Tag: study abroad

Categories
Europe France Research Grant

Paris, Pt 2: Crêpes, Champagne, and My 21st Birthday

Ok, time to finally post about my 21st birthday.  I know, it’s actually been several weeks since I did the beginning of my trip, but since then school has started and I’ve been dragged into having real responsibilities, like homework and work and applying to jobs.  So here it goes.

On Monday morning, Christine arrived to a rainy Paris.  After she took a quick nap and I ran an errand, we headed out to the Louvre for a little culture.  The line was long, but we waited it out and then wandered through the halls aimlessly and saw some cool statues, beautiful furniture and jewels, and some French artwork.  Some of the places I remembered going the last time I was there, although the Louvre is so huge I’m confident that we wandered to some new places as well.  We headed over to Opera Garnier once we’d had our fill of art, and then stopped by Galleries Lafayette to marvel at the designer clothing.

At that point, it was getting close to dinner time.  For my birthday present, Christine had surprised me with tickets to the Moulin Rouge!  We had dinner with champagne, which was lovely, and then watched the show, which was unlike anything I’d seen before.  Partially because it was topless, but it also had some pretty crazy acts.  There was the rollerskating couple that did the kinds of lifts that you see in ice skating, but they were just twirling in a circle on a raised platform.  And there were acrobats who had incredible strength.  The man lifted the woman above his head and then got all the way down to a laying position, keeping her above his head the entire time.  The dancers did the can can, a woman danced in water with some boa constrictors, and they brought ponies out onto stage.  There were black lights, feathers, light up costumes, and giant headpieces.  It was a cool experience.

After the show, I wanted Christine to see the Eiffel Tower and L’Arc de Triomphe at night, just as Kelcy had done for me with my first night in Paris.  They’re stunning when they light up.  We started at L’Arc de Triomphe, and then walked down Champs Elysée for a while until we got close enough to the Eiffel Tower to see it sparkle.  It was magical, as always.

The next morning, we started with one of my goals, and climbed Notre Dame.  Which is a lot of stairs.  The view is incredible, though.  Totally worth it.  The gargoyles were a lot creepier than they seem in the Disney animated version, by the way.  A lot of them were eating small animals.

From there, we walked around and took in Paris.  We went to Le Marais, where I got my gift from my parents- a ring with my birthstone- and we wandered into an exhibit on Paris Fashion Week.  Then we headed across the Seine to the Latin Quarter.  The theme of the afternoon was to feel parisienne, which I think we accomplished.  The Latin Quarter is the epitome of Paris to me, with the cafés and bookstores, the boxy shops along the Seine, and that fountain when you get off the metro near Odéon.  I actually remembered my way around this time, and took us to the place where I had eaten crepes nearly ten months before since it’s reasonably priced and delicious.  We also got ice cream and enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere for a while.  From there, we went to one of the other places I remember as feeling Parisian, which is the Jardin de Tuileries.  It didn’t disappoint.  The whole day was perfect.  It captured the essence of the city, with the café culture and magic of Paris.  As the sun set, we found our way back to the metro and headed back to the apartment.  Both of us had to pack, since I was leaving for the US and Christine was heading to a hotel the next day.  Although I wanted the trip to last forever, I’m so glad that Christine joined me for my last two days.  I still don’t quite believe that I got to spend my 21st birthday in Paris with such an amazing friend!

À bientôt.

Categories
Europe France Research Grant

Paris, Pt 1: Monet’s Garden and Modern Art

Paris is special enough that it deserves two posts.

Here’s the thing about Paris: everyone romanticizes it.  You watch Midnight in Paris, for example, and see the city devoid of people, with tranquil, clean streets where everything is in its place.  And certainly, before I visited, that was my view as well.  It’s not quiet, though.  It’s a proper city, with noise and dirt and crowds of people moving rapidly through the metro and cars that honk all the time.  And I think if Paris was exactly like my romanticized imagination, I wouldn’t like it very much.  I love that it’s alive, bustling with movement and culture and even tourists.  It’s that atmosphere that draws me in and makes me want to keep returning.  Paris is the perfect blend of romantic beauty and realism, livable and yet still mysterious.

For those of you who have been following me for the past year, you may remember that I’ve already traveled to Paris, last November (x), and loved it.  This was the first trip I booked after the initial details for Strasbourg were taken care of.  Due to the timing of the quarter system, I arranged to spend my 21st birthday in Paris.  While I originally thought I would be alone, my oldest and very dear friend Christine arranged to fly in on my birthday, so I’m splitting these posts into my time before and after she arrived.

I arrived Friday afternoon by TGV and quickly made my way to my Airbnb, which was adorable but made me feel terribly out of shape with its seven flights of stairs.  I had done some research on reasonably priced shops in Paris since I had a lot of shopping to do for family Christmas presents, which led me to the 6th and then into the Latin Quarter.  I stopped by Shakespeare and Company, walked along the Seine, stopped in Notre Dame, and got a cinnamon crepe.  I ended up in Le Marais for the first time and went grocery shopping on my way back to the apartment.  It was so strange to see some of the places I had visited last November.  They looked the exact same but so much has changed in my life.  This time, I didn’t get lost in the Latin Quarter, and I even managed to find my old hotel… nice to know that mental map took 10 months to develop.

Saturday was a day trip out of the city!  Back when I visited Berlin, I took a bike tour with Fat Tire, so I had checked out their Parisian tours and found one to Giverny.  We all met up at the train station, and of course it started raining.  I apparently don’t have great luck when it comes to bike tour weather.  Our group ended up being me and nine Australians.  We all took the train to Vernon, where we went to a market and shopped around.  I wish the US had bakeries the way France does.  After we had all gotten our provisions for lunch, we headed to a picnic spot by the river.  It was gorgeous, and as I ate my bread and cheese and strawberries, our guide explained how impressionists were the punk rockers of the art world.  Although I’ve already learned about impressionism through DIS, I found the information about how art has evolved from these paintings very interesting.  For the first time, I actually saw something in a Jackson Pollock painting beyond meaningless paint splatters, so that has to count for something!

From there, we biked out to Giverny, which is a tiny town that seems to only have bed & breakfasts, art galleries, and one token café.  We headed to Monet’s garden, which was stunning.  I think if I lived somewhere like that, I’d take up painting!  It was split into two parts, the water lily area that contained the Japanese bridge and plants growing freely, and the area near the house with neat rows of flowers organized by their colors.  When it started raining, we headed into the house.  His studio was the best part of that because they had recreations of many of his pieces on the walls.  After we were all done in the gardens, we visited his tomb and then headed back to Vernon to catch the train.  During the course of the day, I had befriended an Australian family and they invited me to dinner with them, so we found a place near the train station between our two apartments.  It was great to have an intellectual discussion about our cultural differences; we talked about politics, education, art, and how our countries handled their indigenous people.  I learned a lot about Australia (which is still on my list of places to go!)

The next day, I left the apartment relatively early and went to a flea market, Marche aux Puces de la Porte de Vanves.  Side note, I’m terrible at restraining myself from buying breakable things… but I was pretty productive and got a lot of Christmas shopping done!  It was a nice little market, with a good variety of objects and decent prices.  Personally, if I lived somewhere that had markets like that, I’d never buy a regular dish again when I could get something beautiful.

I stopped back at the apartment to drop everything off and then I headed out again.  I finally walked around the two islands, starting with Île Saint Louis and then crossing the bridge toward Notre Dame.  I ended up finding Saint Chapelle, which I had read about due to its stained glass.  As anyone who reads this blog knows, I love stained glass, so I figured I should check it out.  After waiting in a very long line, I made my way up the stairs into the high tower.  Wow.  It was AMAZING.  Truly beautiful, and well worth the wait and the cost to get in.  As much as I would have loved to just sit in the stained glass room all day, my time in Paris was unfortunately limited and I had other places I wanted to go!

So I headed off to Centre Pompidou, the modern art museum in Paris.  I remember learning about the architecture in high school, about how they wanted to take the parts of the building that are supposed to be on the inside and put them on the outside.  The views from the top are pretty great, with views all around Paris.  I spent a long time wandering around the various pieces, trying to see what caught my eye.  A few I liked:  the strange reflective red glass, the three dimensional mirror, the teal stained glass piece, the dark carpeted room with a loop of rain sounds in the background, furniture aesthetic of the 80s.  The works that made me think the most were a series of pieces by a photographer dealing with the uncanny valley, where she would take mannequins and manipulate them to look realistic, and make models and celebrities and turn their photos doll-like; through the pieces she considered what makes people alive.  Creepy, certainly, but also intriguing.  After a meal at the café, I headed back to the apartment to repack and skype my parents, because the next day was my 21st birthday!

I’ll talk about that on another post, though.  À bientôt!

Categories
Europe France Research Grant

Colmar: Straight Out of a Fairy Tale

Bonjour, mes amis!  The above pictures are from Colmar, France.

So, it’s my last week in Strasbourg!  Since my last post in Bordeaux, I’ve been wrapping up my research, including writing myfinal report.  I’ve also taken the time to revisit my favorite places in Strasbourg.  Including, but not limited to: that ice cream place that scoops ice cream into a flower design, the Jardin de l’Orangerie, Place Kléber, the square around the cathedral, the Galaries Lafayette, and of course the lovely cobblestone streets of Petite France.  I even went in one of the fancy jewelry shops and pretended to be wealthy and tried some of it on.

Today, I figured I would try to see a little more of Alsace, and so I headed to Colmar, which I’m pretty sure I saw on a list of “fairy tale towns in Europe” once.  And I can see why!  From the train station, you walk through a beautiful park with statues and fountains to get to the centre ville.  I spent most of my day wandering, although I had a few memorable interactions with the French…

1. Since I didn’t have a map, I asked the lady in a Guess store where the “plus belles endroits” are, and she told me how to get to the area by the canals.  She also told me about her children and how she considers talking on the phone in a store to be rude.  She was probably disappointed I didn’t buy anything.

2. At a bookstore, a woman asked me to find a psychology book for her on this one shelf (at least I think that’s what she was asking?  I had a hard time understanding her) and so I picked out one on psychiatry.  Hopefully she’s satisfied with that……  I’m still confused about that exchange.

3. And at another store, I was searching for Christmas gifts (get excited, family) when two salespeople came over to ask if I needed help finding anything and if I’d been there before and if I was satisfied with their service.  Considering I still have a stress reaction when people unexpectedly speak to me in French, the encounter was a bit overwhelming, but I answered all their questions and (I think) they even complimented my speaking ability!

Colmar is charming and beautiful, and I’m glad I took the time to do a day trip there before I left.  Everyone I interacted with was incredibly nice, and I definitely recommend it if you’re in the area.  Tomorrow, I’m packing up for the summer, because Thursday I’m off to Paris!  I have three days by myself and then my friend Christine is joining me for my last couple days before I return to the US.  If you told me a few years ago that I would be spending my 21st birthday in Paris, I would never have believed it!  It feels like a dream come true.

À bientôt.

Categories
Europe France Research Grant

Bordeaux: Biking Through The Vineyards

I’ve always imagined Bordeaux as wine country, to the point that I was quite surprised to find myself in an actual city.  I took a walking tour my first day, where our guide explained how their current mayor had made an effort to clean up the city by incentivizing citizens to power wash their homes and the streets in the city center were transformed to be mostly pedestrian.  In fact, Bordeaux actually has the longest pedestrian shopping street in Europe.  I also learned that Bordeaux was under British rule for a while, the main bridge was built because Napoleon got angry about having to move his troops by boat, and whoever built the statues in Bordeaux was very into mythology.  Our guide was great, she brought us some pastries that Bordeaux is known for to try as well.  There were only 4 of us on the tour, so it felt more like someone showing us around the city as opposed to being herded around as part of a tourist group.  After visiting some of the monuments and churches on the tour, I did some exploration on my own.  I did a little shopping, saw a few more monuments, and got a pretty good sense of the city.

The next day was my bike tour through the vineyards!  This was the real purpose of my trip, and I had actually structured the dates around being able to go on this tour.  So my morning started early, meeting the tour guide at the office.  There were twelve of us in the group, and everyone I talked to was incredibly nice.  We took vans to St. Emilion, where we got our bikes and started off through the vineyards.  The countryside is stunning, and I can’t imagine a better way to see it.  The vines seem to stretch forever.  Here are a few takeaways about the Bordeaux wine region:

1. There are between 7,000 and 8,000 chateaux in the wine region.  This sounds a little fancier than it actually is, because a “chateau” is not defined by the fanciness of your house but by whether the entirety of the wine production is done on your estate, from the growth to the bottling.  Our guide said she was very disappointed at her first chateau because it was only a farm….

2. The naming system is super complicated.  It was explained to me several times and I still am not sure I understand enough to even attempt to explain it here.  Just know that there are a lot of rules and restrictions, including on the types of grapes you grow.  Additionally, each chateau can’t make more than one type of wine per classification, so their better wine is “Chateau [estate name]” and their lower tier wine has the estate name but is “jardin de…” or “plaisir de…” or something to that effect.

3. The best soil for grape growing is actually the least fertile soil.  This is because it forces the roots of the grapes to go very far underground to look for moisture.  Also, grapes for wine production are very different from the kind that you buy at the grocery store.  They want a higher ratio of the skin of the grape, which has more of the flavors they want.

We got to try grapes straight off the vine while learning all of that.  From there, we went to our first chateau of the day.  This one was a family-run place, so we got to tour the bottom floor of where the family lives.  With their library and Picasso collection… I can’t imagine having that level of wealth.  Then we toured the area where they make wine, where they explained how the process worked.  It was a bit of a review, since we’d toured a wine place in Spain (throwback to that time I almost got stuck there x).  This chateau was a much smaller operation, and a lot less industrial than the one I’d seen before.  After the tour, they led us out into the garden, where we had lunch and a tasting outside.  We tried both tiers of their wine, which were both very good!  We also had bread and cheese and ratatouille, so the whole thing felt very French.  It was lovely to sit in the sun with good wine, good conversation, and good food.

When our lunch was over, we got back on the bikes and headed back to St. Emilion.  Pro tip: if you drink wine before biking, rehydrate!  The bike ride back was a lot more difficult than it needed to be because I didn’t drink enough water.  But I was feeling better by the time we got back in the village.  We took a quick tour around St. Emilion, which is a charming little town that feels as though you’ve gone back in time.  From there, we got back in the vans and were driven to our second chateau of the day.  This one was corporate owned, so it was a bigger operation that practically oozed money… even the elevators had fancy benches in them designed to match the original style of the chateau.  They brought us to a fancy tasting table, which you can see in that photo above and literally lit up with a white background so that you can get the best view of the color of the wine.  They gave us two types as well, and I liked the second one we had better.  Once all of that was done, we were driven back to Bordeaux, where I had a nice quiet night with some pizza.

I spent my last day wandering around a bit more.  I went in a few churches, including Basilique St. Michel.  Fun fact about that one: something happened to all the original stained glass, so they replaced it in the 1960s.  With 1960s style.  Which is pretty great, because it totally doesn’t seem to fit with the church, which is a classic gothic cathedral.  As I’ve probably mentioned before, I think stained glass is really cool so it was fun for me to see a different style.  The St. Michel area of Bordeaux is the older neighborhood, so the streets are narrower and there are plenty of interesting squares with cafés and shops to explore.

All in all, a very nice trip.  I’m hoping to do a day trip in Colmar before my time in Alsace is up, and I’m definitely looking forward to my trip to Paris in a couple weeks!  I’m down to less than three weeks in France, and then it’s back to school and normal life…

À bientôt!

Categories
Europe France Research Grant

Strasbourg: History Museums and Bees

Hello again from Strasbourg!

First of all, I’d like to talk about how nice everyone here has been.  Out of the many emails I’ve sent out requesting interviews, it’s true that most of them never got responses.  But of the people who did respond, they’ve been amazing.  This week, I met a man who’s an expert in furniture, and he printed out all of the French expert rules for me, told me about all of his cases, and showed me his furniture workshop.  And then, at the end, he asked me if I’d been to the Musée Historique, and upon finding out I had not, he called up a friend of his there and got me free admission!

And the Musée Historique was very cool.  Their headsets were location based, so when you stood near a section of the exhibits, that piece of information would play, and it would keep moving on as you walked through the museum.  Plus, I learned a lot about the history of Alsace.  Although I knew it was culturally partially German and partially French, I hadn’t realized how much the territory had actually changed hands!  In particular, the section on World War II talked about how Alsaciens were seen as Volkdeutsch instead of French, but many Germans didn’t consider them to be German enough.  There were also some pictures of places in Strasbourg where they’d had Nazi rallies.  It was strange to see the same places I’ve taken touristy pictures in the museum as part of the exhibit.

I’ve also done a few other touristy things this week, including walking around the European Institution section of the city and going to the Alsacien Museum, which was overall a little disappointing but had a lot of artifacts from Strasbourg through the ages.  I also went to the Parc de l’Orangerie, which is currently my favorite place in Strasbourg!  It had a mini zoo that contained storks, flamingos and a lot of other birds, a small lake where you can rent boats, a garden area with beautifully arranged flowers, and a lot of cafés.  I went to a café for lunch and I got a sugary drink that attracted a lot of bees, much to the chagrin of the other customer at the restaurant, who spent half an hour laughing at me as I flailed around and attempted to swat the bees away with my napkin.  That incident aside, I will definitely be returning to that park again before I leave Strasbourg!

Anyway, I’m off to Bordeaux on Monday, so my next post will be about that trip!  À bientôt.

Categories
Europe Study Abroad

“How was study abroad?!”

Coming back to school has been a bit of a whirlwind.  After my semester abroad, where the only “extracurricular” I did was travel on weekends, it’s been a huge adjustment to go back to work, mock trial, student government, and all my other responsibilities.  It’s been lovely to see my friends in the United States again, although the following conversation has been played out so many times:

Friend: “Hi!  How was study abroad?!”

Me: “It was awesome!  I did a lot of traveling.”

Friend: “That’s so great!  Your photos looked really cool.”

Friend: *moves on to another topic*

It feels so weird to relegate my study abroad experience to small talk, because it’s probably the most life changing experience I’ve ever had.  And so here I am, readjusting to my normal schedule and trying to fit myself back into social life with my friends, but I don’t know if there’s any good way to sum up how much I’ve learned and felt and done with those few months.

I miss European bakeries, and passing historic buildings every day on the way to class, and my commute.  I miss my lifestyle of traveling on the weekends to cool and exotic places, and wandering through the streets of Copenhagen during my free time.  Most of all, I miss the friends I made in Europe.  I wish they could go to school with me in the States too.

At the same time, it’s nice to have a job again with real income.  I love the apartment I have here in Evanston, now that I finally get to live in it.  I missed my friends here, and even though all my friendships don’t feel quite the same, I’ve been enjoying the chance to reconnect and to talk to them without a 7 hour time difference.

Readjusting to life here has been strange, but good.  I’m already plotting ways I can go back to Europe, with a family trip to Spain over the summer and hopefully a research project abroad as well but I have to apply for that.

If you’re still following this blog, I’ll keep you posted on the progress of my future trips to Europe.   Vi ses!

Categories
Denmark Europe Study Abroad

Copenhagen: A Love Letter, and A Goodbye

24 hours until I’m in Colorado again.

It’s so strange that my time here is ending.  Unlike when I left for college, or when I go home for summer breaks, there’s a finality about the goodbyes that I’ve said here.  Although I would love to travel in the US and see all of them again, it’s not as easy to do that when we’re settled back into our regular lives.  Sadly, there is no budget airline where I can book $100 roundtrip weekend flight to see the wonderful people I’ve spent time with here (some of whom are pictured above).

It’s funny, because when I went into this experience, making friends was very low on my priority list.  This was always meant to be an experience where the goal was my traveling, my personal growth, my self discovery.  And yet I’ve come out of this with awesome friendships, where I’ll wonder how it’s possible that I’ve only known (most of) these people for four short months.  And, while I can always come back to Copenhagen, part of what made it home for this semester were the people I was experiencing it with.  So many people touched my life this semester, and I’m so grateful that they were a part of my time here.

In the spirit of reflection, things I will miss about Copenhagen in no particular order:

1. Personal space- not talking to strangers on public transportation/on the street/anywhere really is amazing.  The US should seriously adopt this aspect of the culture.

2. Kanelsnegle- the Danish obsession with cinnamon rolls is wonderful and I love it (unlike the Danish obsession with licorice.  Why.)

3. (Mostly) Reliable and Clean Public Transportation- the trains and buses in Europe are a massive step up from what I’m used to.  And as someone who hates driving, I’m a huge fan.

4. Tivoli- my absolute favorite place in Copenhagen.  Between this and Legoland I’ve sort of fallen back in love with amusement parks.

5. Ability to Travel- I’ve gone to so many new places this semester.  In Europe, you can do things like take a day trip to Sweden or go to the Czech Republic for a weekend.  I’ve loved having that freedom and ease to see and experience new things, and go to the places I’ve always dreamed about.

(I could add many more items, but I think that’s enough for now.  Also, expect another list that’s things I’ve missed about the US once I’ve returned and adjusted to the 8 hour time difference)

Study abroad has been everything I dreamed of, and more.  I’ve gone to 11 countries, climbed 3 mountains, and had conversations in my 2nd and 3rd language.  I’ve seen the place Hitler died, and a place where over a million of his victims died.  I’ve seen Viking memorials, Russian churches, medieval fortified churches, many other churches, magnificent palaces, the Berlin Wall, and the Queen of Denmark.  I met my German family for the first time and I saw the church my grandma originally painted in Prague in 1938.  I drank beer in Germany, wine in France, and vodka in Russia.  I traveled alone for the first time in my life, even though that part was unplanned.  And throughout all of this, I took 17 credit hours and wrote well over 60 pages of papers.  It’s been quite the journey for these past four months, and I wouldn’t change any of it.

Jeg kommer til at savne København og mine venner her.  Jeg synes byen er fantastisk og jeg skal at rejse til København igen.  Vi ses, Danmark.

Categories
Europe Study Abroad Sweden

Malmö: Wandering in the Rain

As part of my process of saying goodbye to the wonderful people I’ve met here, I spent my second to last day in Europe on a day trip to Sweden with Courtney and Amy!  My other friend from my core course, Joey, couldn’t go with us, but he at least came to meet us for hot chocolate in the morning.

Malmö is similar to Copenhagen, which is unsurprising given its proximity.  It’s only half an hour away by train.  We walked down the main street (Strotoget, as opposed to Copenhagen’s Strøget) and went in some shops and enjoyed the Scandinavian atmosphere.  If you’re in Malmö, I recommend the science fiction bookstore!

I have one full day left here.  I can’t believe it’s almost over!

Categories
Europe Germany Study Abroad

Berlin: Five Days of Museums and Christmas Markets

For those of you who read this blog with any regularity, you may have caught that I said Berlin wasn’t going to be “exactly as planned.”  Initially, this trip was supposed to be with my friend from school Andrew, before he caught what appears to be the Italian superflu and was stuck in bed for a week.  So, Berlin ended up being my first real solo trip.

The amount of history that happened in Berlin is crazy.  There are memorials and museums everywhere.  I feel like I went to so many museums, and in reality I barely scratched the surface.  It’s also fascinating to be in a city that is actively rebuilding.  As I went back through my pictures of the cityscape, most of them had a minimum of two cranes in the background.  It’s incredible to think of how recent the fall of the Berlin wall was, and how big of a difference those 25 years can make.

I arrived Sunday, and spent the afternoon walking around near my hostel.  I went to the DDR museum, which is interactive and shows the realities of life in East Germany, with spying, housing lotteries, and keeping up the appearance of the good communist.  I would definitely not have wanted to live there.

Monday I started with the more iconic aspects of the city: the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag (which I sadly did not climb), and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.  I also went into the Tiergarten and checked out the memorials for homosexuals and Roma/Sinti murdered during the Holocaust as well.  I appreciated that my trip to Poland happened before this one.  I think seeing Auschwitz and discussing how to best memorialize the victims gave me a deeper understanding of the different perspectives that must be considered.  Looking at how Polish guides present the Holocaust also differs from the way that it is framed by the museums with a Jewish focus, and so on.

Continuing on the theme of touristy Monday, I went to the Topography of Terror next, which is a very cool partially outdoor museum that has both a chunk of the Berlin wall and some ruins from the headquarters of the SS and the Gestapo.  The museum itself is fantastic, with a lot of pictures and detail on the rise and fall of the Nazi regime, their policies, and documents that I couldn’t fully appreciate due to my lack of German skills.  From there, I walked to Checkpoint Charlie and went to a museum near there.  Since the information was in English, French, German, and Russian, there was a massive amount of text, which got a bit overwhelming.  The stories about both successful and failed escapes, however, were totally worth it.  After the museum, I went to my first German Christmas market, which lived up to the hype.  I went to Christmas markets a total of four days, and I love the lights and decorations and ice skating.  Also, if you are related to me, there is an extraordinarily high chance that your gift will come from those markets.

Tuesday, I started the day at the longest piece of the wall, the East Side Gallery.  The paintings are incredible, with amazing quotes and images related to the struggle for a free Berlin.  Although I was freezing by the end of the walk, I highly recommend going to see it if you’re in Berlin!

I went back to the hostel to warm up, and met the newest roommate in my hostel, an Australian who was going to be studying in Hamburg starting in January.  She invited me to come to the Jewish museum with some of her friends, and after that we went to another Christmas market and had spiked hot chocolate and glühwein (which is German mulled wine) and enjoyed the atmosphere.  We ended up stopping for more glühwein on the way back to the hostel, where we met an older German couple and ended up having a lengthy discussion on our three countries.  It felt very hyggeligt! (even though it feels weird to apply that word outside of Denmark)  Plus, I learned a lot about Australia and their slang, so that was cool.

Wednesday I did a bike tour, which was…. really cold.  It started sleeting on us in the morning, and then turned to snow.  Nevertheless, I’m glad I got a real guided tour because I did learn a lot.  Biking is a really cool way to see a city.  Something to look for next time I travel in Europe, I think.  The tour took most of the day, so afterwards I went to… yet another Christmas market!

Thursday I decided to hit a couple more museum exhibits that I wanted to see, and I also did last minute Christmas shopping at… you guessed it, another Christmas market.  I went to the museum at the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe, since it’s closed on Monday and so I hadn’t been.  Then, I went to the German History Museum because they had an exhibit on the RAF!

A bit of background for this: I spontaneously took a German History class freshman year, which turned out to be political extremisms in Germany since WW2, and we spent almost half a quarter on the RAF and the left wing movement.  I found it fascinating.  We watched a film on it, The Baader-Meinhof Complex, and when I went to the exhibit I could see the images of the crimes they committed playing in my head.  I got to see the motorcycle where they shot someone’s bodyguards before kidnapping him, the sketch of them in the courtroom, and even the wanted posters where the police X’d out their pictures when they were captured or killed.  It was so amazing to see history that I’d learned about so in depth come alive.

I apologize that this is turning into the world’s longest blog post.  Basically, Berlin was awesome.  I definitely want to go back, because I feel like there’s still so much to do and see there.  (And Andrew, if you read my blog, I wish you could have come too and I’m glad you’re finally starting to feel better)

I have two more full days in Europe, so it’s going to be a whirlwind of packing and saying goodbyes and seeing anything else I need to see in Copenhagen before I go.  Tomorrow I’m doing a half day trip to Sweden with my lovely friends Courtney and Joey and Amy, who are featured in some of my Russia pictures.  And on that note, I should go to bed so I can be awake and functioning for our foray into a different country.

Vi ses, hej hej!

or as the Germans say, tschüss!

Categories
Denmark Europe Study Abroad

Copenhagen: Christmas in Christiania and Tivoli

Page Count: 46

Word Count: 15,105

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!