Meeting up with family and traveling to my second European country

Well, it's been a while since I've last blogged, mostly because I used to have too much free time and now I never seem to have enough of it! I got a gym membership so I go there frequently, and I often meet up with my DIS friends between and after classes. My school work has increased lately and I have a group project for every class at the moment! It seems that group work is more common here than in the states.
So last weekend I met up with my parents at the Copenhagen airport on Friday and together we flew to Stockholm, Sweden where Andrew was waiting for us to take the train together to Uppsala where he is studying for the semester. It's a small city, and Andrew seems to really like the size of it because he already knows his way around a bit. Copenhagen is much larger but that's one of the reasons why I love it. I can always seem to find some new place to explore! Anyway, we stayed at a really nice hotel which was about a ten minute walk from Andrew's nation, or apartment complex, where he lives. If you want to know more about what the nation is, ask him!
So we enjoyed a meal out together that night at an Indian restaurant, which consisted of lots of curry and rice and chicken and lamb and herbs..... mmmm. The place was a shelter from the biting cold of the city and left us warm, happy, and very very full.
On Saturday we walked to the nearby cathedral and spent a while admiring its beauty, in the architecture, paintings, and windows, and reading about its history. After a lunch with Andrew's friends at one of the nations, we traveled to Gamla Uppsala, or old Uppsala, where we saw the viking burial mounds (basically big hills covered in snow). The museum had artifacts that had been uncovered from the mounds so far, as well as facts and speculations about this ancient society.
We had dinner at a nearby pub and then spent the rest of the evening catching up at the hotel. We had an early rise the next morning to get to the airport to go back to Copenhagen.
The weather here in Copenhagen seemed balmy compared to the frigid cold of northern Sweden. My parents got to see two days of sunshine, which is practically more sunshine than I had seen in the past month here!
They were able to crash in the living room of Signe's and my apartment. We ate a fantastic Sunday brunch at the restaurant right across the street, then took a walk to the cemetary/park nearby. In the states (a phrase I find myself saying very often) our cemeteries tend to be very bleak and are very seldom used for anything other than visiting the graves of loved ones. Well here the cemeteries double as parks. There are wide paths, and a variety of trees and plants, so people are often going on walks, runs, or bike rides through the cemetery. I'm sure it will be even more beautiful and filled with color and life once springtime comes!
The graves are also different because many of them have square hedges around them and there is a lot of space for each plot. This cemetery, located in my neighborhood of Nørrebro, is also where the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen and the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard are buried.
We also went to a museum that is free on Sundays, called the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. The famous Danish beer, Carlsberg, is somehow connected to this because the owner helped fund the museum (or something like that) in the desire to support the arts in Denmark. The museum has a large collection of statues from all different places around the world and different eras. There were everything from statues from ancient Rome around and before the time of Jesus, relicas from 1500 BC Egypt, to modern French sculpture. It was a fascinating place!
On Monday I had classes and meetings so I sent mom and dad with a map and some directions on some sightseeing adventures. Unfortunately, there was a bus strike this weekend and that affected their travel at one point, as well as bad directions from strangers, causing them to get very, very lost. So it became a long and frustrating day for them, and I was unaware until they got home because they had no way of contacting me during the day! Luckily, Signe had decided earlier that she was going to make us all a traditional Danish dinner and my parents were more than appreciative of this. We had frikadeller (like fried meat balls), cold potato salad, and tomatoes and mozzarella cheese. Yum!
Tuesday I had the morning off because my class was cancelled, so that was great timing. We went to the most famous bakery in Copenhagen, Sankt Peder's Bageri, and mom and dad got pastries there, then we took a bus to a different bakery that sold gluten-free products, that I had been meaning to check out for a while. I got a piece of carrot cake which truly made my day! Everyone else takes baked goods for granted, but not me. When I am able to buy good gluten free bread or baked goods, I am so excited and appreciative. I always tell people that if there was a cure for Celiac Disease, I would never want it because it's a big part of who I am and I have no desire to change that. I would never appreciate food as much!
The last thing we did together before they left for the train station was to visit the Danish Resistance museum, which has artifacts that outline and explain the Danish involvement during WWII. Denmark was occupied by Germany for a few years because the Danish government let them be there. The Danish citizens eventually protested against their government's position in the war and there was an underground resistance movement, which is fascinating to read about!
Luckily they were able to make it back to the central station just fine, and now I'll see them again in May when I get home. Andrew, though, will hopefully come to Copenhagen and visit me here!