VOLUNTEERING!!!

Hi! This will be pretty quick... Just because I have a TON of work I should be doing and have a midterm tomorrow bright and early... Ew.

Random thing of the day: So. They had traffic problems in downtown Copenhagen. So they decided to get rid of lots of parking and add more bike lanes. I love it. So much more sensible than widening the roads and adding more parking. They also added a giant bike bridge and made lots of bus-only lanes. They're hoping to be the #1 biking city in the world by 2012. Yay bikes!

Anyway, WEEKEND! I decided to lay-low this weekend since next weekend is the beginning of my 3 week long European adventure! Thursday Kara and I went to laundromat cafe. very tasty. Decently cheap. 5 pancakes for 9$... A BLT for 15$. Not... HORRIBLE. Actually, its some of the cheapest real food I've seen while here. But I've gained a rather... skewed... sense of what is cheap and what is not while here. Then I went and watched a movie for class... it was called "Head On." And... it took me about a day to figure out what it had to do with class. It was tough to decipher through the blood, sex and drugs... But it was there. It was about (the related to class version:) How this guy gave up all of his Turkish heritage in Germany and then this Girl had to accept her turkish hertiage... He, by abandoning this heritage had become trapped in too much freedom (sex and drugs... constantly) and she had to accept her heritage in order to gain more freedom while he had to accept it to get his life back from too much freedom. ...Something like that. Its complicated. ANYWAY. Then i went home.

Friday I had class and at night I went to Kara's house. I wanted to spend some time outside of my house... but still not OUT. So, I had a chill time watching the danish equivalent of America's Got Talent. it was pretty good! I ejoyed it. Then I went home and booked most of my travel break.

Final itinerary: 11-16 Lithuania, bus to Riga, Latvia. Fly from Riga to London, bus to Hostel on the 16th. London 16th-20th. Train to brussels on the 20th... Day in Brussels... train to amsterdam... 2 days in amsterdam (21, 22) then fly to Berlin (23, 24,25) fly to CPH and spend a night at home :) (do laundry and such.) 26th meet with group for Czech Trek. Then come back on friday (Halloween!) and spend weekend recovering and relaxing and doing homework :)

Saturday... I didn't do much. I went and volunteered and watched Pirates of the Carribean 2 with Amanda and Pia. Pia didn't like it much... haha. ALSO: AMANDA'S BABY RABBITS OPENED THEIR EYES!!! THEY"RE ADORABLE!!! (pictures soon!!!) Then Sunday (today) I volunteered more and procrastinated on my immense pile of work. haha

But volunteering. Its AMAZING. I love it SO much. Its at a pool in Norrebro. We get there and put curtains on all the windows and kick all the men out of the building... Then there are 3 groups: women, girls 8-10 and girls 10-12. They're all SOOO nice. And many of the women speak a little english. So... between my (very) slight understanding of danish, body language and their little bit of english... we get along just fine! I mostly am there for moral support... I hold them up when they try to float and hold their hand when they get scared and smile and tell them "Godt! Godt!" (good! good!" Sometimes I try to give them swimming tips to help them... But its hard... Basically the set up is the trainer stands up on the side of the pool and gives them directions in Danish... The assistant trainers (me!) dechipher (usually using the demonstration or watching to see what everyone does...) Then we watch to see who is having trouble and go help them. I go for 3 hours on Saturday and 2 hours on Sunday. Its great fun. And today we did water aerobics, so I'll get quite fit as well! haha. Today we also had a group in the deeper end. I was the assistant trainer who could swim... So I got to go to the deep end and tread water for 2 hours. Good thing I'm good at that from water polo...

The assistant trainer on Saturday was a girl from DIS that I'd never met. Turns out she's from Washington state too!!! Its crazy. She was super nice. She's in the medical practices and policy program.

And, a quick little story. Saturday. In the 3rd group (10-12) at volunteering on cute little girl showed up. She was the only girl all weekend to come swimming with her headscarf. (they come with one on, but since there aren't any men, they can take them off while they're there- thats why there are curtains. I think thats how it works?) Anyway. She was standing up on the side of the pool listening to the introduction all hunched over with her arms crossed looking very ashamed of being there and in a swim suit... So I helped her out and got her into the pool. I tried to talk to her, got her name. Then we did kicking on the wall and jumping up in down in the water with the group and I stayed right with her and we laughed and smiled and was great fun. She had opened up completely and was having a great time. Then, I had to go help another girl and she looked so sad! So I helped the other girl and went back to her... But she didn't really need help. But at the end, when we had free-play time, I dragged her around on a floaty toy for a bit... Then went to pull another girl around and she had just gotten out of the pool and was leaving. It was interesting. Maybe I will see her in 3 weeks (when I go back, after travel break :) )

Today I worked with more advanced girls. We did a little bit of diving into the pool. One girl kept coming up to me and just talking to me. It was really nice. She didn't have great english, but she was trying. She seemed like she was having such a great time swimming and she kept wanting to get better... But this would probably be the only time she was allowed to swim, no matter how much she loved it... So I thought that was sad... Sweet girl :) I helped her with diving. :)

And that was my weekend. it was a good weekend. This week though... it'll be... very rough. Lots of work and little sleep... Oh man. I hope YOU have a good week, though!