Categories
Denmark Europe Study Abroad

Copenhagen: Christmas in Christiania and Tivoli

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And with that I’m done with all of my finals.  This was my last week of classes with DIS, and my last full week in Denmark.  It’s hard to believe, but this time next week I’m going to be back in Colorado.  It’s been a whirlwind week, with essay writing, classes, and trying to spend every spare moment with the wonderful people I’ve met in Copenhagen.  After the past four months, it’s sad that I may never see some of my friends here again.  I’ve had amazing adventures with them, and they’ve helped to make my study abroad experience wonderful.

Friday, Paige and I celebrated the end of classes by going to Christmas season at Tivoli!  It was a little cold and rainy, but we still had fun.  Christmas is my favorite holiday, and Tivoli decorates with fake snow and trees and lights everywhere.  They also have an adorable Nordic themed market where I found some decorations to bring home so that I can bring a little bit of Copenhagen back with me.

Christmas continued when Emmy and I went to the Christiania market today.  It’s in a giant room where all of these stalls are set up and people are selling handmade scarves and artwork and jewelry and other fun things.  I also ended up having a conversation with a Danish man, who was telling me how Christiania has its own Christmas celebration for people who are hard on their luck.  He said it’s a really cool experience.

Tomorrow, I’m leaving for Berlin.  It’ll be my last trip during this amazing semester, although unfortunately it isn’t going to be exactly as planned.  For now, though, I’m going to make the most of the short amount of time I have left!

Vi ses!

Categories
Europe Netherlands Study Abroad

Amsterdam: Canals, Van Gogh, and Prostitutes in Windows

For Thanksgiving weekend, I headed to Amsterdam to meet up with Kelcy and Anna!  This is now the third time I’ve seen Kelcy in Europe, and Anna had come to visit both of us for her fall break.  It was lovely to spend the weekend with both of them!

I got in Thursday night, and after finding the hostel, we walked around the city and got some first impressions.  Amsterdam is beautiful.  It’s very cohesive, with most canal streets looking nearly identical.  Which made it fun trying to get back to our hostel that evening.  I had heard that it’s similar to Copenhagen, which is true (although often overstated).  There are a lot of bikes, the facades of the houses are structured the same way, and it has a similar laid back vibe.  I saw primarily men on the streets, which was a bit surprising but can probably just be explained by the red light district.  Obviously the random areas that smelled of marijuana isn’t a totally new experience because I live in Colorado.  However, seeing prostitutes in windows was strange.  It’s one thing to know that prostitution exists, and it’s another to see women selling their bodies in the open that way.

The next morning, our day began bright and early.  We started at the Anne Frank House, and it was pretty cool to see the place I had read about in her diary.  Moreover, after some of the other places I’ve been this semester (i.e. Auschwitz) it was nice to see a place where people risked their lives to help save others.  About two thirds of the way through, the power went out and so we ended up completing the museum tour in the dark.  After that, we did a canal tour.  The audio guides were a bit cheesy, but looking at the city from the water was pretty great.  My favorite story was about the clock tower, where apparently each side is set for a different time which means the bells go off completely randomly.  It must be pretty frustrating if you actually want to know the time!  We also went to the Van Gogh museum and saw some pretty famous artwork.  After my impressionism class, I can actually see where his work developed out of that style.  For someone who came into this semester knowing pretty much nothing about art, I felt very accomplished!  Our night concluded with a visit to the prostitution museum, which was an interesting experience.  There were some rooms set up to look like brothels, sex toys, a room where you looked out onto the street as the sex workers would do, and even a section where visitors put “confessions.”

The next morning, Anna had to leave in the morning to catch her flight back to the US, so Kelcy and I had a relaxing day of walking around, taking in Amsterdam, and looking at shops.  We learned that if you want any type of phallic shaped item, you can probably purchase it in Amsterdam.  It’s a teenage boy’s dream.

For those people who asked me if Copenhagen was in the Netherlands or if I would be learning to speak Dutch, I now understand the confusion.  The cities are similar.  Dutch sounds like a cross between German and Danish, with the crispness of German in some words and the soft letters in some cases.

I had a wonderful time in Amsterdam.  Two weeks from now I’ll be back in the United States, but in the meantime I have two more essays to complete and one more European trip to prepare for.  Which means it’s time for me to go back to being a productive person.

Vi ses!

Categories
Czech Republic Europe Study Abroad

Prague: Train Mishaps, John Lennon, & Grandma’s Church

 

I may or may not have prioritized a weekend trip for the primary purpose of seeing the place where my grandma lived/painted the picture of that church in the top image.

The weekend started out with a layover in Frankfurt for five hours, in which we figured we could go see the city.  Except that sometimes trains in Germany list the stop you’re at instead of the stop you’re going to and then you end up half an hour away in Mannheim, Germany and have to plead with the ticket conductor so that you don’t have to pay the 32.50 euro ticket to get back to the place you thought you were going anyway.  It was an adventure.  That said, we did end up back in Frankfurt and had a lovely dinner, and we still caught our plane to Prague so everything worked out as it should.

On Saturday we did sightseeing all day in the most unofficial manner possible.  We would walk until we saw a cool building and then go to it, which meant I saw a lot of churches and towers.  The only thing I really wanted to see was a church that my grandma had painted, and I managed to both find it and stand from the perspective she saw as she painted it!  It was awesome to walk around where I knew she had been.  We also went to a toy store and a gingerbread store, which were both pretty great.  Prague is beautiful, especially with the views we saw when we climbed a tower in what I think was the main square.

Sunday we decide to head to the John Lennon wall.  I knew it had been painted white shortly before this trip (which I’ll admit I was not thrilled about), and it ended up being really cool to see the response to that as people repainted it.  My favorite was “challenge accepted.”  Thanks to a French woman studying in Prague, we borrowed some paint and set out to add our own pieces to the wall!  Unfortunately, this meant we spent more time there than we’d planned and resulted in an intense speedwalk to get back to our hotel on time for checkout.

In a lot of ways, Prague reminded me of Krakow.  The architecture and atmosphere was fairly similar, although I think Prague is prettier.  It was nice for me to see another piece of my family’s history, and it was also great to travel with Jenessa and Kelsey (even though we only planned it about two weeks in advance!).

As Kelsey unfortunately reminded me today, I only have 19 more days in Europe.  It’s going to be busy, with all of my final papers due and two more trips planned!  I’m headed to Amsterdam on Thursday.

Vi ses!

Categories
Europe France Study Abroad

Paris: Everything I Dreamed It Would Be And More

Five days was not enough.  I fell completely in love with the city.  It was vibrant and gorgeous, and for the first time since coming to Europe I could actually communicate properly with people in their native language.  I never thought I would be excited at being able to read advertisements and other signs on the street…

Strangely enough, though, there was a little culture shock.  When I first got on the train it struck me as so inconvenient that I would have to put my ticket in the machine, since in Denmark they just assume you’ve paid.  I realized I’ve lost my ability to jaywalk.  And, as I walked by a shop, someone who worked there said “Bonjour!” and it took me an absurd amount of time to respond since Danish people would probably rather vote for a Republican than talk to a stranger on the street just to say Hi. (yes I’m totally exaggerating no Dane would ever vote for a Republican)

My first day I went to the Louvre and wandered around until I reached my daily art limit.  Then I walked through the city along the Seine and soaked up the beauty of the city.  That night, Kelcy took me to the Eiffel Tower to see the lights as they sparkled and L’Arc de Triomphe, and I could barely contain my excitement at seeing the two most iconic monuments in Paris.

The next morning, Kelcy had to go to class and so I met up with Chen He, my friend from Northwestern.  We went to some of the less touristy spots, like a taxidermy shop/museum (“Do you like dead animals?”) and France’s oldest library!  It was great to get to see some places I wouldn’t have necessarily explored on my own, and after that I met up with my Impressionism class.  We went to the Opera Garnier and got a tour of that, which was beautiful.  I wish I would have been able to see a show there!

After that, we had free time, and I had my most successful encounter in French to date.  I went to one of the really nice department stores, and went to the bookstore part because I decided I wanted another book in French.  In the mystery section, I found Agatha Christie, and figured I could get And Then There Were None.  Except it wasn’t called that, so I had to ask a sales assistant, which meant I had to give a few details of the plot so that he could tell me what the French name was.  Dix Petits Nègres, if you’re interested.  Political correctness is not Europe’s strong suit.

The next day we got a sightseeing tour and then headed to Versailles!  It was beautiful, but honestly after seeing the palaces in Russia I wasn’t as impressed as I thought I would be.  The Hall of Mirrors was cool, and I think the gardens would be amazing if they had flowers (that’s the struggle of visiting during November….) but overall, most of the rooms seemed fairly normal.  Later that night, I went back to the Louvre and finally saw the Mona Lisa.

The art didn’t stop there, because our next morning started with Musée de l’Orangerie, which had Monet’s water lilies, followed by Musée d’Orsay with most well known impressionist works.  It was pretty awesome to see art where I knew the pieces and their context, and impressionism is my favorite movement (based on my very limited knowledge of art).  This was followed by more free time, in which I went with a friend to the catacombs.  I’ve now seen more bones than I ever expected to, although the basement part of Hamlet’s castle was actually far creepier.  It was definitely worth the visit though!

The final highlight of the trip was our Seine dinner cruise.  Everyone got dressed up and we had three hours of floating down the Seine, with a three course meal and quite a bit of free wine.  The views were lovely, as was the company and the alcohol.  Afterwards, Alanna and I went to find a bar to experience Parisian nightlife and we ended up finding a wine bar!  The atmosphere was relaxed and the bartender recommended a very good light red wine.  We felt very classy and French, and he even gave us a 3 euro discount at the end of the night so that was exciting.  (But also confusing.)

My last morning, I went to part of the mass at Notre Dame.  The music and stained glass windows were very beautiful.  After I left, I went to L’Arc de Triomphe again to climb it, which had amazing views of the city.  I took a lot of selfies.  When I got down again, Kelcy took me to Shakespeare and Company and then I spent the rest of my time wandering around the Latin Quarter before meeting up with my class once more to head to the airport.

Everyone says Parisians are rude, that they’re the New Yorkers of Europe.  Having never been to New York, I can’t really make that comparison, but the Parisians I interacted with were not rude.  I usually spoke to them in French, and they apparently deemed it acceptable.  In fact, the one person I talked to who switched to English asked me in French first if we should switch to English (which was great since I was getting directions).

Overall, it was a fantastic five days.  Paris is my favorite place I’ve ever been to, and I know I’ll be back.

À bientôt, Paris.  Je t’adore.

Categories
Europe Poland Study Abroad

Krakow: A Visit To Auschwitz

I’m in Copenhagen for about 12 hours in between my two trips.

My past four days were spent in Krakow, with my class on Auschwitz.  Krakow was beautiful.  The first day we did a walking tour covering the main square, the castle, and several important churches.  The city is charming, since it retains many of its original buildings with very little modern architecture.  On our second day, we toured the Jewish quarter, Kazimierz, as well as Schindler’s Factory, which has been turned into a museum about life in Krakow during WW2.  Certain aspects that they spoke about in the museum resonated with stories I remember hearing from my grandma about her experiences during that time period, like the women who married soldiers in their absence and the food rationing. I also got to see the full Schindler’s list, which was pretty cool since I’ve read the book and seen the movie.  We also went to the area that became the Jewish ghetto during WW2 and saw a part of the original wall, which was built to imitate Jewish gravestones.  Our last day in Krakow was also Polish Independence Day, so there were flags and parades happening all over the city.

On Monday, we spent the entire day at Auschwitz and Birkenau, which was an incredibly moving experience.  After having read memoirs of survivors of those camps, I appreciated being able to put them into context.  A few of the more emotional places in the camp:

1. One of the exhibitions includes the objects confiscated by Nazis, such as eyeglasses, shoes, and suitcases.  Along with that, there are two tons of human hair, which came from approximately 40,000 people.  Those rooms really impressed upon me the scale of lives that were taken in these camps.

2. We went in the crematorium in Auschwitz 1, which was not destroyed as those at Birkenau were.  Here, there were visible scratches on the walls where people struggled to escape that gas chambers.

3. Images of children being led to the crematoriums.  Approximately a quarter of the victims in the camp were children.

4. In the sauna, where prisoners were initially showered and shaved before entering camp, there is an exhibition with the family photos from the victims that had been confiscated upon their arrival.  It’s easy to hear the massive numbers of deaths and lose some of the human aspect of the Holocaust.  In this area, you can see the life before WW2, with weddings and children and happiness, and it puts a series of faces on the victims.

5. The image of a field is actually the site of the largest mass grave in Europe.  There are an estimated 200,000 people buried there.  The ground we stood on was uneven, and in some areas there were ashes on the surface.  Now, it seems peaceful and beautiful; it’s difficult to believe that such horrific acts of violence were committed there.

In general, Auschwitz and Birkenau were in beautiful locations.  In some areas, they seemed too picturesque, knowing the genocide that was committed there.  It seems like the location should match the level of evil that existed there; I expected it to be more gloomy, not sunny with fall foliage.

Auschwitz and Birkenau are such important places in our world history.  This trip was intense during some parts, but I’m so glad I was able to visit and have this experience.

Categories
Denmark Europe Study Abroad

Kronborg Castle: Dramatic Reenactments of Hamlet

Today’s adventure was to Helsingør to see Hamlet’s castle!

Ok, technically it’s called Kronborg.  But you can get a tour with a man in tights who’s pretending to be Horatio and loosely reenacts the whole play, so…. Paige and I signed up for that one based on a recommendation from our friend Emmy.  Which was pretty great.  The phrases “to be or not to be” and “something is rotten in the state of Denmark” were both uttered, and at one point he pulled a skull out of the vent and waved it around.  If you ever go, definitely do this tour.

We also went into the creepy basement section where we saw a statue of Holger the Dane, who is supposedly the great defender of Denmark.  At times, we used our iPhone flashlights because they didn’t really have a whole lot of lights down there… and when we came back up one of the employees looked at us and said, “You survived!”  …..thanks.  Really comforting.

I’ve crossed off another Denmark bucket list trip!  I can’t believe I have less than 40 days left in this wonderful country.  Next week is another travel break, so I’m headed to Kraków, Poland and Paris, France.  Details to come.

Hej hej!

Categories
Europe Finland Study Abroad

Helsinki: Saunas, All Saints Day, and Kraft Mac & Cheese

If you’d asked me what my expectations were for this city, I’m not sure what I would have said.  Probably cold, a bit like a smaller St. Petersburg.  Helsinki, however, surpassed all of my expectations.

My first view of the city was from the airplane, and the whole area simply seemed to simply glitter.  After Sarah and I checked into our hostel, we went into the city center in hopes of going to an ice bar, which had unfortunately gone out of business.  Instead, we went to a couple of other bars and got a feel for the city.  The area where we were reminded me of Michigan Avenue, but instead of one street it was pretty much the entire downtown.  Everything was well lit, beautiful, and clean!  Of course, it should also come as no surprise that it was also an incredibly expensive city.  More so than Copenhagen, even.  One thing that was surprising: how many Finns dressed up for Halloween.  The whole city seemed to come alive while we were out, and a good portion of the people out were wearing some form of costume.

Most of the next day was spent doing an unofficial walking tour of Helsinki, which was perfect because although it was cold, the sun was shining!  We went to three churches, the market square, a park, and the Kappeli restaurant, as well as a place that sold delicious cupcakes.

For the early evening, we went to the sauna.  The first one we tried was unfortunately closed, because All Saint’s Day is apparently a big thing in Finland and so most of the stores were closed.  The second one we tried, however, was a success!  This was my first sauna experience, so I’m glad that it was in a place renowned for them.  Sarah and I pretty clearly marked ourselves as Americans by wearing bathing suits, but otherwise we even did the thing where we doused ourselves in cold water in between sessions in the sauna part.  I completely understand the appeal, it was incredibly relaxing!  It made the chill of the night feel much better.

In our day’s travels, we had found some Kraft brand mac and cheese, and did the very American thing and bought it to make in the hostel that night.  Unfortunately, because of the whole All Saint’s Day thing, the regular grocery stores were closed.  We did find a kiosk place that wasn’t closed, and even managed to find milk and butter by using our Danish skills applied to the Swedish words on the labels.  Often, things in Finland are also labeled in Swedish and Russian.  While buying it, the woman behind the counter spoke to us only in Finnish and we responded with “kiitos,” the only Finnish word we know (aka thanks, pronounced key-toes).  Turned out the milk had a bit of a vanilla taste and the butter was strange too, but through the power of Kraft our dinner was still delicious.

Sunday was pretty rainy, so after walking into the city center, we spent the rest of our time doing primarily indoor activities, like going to the National Museum and looking at Stockmann, which is a giant and gorgeous department store that was kind of like a mall in and of itself and was already decorated for Christmas.  It was strange to see Christmas trees lit up already, with the season fully under way.  It doesn’t get to that magnitude in the US until after Thanksgiving.

If anyone out there is considering going to this city, or Finland in general, I highly recommend it.  Kiitos, Helsinki.

Categories
Europe Germany Study Abroad

Bavaria: The Family I Never Knew I Had

After Romania, I traveled to Munich (via Copenhagen) to meet up with my German family!  Quick background: shortly after WW2, a portion of my family moved to the US (I think somehow as refugees but it’s a bit unclear), and so the part of the family I met is my dad’s father’s family.  I believe I met my second cousin once removed, but since my United States family is so tiny I really don’t know the terms very well.

Regardless of our technical relation, Gerhard and Marina were so welcoming to me!  The first night we stayed in Passau, which is right near the Austrian border.  I was exhausted from the hiking trip, so I went to bed early the first night and tried to get up reasonably early for the next day.  We went into Austria for an hour, where I ordered a pastry without knowing what was in it that luckily turned out to be pretty delicious.  Then we went to a different part of the Austrian border and did a little hiking around at an area that used to be an old castle.  For the rest of the day, we walked around Passau, and they took me to a concert with the world’s largest cathedral organ.  Then we drove to Weißenhorn that night, and Gerhard and Marina even put me up in a hotel since the apartment was too small to have my room.

The next morning, we went to Neuschwanstein!  Seeing this castle was pretty much on my all time bucket list.  The inside was pretty strange though, which is how it goes when you have an insane king I would imagine.  One room was pretty much entirely swan motifs, and there was an artificial cave that he had added because he really liked an opera!

When we got back to Weißenhorn, we had dinner with the whole family.  It was basically me and eleven Germans, with only four speaking English.  Thus it was definitely the most acutely I’ve felt the whole language barrier thing.  But despite my confusion, being at a family dinner was so lovely.  It’s a much nicer atmosphere than sitting in my dorm.  If it’s appropriate to apply a Danish word to an interaction between Germans and an American, I would describe it as hyggeligt.  After dinner, we went to Ulm and walked around for a while.  We also tried to get ice cream before realizing that 9pm on a Saturday in late October is not a particularly popular time for this craving, but we did find some at an owl themed café back in Weißenhorn!

On Sunday, we went back to Ulm so that Gerhard and I could climb the world’s highest church tower, the Münster.  Sadly, it was pretty foggy, so the views weren’t as cool… apparently on clear days you can see the Alps from the top!  We spent the rest of the day walking around Munich before my flight.  I got a beer and a pretzel in the Hofbrauhaus, which feels like pretty much the epitome of German stereotypes.

The whole weekend was incredible.  The German side of my family was so welcoming, and I had so much fun wandering around Bavaria with them.  I’m so glad that we managed to reconnect, and look forward to staying in contact with them.  I would love to try to come back and visit again!

I leave for Helsinki in two days, so look for those pictures next week.  Vi ses!

Categories
Europe Romania Study Abroad

Transylvania: Mountain Climbing and Dracula’s Castle

On Monday, we spent all day climbing mountains.  At first, it was just fairly normal (albeit a bit steep) forest trails.  Then at one point we got to a clearing and we were taking a break, drinking some water, and all of that.  We looked up towards the top of the peak and saw people rock climbing, and someone commented that it looked hard or something to that effect.  Our guide turned to us, confused, and said, “That’s the route we’re doing.”  And indeed, it was essentially just rock climbing without a harness.  The holds were good, but it was honestly pretty terrifying at parts.  One moment, in particular, I was going across a narrow section where the wind was howling, holding onto a cable that was not quite as tightly attached as I thought it was and I experienced the scariest moment of my life.  We got to the top of three mountains, including the second highest one in Romania.  After six and a half hours, we made it back to our cabin, and I felt incredibly accomplished.

Had I known exactly what we would be doing, I’m not sure if I would have done this trip, considering I’m not a particularly outdoorsy person and, although I’m in decent shape, I’m really not that athletic if we’re being perfectly honest.  But despite all of that, it was totally worth it.  The views were unbelievable, and I got to have an amazing experience in a part of the world I had never imagined I would even go.

The next morning, we hiked back down to the base of the mountain and returned to civilization.  We had a night tour of the historic part of Sibiu, which was awesome.  Our guides told us about a tower that another town wanted to copy and make higher, and so the other town sent a few people to come measure it with a rope.  The people from Sibiu found out about it, got them drunk, and cut a meter off of their rope.  And so there is another tower in Romania that looks the exact same but is a meter shorter.  Our guides also took us to a Scottish themed bar that had American and British newspaper articles lining the walls…

For our last full day, we went to a fortified church, where I think I may have found the gravestone of a very distant relation (it was an Austro-Hungarian soldier with my great grandmother’s maiden name who died in WW1, so it’s completely possible).  In the afternoon, we went to Bran’s Castle, perhaps more commonly known as Dracula’s castle!  Highlight: the secret staircase going from the first to the third floor.  All I want in life is to have a secret area in my home.

The next morning we got up before dawn so that we could have a three hour bus ride to the airport, and then I spent the rest of the day traveling from Bucharest to Copenhagen and then Copenhagen to Munich.  Those pictures will come later though 🙂

Hej hej!

Categories
Europe Romania Study Abroad

Transylvania: A Reflection

Hello again!  It’s been nine busy days of traveling, and I’m back in Copenhagen for… the next few days at least.  This past week will take multiple blog posts to describe, because I went to three countries and took over 500 photos and did a lot of things!

My week started in Romania, with a DIS hiking trip to Transylvania for six days.  After a three hour bus ride from Bucharest to Transylvania, we started out at Peles Castle, which was very beautiful.  They had separate rooms to greet important people from different nationalities, and there was a ton of intricate woodwork and stained glass inside.  We also had a night tour of the city of Brasov!  Our guides, Vlad and Stefan, were awesome and knew so much history of the places we saw.  A few initial impressions of Romania:

1. Stray dogs.  It’s a big problem in Romania.  They’re everywhere.

2. It’s kind of like taking a trip into the past.  It seems that a lot of the people we saw are farmers, and I saw quite a few cows and sheep during our bus rides.  A lot of the buildings we saw outside of the cities were fairly run down, although parts of Sibiu (and I would assume Brasov) have modern or at least recently updated buildings.

3.  The roads are a bit rough.  At one point we hit a pot hole that was enough to launch a few people into the air.  I experienced more turbulence on our buses than I’ve ever felt in a plane.

The next morning we headed up to the Rasnov citadel!  It was cool to see the medieval defense systems, and our guide told us about how they poured boiling oil on people and shut other people between walls.  The views from the hill of Rasnov were stunning.  In the afternoon, we started our hike into the Carpathians, which was through the forest and fairly steep.  For the next two days we stayed at a cabin with no running water, so it was a bit out of my comfort zone!  However, due to the volume of pictures I took, the hiking portion will be continued on the next post….