These are the final two days of our study abroad. On the 28th, we all went out on a canal cruise, that to be honest, kind of turned into a little booze cruise. Of course, many of us brought a bottle of wine or two with us, and snacks, but this was more than the wine and snacks. This was our last adventures together as an entire group and it was amazing to see how close we had all come. Just 23 days earlier, none of use, besides having some classes together, really knew each other, but that didn’t matter. We all came on this trip because we are passionate about making the world a better place. Before coming on this trip, I went to the UO for a year and had only made 1 or 2 “friends” who were more like acquaintances. I didn’t really try to make any friends because I am a 27 year old who hadn’t been in college for  5 years. I thought that I couldn’t really connect with all the young students because not only the age difference, but because of my life experiences. I had a stereotype that most of these young students, especially those paying out of state tuition, were just spoiled kids who have had everything handed to them their entire life. When I found out I was going on this trip, I wasn’t sure how the group dynamic would be and I figured I would probably end up doing my own thing a lot during my free time. I had no idea how all my stereotypes and thoughts about connecting with young students would be smashed. During this trip, I actually spent a lot of my time with some of the youngest students in the group. It was amazing to see the passion in the other students. Being on this canal cruise, filled with smiles and laughter, showed how close we had all become over such a short period of time. This trip was so much more than sustainable bicycle transportation for me, even though that was a huge part of it. I learned a lot about myself on this trip as well and saw the world from so many different perspectives and viewpoints. I never could have imagined what this trip would mean to me. I don’t really have much else to report on what we did this day though. After the canal cruise, a bunch of us went out to dinner to a pancake house and then I met up with a someone I met in Copenhagen and her friend. We went and walked the Red Light District at night, which is crazy, and then her and I met Wally at a club to cap the night off.

The next day, the 29th, was the last day together. I overslept, being out too late, and rushed over to Volks Hotel to use their wifi and be in a nice space to do some work. I got there at 11:30am, thirty minutes before I needed to submit my 2-slide presentation that I would be doing in front of the class at 2pm. In good old Eric fashion, I got it done at the last minute and spent some more time doing research and thinking of what I was going to say in my 3 minute presentation. I then headed back to the Bicycle Hotel to change and get ready to head to the restaurant that we would be doing our presentations at and having our last dinner together. The presentation went fine and everyone did a great job. Ronald even surprised us again (he, his wife, and daughter all came to the canal cruise) by showing up for the presentations and dinner. Dylan thought of something he had done before and had everyone write their names on an envelope and then had everyone write something nice or a memory about everyone on the trip and put it in their envelope. This took me a while and I missed a lot of the dinner party because I really wanted to write something meaningful for everyone. I am really glad Dylan had us all do this because two days later, I read them all and may have shed a tear or two (thanks for all the kind words everyone!). After an amazing dinner and send off, a bunch of us went out to karaoke with Floris and Adam. I’m not sure I have mentioned Floris and Adam. Adam owns his own bike tour business and we were lucky enough to have him along with us. He set up so many things for us and Floris is a great young man that works for him. Karaoke was soooooo much fun and I even got up there and sang a few songs. Then after that, a bunch of us went out dancing and closed down the club. It was a perfect last day. I can’t believe I have finally finished my blog!!!! I think I may or may not write a few more post, for my family, about what I’m doing in Paris and London, before I get home. I just want to give a special shoutout to Marc and Rebecca for leading this amazing trip/”class”. This really was a life changing experience for me and I wouldn’t have changed a thing. I will always remember Marc’s high fives and reminders of how awesome and great the things we were privileged enough to be doing were. I  will be taking some hygge and fire to make a change back home with me!

I am going to keep this blog short and simple. Like I have expressed before, this trip is my first time outside of the west coast, so I have never experience any World War II history in person. I have studied it and even took a class in high school on Holocaust literature and I have read the Anne Frank Diary, but I don’t think any of that can actually prepare you to go into the Anne Frank House. I didn’t really do any research on what this museum and tour was going to be like and when we arrived, we met outside of a really nice modern building that was the entrance to the museum. To be honest, I had no idea that I would not only going into the actual Anne Frank house, but also through the secret bookcase door and into the secret annex that they were in hiding for two years. Going through that bookcase door and into the secret annex was very surreal and indescribable. Making my way through there and imaging them all being in there and the terror they must have felt was something I have never experience. There was markings on the walls where they did a growth cart for Anne and her sister. There was magazine cutouts that Anne had pasted to the wall in her room. The whole experience made me sad, confused, and angry all at the same time. I feel so lucky to have been able to experience this. It makes you wonder why there is so much hate in this world, especially with what is going on in America right now. I wish more people could experience this and use it as a reality check for what fear and hate can do.

July 25th- This was the record breaking day for high temperature and we had an all day scavenger hunt to do and it was great! Yes, the humidity was close to 50% and it was close to 100 degrees, and I was sticky and sweaty, but I had an amazingly sweaty day! We met Meredith Glaser in the morning to go over our PUMA scavenger hunt (sorry, I forgot what PUMA stood for). We had to go to the city center, the pre-war, and the post-war areas of Amsterdam for our scavenger hunt. My group, Kelsey and Ryan, and I decided to ditch our bikes and only walk and take public transit. Starting off at 9:30am, we were super motivated to be the winning team and get every “mission” done, but I have to say towards the hottest part of the day, we started fading. Our first stop was out to Osdorp, which is in the post-war area of Amsterdam. This means it is further away from the city center and the developments are all from 1950s and later. To me, this area seemed to be where lower income people lived. I mainly saw, what looked like to be, immigrants and an older population. We took an Uber from here to the pre-war area and talked with our driver. He was originally an immigrant from India, but has lived here for 35 years. He said he never bikes, only drives and uses the metro because he lives out near Osdorp. He also said that he use to live in the city center, but parking was to expensive so he left. We then went to the museum park and talked to different families about what mode of transportation they used to get there and Kelsey attempted to ride Dutch with a stranger. The museum park had a big shallow pool of water, so we cooled off our feet in it. By this time, it was getting extremely hot, so we went to the hotel to get our swimming gear and went to FC Hyena, in Nord, which you take a ferry too, to swim. Here we cooled off and even got the opportunity to see a boat capsize. I think this night, when we got back, I hand-washed some clothes because I needed underwear. I thought to myself as I put the underwear out to dry on the balcony, “There is no way it will rain or get windy enough to blow my clothes away.” Well, I was wrong. I woke up at 4am to one of the loudest lightning strikes I have heard and the sound of rain flooding our balcony. I ran out there to grab my now soaking wet clothes and realized a pair of underwear had mysteriously gone missing.

July 26th- The first order of business was to find the missing underwear, but I was unsuccessful. Next, was a 10am meeting with Meredith for a debrief of our scavenger hunt and a bike tour. We originally were going to debrief first, but since it was going to be another hot day, we went out and did the bike tour first. Then we came back to the university do to a debrief of the scavenger hunt. Meredith was the last of the badass professionals we would meet with on this trip, well besides seeing Ronald again, but he is more like family! I feel so grateful to have met so many people passionate about making the world a better place through sustainable transportation. It was so inspirational for me and I feel extremely lucky to have had all these opportunities. Later this day, at 4:30pm, we went on a Red Light District tour. Not a whole lot to report back on that. It was very informative and our tour guide was very funny, but it still hasn’t changed my mind around the fact that it is really sad to see those women there selling there bodies. Edit: I forgot to say, I did end up finding my underwear stuck in a tree below the balcony. Sean was down there on the phone as was able to jump up and grab them. Hoooray!

I am I little behind on my blogging right now, but it is not because I haven’t been busy. This was our first full day in the AmsterDAM. We had an early morning meeting with Marjolein de Lange, who is a mobility expert in walking, cycling, and road safety. This was the beginning of a three-day heat wave. The high temperature this day was 96 degrees. Everyone seemed to be struggling a little in the heat during our lecture in a small stuffy room, especially after a long ride from Utrecht the day before, but fortunately for us, Marjolein had some amazing information to keep it interesting. We learned about the bottom-up movement for safer roads and better bike infrastructure that sparked the movement that has gotten Amsterdam where it is now, with a city center where 66% of all trips are made by bike. This has been a common theme at all the cities we have visited. There was a rich bicycle culture here before WWII and then, as the country’s economy grew, more and more people could afford cars. This caused the city to be taken over by cars and car parking. This was a safety hazard and, just like in Copenhagen and Utrecht, the “stop de kindermoord” (stop the children murder) movements happened. Today, I read an article talking about how many children die in cars today in America. It is the number one killer of children 2 to 14 and I thought maybe if more people understood how dangerous cars are for children, we could get some bottom-up movements for safer roads and bicycle infrastructure back home. Anyways, I will be doing my final assignment around topics like that, so I will save that for later. After a bike tour with Marjolein, we ended at a lake where we took a well needed swim. Later, in the evening, some of us went to the park and had some beer and wine and enjoyed the cooler evening. Then, Wally, Micah, and I went on another one of our “get lost” bike rides and boy did we get lost. We just let the wind take us wherever, and then when we started getting hungry, we tried making it back to our hotel. This was an hour to an hour to an hour and a half event. Then after seeing the Heineken building four times, we went one direction and finally found our hotel. These night rides, not using a map, have become one of my favorite things to do. It helps me get to know the city and helps me find my way around later.

Today was the last day on our touring bikes. We were off on our last long ride from Utrecht to Amsterdam. The ride was 44km through the countryside and along canals and rivers. Along the way, we stopped at the Castle De Haar, but didn’t get to see the main castle because of the time and the cost, so we just sat in the grass and played some riddle games. After a nice break, we were back off to Amsterdam. Mikah, Wally, Jaden, and I were all the way in the back and there was a group, led by Adam, that broke away at a fast pace. We decided to see if we could catch the group way out in front and took off on a sprint for quite a while. By the time we finally caught up to the group, they stopped to wait for everyone else, of course, but it was still fun to be on a big bike path, with little traffic, and just go as fast as we could for a while. Almost the entire ride was on bike paths that were separate from the road, which was very nice and enjoyable. The ride took a little over 4 hours and all the sudden we road up to some buildings and we were in Amsterdam. It made me think of how the two cities were separated from a lot of farmland and rural areas and not connected through urban sprawl places in the US. We were in the countryside and then, bam, we were in Amsterdam. That is one thing that has been consistent throughout the big cities we have been to- the density of the cities and the lack of urban sprawl, compared to the US. Once we got to our hotel, I needed a cold shower. The temperature was 87 degrees with the humidity somewhere around 40%, so I was sweaty and sticky. After a nice cold shower and getting our bikes from our hotel, the Bicycle Hotel, Jaden, Sean, Micah, and I went out to explore and find a snack. We walked around an area that is an outdoor market and I had to go to another vape shop because I broke the vape I got in Malmo. Sean then split off from us and we returned to the hotel to get ready to go for a swim. A group of us road our bikes north to take a ferry across Markermeer, which I thought was part of the saltwater inlet of the North Sea, but I found out that it was dammed off from the sea in 1932, making it a fresh water lake. The ride over to the swim spot was right in rush hour, a little after 5pm, and the number of bikers was insane. There was a constant flow of bikes everywhere we went. It was actually a little scary trying to cross streets, not because of the cars, but because of the river of bikes you had to cross. After a nice swim, Jaden, Micah, and I went to find some food and settled on a bar that I later found out was about 100ft from the red-light district. After a delicious burger and a cold beer, we went back to the hotel where we split up with Jaden and met up with Wally. We decided to go out and explore the city a little and ended up in the red-light district. Honestly, it was crazy and kind of sad to see. The women were just in windows in skimpy outfits and there were thousands of tourist and kids walking around looking at them. I have never seen anything like it before. By this time, I was getting tired, so we returned to the hotel to get some sleep before our 9am meeting the next day.

The day started out with a 15-minute bike ride out to Ronald’s house where we all met and got ready for the day’s journey. The agenda was to bike out to the River Rhine, a stop at a small lake to swim, meeting up with Ruud, one of Ronald’s colleagues, in Houten for a tour, and then dinner at Theehuis Rhijnauwen, a “pancake” house. The ride out to the lake was a beautiful ride that consisted of windy roads and old, World War II bunkers. Once we got to the River Rhine, the bike path turned into a small road that had two-way traffic despite it being barely wider than a one-lane road. The road is popular for motorist and motorcyclist because of its windy turns where you can get some speed outside of the city. When we got to the lake, I took a quick dip. The water wasn’t too cold, but the wind was blowing, so I got out and bathed in the sun while watching some of my classmates play a form of ultimate frisbee in the water.

The next stop was to meet Ruud in Houten, a strategically planned suburb of Utrecht. I’ll post a picture so you can get a visual of the suburb and its design. Cutting right through the middle of Houten is the train tracks with its own train stations accompanied with an underground, bike parking structure. So even though Houten is 15km away from Utrecht, you can still make it to the city center by train in 10min or by bike in about 25min. I’ve learned about transit orientated developments, so it was cool to see one that was planned out so well. There is also only one main road that circles the suburb with one road through the middle. There are entrances to each neighborhood loop from the main road and each loop and entrance has a maximum of 600 homes to keep the traffic low. They also planned it out, so the furthest home isn’t too far from the main entrance to keep drivers from driving fast. To get around the center of Houten, you must use a bike. There were even signs in the loops that reminded drivers that cars are guest to cyclist on the roads. It was cool to see a suburb designed so well!

The next stop was the Pancake house. It was very busy in the restaurant, but we got very lucky and a group that had table reservations canceled so we got a table for all 23 of us pretty quickly. They had all sort of pancakes and I couldn’t decide if I wanted a savory or sweet pancake, so I got one that was half bacon and cheese and half apple and raisin. One pancake was a pizza pancake with greens, goat cheese, and pastrami. While waiting for our meal, some of us went out to try Ronald’s wife’s e-bike. I had never been on one and I was blown away with how much power the pedal assist had. I think I may need to get an e-bike for my commute to campus, so if anyone in my family is reading, early Christmas present…? Anyways, my pancake was delicious, and after a group photo the we headed back to the hostel to prepare for a little night out together. 15 of the 17 students all went out to get drinks together, which was a lot of fun!

Two photos of some views on our ride!

My delicious pancake!

New style of biking, the “low-rider”.

Hear is a map of Houten. You can see the railroad through the middle and the grey is the main street that circles Houten.

Saturday the 20th- We planned on meeting with Ronald at 10am for a little bike tour, but mother nature decided otherwise. There was a torrential down poor and a little thunder and lightning, but we are flexible on this trip, so we pushed the meeting time to 10:30am and Ronald did some pre-bike ride talking in the hostel lobby until the rain slowed down. We lucked out and the rain cleared, and the sun even came out, making for a beautiful day. To start off the tour we headed out to the west side of Utrecht so see how they connected housing on this side of town, that was developed in the 70s and 80s, to the center of the city. We stopped along some nice green space with buildings on either side. I wasn’t sure why we were stopping here until Ronald told us we were standing on part of a mile-long stretch of a highway that they had build a platform above, making it into a tunnel. Not only did this turn this space into a nice green space with a with a bike lane north and south, but it also acted as a bike path that connected the west side of the city to the city center. It was incredible to think that it used to just be a normal highway until it became covered and converted into something much more. Our next stopped sneaked up on us as well. We biked across a bike and pedestrian bridge and went down a little off-ramp style path and then Ronald stopped at the bottom where he pointed out a structure under the bridge. They had built a school whose roof was part of the bridge off-ramp. Our final stop was what I thought to be just a stop to get some food, but Ronald had another surprise for us. We got food and sat on some grass on a raised planter and Ronald pointed out how the streets at the intersection were designed. I honestly didn’t even realize it was even a street we were sitting along. The design turned it into a shared space for bikes, pedestrian, and cars, just by changing it from asphalt, with painted lanes and traffic markings, to bricks with no lines or markings. This tour really showed me how some little changes in design can make things so different and create such a different space than ones designed around cars. I will put some pictures with some more description on the bottom of the post.

Later, in the evening, Wally, Micah, Dylan, and I did what Marc and Rebecca want us to do- get lost. We went and got pho for dinner and then just went exploring, taking lefts and rights whenever it felt right. We ended up outside of town near the local soccer stadium. It was really fun just riding around and consuming a new city, without any maps at all. After a probably close to two hours, we found our way back to the hostel without checking a map once, which really surprised me. After some dessert, Wally and I didn’t really feel like going to sleep yet, so we basically did the same thing, but on foot this time. We just walked and talked about life and what we are learning and experiencing on this trip. This was around midnight, and it looked like rush hour. The amount of people out biking was incredible. There were hundreds of people out biking in packs up to 10-15 people. We both were blown away and were talking about how cool it would be to live in a city like this that has so much energy and people out walking and biking all the time. This trip is really making me rethink life as I know it and how different other places are. I want to believe that we could move more into the direction of biking, walking, and public transit in America, but at the same time it seems like we are light years away from having cities like this. Wally and I talked a lot about how much could be solved if we all biked and walked more. We also talked about how awesome this course is and how it is so much more than just biking and biking infrastructure for us. It has really been learning about an entire culture and political climate that works together with biking to make an entirely different lifestyle. I hope that somehow I can translate everything I am seeing and learning to people back home and be a part of the change I want to see in the future!

This is where they built on top of the existing highway. The red star is where we stopped and the yellow stars are the where the highway turns into a tunnel.

This is taken from the red star in the picture above.

This is the school build under the bridge!

Ronald standing in the street that looks more like a plaza, explaining how they redesigned this intersection.

Here is another view of the street.

You can see the same store in the photo below that was before the redesign.

Before the redesign.

The red star is where we were sitting, listening to Ronald.

Yesterday, the 18th, I was in three countries in one day. We started the day off early, 5:30am, to pack all our checked luggage into the van because we had to walk to the train station. We took the train from Malmo to the Copenhagen Airport and from their we flew into Amsterdam. Once in Amsterdam, we took a train to Utrecht. I slept on each leg of this journey because I was up a little too late on Wednesday/Thursday morning. When we got to our hostel at 11:30am, we found out our rooms wouldn’t be ready until check-in time at 2:00pm so even though I was extremely tired, I went and picked up my bike and got some lunch. I haven’t had a lot of time to get out and bike around the city, but after a nice 2hour nap, I went out to get some falafel with a few of the guys and walked around the canals near our hostel. This city, from what I have seen so far, is a beautiful city with a deep history. The city was founded in 70 AD by the Romans, which is hard for me to even fathom growing up in Oregon, which was founded in 1859. Some of the students have had the opportunity to travel and see historical places, but for me this is something I have never experience since I have never left the west coast. I have heard some students say they don’t want to hike or bike to a castle just to see a bunch of bricks, but for me, there is some type of magic being in an area or building that has so much history. I feel like I talk about it every time I post a blog, but this trip continues to be such an amazing experience and opportunity for me that not very many people get, I mean there is only 16 other students with me on this trip. Hopefully on my next blog I will be able to talk more about my experience biking and exploring Utrecht, but right now I am currently sitting in a laundry mat, doing all my laundry that I haven’t been able to do because, until I got into Malmo, I couldn’t find any stain remover, and if you know me, I stain everything I wear.

On another note, however, we did get to go meet up with Ronald today, the 20th, who is a traffic engineer here in Utrecht, but after his presentation, it seemed like he was more of a social engineer because of how they plan around the people, not cars. For me, this was really one of the most interesting professional meetings we have been in. Ronald gave us some history of The Netherlands, which really helped me understand how they have gotten to where they are now, the second-best city in the world for cycling. The part that interested me the most though was about the biking culture here. He really focused on the behavioral and social aspect of biking, especially for the children, who are the potential, future car drivers. Here, the children learn how to bike at a very young age and, on top of that, parents bike with them on their bike at an even younger age. This makes biking, not driving, the normal thing to do here. Biking opens the world for kids and teenagers, and you can’t even get a driver’s licenses until you are 18 years old. This really made me think of my childhood. When I was a kid, I use to bike around all over the place and it gave me a sense of independence and freedom, but what really opened my world was when I turned 16 years old and got my driver licenses. Living in a suburb with low-density, there wasn’t a whole lot of places I could bike to, but when I got my car, I was able to do so much more. Biking here also is a has a social aspect to it. You meet more people and, with less cars, there is more space for outdoor plazas and places to hangout. You can also bike with your friends and meet new people when you are biking and walking. The public spaces in the cities we have visited are always so full of people and it really shows that cities aren’t just a place to live, they provide much more than that. We also visited a parking structure that had parking for 4,200 bikes and it was full of bikes and we visited one that, once completed, will have over 12,000 parking spots. I’m excited to get out and bike this city more. This city is completely planned around bikes and I have never seen so many people biking. I’ll report back later!

Canal right by the hostel.

Cool tunnel to down to the canal.

This was the bike parking structure that had 4,200 bike parking spots.

Ronald said that, “it’s not just a roof, it it’s an icon” about this covering between the central station and the mall.

July 15th, Sunday, was a day of rest at Helsingor. Wally and I slept in until 11:30am after staying out a little late the night before, seeing what the nightlife in Helsingor was all about. Nothing much to report back on that. After a little lunch, at this cool food court, inside of an old warehouse and writing my last blog, Wally and I sat out behind the hostel drinking cup after cup of coffee. It was nice to just relax and talk about anything from environmental justice to the purpose of life and getting to know Wally better. That evening we had a nice student led, group dinner on the back lawn and a little bonfire with Danish S’mores. The next day we were off on another bike ride, 31km, to the island of Ven, which is an island in Sweden. We took two ferries along the way to Ven and then it was another day of rest for me. I went into our little cabin as soon as we got there and took a nice nap and then woke up to another student led, group dinner and then I was off to bed to rest up for another long bike ride to Malmo. It was really nice and needed for me to have a couple days of rest. I feel like I never stopped moving in Copenhagen. I was living off of the energy of the city and then when we got out of the city and into a more rural area, I hit a wall and needed to catch up on all the sleep that I missed. Today, the 16th, Ryan, Brenna, Tenley, and I decided we wanted to “Lance Armstrong” this 48km ride to Malmo. By this, I mean we wanted to go faster than the group and try and get a nice work out in. About 10 miles in we lost Brenna because she couldn’t keep up with our pace, sorry Brenna, and this was when the “Power team” was born. It was really fun and nice moving at a fast pace and getting in a great workout on the way to Malmo. Ryan had his speaker on the whole time and we were so into biking with intensity that we even took our shirts off while biking. Looking back at it now, I probably should have worn some sunscreen because my shoulders are a little crispy, but I think it should turn into a tan.. I really wanted to get to the hotel because I was on the last pair of underwear and socks and really needed to do laundry. Come to find out, they don’t have laundry here, but Marc and Rebecca stress being flexible, so I took what I learned from my aunt and hand-washed all my socks and underwear. Ryan, Tenley, and I went and got lunch, ahi poke bowl for me, and then we got ice cream as well. I then went to a local vape shop because I lost one and broke my other, and if you know me that is a travesty. Nicotine addiction is no joke. There at the shop, I met a nice 23 Swedish guy who worked there and we talked for 30 minutes. One of my favorite things on this trip has been meeting new people and learning about what life is like for them. After that, we went to a group pizza in the park and now I am currently listening to DJ Jaden’s music with Wally and Mikah, sipping a beer and I’m going to go ahead and enjoy the rest of the night. Talk to you all soon!

Route from Helsingor to Ven.

This castle was built in the early 1300s and is the oldest structure I have ever been in. It is in Helsingborg where we stopped after our first ferry ride from Helsingor. A few of us paid to go inside and go all the way to the top.

This was a quick little quick pit stop right before our last ferry of the day to the island of Ven.

The beginning of the ride today, before we lost Brenna.

View from today’s ride.

Route the power team took today, minus the first five miles I didn’t get logged.

Yesterday, we started off with an early, 8am, meeting at the Generator Hostel to go over our bike ride from Copenhagen to Helsingor. As I packed my last Generator Hostel sandwiches for the road and returned the key to my bike, I reflected on the amazing week I spent in Copenhagen and all the great people I met along the way. From meeting with professionals from Gehl, Copenhagenize, the parks department, and BIG Architecture during the day to backflipping off a houseboat into the harbor at Midnight and everything in between, it feels like I was in Copenhagen for a month even though the time flew by. Copenhagen held true to everything I could have ever imagined and more. Before coming on this trip, I had only ever biked around recreationally. Back home I drive my car everywhere I go, and I am always running late. I end up driving recklessly trying to get to places on time and I get agitated with other drives. I joke about it with people, but it is kind of true when I say it, about how I get flipped off at least once a week when I am driving. Being here and not driving for over ten days now, I can feel the benefits of biking to and from places instead of driving. I felt more connected to Copenhagen than I do back home. When I drive, I am seeing the world at faster pace, but when I bike, I am so much more aware of things around me. I can see why there is a higher sense of community here than back home. During the last big election, they had an 80% turn out on voter, which shows how much more people feel connected to their community. Not only do I feel more connected to the city and the people, I also feel healthy and happy biking around. Even the trip over to Helsingor was so easy and safe. The ride was 48 Km and it was almost completely on one continuous bike path that took us all the way up here. There were so many people out in cycle gear with nice road bikes riding along the path. I was thinking about how different it was biking here compared to trying to bike the same distance along the Oregon coast on Highway 101. I never once worried about getting hit by a car. The ride up here was so beautiful too. We followed the coastline all the way up here and went through the countryside with open fields and pockets of forested areas. The coast and beaches here are not what I expected, especially being so far north. The water is so clear and blue, it almost looks like a tropical ocean. As I write this blog right now, I am sitting on the beach at the hostel looking out towards the bay with Sweden on the other side. I don’t even know how I am getting college credit for this trip. Even though I am learning so much, it doesn’t even feel academic to me. We don’t sit in classrooms and get lectured. Everything we do is interactive and so much fun. I feel so lucky to be here and learning with my “classmates” who are all amazing and very passionate about making the world a better place. I am excited to see what the rest of the trip has in store for me. Since my last post, we went to a rooftop cocktail party, met some new local Copenhagen residents who took Ryan and I from Refshaleon, on their little boat, across the harbor to their houseboats, and so much more. I have talked to and met more new people here in a week than I do in months in Eugene. There is just so much going on. You can just grab a six pack of beer and go to a nice park or plaza and strike a conversation with people from all around the world, which is something you can’t do in Eugene. I also stopped at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art on the way to Helsingor and spent a couple hours there. There was some Andy Warhol’s there which was cool to see and some very interesting art. Anyways, I’m off to a group dinner and bonfire on the back lawn of the hostel!

Our route from Copenhagen to Helsingor.

A couple photos of the views on the way to Helsingor.

Pit stop break with a beautiful view of this pond.

Inside one of Yayoi Kusama’s infinity mirrored rooms at the Louisiana Modern Art Museum. 

My bike for the long ride.