Copenhagen, Denmark.

The fourth and penultimate stop on my trip was Copenhagen, my first stop in Scandinavia. Even with the bit of research I had done, I wasn't quite sure what to expect out of my time in the city. As is my luck, it rained all of the days except for one, but I still had a good time while I was there. While I wasn't staying right in the city (I was in the suburb of Tårnby), I still did and saw a lot of neat things, so here are some of the highlights.

The Little Mermaid, looking
out to sea for her prince.

The changing of the guard at Amalianborg,
the winter home of the Danish royal family.

Nyhavn Canal.

Me freezing to death on the canal boat.

I'm in Stockholm now; the last stop on my trip. Since I'm here for a week, I'm hoping to update more than once, just as long as my computer cooperates (it had a bit of a fit when I was writing this entry).

Hamburg, Germany.

I left Hamburg today, heading off to Denmark. Out of the three cities that I've visited so far, Hamburg is my favourite. It's the first one that I could see myself living in (if I spoke German, that is). If I would've known how much I'd like it, I probably would've planned to spend more time there. Now, it's just an excuse to return one day!

On the day of my arrival, FC St. Pauli was playing their rivals, FC Hansa Rostock, and the stadium happened to be right near my hostel. When I was waiting for the bus to take me to the hostel, I noticed police everywhere. Suddenly, there were two loud bangs, which caused the police to put on their riot gear. After that, men in black balaclavas came running up the street, throwing bottles, flares, and what appeared to be some sort of smoke bomb at the police. Needless to say, the police ran after them, and I had one interesting welcome to the city. Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of it, because my camera was packed away and I was loaded down with all of the things. After that, however, I did take a lot of photos of the city, so here's just a couple of my favourites.

The harbour of Hamburg. Filled with cruise-type ships
and pirate-like ships like this one, called Rickmer Rickmers.

Seeing this on the lake reminded me of home.

Statues of the Beatles at Beatles-Platz; just down
the Reeperbahn from Beatles-Mania, a museum.

Rathaus, Hamburg's city hall.

St. Nikolai Memorial, the remains
of a church that was bombed
during World War II.

And, since I got to see a lot of water during my train ride (including a ferry ride!), here's one of the views I saw of Germany.

Auf Wiedersehen, Deutschland!

Berlin, Germany.

I'm now nearing the end of the second leg of my trip. I leave Berlin tomorrow, so I thought that now would be a good time to post some photos of the things I've seen here. I've taken a lot, so I'm only going to choose a few to put up (for now, at least).

The Brandenburg Gate.

The home of the Berlin Philharmonic;
a very interesting-looking building.

My favourite museum here: The Museum of Film
and Television. I saw both an Oscar and a Golden Globe,
not to mention a lot of Marlene Dietrich's famous outfits.

A small section of the gorgeous Tiergarten; I walked
through there for hours.

Looking up at the Bode-Museum from a boat on the Spree.

And, to end this,  a photo of myself, which are now few and far between, as I'm terrible at taking pictures of myself and hate asking people to take pictures of me.

Soaking up the sun in the Tiergarten.

Brussels, Belgium.

On Sunday, I left France for what I'm planning on being a three-week trip through some of northern Europe. The itinerary that I've planned is Brussels --> Berlin --> Hamburg --> Copenhagen --> Stockholm. Today was my last full day in Brussels before I head off the Berlin in the morning. So, I thought I'd post a few of the pictures that I've taken here.

One side of the Grand Place, a large square in the centre of Brussels.

The cathedral at Laken, built in memory
of a former Queen of Belgium.

Showing off the jersey (yet again!) at the Atomium,
the building that I was really excited to see.

The beer menu at Delirium. It has the widest selection of beer
in Brussels, so much so that their menu is a catalogue.

Me enjoying a Belgian waffle (yes, it was cold enough that
I had to wear a tuque, and yes, I ate ice cream anyways).

So, I head off to Berlin in the morning. I hope I enjoy it there as much as I've enjoyed Brussels. To end the entry, I'm going to post my favourite photo that I took of the Atomium.

Last day of work.

Today was, unexpectedly, my last day of work. I was only scheduled to work today and Thursday, but it turns out that my Thursday class is writing an exam instead. Therefore, I was suddenly pushed into the idea that I was about to have my last two classes at the lycée ever.

The first one went well, but it's a class where I'm there with the teacher and don't do any 'teaching', per se, so before the class left, I just announced that it was my last day with them and wished them well for the rest of the year. I was very pleased when some of them thanked me afterwards, asked me questions, and wished me well in return.

My final class was with a group of kids (the equivalent of grade 12) who I've always had a great time with. When I told them that they were my last class at the lycée, I was blown away by some of the things they said to me. Like the other class, they thanked me, and they also told me about how much fun they had in my class. The part that really got me was they said that they had 'defended' me to other students who thought that I was 'too strict'. It really touched my heart, and it made me really happy to end my job on such a good note.

Now, I'm unexpectedly on vacation three days earlier than I thought. I'm setting off on my three-week European trip on Sunday, first stop Brussels. I'll hopefully be updating during my trip, because I'll definitely be taking a lot of photos.

Just a little drawing.

Since I only get halves of classes, I'm already starting to see some of my students for the last time. Couple that with the fact that many of them are going on a school trip to England next week, I've already said good-bye to a lot of classes. All of my classes today were final classes for those groups of kids. In my very last one, I noticed one girl was drawing the entire time. Normally, I would've said something, but since it was the last one and we were just listening to English music, I let it slide. At the end of class, she came up to me, and handed me this picture she drew of me. The English isn't perfect, but I think you can easily get the gist of it. It's already my new profile picture on Facebook.

An amazing Saturday night.

This past Saturday, I got to do something that I've wanted to do for a very long time; so much so that it was practically a bucket list activity for me. I got to go to a late-night showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show, complete with a shadow cast. It was everything that I hoped it would be. This particular shadow cast, Les Sweet Transvestites, are the official French fan club of Rocky Horror, as proclaimed by Richard O'Brien himself. Unfortunately for me, I didn't get many photos because having a camera without a flash makes for poor photos of dimly lit rooms. Fortunately for me, the cast takes photos of every showing of the film, so I'll post some of their photos after mine.
We got to the theatre (Studio Galande, if anyone fancies going when they're in Paris) a bit late, so we were the last ones in line. We already had our tickets, so that wasn't a big deal; it just meant we wouldn't be able to get seats all together.

The line-up for the movie.

Once inside, we were treated to a pre-film performance of some of the shadow cast dressed up as the Village People, singing and dancing to some of the band's greatest hits. Here's a photo of the crowd (you can see me on the right).

Once the film got started, they started acting alongside (or rather, in front of) the film, as well as yelling out jokes in both English and French, so that the punchline would come from the film itself. We got to join in as well, throwing rice during the two weddings, throwing water during the rain scene, and dancing the Time Warp. The cast would sometimes go right into the audience and interact. Here's a photo of Frank-N-Furter singing to Bex (I can't remember what song it was, though).

Serenade from a sweet transvestite.

Their costumes were perfect; they looked exactly as they do in the film. Here's one final photo. If you want to see more, you can go to their Facebook fan page here.