A sauna isn't always what it seem to be, so thank god, a bar is always a bar

Yesterday after updating my blog, and after some lunch/dinner we decided to hit up a sauna close by. Leuuwarden is freezing with all the snow and ice, and they have a special offer for students in the window to the sauna, so why not? I only expected it to be one or two different saunas, maybe a dry one and a steam one, but it would be great to just sit there and get warm and relaxed all the way through!
We arrived and the girl checked us in through the computer and then she showed us the way to a room with lockers. She open the door and the first thing I saw was a naked man standing there shaking of the water on his back against a towel. Ooops. Immediately I made eye contact with the girl again but she showed no signs, that she'd been opening the wrong door. Instead she looked at us and said; "Here's your lockers. When your done getting undressed, you can just come out here". She pointed through the next door were we could see a few pools and tubs. "Ehhhm okay..." I answered and before I knew it, she was gone. And there we stood. A quiet second and then I turned around to my dear friend with a little bit of a surprised face. "Great... something tells me I shouldn't have freaked out about finding my swimsuit?" What none of us had known as we walked in 5 minutes earlier was that the sauna was a naked spa.

Monday night, our last real night out together, was spend at Fire with good friends, okay music and -yay- cheap drinks! I can't believe how cheap it is to go out everywhere - but in Sweden! I'll miss that now when I go back... It's not cool that the drinks are 1/3 or or less, of the price they usually are back home. After clubs and bars, it was time for the after party and the after the after party-party. It was fun and I got to hang out more with all the cool people I've met here. Some had more fun then others, what's up with people always forgtting not to pass out?? Let's just say, that someone went through a really nice make up session this morning... and that I now 5 minutes ago, told him that he still got a blue nose and waterproof masara under his eyes.. Rule #1, if you can't stay awake, tell people you're out, so then they can't mess with you. Got it? I will really miss them. It's a quiet happy crowd. Maybe I should come here and study as well? I just got offered a room and everthing, it would be all cleared out for me to move in when the semester start in January.. What do you think about that?

Leeuwarden, Holland

I made it here too! You have no idea how awesome it was to step of the train and find my best friend standing there waiting! How I've missed that crazy hair and those eyes! Weeeeeii! And that voice! I can just listen for hours to all his stories :) My whole stay here I've been in my little happy bubble. First Milana and now Tobias, before I'm going back to see my family in Sweden. These weeks are just amazing!

I am currently sitting in Tobias room, waiting for him to come home from school. He had a meeting to go to, so after checking out his college, I explored Leeuwarden and did some shopping!

His college was really nice and a little fancy. At a first look the outside didn't appeal to much, I was a little bit skeptic to that this would be something special. But I was soon proved to be wrong! never judge the outside, right? They had everything in there, even a hotel, and the design was just awesome! For the first time I was walking around at a college really caring about what I was seeing, interested, wanting to know more and see more. It's a really nice school people!
The only other college I've been to that gave me that feeling was LSU, where Corey took me a couple of weeks ago. Their campus was amazing, unfortunately I hardly got to see the inside since it was closed. What I did see of the inside tho, was really cool, new and modern, just like here. I'd like to check that school out more at some point. Their campus still gave me the #1 feeling, tho Leeuwarden is really close behind.

I love the street markets! I went here
7 am at the after party to get some
straw berries for a snack :)
Also, look at the building and all the bikes!

Now to the city, I walked around for a couple of hours and you just gotta love this place! It's amazingly pretty and beautiful and it got so much character!
The streets are small with no pavement, instead they use different types of bricks. Now, you'd think that kind of suck to bike and walk on, but I've used my heels all over and I never saw anyone falling of the bike! It's great!

Tobias also took me to a block where the streets are covered in graffiti. It was pretty cool to walk around in the small alleys in between the houses and just look at all the art, some artists are pretty darn good!

Walking around just house watching is a nice activity itself. All the houses look different from each other with their own personal architecture and style.
The city also got hundreds of bridges big, small and tiny which adds up the fairytale cosy factor with 110%. There's even houses on the river- here people also live in houseboats!

Tobias house is pretty old but really nice! It got steep stairs, and it's high up to the ceiling. The architecture on the inside is also pretty old fashion with details in the ceilings, light colored walls and built in window benches and fireplaces (not longer in use). He shares this place with two other really cool German guys; Hannes and Konrad. I find it so funny to randomly walk in to three guys everyday life! I get to see them grocery shopping, cook, bake, clean, make the dishes and do the laundry! And we aren't talking easy food as hamburgers and mac n cheese, we are talking healty food! Vegetables and fruits! Pastas with different meats, sauces and spices, wooked meat and vegetables with rice and so on. What guys! Maybe I should stick around a little longer...? It really suck to just have a week with your best friend when you've hardly seen him in 2½ years..

Baking some brownies with the guys

Last but not least; the nightlife is pretty awesome too!! There's plenty of bars, cafés and coffee shops and they all play really good music. Everything from main stream radio to techno to reggae. It's just to pick your place and enjoy. I got to see my first official joint menu too. They all had such interesting names! Some were named after Disney characters, and only to read their names in dutch was a trip..!

Now Tobias is back and it's time to make some late lunch, but I will Hoi at you all later!

Србија - Serbia

FINALLY! After a long flight from LA to Germany, surviving a freaking long lay over in Frankfurt - 12 hours! I finally finally got of the plane that took me to Belgrade, Serbia! The flight was late, I grabbed my bags and ran through the glass doors, and there she was, my Mima! We start laughing almost screaming, hugging and kissing! After such long time I finally got to see my best friend live! :D

I spend 10 days in Serbia. We traveled back and forth between Novi Sad and Sid, we also went to S. Mitrovica where we met up with Brana and her 10 month old son. It was great to see her again and her son was so cute!

In Sid everything was the same, I remembered every street, every store and  every café I fell in love with during my first visit three years ago. Serbian hot chocolate, finally I would get it again. Yummie! Oh how I have craved it!

To see Milana's family again was amazing! We were so happy to see each other and they were all more excited about speaking English this time. They were not as shy as before. Minja, Mima's younger sister really tried hard and improved her skills a lot during the week, especially at the house parties! Haha
I love going out in Sid, it's so relaxed. The house parties this year was really cool. Held in an apartment with black light's and stuff, really cool. Going out clubbing was just like I remembered it, so crowded and pumped to a thousand.

Most of our time we spend in Novi Sad, Mima was so excited about this. She goes to college there and it's a big difference to Sid. Novi Sad is a bigger city, the architecture is beautiful and the café life and night life is amazing since it's a student city. We spend the days sight seeing, shopping and catching up and almost every night we went out at the cafés and just had a blast! Awesome with girl time! But I had totally forgotten, how freaking long it takes for two-three girls to get ready! Oh my god... I got nothing on Mima and her room mate! Just so y'all know.

I also had the luck to catch up with Miki again, both in Novi Sad and in Sid. When I was in Sid, he took me out to the village where his family lives and I got to meet them all for a Serbian Sunday dinner and later we went to the lake. Pretty cool. It was so much food! I thought I was done two or three times, but then the next thing came out to the table! Not to complain tho. We had a lot to catch up on, and we didn't have time to cover it all.

I could write a whole essay about Serbia, what we did, were we went, who we saw. About the life, the food, the drinks, the people and whatever you'd like. But my internet access is kind of limited and I don't want to spend too much time on the computer as I am visiting my friends :)

But I will have thousands and thousand of stories to tell y'all when I get home! No doubt about that!!!