If you can't find the group, find the group!!!

So if you read the DIS emergency contact book when you are lost in a foreign country it will say:

1.) if you cannot find your group, then find your group!! (thank you DIS, that is soooo helpful... I was lost but now I will just go find it)

2.) email DIS (yet again, another helpful suggestion because I am going to go to an internet cafe, email DIS, and wait for a response)

3.) call the DIS emergency line (ok maybe this one is helpful)

Well luckily I didn't lose any students! Just kidding, I lost 4! But I will get to that later.

I led my first long study tour last week to Den Haag and Brussels. After a 12 hour bus ride starting on Sunday morning, my group arrived in Den Haag. Our first planned activity was to go watch an ICTY case (international tribunal for the former republic of Yugoslavia) of Ante Gotivino. He purportedly killed 150 Serbians and was responsible for the dislocation of 200,000 people. Good guy. As we sat behind the thin glass and watched the case (which was pretty boring, I'm not going to lie) it was weird to see someone so evil just sit there right in front of you. It made me think of a quote I saw in a movie about the Rwandan genocide: "in every person there is a tremendous capacity for good and a tremendous capacity for evil." You look at this single person (I mean he did look like he stepped out of the Jersey mafia) but he seemed so innocuous just sitting at the chair. It's a weird feeling to think he - or anyone - could be that horrible. Anyway, as I was watching this case I noticed a security guard come up and speak with one of my students, and then escort him out of the viewing room. It turns out he fell asleep right behind the witness being interviewed and he was distracting the judges so a guard in the court room had to radio the guard in our room and remove him. UGH AMERICAN STUDENTS, we do not get a good rep.

After our trip to Den Haag we took a bus over to Brussels, where we immediately went to our favorite bar, Delerium. At Delerium there are over 200 beers on tap and they are all amazing (I know because I probably tried about 3/4 of the available beers that they had to offer). My favorite beer is the cactus flavored one!! Promise, it tastes like a slushie. After Delerium my fellow tour leader, Peter (the librarian who is AWESOME) took me, Jacob, and Frazer to a vampire bar. Not even joking. We went to a bar that had coffin tables, skeletons hanging on the wall, fake, big hairy spiders hanging from the walls, and the clientele that were a little freaky. I tried to find that boy from Twilight, but no such luck!

Brussels was amazing though. I had some free time while the students were doing interviews with lobbiest groups to the European Union and I went to an old castle, I saw the 5th largest church in the world, I learned how to make chocolate, and I checked out the Margritte museum. I could have stayed there forever, but definitely not as a tour leader because that may be the most stressful job in the world. I swear that 20 year old American students are like 5 year olds. They cannot do anything for themselves, it is insane! As I said earlier, 4 students managed to get lost when they decided to take a detour into a tourist shop when we were en route to lunch, the kid fell asleep in the international court room, a student passed out at a lecture and we had to call the ambulance, a girl lost her wallet and I had to spend 4 hours finding the US Embassy in Brussels to pick it up, there were bed bugs at the hotel we stayed in (Maison du Dragon is not recommended to ANYONE), and a student did not shower the entire week and decided to sit next to me on the 14 hour bus ride home. Talk about body odor.

Well I survived my tip (barely) and am so happy to be back in CPH. Wish you all were here!

Logical Reasoning

I'm free!

No, but really. At approximately 7 pm last night I finished taking the lsat exam, and at approximately 7:01 I popped the cork out of a bottle of wine I had conveniently stored in my bag and started to drink in order to forget about the fact that my mind just got destroyed by a four hour logic test. Anyway, I clearly was overcompensating for the fact that I have not been out in weeks, due to work and studying. While my plan of intense celebration seemed brilliant at the time, my drinking stamina these days is sadly quite low. Translation: Talia and I passed out on her couch at 11 pm without ever actually going out, and then she woke me up at 2:30 am (saving me from the awkward walk of shame in the morning) and told me I needed to leave. Somehow I left Oresunds Kollegium, found my way to the metro, and up all 5908143280 stairs to my apartment.

One really cool perk to my job is the fact that I get to travel (for free!) I basically plan study tours to Brussels, Den Hague, and Germany for each semester and then I get to accompany the students on their trip to see the ICTY criminal cases, Parliament buildings, and all of the European Union offices. I finally finished the planning of my program's trip to Brussels and Den Hague on Friday and I'm going to The Netherlands and Belgium at the end of the week! While DIS interns get to go on these academic trips every semester, we also get to take little trips to other places as well. For instance, at the beginning of the semester we went to Southern Sweden in order to learn about 'emergency situations' that may arise on these trips. While we are always prepared for the worst - I was deathly scared of losing a student in Brussels or having someone develop some weird psychotic disease and having to find a French hospital - the only problem that I have encountered was an incident where a student sexiled his four roommates in a hostel. So I'm hoping that my luck continues!!! Here's to wishful thinking.

This morning, after waking up with a terrible hangover from my crazy night out, I had to drag my ass over to Christianhavn Metro (and no, it was not to go to Christiania). I went kayaking through Copenhagen! We were suited up in these ridiculous suits and life vests, and let me assure you all, we were lookin fine. Since I've never been kayaking before, I was forced into a double kayak which I complained about for a hot second before I realized that the double was truly the way to go. When Eugene (a fellow intern) wasn't paying attention to me in the back of the boat, I would slyly stop paddling the kayak and let him do all of the work. Before we took off on our two hour journey, the guide told us that there is always one person in every group that falls into the water on one of these tours. I know what you are all thinking - and no, I was as dry as one could be after kayaking for two hours and NOT falling into the freezing cold Baltic Sea water. Yay!!!

BTW: did you know that MGMT has a new song out with Kid Cudi??? best day of my life ever!

Sleepy Head

So if you have listened to ANY of my stories throughout my college experience, then you will know that I get myself into the most awkward situations all of the time. For instance, you may all be thinking that I am making this up, but less than a week after meeting Knut, I was walking down the main walking street in Copenhagen - called the Stroget (but pronounced ajfldasjkldfasjkl) - totally engrossed in my music when a young European male stopped me on the street. And yes, I can tell immediately on sight who is American and who is European. European males look like they are from the Jersey shore, sans the steroids. After I impatiently removed my headphones from my ears, he said in English (because clearly, I look American with my lack of blonde hair, blue eyes, and terrible fashion sense) that he wanted me to help him find a present for his sister's birthday. I gave him my, are you serious face? After saying no, I had important shit to do with my life (like go watch Danish tv, which is exactly like American tv, just 6 months behind and with subtitles at the bottom) he then asked me to rate my average level of fun on a daily basis. I think he was trying to gage if I would get drunk enough during the weekend to fulfill the typical American stereotype??? But I'm not very good at social cues so who knows.

When he asked me to rate my fun level (on his scale a 10 = you get a tingly sensation when you wake up on a Friday morning because of all the drinking you will be doing later) I had to admit, I am pretty low on the scale. I mean, I used to be fun, I think. Anyway, I will get back to fun level in a minute.

Last weekend I led my first study tour to Germany, and I would have to say it was an overall success. I left with no prior knowledge of two of the three cities I was leading my students to (and my other guide had never been to ANY of the cities), and all I had was an emergency cell phone, a first aid kit, 10,000 danish kroner, 300 euros, a work credit card, 4 bottles of wine (gifts for speakers but if an emergency situation breaks out I could always just start drinking), and some google maps of how to get to a couple of places. We left early on a Thursday morning with 32 American students, and arrived late on Saturday night with 33 students. So, if you were to grade me on sheer number of students returned, my percentage is off the charts. Not to totally bash American university students from affluent east coast schools - well fuck it, I'm going to - these kids are spoiled as all hell. Now, I know that I was one of those elitist assholes only 12 months prior so I probably shouldn't complain too much, but I will anyway. For instance, let me just discuss the sheer amount of times and the number of awkward places these students suddenly feel the strongest urge to need to pee. We will be taking a guided tour through the Hamburg Parliament and girl number 5 comes over to me and asks "Where is the bathroom?" Or we will be on a guided walking tour of a 15th century sea port city and boy number 9 comes and asks for the facilities.

Well I'm sure you all want to read about American students' pee habits, I will move on to a more fun subject: drinking. I'm stuck in kind of an awkward situation as a tour leader because I am only 2 years older than the students so I feel like I'm one of them, but at the same time I have so much responsibility. They really want me to go out with them but I'm not allowed to get drunk, do drugs, or hook up with any students (so what's the point of going out then??? one may ask, but I assure you, not me...) But they did finally get me to go out with them in this little Western Denmark city called Sonderborg. We stood outside drinking Carlsberg for an hour while the boys bought me free beer!! Yay for free alcohol! Yet, I only had two Somersbys because I am a model tour leader. After consuming my two beverages, this one boy kept pushing me so that I would lose balance and then would say "look she's sooooo wasted, she can't even stand up straight." Then we went to a dance club where I was wearing too much clothing and the average age of the ladies was about 16 so I was looking old too. But if I do happen to go a little overboard on the drinking on my next trip, Jacob gave me great advice. He said: "Go to the bathroom and (insert: hand gesture of finger going into mouth.) A little gross, but sometimes these situations cannot be helped.

So my tour made it back... alive. What more can you ask for? The only thing that bothers me is that somehow I picked up the nickname of "mom" on my tour from my students. So, to answer my European man friend's question about my fun level right now, I think I need to work on making my answer higher.

The Pursuit of Happiness

So as most of my dear friends may know, I am not extremely great at keeping in touch with my friends and loved ones while living in a foreign country. Luckily one of my fellow Wesleyan softball teammates - Talia (aka ta-lee-ah, t-bo, teebs, balls!, or just hey you) - started a blog as a foreign exchange student here so I thought that I could rip off her idea and do the same.

I am back in Copenhagen and working as a program assistant for the European Politics and Society Program. While when I applied for the job I had no idea what 'program assistant' actually meant, I have now discovered that this may be the most unusual job I will have in my life. Ever. I work for a former Danish Parliament member and Former Danish Minister of Transport, Jacob Buksti, who was removed from office for traveling over 100 kilometers per hour over the speed limit. When asked by a reporter why he was driving that fast, his response was simply: "Sometimes you just need to speed." So clearly he is a baller. I went to his house on Friday night where he hosted a good bye dinner for my predecessor, Henry, and I learned of many interesting politics stories over many glasses of an endless supply of wine. One of my faves includes how Jacob learned the meaning of 'motor boating,' when he went to a go-go bar with a Danish People's Party Parliament Member (for those of you that don't know danish politics first, shame on you, and second they are the most conservative party in this country) who proceeded to get a lap dance from some hoochie mama.

Besides my boss being a little cooler than the average boss, the rest of my job is also... interesting. For instance, we went to a staff retreat last weekend on an artificial island somewhere in the ocean between Denmark and Sweden. We went into the basement caves of the old military barrack and had lessons on how to be a happy, content employee and attended seminars entitled: "How to look forward to going to work on Monday" and "The Psychology of Happiness." Which, I'm sorry to say, has not improved my feelings about waking up tomorrow and hauling my ass into the city to make copies all day long. Then after the seminars were over, we were split up into teams and sent out doors to complete a scavenger hunt in the pouring rain. Some of the little challenges that we put through included building figures out of sticks and having to identify songs on a cd (which included whitney housten and donna summers - I of course got it right, no big deal). I am happy to report that my team won the scavenger hunt and I now have a little medal on display in my room in case you all want to see my badge of victory.

Besides work, my social life has been somewhat unusual as well. Talia keeps following me around (I just can't seem to shake that girl off... haha you know I love you balls). But seriously, I walked into my office on Friday and who do I see but Talia sitting at my desk and my computer monitor is plastered in post it notes that say: "Julia loves Talia." I swear I'm changing office locations and I'm not telling her where I'm going. As for my love life, well I don't like to brag but I have a couple of hot prospects. The first one is a lovely Dane named Knut who has been sending me emails (because I "forgot" my cell phone number.) Yes, his name is Knut and here is his pickup technique sure to woo any lovely lady:

Hey you

Cool meeting you on the street last week!
Even though you can't remember your own number haha stupid.

Now, one would wonder, how do I reply to this email? Is this the famous Danish sarcasm that we poor Americans can just never hope to get? So I reply that no, you are the stupid one because you don't know your number even though you actually live in this country. His reply:

Haha

Dude, I never call myself! Doh!

Tho, maybe i should. I'm very fun talking to;)

You should try it. Just don't become a stalker and call me 25 times a day...

More Danish sarcasm? I'll let you be the judge. Well I better get back to studying for the lsats that I take in less than a week. Here's to hoping that I get a passing score!