Saturday, November 26, 2011

"We're in WAY over our heads..."

Happy belated Thanksgiving from Copenhagen!!

While Thanksgiving is already one of my favorite holidays due to the mass quantities of food that are consumed, this year was extra awesome for quite a few reasons:

1.  We have a Christmas tree in our apartment!  Last week a few of my roommates and I went to check out the Christmas market at Nyhavn.  After sampling some hot wine, or "gløgg," we saw that the kiosk was also selling cute little Christmas trees.  On impulse, we decided to pool our money and take one home!  We successfully transported it down the super crowded main walking street without incident.  Later that night we picked up some lights and ornaments, and we even crafted some decorations of our own courtesy of the colorful cans of Tuborg "Julebryg."

Carrying trees down the street is normal.

Decorating complete!


2.  MY PARENTS ARE HERE!!  They got to Denmark on Tuesday, so all week I've been showing them around the city.  I hadn't seen them since August, so I was so excited for their visit.  I went to the airport bright and early (except now that Denmark darkness is setting in, it was still pitch black at 6:45am when I left for the Metro station) and greeted them with a Danish flag, which is pretty customary at the arrival gate.  Despite an encounter with customs and the confiscation of the condensed milk my mom attempted to smuggle into the country, all went smoothly!

3.  My housemates and I were the lucky recipients of a generous stipend from DIS to buy lots of Thanksgiving necessities!  We were all so excited to bring Thanksgiving to Denmark.  Originally, only about 6 of us were going to be around; however, as the excitement grew, so did our guest list.  At the beginning of this week, our count was 18- me, my parents, my Danish family, my roommate Carrie and her friend Sarah, Matt and his mom, dad, and sister, Russell and his "visiting" brother, Jamie, Anna, and her friend.  As the title of this post suggests, we were in WAY over our heads.

...however, everything went perfectly, and it turned out to be one of my favorite Thanksgivings ever!!!

4.  We didn't burn our house down!  On Wednesday night, Jamie, Carrie, and I stayed up late to get a jump start on cooking for the next day.  Everything was going well, until the stove was accidently set to the highest possible setting.  It turns out that "b" for "boil" resembles "6" for medium heat.  Go figure.  Anyway, we noticed that something wasn't quite right when Carrie's carrots were cooking way faster than normal and producing quite a bit of smoke.  We took them off the stove right away and thought the crisis had been averted; however, about two minutes later, the smoke reached the smoke detector, and it proceeded to go off for the next 5-10 minutes.. which doesn't sound like a long time, but when there is a shrill beep going off incessantly after midnight, it seems much longer.  In our efforts to make it stop, we tried waving towels, swinging the kitchen door back and forth, and opening every window in the vicinity.  Finally, it stopped, and the cooking continued.

Bad news.

5.  Our turkeys defrosted in time!  Like I said, we were expecting 18 people- much more than we originally thought.  Two days before Thanksgiving, Jamie and I were concerned that the 10lb turkey we had picked up just wouldn't be enough.  All online estimates we found suggested at least 24lbs for the number of guests we would have.  Something about our ratio didn't seem right.  On Wednesday, Jamie and Carrie went out to the store and grabbed another 10 pounder; however, it was frozen solid.  Thursday morning, in the midst of Thanksgiving preparations, we defrosted is successfully in an ice bath.  Win.


So much went into preparing everything, but like I said, it was one of the best Thanksgivings I can remember.  All of the food that everyone contributed was delicious, and we had the perfect amount.  When we sat down to eat, everyone was happy and talking and enjoying themselves, which was a success in and of itself.    

Turkeys.  Check.

Dinner table, complete with food and festive decor.





Action shot.. my dad, me, and Jamie consuming massive amounts of food

Mission accomplished.



I'm so glad my parents could be in Copenhagen for the holiday, because not only was it great to see them, but we couldn't have prepped/cooked/served the turkey without them!  Matt's family was here too, and they did so much to help us out too!  Having moms in the kitchen was definitely a life-saver.  Everyone played such a huge role, from Carrie's carrots and sweet potatoes, Matt's pumpkin pie, Jamie's stuffing, and Russell running to Netto to buy celery and parsley!  We even had decorations!!  This was the first time any of my housemates have hosted Thanksgiving in our own home, and having 18 guests counting on us was pretty intimidating, but it was so nice having everyone together.  Having my Danish family there was really special too because it was their very first Thanksgiving, and I'm so glad I could share it with them!  I was also so excited that they were able to meet my parents, and my mom and dad were thrilled to meet my "second family" in Denmark.  

Ah, so many warm and fuzzy feelings.  So much hygge.  ..So much food.  
Doesn't get any better than that.  


:)

Thursday, November 17, 2011

4,430 miles

...That's a rough calculation of how far Amy and I traveled over the past two weeks.  If we had been cool enough to wear pedometers for the course of the trip, I'm sure our numbers would have been absolutely ridiculous, especially considering the hundreds upon hundreds of steps we climbed.  Steps, we learned, are big in Europe.. we had been spoiled in nice, flat Copenhagen- everywhere we went, there were steps to the top of monuments, steps up to our hostel rooms, hills to climb, cliffs to walk on, and of course getting lost a few times and somehow ended up at a higher elevation than the castle in Prague.

If nothing else, we EARNED every delicious crepe, fried dough, sausage, schnitzel, Radler, pasta, gelato, and glass of wine that we had.  I suppose we had a great time on the way too.  :)


Before leaving, I was super stressed about packing and navigating through all the places we'd be going.  I had gotten so used to Copenhagen, and this was the first time I'd be traveling pretty substantial distances without the comfort of having school plan out everything for me.  You always hear horror stories about missed flights, sleeping in airports, exorbitant fines for not having the right train ticket, pickpockets, and other fun things like that.  Naturally, I was stressing (and admittedly still got pretty stressed as we moved from place to place), but we made it!!  In a carry-on bag,  mind you.

Amy and I are now expert packers and re-packers.  I don't think I'll ever struggle to pack for a weekend trip in a single backpack again.. or at least I'll never have an excuse anymore, since I lived out of a backpack for two weeks and had everything I needed.  Even after accumulating "sheep sweater" in Ireland and cursing it's existence every time we traveled thereafter, I managed to even bring home a few more small souvenirs, albeit at the expense of my towel, which I ditched in Sean's trash can in Rome.  Amy, who bought just a few more things than me, even convinced Baltic Air that her large plastic souvenir bag was a purse.

The most stylish handbag Europe has ever seen...

At this point, I feel like I could probably navigate public transportation semi-successfully any place I go, which makes me feel overall much more confident.  It's weird to think that when I was little, school trips had chaperones to keep us all together, tell us what to do, and guide us...  Now, I was suddenly set out into the world, didn't have to answer to anyone, spontaneously took a night train to Italy just because, and was responsible for myself.  When exactly did I grow up?  

As much confidence as navigating on our own gave me, it was SO nice to spend time with my friends who are abroad.  I can't thank them enough for not only letting us stay with them (even going so far as sleeping on the hard floor using a sweatshirt as a pillow like Dave did), but also taking the time to show us around and giving us a much needed break from reading maps and being 100% attentive to everything around us.  It was also so nice to see them all again.  The last time I saw many of them was over the summer, which feels both like it was just yesterday and also like it was ages and ages ago.  It was cool to see how the experience of being abroad has affected everyone and to hear about how they have grown as a result.  It makes me so happy to know that everyone we saw was loving their abroad experience as much as I'm loving mine, although they all differ so much.  The best part was being able to pick back up right where we left off- it was so nice catching up with people who knew me so well, and the many many hugs weren't bad either.

Being in Florence especially made us all realize, once again, that we're ACTUALLY abroad.  Since so many of our friends had gone there last year, we had all heard so much about the city.  Our Florence friends have been there for over two months, and we talked about how it was so cool how even though we were sitting at the same restaurant our friends loved so much last year and how we were just steps away from their old apartment, these were our stories now.  It might be the same city, but whereas before we felt that we weren't ready for our own abroad experience, we all agreed that this felt like our own.  Thinking back to last year when I thought about going abroad and how terrified I was to leave and how much I held on to every story I had ever heard about it, I no longer feel like I need to constantly compare everything to what my friend's did last year.  

We also had one more special friend with us through the whole trip...  Sheila.  Sheila the Sheep.

Amy carried Sheila around through all six countries..  It's a long story, but basically Sheila was a gift from Amy's boss at work.  After sending a picture of Sheila in Copenhagen back to her boss, it was such a hit that Sheila came on our two weeks of travel and got pictures in front of all the big monuments- sometimes getting even better pictures than Amy and I.  Clearly, Sheila was in her glory in Ireland, where her ancestors outnumber humans.  She liked Austria too, even though there are goats there instead.  The travels have taken a toll on her fragile frame (she's small and porcelain) but she, like Amy and I, survived and made it back to Denmark.  

It was a great two weeks, but its good to be back in my own bed and really notice how Copenhagen has started to feel like home.  It's bizarre not spending every waking moment with Amy though..  luckily, she's only across the courtyard.  But what am I going to do next semester?!  AH.  Luckily, we'll always have amazing memories with the most amazing friends in the most amazing places.  Thinking back on it, even now, I can't believe those two weeks were real.  One day London, the next Paris, Prague the day after.  Who does that?!  A study abroad student.

"We became the stories, we became the places."

:)

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Italy!

Like I said, we arrived in Florence at 6am.  Our friend Dave, who we were staying with, graciously offered to come pick us up from the station, even though we were arriving hours before we had originally planned and even though the sun had barely risen.  When we got off the train, I grabbed my phone and dialed what I thought was Dave's number, only to hear a recording that the number was out of service.  After a few more tries, we had no idea what to do apart from standing in front of McDonald's and trying desperately to connect to their free Wifi to see if we could contact Dave via Facebook.  Suddenly, we see someone running toward us, ready to ambush us with hugs.  It was Dave!!  We were saved!  He definitely gets major friend points for waking up so early and showing us the way back to his apartment, because as we walked, I realized we never would have found it on our own.

After dropping off our things and showering really fast, we set out to explore Florence!  At this point, it was still before 9am.  We were pretty hungry, so Dave suggested going to one of his three favorite gelato places.  Unfortunately, apparently gelato shops aren't open prior to 9am..  so we had to wait.  Instead, we walked up to the top of a huge hill (what else is new?), enjoyed a beautiful view of Florence, and stopped at a grocery store to get some breakfast foods.

Orientation partners reunited on the Ponte Vecchio!

Typical Florence solo-shot

After hanging out for a little bit, we met up with our friend Courtney at Gusta Pizza, which was delicious.  Amy and I had been avoiding Italian food during our trip in preparation for the real deal, so it was much anticipated and it definitely didn't disappoint!  Afterwards, we finally got our gelato!


Tiramisu and coffee.... nom.

Later that night, we got to stop by Courtney's apartment and see more Stonehill friends.  The four of us went to ZaZa's for dinner, which Amy and I have heard so much about from anyone who has studied abroad in Florence.  Obviously we were super excited, and once again- it didn't disappoint.  Even though I had literally been eating all day and wasn't even really hungry, my pasta with pesto was delicious.  After dinner, we met up with some friends for happy hour at a Mexican restaurant, and from there we went out to a few more places around the city.  Dave even got to sign the Stonehill t-shirt that's on the ceiling of one bar, despite getting reprimanded by the bartender.  Worth it.

Amy, Courtney, and me at ZaZa's

Being a rebel

The next day, a bunch of us climbed the Duomo, aka "the Duomzzz."  Over 400 steps later, we were at the top enjoying the gorgeous views and even more amazing weather.  It was the first time our Florence friends had climbed the Duomo, so it was cool to be able to share it with them!

Much love.

Stonehill on top of the world


Afterwards, we stopped for some of the best (and only) iced coffee I've found in Europe.  Such a lovely reward after all those stairs!  For the rest of the day, we relaxed at Dave's apartment until meeting up with Courtney and going to the market.  Amy got some good shopping done, despite being sassed by a vendor, and I picked up a nice "Firenze" t-shirt and more Pashmina scarves.  They're my weakness.  



To save some money, we decided to cook dinner that night.  We made stir-fry, which was delicious.. however, we went a little overboard with the amount of rice we cooked.  Oh well..  again, worth it.
After dinner, we met back up with Courtney for one last gelato and one last walk around Florence.  

Proud of ourselves!

Guess I'll be going back to Florence...

In the morning, our Florence friends were off to Venice, and Amy and I were off to Rome!  AH, finally our last stop of our adventures!  We said our goodbyes then caught the express train from Florence to Rome.  We got there around 10am and attempted to navigate to my friend Sean's apartment.  We got really close, but eventually he needed to come meet us.  After being rescued, we dropped our things at his apartment and headed out to go see his campus.  Sean goes to Temple University and also happens to be an amazing artist, so we explored all of the studios and got to see some of his amazing work.  Eventally, we met up with a few of his friends and we all went to the Colosseum.  It was their first time there too, so again, it was super cool to share it with them! 

Who would have thought when I met this kid sophomore year of high school that I'd be visiting him in Rome :)

Oh, and we also went to senior prom together!  How precious.  

In celebration of our last night of travel break, we went out for one last Italian dinner and to Sean's favorite gelato place.  Later that night, we went out to explore Roman nightlife, had another experience on the night bus, and went home to get some sleep before flying back to Copenhagen in the morning.

Ahh, home sweet hygge.  :)

Austria!

We arrived in Austria by early afternoon, so after checking into our hostel, we decided to walk over to the Old Town and climb to the top of the fortress!  After getting a little bit lost, we finally found how to get to the top- there was a tram that ran straight up the side of the mountain!  That sounded good to me- the amount of stairs we ended up climbing in those two weeks was crazy.  We got to the top and enjoyed the view/sunset for a while.



At that point, we were pretty hungry, so we found a place to have some authentic Austrian dinner.  I decided that since I missed out on Oktoberfest, I would order a large beer for the sole purpose of having it come in a large stein.  Great decision- definitely made my dad proud when he saw the pictures!  Our dinner was quite delicious, but before we left, the table behind us ordered an incredibly potent cheese plate.  It smelled pretty foul... Amy was not a fan.



The next day, we got up bright and early for the Sound of Music tour!!  We had been super pumped for this, as its one of Amy's favorite movies (especially the lonely goat scene) and I grew up going skiing at the Trapp Family Lodge in Vermont.  We hopped on the bus and drove all around Salzburg and the surrounding mountains to see some of the places where the film was shot, and once we got back, we had playtime at the park, danced around the fountain, and visited the stone dwarf statues.



Crisp apple strudel!!

Joining the family..



The moment before...

...Amy failed to stop going down the enormous slide

The next morning, we didn't have anything planned, so we got up later than usual, had a leisurely breakfast at the hostel, and went to grab some coffee at "Coffee Symphony."  At this point in the trip, Amy and I had been on our own for about five days.  Obviously we were having the best time ever, but we were pretty exhausted and were ready to not need to entertain ourselves and navigate the city for ourselves.  Our next stop was Italy, where we would once again be reunited with Stonehill friends.  Our plan was to arrive Thursday evening, but with our main goal for Salzburg already complete, we decided to spontaneously leave early and catch a night train to Florence- increasing our time visiting there and giving us something to do!  Overall, it was a good decision, despite anxiety over being on the train without reservations/a five hour layover in Villach, Austria's most exciting city.  Just kidding.

After six hours of sleep on the train, where we had a lovely compartment all to ourselves, we arrived in Florence bright and early at 6am!  Ciao Italiaaa.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Praha & Cesky Krumlov!

I love Prague.  Love it to death.  I was just there in March with one of my classes at Stonehill, so I couldn’t wait to get back.  And it was just as good the second time around.  Our hostel was in an amazing location right by the Astronomical Clock- perfect base for exploring! 

On our first night, we grabbed some traditional dumplings and meat for dinner then ventured out to a place I remembered from my last trip- a cozy little underground cocktail bar.  Can’t say we didn’t enjoy the prices, which were much more forgiving than those in Copenhagen and pretty much anywhere else we had been. 

The next morning, we took the “Yellow Umbrella” tour.  My friend Jackie, who studied abroad three years ago, recommended this tour, so we were really excited!  It turns out we had the same tour guide that she did.  Again, small world.  We even got a discount on the tour from our hostel, and a ghost tour later that evening was included in the price.  After a busy day running around Prague, we grabbed some sausages for dinner from the town square and sampled the hot wine, which might be my new favorite thing.  AH yum.  The square at night is so much fun and so so so beautiful.  I was in heaven.  Before we knew it, it was time to meet for the ghost tour!  Although it wasn’t one of the better ghost tours I have been on, it was still a lot of fun and pretty entertaining, as our tour guide had arranged for her son to jump out at us at strategic places throughout the tour.

Hey Prague

Lennon wall!!


Boo.

Prague at night!


After the ghost tour, we hit the town.  And by “hit the town,” I mean we went to a bar down the street from our hostel with the intention of staying out for maybe an hour.  Instead, we made friends with some Czech boys who were so excited to “conversate” with us in English and who were super nice! 

The next day, we took a bus to Cesky Krumlov, which has been hailed by travel websites recently as "the new Prague" and a must-see while in the Czech Republic.  It's about 3.5 hours away from Prague, but it was well worth the trip.  It is seriously a little fairytale village and so so so gorgeous.  Definitely not real life.  They had bears "guarding" the castle.. and hot wine stands everywhere.  Heaven!  After exploring the town for the day, we caught the bus back to Prague.  As we waited at the bus stop, I saw a shooting star!!  The bus ride itself was an experience.. it was quite retro and apparently had no working heat.  I questioned whether it would make it up the hills a few times, and picking up about 12 backpackers on the way didn't help.  Oh well, we survived!





Back in Prague, we grabbed all the delicious food in the square that we were still dying to try, backed up our things, and got ready for yet another early wake up to catch our train to Austria!

Paris!

Before we knew it, we were pulling into Paris, and our day of being zombies in Paris began!  Within 30 seconds, I managed to annoy a woman in line for the bathroom by not having the proper change (yeah, the station was cruel and charged to use the bathroom.)  After we navigated the Paris metro and checked into our hostel, we set off to find the Eiffel Tower.  It was unfortunately cloudy and kind of gross out, but it was still impressive!  We took pictures for a while and Amy fulfilled her life goal of getting a picture of it in real life. 



We decided to get a hop on, hop off bus around the city for the rest of the day, as we weren’t feeling highly functioning enough to navigate ourselves or make any sort of decisions.  It turned out to be the best decision ever, and we got to see all the major sites with the bonus of limited walking!  On one of the stops, we even treated ourselves to some Starbucks- the fall flavors were just as good as I remembered them to be.

We got caught in the rain on the walk back to our hostel, but after drying off we found a nice place for dinner- we even caught it in time for happy hour!  Back at the hostel, we packed up and got everything ready to leave for Prague the next morning.

..And thank God we did, because something we failed to realize was that the time in Paris was an hour ahead of what we had our clocks set for.  We woke up nice and early to give ourselves plenty of time to navigate to the airport.  Suddenly, we realized that it was almost 9am instead of 8am like we thought.  We picked up the pace and scurried off to the metro where we had to connect to the RER train to the airport.  Made it flawlessly, despite mixing up contact lenses (long story), being sassed by a train attendant, and not speaking a word of French.  At the airport, we grabbed another quick Starbucks to treat ourselves and then hopped on our plane to PRAGUE!

London!

Our next stop was LONDON!  To get there, Amy and I would be flying an infamous discount airline, which shall remain nameless, and which has absurdly strict cabin baggage restrictions.  Checking in for our flight was maybe one of the most stressful experiences of my life, but fortunately the woman at the ticket counter didn’t say anything about the size of my backpack, which was bulging.  Once we got to the gate, however, we watched the flight before us board.  Toward the end, people were pulled from the line and forced to check the size of their bag before boarding.  The judge of this was an incredibly unforgiving metal box.  Samples were provided around the gate, so Amy and I casually snuck away to test our own bags and hopefully avoid the 60 euro fine that they charge if you exceed the limit.  My bag barely fit… Amy’s, on the other hand, was just a bit too large.  Had it not been for the bulging pockets, it would have been fine.  There was only one thing to do-  LAYER.  Moments before boarding, Amy took a trip to the bathroom and ended up putting on about five layers, including “sheep sweater”- the lovely wool sweaters we bought in Ireland and are obsessed with, but that we despise whenever we had to pack to go anywhere.

Once we made it on the plane (strategically getting in the front of the line before they started to become worried about weight and checking bags) our flight went smoothly and we landed safe and sound at London Stansted.  We hung out for a little until our friend Sarah arrived on a later flight.  Finally, we got the bus to central London and then began our adventure to Danielle’s apartment on the night bus. 

What an experience.  By that time it was nearly 2am and the three of us were exhausted.  It took us a few minutes to find the right bus stop, and once we did, we saw the bus parked there with the driver inside reading the newspaper.  When we tried to board the bus, he informed us that he was on break for seven more minutes and we needed to wait outside.  Okay.  Once on the bus, we encountered an angry man who became enraged when the bus didn’t stop immediately when he pressed the stop button.  Conveniently, this all happened at the stop where we had to get off too.  As we were exiting the bus, angry-man decided to splash the contents of his waterbottle through the open bus door, attempting to hit the driver but instead hitting me.  Oh well.

Some quality time at the bus stop


After that, we made it without incident to Danielle’s apartment, where we immediately passed out and got some rest in preparation for exploring the city the next day!  Danielle had even selected a coffee place for us to stop at, even though she doesn’t drink coffee.  Greatest friend ever!  In the morning, we got to see Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, walk across the bridge featured in Harry Potter, ride the London Eye, eat fish and chips, pay 1.50 euro to sit in a chair in the park, and best of all- VISIT PLATFORM 9 ¾!!  Childhood dreams came true.

Necessary.

Amy, Danielle, and me (and my coffee) at Big Ben!

On the London Eye

Finally got my Hogwart's letter!!

That night, Danielle cooked us a delicious dinner at her apartment, and then we met up with our friend Matt, also from Stonehill, who lives right above Danielle.  We hung out at a local pub for a little bit and got to catch up before heading back to get some sleep. 

Matt and me!


...And by sleep, I mean a 2 hour nap.  Amy and I decided it would be an awesome idea to book a 5:25am train to Paris.  This required us leaving Danielle’s at 3:45am and catching a night bus (my favorite) to the train station.  After battling with ticket machines that didn’t want to accept our coins and having the bus drive away on us, we caught another one soon after and made it to the station with plenty of time to hop on our train.

A quick, but solid trip to London!