The final lap: London.

Sights: The British Museum (old and historical, but captions written in lively and engaging fonts, and a mummy with skin and hair that was preserved by sand). Hayward Gallery's Psycho Buildings, among my favorite things I've seen on the trip - artists designing, literally, "psycho buildings," including a clove and pepper scented tent and padding along a flodded balcony on recycled boats with Mandee. Walked past Big Ben and all the South Bank stuff. Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging red carpet event - boring and depressing how much British teens and weird lonely perv tourists love nubile young people. Saw the Pipettes with their new non-Pipette lineup. Chinatown - bad. The play Brief Encounter - I should have taken the "not the movie" warning more literally, it was sweet and sort of hacky, and what did I expect only choosing something because I thought it was "the most romantic" ? Tate Britain - incredible, Francis Bacon and my love Tracey Emin. Wonderful modern art and it wasn't even the Tate Modern. ICA tiny (especially since I was comparing it to the one in Boston), but they made me a free poster! Borough Market - revealed myself as a true fatty as I sampled everything and bought overpriced but delicious dried cranberries, jam, coconut sugar, etc. Tried wild boar. Went to White Cube Gallery and Whitechapel, both sort of lackluster. V&A Children's Museum I thought would be more sociological but it was just tons of toys and crying kids running around. I stole two pictures children drew of what the London Olympics will look like and incredulously took a picture of a pipe they had on display in the "clothing and style" section - "Cannibus Pipe (1995): many young people identify with the paraphernalia, culture, and feeling of smoking cannibus." Went clubbing at Fabric. Threw up. Supremes Exhibit at the V&A, it was weird how they had to "teach" British people about, like, who MLK was. Rest of the museum was great, my favorite stuff was the stuff I'm not usually drawn to (medieval casts, sculptures). Markets sort of bored me, lots of whimsical cheap clothing. Walked around tons of neighborhoods. Tate Modern, awesome urban photography exhibit (Cindy Sherman in blackface!). Karaoke at "The Happy Man" with Mandee, where the audience literally loved me and I felt flattered until I realized they were all drunk/mostly handicapped. National Portrait Gallery was awesome, loved the chronological aspect, and mostly looked at the pictures of women - actresses, kings' mistresses. Viktor and Rolf exhibit was EPIC, their shows are "shows." Hyde Park with Nirja. Then now.

Transport & Living: EasyJet delayed there so the subway was closed when I got back. Met the nicest Danish guy ever who showed me the exact bus route to get home. Now Travelocity changed my flight to last night and just alerted me so had to get a new flight. Stayed with Mandee at Manor House, conveniently on the Picadilly line. Shared a bed with her, used her facilities, owe her forever. The subways are expensive but I felt immortal with an unlimited pass (something I never have in New York). The buses are great, obviously. If I knew the city well I would have walked everywhere, but ... I don't know the city well. I get lost very easily. So I took the "tube" a bunch and asked for directions many, many times.

People: I was super lucky to have friends in London who I could hang out with. But my review of London people: hm. The guys are kind of bellig and the girls dress and do their hair and makeup like they're trying way too hard. It looks good but forced. The teens are intimidating and the dogs are so-so. A guy on the subway freaked out at me because I couldn't understand what he was saying. To me some of London seemed like the worst parts of New York: expensive, terrible theater (Zorro musical with the Gipsy Kings?), materialistic, swarming crowds of loud people. But obviously everyone was also very nice ... I don't know where I'm going with this. I'm a dick.

The Finer Things: Ate Indian food once and fish and chips once; if I lived here long term I would be very large from my favorite foods being so popular here. McDonalds here are beautiful and impressive. I like their weird potato chip flavors, like shrimp cocktail and roast chicken. I do not recommend their supermarket wine. I bought hippie Toms shoes at Selfridges so my feet could breathe, high waisted shorts and blue tights at Top Shop Oxford Circus (a genuinely overwhelming experience, sort of turned me off shopping - so crowded and so much to do), and a Tracey Emin book. And Viktor and Rolf postcards, and aformentioned British jam.

And that's it: Assuming my plane actually leaves today, my trip's over. Do I regret anything? Sort of. I wish I'd gone to Vienna between Germany and Denmark, and I wish I'd maybe spent two less days in London so I could have ended in Edinburgh and flown back from there. I'm so glad I did this staying with people rather than in hotels. I regret bringing travel scrabble, I only played like twice with my mom. I'm ready to go back to America and see my loved ones and have phone access but I don't know if I'm ready to chose and acquire a career.

Bye Europe! Hopefully when I have the time I'll scan in the Polaroids ... and if you didn't get the postcard I wrote you, I just realized I forgot to write USA on all of them. Damn.

Copenhagen General: The prettiest children I've ever seen. The cutest dog-vision I've ever seen (beagle puppy hanging out of a bike basket). Everyone bikes, and it's laid out like Boston (more urban on one side of the river, Cambridge-y on the other side). It was very nice traveling with Caitlin, she was laid back and fun. It was expensive, and the people were shockingly friendly and trusting (especially on public transportation). Lots of people asked Caitlin and I if we were sisters. The food was okay, the high points being their hot dogs and the low points being their a lot of their weird candy and the free samples of port we had in a supermarket. Bought a secondhand Chloe dress and a childrens' metal water battle Lots and lots of Helvetica.

Couchsurfing: Very recommended. We got to stay for free and learn about peoples' lives. We met girls from Florida, Taiwan, Greece, and Hungary, and boys from Switzerland and Poland. Our host was Australian. The only price we ultimately had to pay was listening to boring stories, but most stories weren't boring. For example, Shan from Taiwan gasped when Caitlin and I said we were proud of our glasses - in Taiwan, you take off your glasses shamefully for pictures.

Sights: State art museum, saw a great video exhibit called Inter/View*ZAN (I know!). The Little Mermaid was little, gardens were all wonderful, went into a billion furniture stores and the Danish Design Center. Bored at the Carlsberg Brewery Tour (creepy not quite wax figures, reading descriptions on beer history) until we got unnaturally shitfaced of two complimentary beers and passed out in a public park in the rain. Tivoli theme park was the most special place in the world, great for both kids and adults - beautiful gardens, sick rides, and a ballet set to Radiohead about the little matchstick girl. A miniatures store with racist paper dolls and terrorist figurines (the only example of racism I've experienced here besides a drunk man who told me I look like Woody Allen), Rosie McGee's American Bar (vibrating dance floor, Clint Eastwood, tex-mex, John Lennon's library?), Louisiania modern art museum overlooking the water. Took our picture with a giant sculpture of boobs. Christiana hippie colony twice - it's a state in the middle of the city where drugs are legal and encouraged, a thousand people live there and everything is decided by monthly town meetings. Depressing old potheads selling knickknacks on "Pusher Street," incredible hippie food, dilapidated houses, hemp beer. Like at Bonnaroo, at the place with the most open drugs in the world, nobody offered to sell me drugs. Jackie Woman plus size chain. Clubbing awkwardly at Vega. Local bar advertising "new in Denmark: the Fishbowl: a drink for sharing." Hot dog stands. Romantic parks. The river.

Sweden: Went to Malmo, the third biggest city in Sweden - kind of like going to Lowell, MA. A twisted tower, even more design stores than Denmark. We went on Sunday at 4 so everything was closed. Babies were less cute, language was more complicated. My favorite flag ever.

Next up is London. I'm debating if I should go to Edinburgh for two days but I think a week in London is barely enough time. I'm getting travel-greedy; I want to travel forever but I'm running out of money and I miss people.

Things I forgot to mention about Berlin: at the Museum of Medical History they had an exhibit on gay London culture in the 1700s, aka "Molly culture." They had "Molly talk" and "Molly names," with examples of "Molly tallow-dipper," "Molly primrose," and "Little Miss Sweet lips." The children are so blond and so perfect and adorable. We saw wonderful Man Ray polaroids. And so much more. It was great!

Copenhagen is also great, but compared to Berlin it is like New York and Boston. We are staying in what is like a trendy area of Cambridge, accordingly. In my absence my parents have started some sort of Facebook cold war. The German Swiss who is couchsurfing here just mentioned wanting to go to a nightclub where he can "see people and be seen." Let's go!

So I'm about to leave Berlin, and it was great. I am slowly beginning to understand expatriotism, although nobody was very funny here which would ultimately stop me from moving. I stayed in Charlottenburg, which is sort of a cheesy tourist area, and I'm writing from a cyber cafe that is near the 69 Museum.

General: Everybody spoke English to me as soon as they heard my German accent. German dogs are wonderful - they're not as inbred as American dogs and they have lots of ''character'' and are one hundred percent loyal. The best neighborhood is Mitte in East Berlin, besides being the ''trendiest'' and ''edgiest'' it has all the best museums. I went to sleep very early most nights and walked a lot and got bitten by lots of mosquitos. My mom and I went 1-1 in Scrabble while here. Everything was expensive.

Sights: The Hamburg Art museum was my favorite, it was in a restored train station and factory they combined and they not only had wonderful modern art, but explained a lot about the artists before each exhibit. I also liked the Medical History Museum, which had displays about outdated treatments (fake noses made out of glycerine, birthing chairs, iron lungs), and tons of dead babies, and a ''megacolon.'' At the History Museum I learned that huntsmen had assistants who carried ''at least'' seven falcons at all time and to show off, drank wine out of their gun barrels. The Pergamon Museum with ancient art was boring but beautiful. We went to a concentration camp an hour away from Berlin, Sachsenhausen, and it had the only death metal people and scene I saw in Berlin. The town people were creepy as Salem-ers times a million. A woman whose parents were camp survivors, Susan, thought I was a kindered spirit and followed me around saying camp tourism was evil and wrong. I kept running into her for the rest of the day. What do you say about a camp? It was surreal. My mom took too many pictures. We tried to go to the Reichstag three times and failed each time. The remainders of the Berlin Wall, the Holocaust Memorial and Museum, the Trail of Terror. My old lady loves genocide studies.

Food: Food was good-not-great. We went to an Asian fusion place that was the best ever in Mitte twice, Msr. Vuong's where I had artichoke tea. German breakfasts were too bread-and-meat-y. We dined and dashed at a really fancy hotel and ran into someone from Brandeis on the way out; it was very Hitchcock to have to make smalltalk when all you want to do is run and escape the crime. I unknowingly ate liver and freaked out after, and only drank beer once. Great great great coffee.

Purchases Made: Box of artichoke tea at Msr. Vuong's, matching underwear and cardigan at Princesse Tam-Tam, Fred Perry by Jessica Ogden tee. Food. Subway tickets.

Transportation: Subways were beautiful, fast, and moderately pricey, and entirely trust-based (there were no turnstiles or ticket-checkers). The train was good and so were the buses. The airplane ... I will see.

Friends Made: Susan, I guess. A Swiss couple in Mitte who told us the ''sun would come out tomorrow.''

Bye Berlin. Hello Copenhagen.

I'm in Berlin at a rambunctious youth hostel's internet area. I have less than a minute and a half yet. I plan on making an epic blog post at the end of every week where I write down all I do. Time's up!

Not even out of school for two months and I've forgotten all the German I learned in all those classes. (Except for "ich bin Molly, ich bin 21 Jahre alt.")

Tickets Bought:
Berlin July 1st-8th
Copenhagen/Sweden July 8th-14th
London July 14th-21st

This "blog" has become far too "personal."