What do you get when you cross a literature course with a trip to Europe?

Well, for me, perhaps the best two weeks of my life thus far.

As many of my close family and friends know, last summer I spent many hours working to earn enough money to pay for a trip to Scandinavia. By the end of the summer I had reached my goal and the journey over the pond began. By the end of the Fall semester I had been accepted into the class and started to get really excited. By the end of Winter Break I finally applied for my passport. When May came around, however, I started to get really nervous.

To put it simply, the trip could not have come around at a more stressful time. The week before I had two final exams, was moving out of my dorm, attending a formal for my boyfriend's fraternity, completing multiple craft projects for said formal, and packing to manage. Needless to say, my mom and I were both extremely overwhelmed as the departure date loomed closer.

Sitting in the airport, with a great formal weekend behind me, I started to really feel the pressure of the two weeks that lie ahead of me. Prior to this trip, I had never been off of the East coast, let alone out of the country. To do this, for the first time by myself was a daunting task, and I started to wonder if I was really ready for whatever it was I had gotten myself into. Nevertheless, I said goodbye to my family and my boyfriend at the airport and was whisked away to the chaos of the TSA line.

After a seven and a half hour overnight flight, we finally arrived in Munich. Everybody was absolutely exhausted after sleeping minimal amounts on the plane. Here, in the Munich airport, I began to feel the jet lag. At first, it wasn't anything too painful, just a couple of yawns here and there. I boarded the flight to Copenhagen feeling that maybe, just maybe, I was invincible to the myth of jet lag.

When we landed in Denmark, I found out that I was terribly, horribly wrong. While I could not find any moment of relief in sleep on the flight to Munich, I slept from take-off to landing on the second flight. I felt incredibly groggy and the feeling of regret started to settle in the pit of my stomach.

When we got off of the plane it was an instant race to bedtime. We had already been warned that we were not allowed to sleep until after dinner (to help with said jet lag) and I was determined to follow this rule. Instead, we went on a walking tour of Copenhagen. On this walk, lead by "Hans Christen Andersen," we discovered that the country was pretty different from America. For one thing, the streets were quieter and less crowded than big cities back home. Most people took bikes around and there are even special lanes of traffic for them.

We walked around the city and got the general layout of the area that we would be allowed to explore for the first leg of our trip. History and education thrived in this city, with historical and government buildings seeming to pop up around every turn. We also found shock in the fact that the expense of a college education does not exist for Danish students.

Where do we sign up to give away our tuition? Share the love, Denmark.

During our time in Denmark, I learned a lot about the culture, its people, and a very different way of city life. The streets were quiet and safe, even in the middle of the night. People were much more in touch with nature, which I got to enjoy for myself on a bike ride around the harbor.

Given that this course was part of the High Point University Maymester program, we had to enjoy some "educational programming" as part of our exploration. In Denmark, we completed this with walking tours of Karen Blixen's house an Kierkegaard's grave, a trip to see a play in a Danish theater, and a tour of the Kronborg castle, Shakespeare's inspiration for Hamlet's castle.

We even got a sense of what a Danish childhood might be like as we were treated to tickets to Tivoli, the park that inspired Walt Disney to create Disneyland. However, unlike Disney, the lines moved much faster and there did not seem to be the same huge commercialized push to sell merchandise. People just enjoyed the rides, food, and beautiful gardens with a sense of harmony and peace that was refreshing to an American that fears the dangers of being run over by a convoy of strollers during every trip to Disney.

We also got a glimpse at Danish childhood when we explored the area around the harbor and discovered trampolines built into the ground, mere feet from the water.

Before leaving, I also decided to leave my mark on the city. As I was out of the country for our two year anniversary, I decided to leave a lock on the bridge in front of the canal in Copenhagen for my boyfriend. Hopefully, it will still be there if we get around to visiting it together someday.

From here, we said goodbye to Denmark and set out on a five-hour train ride to Sweden. This, as I will discuss later, was the more pleasant of our two train rides during the trip.

Upon arrival in Sweden, I was shocked to see that Stockholm was quite different from Copenhagen. The streets were busier with cars and I saw a little more commercialization in the form of multiple 7-Elevens, H&Ms, and Subways along the shopping strips. However, it was still a quieter city than New York City and I still felt much safer in Stockholm.

There was also a stronger need for a metro system in Stockholm because the city spans across several islands. During our trip, I only navigated between the area around our hotel and the "hipster" areas of Gamla Stan and Sodermalm but the metro system listed multiple, difficult to pronounce (for English speakers) names. I started to get worried that I would get lost, so I did not venture out too far from the hotel without an advisor.

During our time in Stockholm, we went on a general walking tour of the city as well as a walking tour that follows the path of Lisbeth Salander in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and its sequels. We also visited the Nobel museum and some amazing restaurants, including the Ardberg Embassy.

On the walking tours, we learned that Stockholm plays host to a number of symbols and legends. The red house that is connected to the yellow house above, for example, stands in the oldest square in the city, Stortorget, and features squares around its windows is known as the Schantzka huset and serves as a memorial to the 94 people that were beheaded in the square in the 1500s.

Another interesting legend that was introduced to us by our, ironically British, tour guide was that of Järnpojke, or "the Little Boy that Looks at the Moon." According to the legend, leaving various little gifts for the boy and rubbing his head will bring good luck. It will also bring, ahem, fertility, according to our tour guide.

Yet another symbol of Stockholm is Köpmangatan (merchant's street,) the narrowest alleyway in the city. According to the locals, if you can walk all the way down the alley with one hand on each side without removing them, you are granted 37 wishes. Needless to say, I believe this legend and capitalized on it by walking this alley twice during our time in Stockholm.

We also completed our "educational" requirement for this city by visiting August Strindberg's apartment and the Nobel Museum.

In the museum, I had quite the nerd moment when I discovered that one of my favorite authors, Kazuo Ishiguro, is a Nobel Laureate. Yet another nerd moment was inspired when I got to see his donation to the museum, a silver plate from the film version of his novel, The Remains of the Day.

Before leaving Sweden, I had to fulfill the cultural requirement known as Fika. Fika is a daily break from the world by stopping to have a cup of coffee and a snack. Usually, this snack is some kind of pastry but we experienced rare (and beautiful) hot weather during our visit, so I opted for ice cream.

After a serious bout of shopping, we said goodbye to Sweden and headed out for a five-hour train ride to Norway. Or so we thought.

Our train to Oslo was, to say the very least, horrific. Our train was delayed to the tracks and then experienced difficulties about two hours into the trip. We were forced to get off the train and told that we would be taken to Oslo by bus from this point. However, everything was magically fixed an hour later and we boarded the train yet again. People were told to sit wherever they wanted, so our class was split in half between two cars.

Unfortunately, I landed in the car with somewhere between six and eight screaming Swedish children running up and down the aisles and causing mayhem. The trip, in its entirety, ended up taking eight hours instead of five and I have never been more relieved to get off of a train in my entire life.

However, the sights of Norway made up for it right away.

Out of the countries that were included in our trip, I have to say that Norway featured the most scenic views of them all. The streets were clean and bright but rarely busy. We even had a ferris wheel right outside of our hotel!

The first full day in Norway, we traveled to Maihaugen, an open-air museum in Lillehammer. Here we learned about the history of Norway and the various styles of houses in the country throughout history.

On this same day we also got to see Sigrid Undset's house. While most people have no idea who this amazing woman was, I found it to be a true blessing to see her house for myself. As part of the class we read Gunnar's Daughter and learned just how hard she worked to raise her children and have a career for herself at the same time. She was truly a woman that knew the value of hard work and perseverance, which is very inspiring to me as a female author myself. Not to mention the sheer volume of books that lined every wall in her home.

While we did a lot of other things in Oslo, the highlight of the trip was Constitution Day.

On May 17th, all of the shops in Oslo closed and every Norwegian citizen headed out in their traditional Budan to celebrate the country's move toward independence with the Children's Parade. Our guide, Embla, is Norwegian herself and was a wonderful guide to all of the traditions that were involved with the day.

Just don't compare it to the Fourth of July...because it's nothing like that at all. People are wearing more clothes, for one, and truly celebrate the day for its meaning, for another. Sure, people drank and ate special foods on this day but when the King and Queen came onto their balcony to wave, people respected their leaders. They also respected their country by singing along with the national anthem as it was played.

From here, we closed our tour of Scandinavia with a gorgeous cruise of the fjords in Bergen. If you ever get a chance to travel to Norway and only do one thing, I highly suggest that you take a tour of the fjords because they are simply breathtaking (and try pickled herring because it's not as bad as you might think.)

While I learned a lot about these three Scandinavian countries during my two weeks abroad, I learned three times more about myself. For one, I learned that I love to travel and can definitely see myself doing more of it in the future (Scotland trip in May 2019, anyone?) I also learned that so much can come from leaving your comfort zone. I tried so many new things during my time in these countries and kept an open mind toward a very different culture. In the end, I found myself appreciating it for its differences as well as its similarities to my own culture.

More than anything, however, I learned that I can make friends from any country. In our tiny group of literature nerds (and a few "extras" that we adopted into the course from other majors,) I have made a tight group of friends that I hope to see again in the fall.

Thank you for an amazing trip, y'all! Here's a great big Skål to my Scandy group, our amazing faculty advisors, and all of our many adventures!