I'm on a Boat!

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Being on a boat seems to be a common theme throughout my travels, and on Sunday I found myself on one again! This time it was a cruise ship as opposed to an overcrowded wooden boat filling up with water. Sunday was also Tandi’s birthday, so before we went to meet the others we attempted (and failed) to find a fancy restaurant for lunch. Unfortunately not much is open on a Sunday in Lund, so we had burgers next to the train station.

Anyway, after what seemed like forever of being in the cold, we finally made it onto the boat and went straight to the Jacuzzi and sauna with the girls. After a couple of relaxing hours we got ready and went to a really fancy (and expensive) dinner for Tandi’s birthday! It began as such a classy night and the restaurant gave us a free bottle of champagne and chocolates, as well as writing ‘Grattis Tandi’ on her dessert. After dinner we went to a bar and saw some live music. The band played ‘happy birthday’ to Tandi and afterwards the old man went on to say ‘I’m not sure where you girls are from, but this song reminds me of you!’. The band proceeded to play ‘California Girls’ and the old man did the Snoop Dog part. Hilarious!

From this part of the night onwards the classiness dissappeared (asides from the lovely Autumn and Corrie who were able to keep it together) and everyone seemed to turn into animals. There was karaoke, dancing, cocktails, more dancing, shots, Tandi disappearing, Bianca dying, falling downstairs, and people wobbling around everywhere/on the floor/on the stairs/in the corridors, and seeing gross things. The best part was when the dance floor actually started tilting around in different directions.. at first I thought it was just me! On behalf of the 150 exchange students, I apologise to the families and elderly couples we were sharing the boat with.

After the first night of craziness we got off the ship in Oslo and had a look around the city for most of the day. Everywhere I go I want to go back! The city seemed quite small and was filled with beautiful buildings and pretty white houses. We took a tour of a Viking Ship museum which was super cool (did you know Vikings didn’t actually wear horns in their helmets?), as well as the Kon Tiki museum which displayed a reed boat which a man sailed from Morocco to the Caribbean in the 1970s. From what I gathered he did this to prove people actually used these kind of boats back in the day. Once this was discovered we napped until it was time to get back on the bus. After the tour we had a quick look at the Opera House and a fika before heading back to the boat and sleeping for 3 hours before starting all over again.

The next day we arrived back in Copenhagen, wandered around for a bit, ate a kebab and caught the train back to Lund. It was definitely a fun trip and I met loads of new cool people (in addition to some annoying people who stole half a bottle of our vodka)!

I should also mention that the nation Bianca, Kiri, Autumn and I joined, Östgöta, had a few Novisch (new people) events that actually occurred before the cruise. The first was a dinner followed by a party and the second was a day filled of challenges with our Viking team! It was a lot of fun and great to meet new Swedish people.

Unfortunately today I woke up with another cold and it is also Tandi’s last day!! I am very sad to see her leave, but am glad we got to travel again together! Now we have to go and have a farewell brownie that Kiri has been missing out a lot on.

Hej då!

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