"You know Swedish? Yeah, everyone in Africa knows Swedish."

Instead of doing my Communications paper or studying Russian, I am writing a blog. But let's be honest, when I am ever going to use Russian? (Mother comments "...when you leave for Russia in 2 weeks.)" Yes, yes, but besides that the only thing Russian is useful for is when I do my "Tatiana, the waxing lady" impression or on the off days when I try to be Agent Salt. Russian= not applicable to my life at the moment.

She knows what's up.

Well, this weekend has been a journey. After several hours of debating whether my mom and I should get on a plane to Stockholm or not, we finally settled that we should just take the 30 minute train over to Malmo, Sweden. Sweden is going to be Sweden anywhere right? True, I may get to see a moose or two more in the more Northern parts but let us not beat around bush, we are truly going to Sweden to just say "we have been to Sweden." Taking the TJ Maxx route by spending less on basically the same thing, we went to Malmo. 
Pretty cool, nothing I would hop over the moon about, but it was Swedish enough. We got some of those wooden horses, walked around saw some Scandinavian houses, and then went to TGI Friday's. Classic americano.

Brr....Malmo.

Thinking we were done for the day, Mother of course had to talk to the Swedish couple next to us and they recommended that we see Lund as well. So, of course, we went to Lund. Still cool, they had an ancient church and mom was freaking out because it was Lutheran. "You know, we just don't have these things in America!" It was truly beautiful, it had this ancient clock and this old crypt. So I say it was worth it! Then we went to this Williamsburg-esque set up where they had houses from every time period in Sweden. Houses with grass roofs, mansions, windmills, wooden churches, the whole kit and kaboodle was there. Well done, Lund, well done. But after 10 hours in Sweden, I was getting a little antsy because I had a lot of work to do. So we went back to the SAS hotel and had a lovely night's sleep in our big, Danish bed :)

Momma enjoying the church.

Next morning, we woke up to go to Hillerod and see my town! Mother was ooing and awing the whole train ride and just exclaiming how gorgeous everything was. Easily entertained she is. 
Well, we got out and I decided to head over to Frederiksborg Castle. If you remember my post from a while back, this castle was the Yoko Ono to my John Lennon. If I was amazed, lord only knows how she was going to react. 


Though we were eager to go inside, we were hungry. Unfortunately, everything is closed on Sunday. Options for food....7/11 and the Turkish/pizza joint. Sigh...so after eating some less than satisfiable Turkish shwarma we went to the castle. Mother could barely contain herself. Taking pictures everywhere, she was practically bouncing off the walls. It's a great castle and I was happy to be back, but as we were walking through the great hall disaster struck. 
"O no......o no......o no o no o no o no" I stopped dead in the middle of this massive hall. A wave of nausea came over me and my stomach felt as though someone was ripping it apart. GOD, WE SHOULD HAVE CHOSEN 7/11! Ow. Okay, what do I do?!?!!? If I move, I will literally barf all over this 600 year old marble, gold leaf floor. Slightly panicking, I whisper, ".......Mom." She is too busy counting the sparkles in the room. "mooom......mom.....mom.....CHERYL!"  I hear her go, "hmmmm?" in her happy, high pitched voice while she is still looking at a painting of a princess. I try to whisper, even though it echoes throughout the hall. "Mom....just..just..come here. I'm not feeling well." She turns around and goes, "O NO!! What's wrong?! Are you ill? Okay, okay, it's okay... what do we do?" As the Japanese tourists start pouring in (naturally) I start getting panicky and turning white. If I move, I will throw up. Staying still and immobile, seemed to be the best plan at the moment. 
Let's just pan out and look at the situation. 
My mom and I are standing in the center of a massive hall......just standing, while little Japanese tourists shuffle in taking pictures of everything in sight. We have no clue where a bathroom could be but I'm starting to get whiter and sicker. Where did this come from?! "Okay, honey.....let's... just go and find a bathroom."
"Mom, we are in the top floor of a castle that has over 200 rooms, none of which are bathrooms. They used buckets back then for Christ's sake!! WHAT AM I GOING TO DO!?" That's when it got worse. 
Yup, their is vomit in my mouth. No choice, we are running. 
Literally, vaulting over a Japanese lady (easily done) I booked it through 20 rooms, down 2 endless flights of spiral staircases, burst through the gift shop and saw the most beautiful sign in the world. The bathroom sign.
And the rest of the story you probably know. Cheryl (my mom) was somehow able to keep up even though she was carrying her over-sized satchel that could easily fit Gary Coleman in it (too soon?) and was wearing heels. But nevertheless, she was there in all her sweater and big hair glory to rub my back as I threw up in the cellar of a castle. Sometimes, you just need your mommy. 
SO thank you sketch Turkey shop for making me up chuck in a 700 year old castle. Cheryl was quite worried and even though we still wanted to go through the gardens, I was feeling too bad to go any further. We opted to try and make it back to my hojskole, which luckily, I did. There I relaxed and much to my happiness, was able to get better and head back to Copenhagen. 
Seriously, I probably need to practice Russian. I wonder if watching "Anastasia" counts as learning Russian? 
Probably not.


Yup.  Big thanks and much love to my mom who helped me get through my little Danish adventure of the day :)

Cheryl hits up Copenhagen.