First Night in Copenhagen

     I arrived in Copenhagen around 6pm. They have one of the nicest airports. There are free maps of the city in every language, free wifi, and interactive maps on the wall. I got a train ticket to the city center. I didn't quite realize how lacking the directions were to my hostel until I arrived. I initially started in the right direction but decided it could not possibly be the right direction and decided to make a giant circle. There were a ton of people out and it was lightly raining. I was pretty sure I was not going to make it to my hostel. I decided to go down the one street that was mentioned and hopefully find some familiar landmarks. I was lucky in the that the street after about a mile took me to the hostel. I got in around 8pm and was informed that I would have to check out the following day and into another room. Since I did two separate bookings. There was a long line of people so I thought I could better sort it out in the morning. I was still sick and needed some rest.

      I got into my room and there was another american girl there. She offered me some street nuts and told me about her adventures around Copenhagen. This was her first big trip outside of the United States. She was leaving the following morning to catch a train to Germany. She and one of the other roommates had mostly explored the city together. She said that there were two other guys from Germany but they only spoke in German and were never in the room. I pretended to go to sleep in hopes that I would actually go to sleep. One of the German guys came in and started at me for a apologized in German for opening the door. I said it was fine in English. He wanted to know why I was not at happy hour. I was currently in my pajamas and I said I just wanted to get some sleep but I would be at happy hour tomorrow. He seemed okay with this answer and then left to go to happy
hour. I eventually went to sleep.

Last Day in Scotland

     Checkout was at 10:30 am at the hostel. They did offer to hold your bags for you in a large storage room. I took a 2 hour walk around Edinburgh then came back for my bag.

There's Waldo!

      There is a bus from the city center that will take you directly to the airport. It's about a 30 minute drive and cost 3 pounds.

      They made a point that everything that could turn into a liquid needed to be in a bag. It took me about 20 minutes to get EVERYTHING in my bag that might be considered a liquid into a little plastic bag. The security was pretty easy going through the airport. The security guards were funny and when I found another girls passport in my things they made a big deal of shaming her of not keeping a better eye on such an important document. I then had to get the plastic bags into my backpack. It was a bit of a struggle but I did it. I took Easy Jet from Edinburgh to Copenhagen because it was 60 euros and an hour.

Second Day in Scotland

      I woke up early in the morning partly because I was really excited to start the day and the other part was due to the almost 7 foot Irish guy sleeping beneath my bunk who pooped up with his head easily clearing my bunk saying "Top of da Mornin' Ta Ya". I immediately started giggling and said "good morning". I went to the bathroom and changed out of my pajamas and into my cold weather wear.
      The view from my hostel window.

     I left the hostel and made my way to "The Elephant House" where JK Rowling wrote one of the Harry Potter books. Along the way there was the famous Greyfriars Bobby statue. The little skye terrier spent 14 years of his life sitting on his owner's grave until he also passed. There was an Italian couple trying to take a picture with that statue. I offered to take a picture of them with the statue and they were really excited. I did not plan on having a picture taken myself but they kindly offered to return the favor.

   
      The coffee shop was just a couple of blocks away. I ordered a cafe latte and sat at one of the tables it looked like there was a picture of JK Rowling sitting at. There were not a lot of tables at the coffee shop and I was lucky there were not a lot of people. Later on in the day I'd pass the shop and there was a line out the door.

JK Rowling probably sat at each of these spaces.

My lovely cup of coffee.

     After finishing my coffee I decided to do more exploring of the city and castle. I also booked a two tours. The Mary King's Close tour and the spooky night tour that took you underground to the catacombs, abandoned section of a prison, and finished in the graveyard. Sadly, you were not suppose to take pictures during the tour and they kept the groups small to help monitor rouge picture takers.

     I had late lunch/early dinner at Wildfire which was probably one of the best meals of my trip.

      I did not know that for most restaurants you need to make a reservation even for lunch. There was one hostess that was also the waitress and taking Christmas reservations. I did the fixed priced menu which I selected the mussels, then filet and fries. It was all delicious and I made sure to thank the two cooks that had prepared the meal. I was then ready for my last tour.

     The weather was perfect for the full day I was there. The Scots are excellent story tellers and I enjoyed the tours immensely. I learned about one lady who wanted to secure her daughter a wealthy husband so she claimed to have a very high dowry to attract a man with money. One man took the bait and married her daughter. He would bring up the dowry and the conversation would always change with a promise of later. His wife became pregnant and he was set on getting the dowry and aggressively pursed it when his mother-in-law was visiting.He promptly was killed him with a poker from the fireplace. The mother and daughter were sentenced to death but you were not allowed to kill a pregnant woman. The daughter escaped death by having her daughter early and escaping to London. Where she married another wealthy man. She had to leave her daughter in Scotland but when she died most of her wealth went to her daughter.

     Edinburgh also suffered two plagues. The living conditions were quite terrible in consideration of how most people live today. There were about 10-12 people in a family during that time and their home was a 10 by 8 foot room. You did everything in this room. This was a perfect situation to spread disease. During the bubonic plague many residents were bricked up with the infected and other family members. If you were infected you were forbidden to leave your home. There was treatment in the form of draining the buboes and then searing the wound closed with a hot iron. It wasn't a particularly pleasant experience and you had a 40% chance of surviving the procedure versus the 100% chance of certain death if you did nothing. These were just a few of the stories you learned on the tours. After the tour was the pub crawl.

Second Day in Paris

Breakfast was at 7am. My options were French pressed coffee, water, toast, and toast with raspberry jam.

Sadly, Matthew was leaving for Lyon. He invited me to visit him but I had Paris to discover. I started off at the place I've dreamed of going since my first art history class, the Louvre. The line was reasonable and it took about 20 minutes to get a ticket and get into the exhibitions. The secret I found out online was to go to the entrance underground through the mall.

I was able to see everything my little heart desired. It's amazing to see the difference in a masterpiece in front of you and from a picture.

I kept seeing a huge flower display outside in the center courtyard of the Louvre. I say a bit later that is was for the Dior fashion show. I had lucked out and was in Paris for fashion week. After walking through all of the exhibits I excited through the underground mall. I noticed that there was a line with extremely well dressed people leading into a room with thousands of clothes and people running about like their hair was on fire. I decided to get in the line. There was a bag check by two burly men and then you were allowed to go into the big tent and sit. You were only allowed to take picture if you had a pass.

I had made it into the Dior fashion show! I think I saw Rhiannon in the front row but it was very dark. The clothes were amazing and I could not believe my luck.

After the show I got some fancy macaroons and had a bit of a picnic in the park. I then walked around the Seine river looking at the artwork. When my feet had enough I headed to the apartment to rest up for the next day.

First Day in Paris

I arrived in Paris around noon. It was an interesting flight. The announcements were in made in Spanish, French, then English. I was staying at my first ever AirBNB booking and the host put that  check in was 7pm. I made my way to the metro station and booked a ticket to my host's stop. The metro was easy to navigate and I only had to change trains once.

I arrived at my destination around 1pm. I had looked online on the museum's policy on backpacks. I found out when arriving to the Cathedral Notre Dame that there was a limit on the size of the bag you could bring inside. I was allowed to go into the Cathedral but it looked like I would have to wait till the next day to do all the other sightseeing. I ended up staying in a coffee shop that offered free WiFi until my host would arrive.

I made my way to the apartment around 7pm. I met my host in the stairwell of the building. There were several other people staying with him during my stay. One lady who was about 50 named Monica who was from Argentina and only spoke Spanish and another guy named Matthew who was from Lyon and was a Rugby player. Monica was not back so Matthew, my host, Thebalt, and I decided to go out. The apartment was located in the Latin Quarter of Paris. It got it's name from being one of the oldest areas and most of the people who lived there were students or professors who would speak Latin. It was a bustling area.

Matthew, Thebalt, and I found a place where they were showing the rugby championship. It was a wonderful evening that ended with swing dancing.