I’ve found out my day to come home!! Yes, it is official. Finally. For awhile I wasn’t sure when it would be because the travel agent in charge of me hadn’t replied yet. But this past week I finally got my final confirmation of flight information. =DDDD I leave Denmark on June 15th at 3.45 pm. I go from Copenhagen to Chicago. And from Chicago, I head out to Portland. I will be officially landing in Portland at 11.30 pm! Yes, it’s a bit late. And then I have another 3 hour long drive until I’m actually in my house again. So it’s going to be a long night =P long day of travel. Let me count the hours real quick…it’s hard because I have to think about the time difference…which is 9 hours…two seconds………………………………OK I GOT IT!! I will be travelling roughly 17 hours straight that day. That’s not including my drive home. Wow. That is one long day. I will not be sleeping either, I can pert near guarantee it.
But the actual TRAVEL being set aside for now, I’m so excited =) in all honesty, a month ago, I wouldn’t have been excited at all. I had talked about this with my 2nd host family quite a bit. When I lived with them it was so hard to even think about leaving Denmark. To even entertain the idea that I was going home. I remember sitting in the bus one day, I think it was a Saturday, as I was heading into town probably to meet a friend. I remember sitting in this bus and thinking about going home. Thinking about all the people I’d be leaving behind. I nearly broke down in sobs on the bus. Then when I was on my study trip to bosnia, I also had a really hard time one of the nights. Me and one of the girls had to walk back to this one place and give a jacket back that was mistaken as ours. So she and I walked back, and we started talking about when I leave. This girl knows who she is and she knows that I will miss her so much. I started crying in the middle of the street when we were walking and talking about it. Then again even just this past week while I was at a party with my class, I was sitting on the couch with this same girl and I got extremely sad again. I’m not sure if anyone cares about those exact experiences, but I’m just trying to paint you the picture of my feelings right now. Right now, this exact moment, as I think about going home, as I think about packing all my stuff up for the last time, as I think about seeing my family and friends again, as I think about lying in my own soft big bed again, I can’t wait to go home. I could go home tomorrow and be the happiest girl in the world.
And that feeling is the reality at the moment. I love living in Denmark. I love my friends here. I love my families here. I love my life here. The freedoms, the culture. I wouldn’t change it for the world. But as it stands, I’ve been away from home for 269 days. 9 months. (and yes, by the way, I just counted. I haven’t been keeping track since I’ve been here) that is a long time to be away and on your own. It really is. And the fact of the matter is, I’m ready to go home. A month ago I know that I couldn’t say this. But whether I was ready for it or not, it was going to happen. So I’ve had to accept it. I’ve accepted the fact that I’m leaving my life here and taking my completely different self back with me. And I’ve accept the fact that I’m going to be leaving amazing people behind here. I don’t want anyone to confuse what I’m trying to say here. Yes, I’m ready to go home. But my heart is going to be broken into so many pieces when I leave. It’s going to kill me, and I know this. Saying goodbye to my best American friend at the airport is probably going to be one of the worst experiences of my life. And saying goodbye to my best Danish friends is going to be even harder than that. At least I’ve got a plan to see my other exchange student friends that live close by. But coming back to Denmark? I have no idea when that is going to happen again. And it hurts to think about it. It hurts knowing that there are people here that I may never see again. But I can’t think about it. It’s inevitable. I have to leave. I can’t postpone it. I can’t avoid it. I have to accept it. Because if I don’t, that’s going to hurt me even more than it already is. So I’m trying to keep going on in my Danish life. I’m living everyday to the fullest here because I don’t have many left. 51 to be exact from this day. That’s insane to think about. I know.
My friends and family back home are really excited to see me again. Parties are being planned. Vacations are being planned. Road trips are being planned. It sounds like life back home is going to keep going despite the fact that I will have just returned from a year of my life away. I think it’s better that way. I think it’s better that I’ll be kept at least somewhat busy when I come home that way I won’t be too ‘homesick’ for Denmark. They say that your first 2 weeks home are the hardest of your entire exchange. We’ll see how this one plays out.
But as it stands now, I’m coming home on June 15th. I’m happier than a clam to be coming home. I miss home. But I’m sadder than that donkey from Winnie the Pooh about leaving Denmark and my friends and families. It’s a hard mixture of feelings to have in one body. Sometimes it overflows one way or the other. I just wanted everyone to know. I’m looking forward to seeing you all again back home. I’m excited to see the ocean from my window again. But for my friends in Denmark and my families that might be reading this, I just want to tell you that I’m going to miss you all so much. And it pains me to think about leaving some of you behind. You’ll be in my heart forever.
Thanks for reading this latest entry about my feelings. There will be more updates coming this week. Stay posted k =)) love you all. Thanks for the support. I’m almost home!
Kram,
Rebekah
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Welcome to Sarajevo
This past week I was on a school trip with my class to Sarajevo the capital of Bosnia. I am in the second year of high school here, and most second year classes take a class trip together. A lot of classes choose to go to Spain or Italy or Greece or someplace like that, but our class and our teachers chose to take us to Sarajevo. In my class of 26 people, there are 4 girls that actually had moved from Bosnia to Denmark when they were little. So I think that played a big role in us going there. I think, in the end, that our teachers didn’t want to take us to someplace in Europe that most of the people would just go see anyway. On vacations with families in Europe who would ever choose to go to Bosnia unless you had some kind of family there? Exactly, few would go. But I’m so happy that we went to Sarajevo and not any other place in Europe.
Bosnia, along with mostly all of the other Eastern European countries, is just so different from Western Europe. The culture is completely different along with the history behind the country. Now me, I love history and learning about what has happened in the past, so I could go on for PAGES about the history of Bosnia, but since I know that a lot of people think that’s boring, I’ll just be brief. Bosnia used to be a part of the country Yugoslavia. Ring a bell? Right. ok, and after the communist leader Tito died, the country broke out into a giant civil war that lasted about 4 years. The dates were 1992-1995. The war was between Serbs, Croats, and Bosniacs. And long story short, the Serbs were trying to push the Bosniacs out of the main city of Sarajevo, and there was a huge siege there. Ok. After the war ‘finished’ and peace was called, the former Yugoslavia no longer existed. It was now broken into Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Slovenia? I think. I’m not too sure about that last one actually. But you get the picture. The 4 girls in our class immigrated to Denmark from Bosnia with their families during the war. The crazy thing is that this all happened only 15 years ago. ONLY. It just puts a lot of things into perspective I think. But don’t worry, for those of you who are. It is a relatively peaceful and working country now. Relatively.
So now, let me begin with what our tour entailed. We left at approx. 5.33 in the morning from Næstved train station heading to Copenhagen to catch our plane. O wait, did I say 5.33? yea what I meant to say was that summer time had officially begun and it was actually 4.33 to our bodies. My host dad drove me into town, but we got a little confused when our watches read 5.15 and yet the clock on the dashboard read 4.15. we had no idea what the time was! So we had to go into a gas station and ask the guy, and turns out, YEP, that we were an hour early getting into town -_- apparently his cell phone and my cell phone automatically change time, which neither of us knew. So when we set our clocks to wake us up at 3.50 (4.50 in the new time) it actually WAS 3.50. =P so we drove back home and waited then drove back into town at the correct time.
Once we were actually on the train, it was more or less smooth sailing. We got off an hour later in Copenhagen and caught another train headed to the airport. After actually arriving at the airport, most of us were there and began to check in our luggage and get our tickets. Wait, did I just say MOST of us??? Yes, you read correctly. 2 of the girls in my class didn’t see when to get off the train to the airport and were currently in SWEDEN. Don’t worry, eventually they made it back. I think it was like 30 minutes later or something. Way after all of us had checked in. but then! We boarded our plane headed for Vienna, Austria, where we would connect to a flight leading to Sarajevo =)
When we arrived in Vienna we headed straight for our gate, went through security again, tried to check in, and hit another problem. In order to enter Bosnia, a person must be 18 or have parent signatures. Now this wasn’t a problem for me as I’m 18 now, but half of my class is underage. So there was a slight problem, yes? Yes! So my teachers were on the phone with the Bosnian Embassy trying to convince them to let us all in the country. There was a bit of panic for awhile as we didn’t know if the class was going back to Denmark or if only part of us were going to Sarajevo. It was just a super complicated situation. But eventually! We were all allowed to board the plane and head to Sarajevo. We were a little late I think, but no biggie as that was our last stop anyway. So then after we landed in Bosnia, we went through customs and passport security and everything for what felt like the millionth time. Then we ran into another problem. The people under 18 were still not allowed to come into the country! Yea, you read correctly. We thought we had fixed this all back in Vienna, but apparently not. So those of us overage went through and grabbed our bags and waited for maybe 20 minutes for the passport security people to let the rest of our class in. They were back on the phone with the embassy and blah blah blah. You know. I wasn’t in that part, so I only heard about what happened, but one of the Bosnian girls from our class went up and spoke with the people and eventually convinced them to let us in I guess. Awesome =)) finally we were off in Sarajevo!!
We took a bus to our hotel and were all checked in then we just hung around a bit. We went out to dinner and ate some good traditional Bosnian food. =) then me and my friend Mikkel and his roommate walked around the city a bit just exploring. It was great. When it started to get kind of dark out, we headed back to the hotel, and most people just crashed after that. I remember that most of us went to bed around 9-10 because we had had a SUPER long day and we were all tuckered out. I know I hit the sack super early. Like 9.30 maybe. It was earlier than both of my roommates. =P and I’m usually the party animal, ha! ^_^
Monday, after everyone had gotten a good night’s sleep, we started our first day in the city completing our scheduled activities. We were up and out of the hotel by 8 in the morning and headed out to go exchange our money. We first stopped by the post office close to our hotel thinking maybe they could, but we ended up just getting told to go find a bank somewhere. So that’s what we did. We walked a bit of a ways through the ‘old town’ and found our way to this really long street just filled with stores, cafes, and banks. We all exchanged our money into the Bosnian mark (it’s a little weaker than the USD, so it was great to use that kind of money system again!) and then we walked a bit more. We had to walked and catch a train leading to the other side of the city so we could meet some professors at the university and interview them and just have them talk to us about the war and the history and the present. It was super interesting, although the men had heavy accents. It was hard for me to understand them at some points so I can only imagine what it was like for my Danish classmates trying to pay attention. But seriously, all in all, it was so interesting. Two ladies that were children and living in Sarajevo during the war came also and just answered some questions that we had for them about life and such. It was great. We ended up leaving there about 1 and we went across the street to a bit shopping mall and ate lunch. One thing that I learned while me and my friend Mikkel were eating lunch is that in Bosnia, it’s still ok to smoke inside! Like in restaurants and bars. Crazy! Anywayz, after lunch we were supposed to go out into our groups and interview people if that’s what we needed to do for our project. The group I was in didn’t need to do this, but they had left earlier than I, so I just tagged along with another group and talked to some people with them. After that, about 4.30-5, we arrived back at our hotel after taking a taxi, hey we had walked for what seemed like forever. No way were we walking back ^_^ so I got to my room and just crashed for like an hour I think and napped a bit. And then! We all went out for dinner again and then headed to a bar after that to chill out. Even my teachers went and drank. =P it was a bar called “Cheers” but it was really crowded and really smokey. Not long after we got there, maybe an hour at most, me and a group of girls decided to go to another place, so that we did =) we went to a Cuban themed pub. It was very cozy, and we just hung there for a bit talking and laughing and enjoying each other. After that we went to one more place just to see what it was like, then at like 1-1.30 in the morning, we landed back at our hotel. Great night.
The morning waking up and leaving again by 8 was not so great -_- this day we were headed to one of the oldest national parks in Europe. We were supposed to drive one hour to get there, walk three hours, then come home. So our bus picked us up and we headed out. There was a little tour guide there for our amusement on the drive there. He was pretty funny some of the time, but the rest of the time it was just like, come on, we all want to sleep, go away ^_^ o, right, and another thing that he brought to our attention was that it wasn’t in fact only one hour away. It was actually 2 because of the roads. Ok. No problem I guess. THREE HOURS LATER OF WINDING ROADS AND CRAZY BOSNIAN DRIVING, we arrived at the national park. -_- not only we were all exhausted from our night before and exhausted from being cooped up in a bus with no room for three hours, it was actually raining when we got there. Greattttttt. =P our first stop was visiting a big monument dedicated to the 3,000 people who died defending Bosnia (Yugoslavia) against the Germans during WWII. To get there we had to walk up a billion stairs in the rain, but once we got there our tour guide explained what it was about and such. What could have easily been explained in 10 minutes ended up taking what felt like forever because there was one man explaining about the monument and its significance and another man was translating to us. Then we walked a little ways a visited an old bunker also dedicated to these 3,000 people who died. There were murals on the walls of this concrete bunker, really moving pictures some of them. And all of the names of the people were inscribed on the walls. After seeing that, our teachers decided to skip the rest of what we were going to see and we headed back to the bus, piled in, and drove about 30 minutes to the part of a mountain we were going to climb. We eventually all got to the top of this mountain. Through fog and rain and snow and mud and trees. Yea, we all got there eventually ^_^ after that, we headed back down the mountain and piled into the bus and WENT HOME! =D I think we were all excited about that. It was about 5 when we finally arrived home. We were originally supposed to be back at 2, and none of us had eaten since lunch and the little snack we brought we us for the mountain. So we all got cleaned up and went out to dinner with the various groups that we chose =) I went with one of my roommates and 2 of my good guys friends. We ate at this little place. I got pizza. There were a lot of places that sold pizza there. Kind of surprising =P but we ate, then me and my girlfriend went into town and shopped a bit, or tried to, once the boys left us. We found lots of stuff we liked, but nothing we wanted to buy. You understand that feeling, I’m sure =) but we made our way back to the hotel when it started getting dark and cold. Then I’m almost positive we all just stayed in and crashed for the night.
Wednesday was a special day. It was a boy’s 18th birthday in my class. Here in Denmark, 18 is like our sweet 16. People go super crazy. And the fact that he got to celebrate his 18th in a foreign country just made it even crazier! So we all woke up and said ‘tillykke’ to him and then we left our hotel for the rest of the day’s activities at about 9.30. on this day we had a little ‘scavenger hunt’ around the city of Sarajevo in our little groups. We had to find old buildings that were important. We saw a Serbian church, a Croat Catholic cathedral, and we got to go inside of a Bosniac mosque. I was so excited to go to the mosque. Like I had been literally looking forward to it since Monday. I’ve never been inside of one before and I thought it was super interesting. I’ve never encountered many Islamic people before, so just seeing how they do things, it’s just interesting really. We girls also had to wear a scarf before we were allowed to go in, interesting! I got a chance to see some people praying outside of the mosque, and then one of my classmates kind of rudely told me that I shouldn’t be staring. -_- I WASN’T staring. I was simply fascinated. ANYWAYZ, sorry, I digress. So we saw those 3 religious places. And a few other old places and after we were finished, we were allowed to go get some lunch, then after lunch we went to one of the museums dedicated to the war. My class went in this place, and I’ve never felt a 10 lb weight on my shoulders more. It was like walking into a Holocaust museum. There were newspaper clippings of deaths; there were pictures of the wounded, captions trying to relate their situation to us. It was almost overwhelming. It took me like 45 minutes to go through it, then I just headed outside with the others that had finished before me. Walking out was like that 10 lb weight had been lifted, but it was still a super somber rest of the day. We all waited outside of the museum for chunk of time, but it was pretty nice. It was the warmest weather. 13 degrees C, so way warmer than Denmark has gotten yet =P most of us were not dressed for warm weather like that. Long sleeves. Black. It was just not good. But still o so wonderful. Then after we were finished there, we walked over to this trauma center to interview the workers there. We ended up waiting outside in the heat for about an hour because there was a miscommunication between our group and the people there. The people we needed to talk to were waiting for us in their office while we were waiting outside for them to come to us. ^_^ brilliant I know =D but anyway we got there and we talked to them about what they did and how they helped people. One of the girls in my class translated for the 2 women there. It was pretty interesting from what I picked up with my awesome Danish skills ^_^ afterwards, we left the ladies at about 4 then headed out to do what we wanted with whom we chose. So I went with my friend Mikkel, his roommate, and my other friend Carina. We walked to the city and bought some cake =D and let me tell you, Bosnian people know how to make good cake. We got 4 pieces and shared them around the table. It was great =) then after that we got a chance to shop a little before heading home to get ready for the night out. We all went out together at 7 and we went to this brewery for dinner. It was really good food. Great beef. Very filling =) but not super expensive either, which was nice. The only problem this night was that after dinner we went to a bar together, and neither at the restaurant nor the bar did our bills add up. Yea, we were swindled at the bar by 80 marks, and almost at the restaurant, but we caught it. That was really the only down part to the whole night. But otherwise it was fun =) it was my friend’s 18th birthday, so I know he had a blast =P we got in at about 2 I think, not sure. Then we hit the hay =)
Thursday was our last day in the city =(( we started off with waking up and leaving the hotel at about 9.30 and we headed out with a bus to a little place that was on the outskirts of Sarajevo. It was a ‘museum’ that was dedicated to a tunnel that was built during the war. This tunnel was built in about 4 months and it stretched from the under-siege Sarajevo to the free part of Bosnia. The city was surrounded by Serbian forces and they were trying to evacuate the city from the Bosniac race. They tried expelling them and had them surrounded, but thanks to this tunnel, the people were able to reach the free land and escape and bring weapons back and fight off the Serbians. We actually got to go down into a little section of the tunnel and see what it was like. It was 1.6 m high and 1 meter wide. Just enough for a person to get through and a cart carrying supplies to clear. It was kind of intense to see that. After the museum we headed out again back into the city and went to the middle of the city and saw a memorial for all of the children that died during the war. That was horrible. All of their names were written there and I was with my friend and I just couldn’t stay there for long. We had to leave. It was too heart wrenching. So we walked over to this shopping mall and got some lunch and we had the rest of the day pretty much to ourselves to do what we wanted. Me and my friend mikkel went shopping for HOURS buying new clothes and things for him =D it was great. I picked out some super nice things for him to wear and he bought lots of stuff. And I looked and looked all week for a new pair of shoes, and finally, on our last 30 minutes of shopping before heading to the hotel, we found a pair I liked =D so he was happy and I was happy haha we then made our way back to the hotel where we just relaxed a bit and then got ready for our last night out in Sarajevo. We left the hotel again about 7 and went to eat together at this great traditional Bosnian place. It overlooked the city and at night, that was just gorgeous. To see all the lights. And the food was delicious =) it was like 4 courses 0_0 I thought we were done after 2, but noooooooo haha make room for more! After dinner we went to town =D about half my class and I. it was so much fun. We went to this night club that was just great! We took lots of pictures and just had a super fun time with everyone around us. I love bonding with my class =P we ended up getting home at about 3.15 then another group of my friends came back about 15 minutes later. Then off to shower and pack my suitcase and then SLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP =)))
And then it was Friday. Time to go back to Denmark. We left the hotel at 12.30 and went to the airport. We checked in all of our bags and had a little panic =P they were charging 10 euros for every kilo over 20 we went. That’s expensive. So some of us had to rearrange our bags and hold other people’s things. Great fun. Then we went to our gate. Our plane was to leave at 3.05. -_- there was a computer meltdown and so we didn’t end up leaving until 4.15. which meant that we missed our connecting flight in Vienna. Woo. Haha so we were kind of stuck in Vienna for a little while until they found us another flight, leaving at about 8. So we all got to eat and hang out for a little while. And I had an emotional breakdown in the airport =D woo go me! It just hit me all of the sudden how much it hurt to be in an airport and be flying away, and yet NOT going back to the United States. It was really hard actually. I tried to get over it though. Those things happen sometimes. Especially while on exchange. Sadness can overtake from anywhere. But anyway, we got on our plane eventually and landed in the good old Copenhagen airport at almost 10. We got our luggage and I hitched a ride back to town with another friend. After taking a potty break we arrived home at about midnight =/ my host dad came to pick me up, I went home, and passed out. Even though my host brother was having a party and blaring music. I was out cold =D
This was just such an amazing trip. I’m so happy I went. I can’t explain what it was like. To see children as young as 5, dirty and begging for money on the street. To see war-weathered buildings. To nearly get hit by cars because they are such horrible drivers. To see this completely different culture. It was amazing. And actually, I hope to go back someday. Just to visit again. I’m very happy that I didn’t end up going to france or Italy. Sure those places are great, but they are all the same. This, this was COMPLETELY different from anything I’ve ever experienced and anything other danes in my class had. This is something I’ll never forget.
Sorry this post was so long. But so much happened. I have pictures up on my photo site of Bosnia! Please check them out =D thanks for all the support. See you all soon! <3
Kram
Rebekah
Bosnia, along with mostly all of the other Eastern European countries, is just so different from Western Europe. The culture is completely different along with the history behind the country. Now me, I love history and learning about what has happened in the past, so I could go on for PAGES about the history of Bosnia, but since I know that a lot of people think that’s boring, I’ll just be brief. Bosnia used to be a part of the country Yugoslavia. Ring a bell? Right. ok, and after the communist leader Tito died, the country broke out into a giant civil war that lasted about 4 years. The dates were 1992-1995. The war was between Serbs, Croats, and Bosniacs. And long story short, the Serbs were trying to push the Bosniacs out of the main city of Sarajevo, and there was a huge siege there. Ok. After the war ‘finished’ and peace was called, the former Yugoslavia no longer existed. It was now broken into Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Slovenia? I think. I’m not too sure about that last one actually. But you get the picture. The 4 girls in our class immigrated to Denmark from Bosnia with their families during the war. The crazy thing is that this all happened only 15 years ago. ONLY. It just puts a lot of things into perspective I think. But don’t worry, for those of you who are. It is a relatively peaceful and working country now. Relatively.
So now, let me begin with what our tour entailed. We left at approx. 5.33 in the morning from Næstved train station heading to Copenhagen to catch our plane. O wait, did I say 5.33? yea what I meant to say was that summer time had officially begun and it was actually 4.33 to our bodies. My host dad drove me into town, but we got a little confused when our watches read 5.15 and yet the clock on the dashboard read 4.15. we had no idea what the time was! So we had to go into a gas station and ask the guy, and turns out, YEP, that we were an hour early getting into town -_- apparently his cell phone and my cell phone automatically change time, which neither of us knew. So when we set our clocks to wake us up at 3.50 (4.50 in the new time) it actually WAS 3.50. =P so we drove back home and waited then drove back into town at the correct time.
Once we were actually on the train, it was more or less smooth sailing. We got off an hour later in Copenhagen and caught another train headed to the airport. After actually arriving at the airport, most of us were there and began to check in our luggage and get our tickets. Wait, did I just say MOST of us??? Yes, you read correctly. 2 of the girls in my class didn’t see when to get off the train to the airport and were currently in SWEDEN. Don’t worry, eventually they made it back. I think it was like 30 minutes later or something. Way after all of us had checked in. but then! We boarded our plane headed for Vienna, Austria, where we would connect to a flight leading to Sarajevo =)
When we arrived in Vienna we headed straight for our gate, went through security again, tried to check in, and hit another problem. In order to enter Bosnia, a person must be 18 or have parent signatures. Now this wasn’t a problem for me as I’m 18 now, but half of my class is underage. So there was a slight problem, yes? Yes! So my teachers were on the phone with the Bosnian Embassy trying to convince them to let us all in the country. There was a bit of panic for awhile as we didn’t know if the class was going back to Denmark or if only part of us were going to Sarajevo. It was just a super complicated situation. But eventually! We were all allowed to board the plane and head to Sarajevo. We were a little late I think, but no biggie as that was our last stop anyway. So then after we landed in Bosnia, we went through customs and passport security and everything for what felt like the millionth time. Then we ran into another problem. The people under 18 were still not allowed to come into the country! Yea, you read correctly. We thought we had fixed this all back in Vienna, but apparently not. So those of us overage went through and grabbed our bags and waited for maybe 20 minutes for the passport security people to let the rest of our class in. They were back on the phone with the embassy and blah blah blah. You know. I wasn’t in that part, so I only heard about what happened, but one of the Bosnian girls from our class went up and spoke with the people and eventually convinced them to let us in I guess. Awesome =)) finally we were off in Sarajevo!!
We took a bus to our hotel and were all checked in then we just hung around a bit. We went out to dinner and ate some good traditional Bosnian food. =) then me and my friend Mikkel and his roommate walked around the city a bit just exploring. It was great. When it started to get kind of dark out, we headed back to the hotel, and most people just crashed after that. I remember that most of us went to bed around 9-10 because we had had a SUPER long day and we were all tuckered out. I know I hit the sack super early. Like 9.30 maybe. It was earlier than both of my roommates. =P and I’m usually the party animal, ha! ^_^
Monday, after everyone had gotten a good night’s sleep, we started our first day in the city completing our scheduled activities. We were up and out of the hotel by 8 in the morning and headed out to go exchange our money. We first stopped by the post office close to our hotel thinking maybe they could, but we ended up just getting told to go find a bank somewhere. So that’s what we did. We walked a bit of a ways through the ‘old town’ and found our way to this really long street just filled with stores, cafes, and banks. We all exchanged our money into the Bosnian mark (it’s a little weaker than the USD, so it was great to use that kind of money system again!) and then we walked a bit more. We had to walked and catch a train leading to the other side of the city so we could meet some professors at the university and interview them and just have them talk to us about the war and the history and the present. It was super interesting, although the men had heavy accents. It was hard for me to understand them at some points so I can only imagine what it was like for my Danish classmates trying to pay attention. But seriously, all in all, it was so interesting. Two ladies that were children and living in Sarajevo during the war came also and just answered some questions that we had for them about life and such. It was great. We ended up leaving there about 1 and we went across the street to a bit shopping mall and ate lunch. One thing that I learned while me and my friend Mikkel were eating lunch is that in Bosnia, it’s still ok to smoke inside! Like in restaurants and bars. Crazy! Anywayz, after lunch we were supposed to go out into our groups and interview people if that’s what we needed to do for our project. The group I was in didn’t need to do this, but they had left earlier than I, so I just tagged along with another group and talked to some people with them. After that, about 4.30-5, we arrived back at our hotel after taking a taxi, hey we had walked for what seemed like forever. No way were we walking back ^_^ so I got to my room and just crashed for like an hour I think and napped a bit. And then! We all went out for dinner again and then headed to a bar after that to chill out. Even my teachers went and drank. =P it was a bar called “Cheers” but it was really crowded and really smokey. Not long after we got there, maybe an hour at most, me and a group of girls decided to go to another place, so that we did =) we went to a Cuban themed pub. It was very cozy, and we just hung there for a bit talking and laughing and enjoying each other. After that we went to one more place just to see what it was like, then at like 1-1.30 in the morning, we landed back at our hotel. Great night.
The morning waking up and leaving again by 8 was not so great -_- this day we were headed to one of the oldest national parks in Europe. We were supposed to drive one hour to get there, walk three hours, then come home. So our bus picked us up and we headed out. There was a little tour guide there for our amusement on the drive there. He was pretty funny some of the time, but the rest of the time it was just like, come on, we all want to sleep, go away ^_^ o, right, and another thing that he brought to our attention was that it wasn’t in fact only one hour away. It was actually 2 because of the roads. Ok. No problem I guess. THREE HOURS LATER OF WINDING ROADS AND CRAZY BOSNIAN DRIVING, we arrived at the national park. -_- not only we were all exhausted from our night before and exhausted from being cooped up in a bus with no room for three hours, it was actually raining when we got there. Greattttttt. =P our first stop was visiting a big monument dedicated to the 3,000 people who died defending Bosnia (Yugoslavia) against the Germans during WWII. To get there we had to walk up a billion stairs in the rain, but once we got there our tour guide explained what it was about and such. What could have easily been explained in 10 minutes ended up taking what felt like forever because there was one man explaining about the monument and its significance and another man was translating to us. Then we walked a little ways a visited an old bunker also dedicated to these 3,000 people who died. There were murals on the walls of this concrete bunker, really moving pictures some of them. And all of the names of the people were inscribed on the walls. After seeing that, our teachers decided to skip the rest of what we were going to see and we headed back to the bus, piled in, and drove about 30 minutes to the part of a mountain we were going to climb. We eventually all got to the top of this mountain. Through fog and rain and snow and mud and trees. Yea, we all got there eventually ^_^ after that, we headed back down the mountain and piled into the bus and WENT HOME! =D I think we were all excited about that. It was about 5 when we finally arrived home. We were originally supposed to be back at 2, and none of us had eaten since lunch and the little snack we brought we us for the mountain. So we all got cleaned up and went out to dinner with the various groups that we chose =) I went with one of my roommates and 2 of my good guys friends. We ate at this little place. I got pizza. There were a lot of places that sold pizza there. Kind of surprising =P but we ate, then me and my girlfriend went into town and shopped a bit, or tried to, once the boys left us. We found lots of stuff we liked, but nothing we wanted to buy. You understand that feeling, I’m sure =) but we made our way back to the hotel when it started getting dark and cold. Then I’m almost positive we all just stayed in and crashed for the night.
Wednesday was a special day. It was a boy’s 18th birthday in my class. Here in Denmark, 18 is like our sweet 16. People go super crazy. And the fact that he got to celebrate his 18th in a foreign country just made it even crazier! So we all woke up and said ‘tillykke’ to him and then we left our hotel for the rest of the day’s activities at about 9.30. on this day we had a little ‘scavenger hunt’ around the city of Sarajevo in our little groups. We had to find old buildings that were important. We saw a Serbian church, a Croat Catholic cathedral, and we got to go inside of a Bosniac mosque. I was so excited to go to the mosque. Like I had been literally looking forward to it since Monday. I’ve never been inside of one before and I thought it was super interesting. I’ve never encountered many Islamic people before, so just seeing how they do things, it’s just interesting really. We girls also had to wear a scarf before we were allowed to go in, interesting! I got a chance to see some people praying outside of the mosque, and then one of my classmates kind of rudely told me that I shouldn’t be staring. -_- I WASN’T staring. I was simply fascinated. ANYWAYZ, sorry, I digress. So we saw those 3 religious places. And a few other old places and after we were finished, we were allowed to go get some lunch, then after lunch we went to one of the museums dedicated to the war. My class went in this place, and I’ve never felt a 10 lb weight on my shoulders more. It was like walking into a Holocaust museum. There were newspaper clippings of deaths; there were pictures of the wounded, captions trying to relate their situation to us. It was almost overwhelming. It took me like 45 minutes to go through it, then I just headed outside with the others that had finished before me. Walking out was like that 10 lb weight had been lifted, but it was still a super somber rest of the day. We all waited outside of the museum for chunk of time, but it was pretty nice. It was the warmest weather. 13 degrees C, so way warmer than Denmark has gotten yet =P most of us were not dressed for warm weather like that. Long sleeves. Black. It was just not good. But still o so wonderful. Then after we were finished there, we walked over to this trauma center to interview the workers there. We ended up waiting outside in the heat for about an hour because there was a miscommunication between our group and the people there. The people we needed to talk to were waiting for us in their office while we were waiting outside for them to come to us. ^_^ brilliant I know =D but anyway we got there and we talked to them about what they did and how they helped people. One of the girls in my class translated for the 2 women there. It was pretty interesting from what I picked up with my awesome Danish skills ^_^ afterwards, we left the ladies at about 4 then headed out to do what we wanted with whom we chose. So I went with my friend Mikkel, his roommate, and my other friend Carina. We walked to the city and bought some cake =D and let me tell you, Bosnian people know how to make good cake. We got 4 pieces and shared them around the table. It was great =) then after that we got a chance to shop a little before heading home to get ready for the night out. We all went out together at 7 and we went to this brewery for dinner. It was really good food. Great beef. Very filling =) but not super expensive either, which was nice. The only problem this night was that after dinner we went to a bar together, and neither at the restaurant nor the bar did our bills add up. Yea, we were swindled at the bar by 80 marks, and almost at the restaurant, but we caught it. That was really the only down part to the whole night. But otherwise it was fun =) it was my friend’s 18th birthday, so I know he had a blast =P we got in at about 2 I think, not sure. Then we hit the hay =)
Thursday was our last day in the city =(( we started off with waking up and leaving the hotel at about 9.30 and we headed out with a bus to a little place that was on the outskirts of Sarajevo. It was a ‘museum’ that was dedicated to a tunnel that was built during the war. This tunnel was built in about 4 months and it stretched from the under-siege Sarajevo to the free part of Bosnia. The city was surrounded by Serbian forces and they were trying to evacuate the city from the Bosniac race. They tried expelling them and had them surrounded, but thanks to this tunnel, the people were able to reach the free land and escape and bring weapons back and fight off the Serbians. We actually got to go down into a little section of the tunnel and see what it was like. It was 1.6 m high and 1 meter wide. Just enough for a person to get through and a cart carrying supplies to clear. It was kind of intense to see that. After the museum we headed out again back into the city and went to the middle of the city and saw a memorial for all of the children that died during the war. That was horrible. All of their names were written there and I was with my friend and I just couldn’t stay there for long. We had to leave. It was too heart wrenching. So we walked over to this shopping mall and got some lunch and we had the rest of the day pretty much to ourselves to do what we wanted. Me and my friend mikkel went shopping for HOURS buying new clothes and things for him =D it was great. I picked out some super nice things for him to wear and he bought lots of stuff. And I looked and looked all week for a new pair of shoes, and finally, on our last 30 minutes of shopping before heading to the hotel, we found a pair I liked =D so he was happy and I was happy haha we then made our way back to the hotel where we just relaxed a bit and then got ready for our last night out in Sarajevo. We left the hotel again about 7 and went to eat together at this great traditional Bosnian place. It overlooked the city and at night, that was just gorgeous. To see all the lights. And the food was delicious =) it was like 4 courses 0_0 I thought we were done after 2, but noooooooo haha make room for more! After dinner we went to town =D about half my class and I. it was so much fun. We went to this night club that was just great! We took lots of pictures and just had a super fun time with everyone around us. I love bonding with my class =P we ended up getting home at about 3.15 then another group of my friends came back about 15 minutes later. Then off to shower and pack my suitcase and then SLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP =)))
And then it was Friday. Time to go back to Denmark. We left the hotel at 12.30 and went to the airport. We checked in all of our bags and had a little panic =P they were charging 10 euros for every kilo over 20 we went. That’s expensive. So some of us had to rearrange our bags and hold other people’s things. Great fun. Then we went to our gate. Our plane was to leave at 3.05. -_- there was a computer meltdown and so we didn’t end up leaving until 4.15. which meant that we missed our connecting flight in Vienna. Woo. Haha so we were kind of stuck in Vienna for a little while until they found us another flight, leaving at about 8. So we all got to eat and hang out for a little while. And I had an emotional breakdown in the airport =D woo go me! It just hit me all of the sudden how much it hurt to be in an airport and be flying away, and yet NOT going back to the United States. It was really hard actually. I tried to get over it though. Those things happen sometimes. Especially while on exchange. Sadness can overtake from anywhere. But anyway, we got on our plane eventually and landed in the good old Copenhagen airport at almost 10. We got our luggage and I hitched a ride back to town with another friend. After taking a potty break we arrived home at about midnight =/ my host dad came to pick me up, I went home, and passed out. Even though my host brother was having a party and blaring music. I was out cold =D
This was just such an amazing trip. I’m so happy I went. I can’t explain what it was like. To see children as young as 5, dirty and begging for money on the street. To see war-weathered buildings. To nearly get hit by cars because they are such horrible drivers. To see this completely different culture. It was amazing. And actually, I hope to go back someday. Just to visit again. I’m very happy that I didn’t end up going to france or Italy. Sure those places are great, but they are all the same. This, this was COMPLETELY different from anything I’ve ever experienced and anything other danes in my class had. This is something I’ll never forget.
Sorry this post was so long. But so much happened. I have pictures up on my photo site of Bosnia! Please check them out =D thanks for all the support. See you all soon! <3
Kram
Rebekah
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