Bonjour de Paris!!!
We have been in Paris since Monday evening, living in our own Parisian apartment, so that we can eat baguette and cheese and drink wine all we want! We used a website called airbnb which lets us rent out people's empty rooms/apartments for cheap while they're not using them :) This is the finale of our trip, so we figured we should do it right. Today we went by the Moulin Rouge and the Sacre Coeur! Tomorrow: the Louvre.

That's the Eiffel tower in the background.

Jeff started getting really french with a moustache.

Before coming here, we spent a week in Copenhagen. The trip there was motivated by a friend we made in Belize who lives in Copenhagen, so we went to visit her and it helped to have someone to direct us to all the best places. We had traveled almost 24 hours from Seoul, via Moscow, so when we arrived, we were a little jet lagged and a little overwhelmed by the massive spike in living costs. We spent a couple of nights in a "hostel" (the quality and price suggested more of a hotel), after which we switched to an airbnb room with 3 other roommates in Norrebro. Morten, Mia and Thomas were super nice hosts who made our stay in Copenhagen even better. Copenhagen was beautiful, and the people in Copenhagen were also beautiful. Their bike lanes are immaculate and take up more road than lanes for cars - accordingly, there are a lot of bikes. Everywhere we went was friendly and clean, and the Danish know how to party. The 1st of May is a big celebration of socialism, where most people gather in parks for a day of political talks, live music, sun lounging and beer. A couple of days later there was a big street festival with, again, awesome live music and beer.

Everybody is very well-dressed and there is a lot of good shopping, but I managed to restrain myself for the most part. They also have a lot of great juice shops. One day, we went to the world's longest pedestrian street (Stroeget), and Christiania - a small, independent community, that is essentially not governed by Danish law. We were not allowed to take pictures while in there, but I managed to snap a few. It is basically a bunch of hippies living peacefully in their own land in the middle of Copenhagen, where anything goes.

One night we went out with our friend Cecilie and our temporary roommates to what they call "budegas(?)" - very smokey, dark bars that are open late. The majority of people seem to smoke in Copenhagen. We also had a traditional Danish dinner with our roommates one evening - some sort of hamburger, but with interesting ingredients, and gravy on top. Delicious! We repayed them with a chocolate cake for dessert. Our last morning, we finally went for a run in a beautiful cemetery a couple of blocks from the apartment. Just stunning. 

We also went to a museum.

Jeff got really into it.

 We ran into this socialist march May 1st on our way to the park.

Socialist park party May 1st.

We picnicked in the botanical gardens one day!

They also have really good chai in Copenhagen.

Street party!

River swans looking for food. There are even bikes in the river!

So many gorgeous parks in Copenhagen.

The entrance to Christiania

Christiania

Christiania

I'm in love with this cemetery. This is not even edited.

More cemetery.

More cemetery.

Before Copenhagen, we were in Seoul from April 22nd until April 29th. It took us about 24 hours traveling to get there from Amed. Seoul was a lot of fun, and more of a friend-seeing visit than a city-seeing visit. Still, we got a decent taste of what life is like there. Seoul is a massive concrete jungle, it seems to go on forever, and you will be hard pressed to find any grass at all, let alone any wildlife - except for the few mountains poking out of the concrete around the city. Everyone is well dressed, very polite, and it is incredibly safe. Apparently if you leave a phone or a wallet somewhere, it will almost always be returned to you. It's also quite amazing what a consumer-driven society it is. There are stores everywhere and everyone seems to own the best of everything (accordingly, there is supposedly some very serious credit card debt there). We managed to go up one of the mountains with Andrew one day, and went to Olympic park with Benoit, Sara and and Jess (all from Montreal) on a warm sunny day. Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera, but it was very pretty! We played some badminton, and Jeff bought a kite for a little girl who had lost hers.

Jeff and our host Andrew.

A (small) portion of the concrete jungle.

The mountain we climbed!

Massive baseball on top of car?

Jeff made a point of being very Korean.

The Korean metro system is amazing. We are doing it all wrong.

Maybe not a legitimate Apple store?

 Also, as a last note, our drive from Amed to the Denpasar airport in Bali (right before Seoul) involved some excellent countryside views.

We will be seeing you all very soon!!!

Lots of love
Jen and Jeff

This is our last full day in Amed, Bali, which we are quite sad about. Since it is low season, we have had these villas all to ourselves for the whole week, and the two brothers who have been serving us have been way too good to us. Everyday, they surprise us with something new. Our second morning here, we tried a local fruit called mangosteen - inside a dark, purple-ish shell, there are soft white pieces of fruit, some with pits. Tasted a bit like a mix between a lychee and an orange. We receive a fresh plate of fruit like this every morning, in addition to the complimentary breakfast (coffee/tea, fresh fruit juice, eggs, pancakes or a jaffle, i.e. a toasted egg tomato sandwich). Yesterday, it was a traditional Balinese cake, and a mixture of coconut, brown sugar served in a leaf of corn. We ate a late breakfast that day, and a very late lunch, so we had decided to skip dinner, since we didn't think we were hungry. But at 7pm, Pari arrived on our balcony with fresh red snapper caught that morning, green bean salad with rice and fresh corn on the cob. We were totally floored, and found out that we were indeed hungry. After dinner last night, we also hung out on the beach with Pari and his family, drinking the local alcohol - Arak. Arak tastes vaguely like vodka, but is made from fermenting coconut. A popular mixed drink in Amed is "Arak Obama" - it's as good as it is witty!

Last night's surprise dinner.

Since this is our last tropical paradise of the trip, we have mostly been snorkeling. Jeff recovered from his food poisoning very quickly, so we've snorkeled everyday except yesterday. It is almost overwhelming how many interesting fish there are just off the coast. A couple of times, we brought a ziploc with bread in it to feed the fish while we snorkeled. I have been working on getting used to how comfortable they are around snorkelers - a few times, some of the fish have started to come right up to us, chasing and even nibbling on us. I responded with excessive thrashing, which didn't seem to phase them.

Those white specks are bread crumbs.

Jeff diving deeper.

The fish furthest to the right with blue lips is one of the types of fish that wouldn't leave me alone.

One of many stalkers.

Hated these guys.

More stalking...

Underwater beehive!

Bright yellow needle fish.

These small blue fish were VERY bright in person.

Some kind of dolphin fish?

Fish with a horn.

A small baracuda.

2 days ago, we went on a 17-18km bike ride over to a Japanese ship wreck just off the coast. Very cool. Very tiring. It was surprisingly difficult to find bicycles around here. Motorbikes, however, are plentiful, and driven as recklessly as possible. There are a couple of rules for motorcycles here: You can never slow down under any circumstance, and you can never get out of someone's way, even if you are risking your and their life. Oh, and if your bike isn't loud enough, you don't belong here. We have also had many tasty meals out, ranging from comfy sea-side seats to live Balinese dancing and music.

Snorkeling in our pool

No-arms

Balinese dancing

Lunch spot

We actually ate one of these tonight.

Sunset. That is Mount Agung in the background.

The Japanese shipwreck.

Tonight, Pari made us another stellar dinner for free, even though (as we found out after) he isn't feeling well. Tomorrow at noon, we head back to Denpasar to catch our flight to Malaysia, followed by our flight to South Korea. We're going to have to pick up some warmer clothes while we're there! I would also like to point out that the woman who did our laundry here is a miracle worker. Our clothes look brand new.

More soon,
Jen & Jeff