well, the trains put a damper on our excitement. Watching our app to see the delay in the trains, we quickly realized we might not make it. Then after bugging some DB workers, about 50 different English speaking germans and trying to listen to the intercom announcements, we then discovered that the train wasn't coming to the MAIN STATION. HOW DOES A TRAIN STOP JUST GET CANCELLED?! We weren't going to make it to Copenhagen. We ran between ticket booths and finally had to book a bus from Hamburg to Copenhagen for extra money than we already paid but we were just happy to have it figured it out. We walked around Hamburg for a few hours, got scared because I don't think we were in a nice area and found the safe haven of the one and only McDonalds.  At midnight, we were on our way!!!!

Funny bus moment, a girl from Vienna gets up at the border when passports are being checked and asks the cop for a stamp on her passport. The cop told her like 6 times "We don't stamp" but she kept asking until he told her to sit down.

We arrive to Copenhagen at 7 AM, take a shower and a nap, and get off to explore! We walked countless miles, had a danish cinnamon roll, saw Nyhavn and honestly many other places that we had no idea what they were. All we knew was that they were gorgeous and it made me fall totally in love with Denmark!!

Freetown Christainia

We took a stroll through Freetown Christainia, a local "anarchist" area that's actually recognized by the government. It felt like you were stepping into India. It was crazy but honestly, I could have spent a ton of time there. I've never felt more "uncomfortably comfortable."

We then saw the little mermaid, and went to one of the coolest places, Tivoli Gardens, We had so much fun in this amusement park even when it started drizzling. Sadly, we had to run back to our hostel because the rain was about to start and we didn't want to get stranded.

Some of the people in our room were actually from Texas and had been backpacking for 3 months across Europe and they gave us lots of tips/tricks on places to stay and things to see. It was super refreshing hearing someone say "y'all" in a different city!

The next day was extremely chill. We walked around, went up the "round tower" and sat at the food market for like 2 hours admiring all the cool foods and honestly way over eating.

We get on the trains back to Bonn, and were so tired. Sadly, each train was about an hour so the amount of sleep we got was pretty bad. Our only saving grace was again, McDonalds.


Basically we learned, places many people don't travel are the COOLEST, trains suck, McDonalds is like a light at the end of the tunnel and learning your friends favorite things can be one of the most interesting things.