Firenze!

I like Italy. I can see why so many people come here to study abroad. A lot of people have classified Italy study-abroaders as young people only looking for easy booze and easy boys. While both of these things are in fact easy to find, I can't imagine they are the sole motivators for choosing this country. As I wandered around Florence today, I kept having to remind myself to breathe because I was so frequently awestruck by the sights around me. Classical buildings, hidden alleyways, marble statues on arching bridges across a green canal: what more could any traveler ask for?

Even though I love South America, I think I would still go to Italy if I were to ever legitimately study abroad. There is just so much history here, and in Florence alone! Italy can boast a huge array of scientific minds, artistic talent, and original food, even in comparison with the rest of Europe. Think of all the foods you love, and I bet some of it traces back here.

Speaking of food, the food and wine tour I took this morning was fabulous. Our guide, Paul, took us to the local San Lorenzo food market and gave us the history and production information for some of Italy's most important food, like prosciutto and olive oil. He made a wonderful connection with olive oil and the people who produce it: Northern Italians, like their environment, are more temperate and mild mannered, even delicate. Southern Italians, on the other hand, are spicy and full of energy, and sometimes abrasive, like their rocky environment. Middle Italians are, you guessed it, a balance between the two, and if you do a taste test of olive oils from these specific regions, you will find the comparisons to be accurate. According to Paul. But I trust him.

That is all for now - I am going to lounge around my (possibly) new favorite city for the next 4 days until I head to Paris to meet with my friend. For now I have to deal with the one hard part about hostels, and that is that fact that you make friends, and then they leave before you do. It is hard to do things alone. Sometimes meeting people can be made so much easier by just being with someone else, I think because you don't start off so insecure. I will work on it.

Oh yeah, here is my recently acquired ear piercing (sorry, Mom), for those of you who are curious.

La Dolce Vita

This will have to be a short post, due to a faulty and frustrating space bar. After 24 hours (exactly) of train rides, including an overnighter from Copenhagen to Munich, and a late train from Munich to Bologna, I have safely arrived in Firenze, Italy. Besides a missed train to Florence, the whole trip was pretty uneventful. Actually, I got my own compartment for most of the sleeper-train ride, which is cool.

Now I am in Italy, and I have had a pizza. You can see the Duomo from the roof bar at my hostel, Plus Florence. The hostel is awesome because it has a pool. Tomorrow morning I am going on an Italian food and wine tour. Cheese and meat! Awesome.

My mom will hate me for this, but I am not going to Eastern Europe. Just Florence and Paris. I am visiting a friend in Paris. I just do not have it in me or my wallet to do Budapest and Prague. Not this trip anyway.

I am making friends, but I miss my boyfriend and my family worse than ever. I hope it goes away soon. Maybe Florence will knock the feeling out of me. Now off to bed!

Murphy's Law

I need to formally apologize for my lack of updates. The good news is I have been neglecting the blog out of sheer busy-ness and having most of my time occupied with things to do, but now that I am alone again, I can return to my old friend, the Internet. This blog entry is only one story out of an eventful week, but once I have finished getting all my pictures from the camera, I will do a more general post. For now, you get this.

My sister arrived on Saturday, my boyfriend on Monday. Monica decided to leave on Thursday to go to Amsterdam by night-train. When it came time to take her to the train station, we were impeded by a Classic Traveling Situation. We left about an hour and a half early, estimating 45 minutes of train riding from the house to the train station. Murphy's law states "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong," and this day proved that. The second we stepped onto the train I realized I needed to go to the bathroom. Badly. I won't go into further detail than that, but suffice it to say, I was experiencing a high degree of discomfort. But I knew Monica was stressing about her connection, so I refrained from saying anything on the matter, and of course the farther along the train got, the more intense my situation became. In the past 5 weeks that I've lived in Denmark, the train has always been smooth and efficient. Well not this day. When we came within 2 stops of Monica's destination, the train shuddered and stopped. Something was announced in Danish over the loudspeaker, but I couldn't understand it because it wasn't "pølser med ketchup." When I asked the 8 other people in our car what the announcement said, they all shrugged their shoulders and looked confused. Jackasses. In a few minutes the train picked up again, however my situation was only getting worse. And then the train stopped again, in a tunnel. I began pacing up and down the train cars, feigning claustrophobia with heavy breathing. After what seemed like a least 30 hours, the train began crawling again, and eventually pulled into the station before Monica's. I told her I would meet her at the next station, and flew out of there looking for a toilet.

As you can imagine, in such an urgent situation, there was no immediate relief. With no restroom at the station, I left, looking for a restaurant, bar, hotel, anything. I found a hotel and raced downstairs to the bathroom. Women's door was locked. Ran to the men's. Locked. Raced back up the stairs and down the street, not even realizing it had begun to rain. I checked my phone: 25 minutes until Monica's train departs. I found a restaurant. The host approached me and I asked if he had a bathroom, obviously under some stress. He slowly said no, the restaurant did not have a bathroom. I almost yelled in disbelief. He then stated that the hotel next door had a bathroom, and pointed in the correct direction. At last.

After that debacle, I raced down the street to København H, the main train station and as such, the location of Monica's Amsterdam train. Luckily the station I got off at was only about 200 meters from København H, so it was very little leg work to get there. As it happened, after I got off the train it ceased to run entirely, and Michael had to usher Monica to København H on foot. They luckily arrived with 20 minutes to spare for her, but I wanted to say goodbye, and arrived with only 10 minutes before the train's departure. Of course her car was the very last one on the train, so I was running through the rain to meet her. But I was able to make a proper farewell, and she arrived safely in Amsterdam 15 hours later.

I think everyone has a story like this while traveling, where everything just seems to get worse and worse. After Monica got on her train, the whole situation became humorous, although I would rather not experience it again. All's well that end's well, eh?

Off We Go

I have pretty much made up my mind about the whole stay in Denmark vs. travel some more debate: I will travel.

My next question was should I go to Greece and Italy or Prague and Austria? Well I have made a compromise, and I think I will stick with it: I will go to Florence and Venice, then to Budapest, then Vienna and Salzburg, then Prague, and finally head back to Copenhagen to meet with my boyfriend so we can fly together to Madrid. This way I get to see Italy and some bits of Eastern Europe. I like it this way, because it almost forces me to have a trip to Greece all on its own, that way I can truly experience the country in all its grandeur. This is my justification for not going, anyway. But I am excited for Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Italy, because I originally had no intention of visiting any of them. Being spontaneous is so fun!

Speaking of which, tonight I will be going to my second Metallica concert in as many days. Also, I got an ear piercing while strolling through downtown Copenhagen with my sis and boyfriend. Whee!

Better late than never

I apologize for my lack of updates in the past few days. A lot has been going on here, most importantly being joined by my sister (on Saturday) and my boyfriend (yesterday) in Copenhagen. After my sister arrived, we spent our time watching TV and searching the city for McDonalds. While this sounds like a pretty crappy way to spend a possibly once-in-a-lifetime vacation, it really suited us at the time, and isn't independence all about making choices for oneself? Actually we did go out yesterday but it rained so hard all we could do was stand under an awning and reminisce about California.

Michael (my bf) arrived late last night, so we pretty much just went straight home. Today we went down a few train stations with the intention of going to the Experimentarium, but instead wandered around Tuborg Havn (harbor) looking at the boats, Ferraris and the reason for the name of the harbor:

Giant beer bottles standing out on the shore. Pretty awesome. When I yelled "Look, giant beer bottles!" my boyfriend claimed I was smoking drugs.

We also ate delicious pad thai at a thai/sushi restaurant, and then groaned at the lightness of our wallets. But it was certainly fun, and nice to eat food that wasn't unfrozen first.

Another important occurence is my decision to leave Denmark 3 weeks early to travel to Italy and Greece. I still haven't figured out how to tell my hosts/work but I also really, really want to make this trip. I feel bad because even though the au pair is at this house, I am sort of in charge of the dog while my hosts are in Sicily, and I would be leaving 6 days before they return. But to not go to the Mediterranean because of a dog that someone else can technically watch? Seems silly. But still, my qualms remain. It is so hard to make choices!!

The Trouble with Trips

The past few days I have been struggling with the same issue I encountered the moment I set foot on European soil, namely my growing resistance to structure and planning. As you may recall, I had plane tickets directly to Greece on the day of my arrival, however I was so enamored with the idea of spontaneity that I turned my nose at the airport and proceeded to the London Underground, where I promptly fell asleep on my luggage. I planned to head straight to Belgium, but instead I stayed there for 2 days. Afterwards I planned on going straight to Copenhagen, but I ended up in Amsterdam for the night. Then 5 more nights.

The point is, being spontaneous is, evidently, like doing drugs for me. I was able to spend 2 weeks in Copenhagen before I needed my fix and I rushed up to Stockholm, where as it turns out, I should have stayed an extra night because they gave away free tickets to the Britney Spears concert! But I digress. I need my fix again. Today it hit me that I am in Europe, for easily the last time in a long while, doing exactly what I do at home. I wake up, go to work at a clinic, go home, too tired and dirty to do anything but spend a few hours on the internet or read a book.

This has stirred the restlessness within me, a feeling I have had difficulty quieting. It has manifested itself in strange ways, including a desire to change my major and my entire career path. While I know that is a subject that obtains better results through planning, I still can't shake the sheer joy I feel at having a life made up entirely of mysteries. But in this area I will let my head command my heart, because the Spock in me is reminding me to think logically.

The Question of what to do about my European travels remains. Do I stay in Denmark, biding my time until my boyfriend finishes his studies in London, and pursue our planned trip together for the remaining month of summer? Or do I spend one more week in Denmark entertaining my boyfriend and my sister, who are coming to visit, and then when they are gone take the next train to wherever I feel at the moment? Truthfully, I can only afford select places that I have researched. Or perhaps there are other opportunities I haven't yet discovered, which excites me further.

Until this point in my life I have always let my head be my guide, and it has always kept me satiated. But now I am by myself in Europe with an unlimited train pass and I am feeling trapped in a country that remains as unfriendly as the day I arrived, and my heart is screaming to be set free. Do I let Spock keep control, or is it time for Kirk to take over? Or should they share the wheel? I suppose these are the questions that make up life, and now is the time that I begin to answer them. Wish me luck!



I am aware of the Star Trek references. You should know by now that I am quite geeky for my gender. Deal.

Boom boom pow

Here it is everyone, the blog you've all been waiting for. Well at least my mom and my boyfriend's mom have. But that's good enough for me! Stockholm, in picture and caption form.

I will start by being perfectly honest. I went to Stockholm to go to the clubs. Before this little getaway I had never been to a club before, because in the USA you have to be over 21, and I am a mere 19 years of age. Also I have heard that Europe tends to have some of the best clubs in the world, Stockholm in particular, so I focused my money and energy on that. Just to see! Anyway I don't have many pictures from the clubs anyway, but whatevs. First the sights!

I found this statue in Old Town Stokcholm. It is a fox wearing a cloak. I like it.

These lions were all over the city, or at least where I went. Someone painted blood on this one.

This was a touristy part of old town. I have never seen so much viking stuff before!!

This guy is a badass viking. That's what it said on his little plate thing.

A beautiful church in old town. There was a big choir event going on to the side of it, as you can see. They sound as beautiful as the church.

This is a view of the water, and some dramatic clouds above. At that little shelf thing at the bottom of the picture,you can go dip your legs into the water. Very cool.

This is me in front of statue in front of some kind of music or opera house. I went and saw Bruno instead of opera. I'm so bad! Haha.

Pretty steeple.

Swedish countryside from the train window.

Some people from the hostel and I went to Chaplin's Bar, a lounge/nightclub/karaoke bar. I had a very good time (so did the people behind me, evidently), and I met some uh...interesting people. Okay so I have never gotten a lot of attention from men (who weren't my boyfriend, anyway), particularly in the last few years. Evidently going to a club means you are inviting dudes to come talk to you. Among my suitors for the evening was a Swedish guy with a shaved head and a tight white long sleeve thermal. He had someone come get me to talk to him (because we are in 4th grade, evidently), and proceeded to hit on me with full force. By repeatedly insulting America and yelling the N-word out loud. And then offering me drugs. I got out of there like a bat out of hell. And those are just the bare details.
Fortunately I got to sing Mamma Mia on the karaoke machine, so the night wasn't an entire loss. There is a picture but it isn't very good, so you don't get to see it. Unless you reeeeally want to.


The next night I went to Cafe Opera, a much more popular (and expensive) nightclub frequented by all the best, including celebrities. Here I was hit on by a much classier set of clientele, or at least by people who didn't immediately shout racial epitaphs and insult my home. At one point a French guy tried to kiss me, so I ran away, ignoring all my insticts to punch him in the face. I have never had the opportunity to hit someone, and I feel badly that I let this one pass me by.At the end of the night I was hit on ( I assume) by a very cute, nice Swedish guy. I wanted to bring him home for my friend Shawna, because she likes blonde, blue-eyed beauties. Even though I didn't partake in the "social events" of the evening, I still had fun enjoying the music. Club music rocks, and is so fun to dance to.


Unforunately I didn't get any pictures of myself at this particular club, but I had a good time and I would go back there again. But this is part of the lounge section, and the other picture is of the beautiful ceiling. My club experience was unique and verged into the scientific realm, and I just have to say I don't understand human mating rituals at all. After dancing with some girlfriends from the hostel for a while, I got tired and sat back and conducted some animal behavior field observations. It was interesting watching men and women play The Game, attempting to pick one another up for one night stands and such. It is a very good thing I am not single, because I am completely oblivious to the comings on of men. Perhaps because since I was 15, I have had no need or inclination to learn such rituals, but really it just all seems so...frustrating. I can't think of the best word for what I feel. Well I won't worry about it anymore, because it doesn't concern me. But for an outsider, it was very fun to watch.

Stockholm is a beautiful, lively city full of interesting people, good and bad. Even though I was kind of an awful tourist, I did manage to get a Swedish Meatball sandwich, and I saw an IKEA from the train window. I may go back there again, since it is so accessible from here, to do some of the touristy stuff, and maybe eat a little reindeer, a national specialty. I learned that I may not be as suited for the clubs as I previously thought, considering how little I drink and my significant interest in fidelity, but I did also have a great deal of fun. I met a great, international group of people at the hostel, and got to dance to Lady Gaga. I am satisfied.

Stockholm Syndrome

I am in the land of IKEA! This morning I hopped on a train destined for Stockholm, and I got absolutely the worst seat they could have given me. Actually it was not next to the bathroom, so maybe second worst. But still bad. I was in the aisle, facing backwards, and instead of a window there was a padded cushion for the window seater to rest their head upon. All it did for me was inhibit me from viewing the Swedish countryside. Whenever I could though, I would sneak into the seat in the front of me, so I could look out the window. That is about as risky as I get, unfortunately.

But anyway, I am in Sweden! How cool is that. Okay just so you know, this keyboard does not do question marks or apostrophes, so I cannot properly punctuate. And it is causing me great agony.

So my first order of business was to compare Denmark to Sweden, since they are so competitive with one another. Obviously I have not spent enough time here yet to fully grasp the country, but I can definitely tell it is more diverse. In Copenhagen the stereotypical blue eyed and blonde person is seen everywhere you go, en masse. In Stockholm, where that stereotype is also supposed to exist, you see far more brunettes and brown eyes.

Tomorrow I will try to visit the Nobel Museum, and walk around Old Town Sweden. Old Town meaning like 1350, so that is pretty cool. I will try to go to the evidently amazing night clubs in the city, but I also do not want to go alone, and have yet to make any friends. Boo hoo, poor me.

Sorry for the lack of pictures! I promise to update with Copenhagen AND Stockholm pictures when I return after this weekend. I promise. Seriously!

CAT-astrophe

Newfoundland dog, from www.puppypoopy.com. Hehehe.

When I decided to work abroad in Denmark, I was excited to witness a new style of veterinary medicine, and as it turns out, a lot has been different than my experiences in California. For one thing, neutering dogs DOES NOT happen (which may be a European thing, I dunno). Also the law requires you to put an ID tattoo on your dogs ear so when it runs away, it can be easily identified as not a stray, and the tattoo code is in an online database that anyone can access, so people can contact owners themselves. Other differences are minor, like the style of IV catheters used, the method of catheter insertion, and the fact that every dog I have worked with is pure-bred, not a mutt among 'em.

But one thing in particular is the same in Denmark as it is in the US, and that is the clients. Clients can really suck. I have noticed that the biggest barrier to helping a sick animal get better is its owner. To me, there is no animal that does not deserve to become healthy, yet there are so many people who stand in the way of that. Today a woman came in with a vial of her Newfoundland's urine, and asked the clinic to process it. She didn't have the dog with her, and she was already known for being picky and stingy when it came to her dog's health. The vet on staff processed the urine and found a huge amount of blood in it, as well as an excessive amount of the sort of elements that cause crystals to form in the bladder, and eventually turn into a stone that can cause death. People used to frequently die of "The Stone" centuries ago, but since then, treatments have been developed to dissolve the minerals and save the lives of man and canine alike.

One of the treatments is a special diet. A fairly expensive special diet. Needless to say, the owner of this dog won't be purchasing it. And the dog will die a very painful death.

And what can you do? You have the ability to save this animal, yet there is nothing you can do, except sit and wait for her to bring him in to be euthanized.

Some of you might be thinking, "Well you can't always expect people to throw out a lot of money for their pets, there are financial limitations!" I would agree, except the lab work that she ordered costs more than the diet, so why process the urine at all if you're not going to do anything about it?

Sorry for the long rant, but in the 2 years I have worked in vet clinics, I have seen way too many of these clients hurting the well-being of my patients, and it makes me very sad. It is probably the only thing that could stop me from being a veterinarian, because having the power to save a life but not being able to use it is a very frustrating thing. BUT I know that for every animal whose owner won't let me help it, there are many more whose will. And that is a comforting thought.

Huzzah

Sorry for the lack of updates these last few days. Life has been not as eventful as my blog would hope. Well actually I made an interesting discovery...

On Friday night Nicolaj took me and his two eldest children to Bakken, an amusement park North of Copenhagen. It happens to be the oldest STILL-RUNNING amusement park, which I think is pretty cool. It is set in the middle of a beautiful forest. On our way to the park, we saw an albino baby deer, which is pretty rare, but not my interesting discovery. My discovery was that amusement parks attract White Trash. And that White Trash exists in Denmark. I never expected to see it! The first person I saw at Bakken was a man with his hat on backwards, no shirt, and his chest hair shaved into the shape of a cross. People were wearing giant inflatable condom hats (yes I wanted one), and they had stands selling giant ties that displayed such words as "FUCK" and "SHIT," in English. The whole place had the general feel of less-than-sophisticated.

Now don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with these people, I was just surprised to see the (now outdated) stereotype of "American" wandering through Scandinavia. These were the same kinds of people I have seen at every county fair I have ever been to. It was fun.

Anywho, the next day we went to the beach where I was reminded that Europeans enjoy swimming in the nude. But not the hot, young, sexy Europeans. The old guys. Ew. Trying to ignore a certain man's "Golden Years," I focused my attention on the landmass across the water, which turned out to be Sweden. So now I have decided to go to Sweden this weekend. Yay! I am going to Stockholm, where I will surely do stuff.

I will update more later. Now it's dinner time!

Happy Birthday, USA!

Today is the 4th of July, and so, the USA's birthday. It is kinda sad that I won't be home for it, largely because I love barbeques and gratuitous illegal fireworks. It's always a bummer to miss out on that sort of stuff, and I'm not really sure what to do over here to celebrate on my end. I need to make some friends right quick. Oh well.

In honor of my country's birthday, I have decided to share with you an international perspective on America and its people. Now, the last time I traveled through Europe, 2004, I was met with a lot of hostility and stereotyping, largely because of our president at the time (which frankly doesn't say a lot about the Europeans if they judge only me based on THAT). But anyway, the US was not well-looked upon because of its choice.

But I also didn't meet a whole lot of Europeans last time. This time, I have been able to talk to people from various countries and ask what they think about Americans, and the results have been surprisingly and heartwarmingly positive. Two French guys I met in Amsterdam would not stop talking about how much they love American movies. All the Danish people I have talked to who have been to the US say they love how friendly everyone is, that you can go there and within 20 minutes someone will have invited you home for dinner. They say Americans have a very outgoing attitude and genuinely like helping and talking with people.

I thought this was really sweet! I was expecting "fat, loud, stupid, materialistic" but no one ever mentioned that, even when I prompted them. It is nice knowing that the American image is improving across the globe, or at least in Europe. Actually, there has been a ton of Obama paraphernalia in many of the stores I've been to, which confuses me a little bit, but I will accept it.

So there you go America, a nice compliment for your birthday!

Danish Factoids

I was going to do a long post about how EVERYTHING went wrong today, but I decided not to burden ya'll with my problems, because they won't feel so heavy tomorrow, so what's the point?

Instead you get to see a list of cool Danish stuff! I love lists.

Famous Danish Companies
- Lego: little toy blocks that people love well into adulthood
- MAERSK: a cargo shipping company, for those of you who don't live on the ocean or have never seen one of their containers.
- Haribo: they make super delicious candies. Not totally sure they're Danish, but whatever.
- Skype: cheap/free online communication program. The guy who started this also did Kazaa, a program to illegally download music.

Famous Danes
- Hamlet: fictional Prince of Denmark, main character of the most performed Shakespeare play
- The Little Mermaid, Thumbelina, and Beowulf: three more fictional Danes
- Viggo Mortensen: Technically half-Danish, but who cares? Most famous as Aragorn of the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, also my future husband. Not that he knows this.
- Saxo Grammaticus: a historian I've never heard of, but I saw him on the wikipedia list of famous Danes, and he has the coolest, most badass name ever. I am going to change my name to Saxo Grammaticus.
- Niels Bohr: physicist. Worked on the Manhattan project, did some other stuff.

Other
- First country in the world to refer to the union of two people of the same gender as "marriage." This was in 1989, only 20 years ago! Still got a lot of work to do, world!

Okay I can't think of anything else. EXCEPT! this doesn't have to do with Denmark as a whole, but whatever. Last night I spent about 2 hours chatting with Nicolaj over the Danish beer, Tuborg, and after all the stories of my mother during college, he proceeded to tell me that someone died in the bathroom that I use. In addition to the colony of spiders living outside my window and threatening to eat my soul, I am now supposed to fear the ghost haunting my toilet. Naturally, I slept with the light on last night.

You may be thinking, 'don't be such a baby, people die in places all the time.' No. The man was burned alive in the bathroom, unable to escape a house fire. When Nicolaj visited the house for the first time, they had not yet cleaned up all the soot, and the outline of the man's body remained on the floor. Now YOU sleep with the lights off.

Random bits and pieces

I should let you all know: State of Emergency over - for now. One of the lovely ladies I work with went to the big library during her lunch break and brought me two English novels, one of which is written by one of my favorite authors, Neal Stephenson. Hurrah for good friends! She has also helped me translate Danish transportation sites, even calling the main offices for clarification. I really enjoy working with her, and everyone else at the clinic. Even though Danes are stereotypically reserved, once you get to know them, they are just about the kindest people ever.

Speaking of transportation, yesterday I spent my time after work buying a 45 day train pass. At the rate I was going to work or to the city, I was spending about 20 American dollars a day, or around 100 Kroner (Danish money). If I were to travel 45 more days, I would have spent around 900 dollars, or 4500 Kroner. So I bought a pass instead, which cost me about 200 American dollars, or 1000 Kroner. So in the end I will have saved about 700 American dollars! I think it's worth it, don't you?

Today after work I went to the little market up the street and bought some baguette and Brie, nectarines, and these little candies I found in Holland. At least I thought they were! The holland candies were these marshmallow bars about as long as a finger and as wide as two, with a thin layer of raspberry jam running through the middle, all wrapped in milk and white chocolate. I saw similar candies in the market, but as it turns out, they're filled with marzipan instead of marshmallow. BOO! I hate marzipan. Oh well. It was fun to pretend to be a local by shopping at the local grocer. Even though my brown eyes gave me away. At least when I wear my sunglasses, my blonde hair fits in with the crowd, and no one knows I'm not Danish!

So basically, I am having a really great time. This weekend I am going to spend time with Nicolaj and his family, and he has promised to take me to a local outdoor museum, and perhaps Tivoli, a park that inspired Walt Disney to create Disneyland.

I have so many things I want to share with you all, but as you can tell from this entry, I am so excited about everything that I am failing to organize my mind. We all have days like that, I'm sure. Perhaps I will just make more entries. Maybe even another one tonight! But first, a shower.

A State of Emergency

Okay not a REAL emergency. But still...

I am out of reading material! I brought 4 novels and 2 Copenhagen tour books, and I have finished them all. I have looked into getting books from the local library, but all their English books are at a hard-to-reach and odd-houred branch. Plus the books I want are all out.

What do I do? Last night I fell asleep at 9pm because of nothing better to do. I haven't slept so early since I was a baby. Seriously.

I need books. Help!