Paris Study Abroad 2009

Whirlwind Trip to Brussels, Day 1

2009-12-05T09:50:00.000-08:00

During that first exam week when I did little but study, I decided I needed to go on one last adventure and it didn't take much to convince Molly to join me on a trip to Brussels. We bought the tickets wedneday, took the last of our lecture class finals friday, and left saturday morning. Early saturday morning. We got there sometime around 10, got ourselves a free map before leaving the train station,and headed into the city. It's officially bilingual but luck for us, has a preference for French over Dutch (which is really just random strings of consonants put together). Our first destination was the Grand Place to go to the tourist office and find a hop on hop off style bus tour because we knew almost nothing about the city and only did a little research the night before. While waiting for the bus, we dined on some waffles.

Belgian waffles are amazing and I will be insulted if I see something in the US called a Belgian waffle that is not dense with clumps of sugar in it. The batter is more like dough, sort of like a sugar cookie but into a waffle iron. We ate three over the course of two days and I don't regret it at all. I liked them plain, but here's Molly eating her preferred chocolate variety.

Getting on the bus was really nice at fist because it was cold and rainy and the bus was heated, so we decided to listen to the tour and wait out the rain. But then we had to change to a nasty cold bus with decals blocking the view from some of the windows. We got out at the Antomium, a ginormous iron molecule made for the 1958 world fair. The tour on the bus made us laugh when it stated that the 9 atoms represent the provinces of Belgium, which made it hard to catch the rest of the reasoning behind this random monument, but it also had something to do with nuclear energy and/or the general industrial nature of the era.

Expo '58 brought nations together to restore faith in technical progress despite fears of the atom bomb.

View from the top. They're pretty proud of their elevator which goes at approximately the speed of light (about 22 seconds to get to the top).

After touring the city and the Atomium, we had a late (and long) lunch, after which it started to get dark. Because these adventures are fueled by coffee, we went to one of the Christmas stands near the Grand Place to refuel and checked out the decorations in that area. This pink building served as a pretty good landmark, and sometimes the lights were green instead. I think it was the Hotel de Ville.

Then we stumbled upon the most amazing thing ever - a light show on a building from around the 17th century in the Grand Place. It did a slow songs like Silent Night, and here's a more upbeat one with Pacman. Who thinks of this stuff?

The building on the left is the one with the light show.

You would think all other discoveries that night would be pale in comparison, but we managed to find the city's Christmas monster, "The Beast," right by Saint Catherine's Church. We didn't go in because we were en route to the Christmas village!

It was a bit like the one in Paris with lots of lights and decorated stands, just not as big. Here we are ice skating!

After a long, cold, rainy day, we decided that although we wanted to try Belgian beer, we didn't want to go to a bar and instead stopped in a grocery store and sampled some beer in the comfort of our hotel room after locking the door, getting into our pajamas, and then watching V for Vendetta in bed. Party animals, I know.

Massive Nights

2009-11-27T12:36:00.000-08:00

So, I'm a little behind on the blogging. I had two exams this week and went into study mode, barely even leaving my room for a few days. It paid off on the literature exam, but the art history one today was harsh - the material started in the 12th century and ended in the 19th, but the exam seemed a little heavy on a shorter time span and seemed to leave out some important paintings while including some unexpected ones. I usually strive for A's but am content to just settle for passing this (good thing my grades won't transfer-this is the only one for the semester!). Enough of that though, here's a blog to catch up on some fun nights out before I became a hermit.

One of my good friends from school is in Aix en Provence for the semester studying art (I'm a non-French major studying french, he's a non-art major studying art). He came to Paris right before I got here and recently came back with his class of 12, which I got to join for a visit to L'Orangerie, which houses Monet's water lilies and other works.

After the museum, Nick, his friend from high school (his roommate in Aix), and I walked to the Eiffel Tower for some photos. We sent this one of us to our music committee back at school.

Then, it started to rain. His friend left while the two of us walked from the Eiffel Tower to Chatelet, where we got some dinner and ate in front of the Centre Pompidou, then moved on to the Latin Quarter. That's quite a walk, but it was great catching up and luckily the rain didn't last long.

We went to St. Michel, shown here, which has a lot of bars, takeout places for crepes or kebabs, and a few junky tourist shops.

We found a piano bar and sat down just in time to order some beer before the happy hour ended. The background is a bit blurry, but behind Nick, there's a man playing the piano and a woman sitting on it singing. It was fitting of us to choose this place because we work concerts together at school (not so sure we would have booked the evening's performers, but it made for a fun atmosphere). We walked back towards his hotel and parted ways at a metro station - it was a short visit but I'm so glad we got to hang out while we're both over here.

And now for the next night out...Molly's birthday! I already told my parents about where we went and they haven't kicked me out of the house yet, so here we go. There's a bar in the St. Michel area called the Latin Corner. It has mostly female patrons. The servers are male. They wear underwear. Only underwear. Unless sneakers count, because they wear those too. Bras hang from the chandeliers. Leaving your bra = free champagne, but don't worry, we're not that wild!

We had to wait a few minutes before we could get in, then we were lead to the back, where fog and sporadic lighting made sitting down a challenge. Then come the menus, oh boy. Drinks were generally about 12 euro, but we dealt with it because when are we ever going to be in a place like this again? And when we finished, they let us stay a bit longer, rather than some bars that make you feel unwelcome as soon as you finish your drink.

Here's a group shot, minus Kate, who took the picture.

Some of the girls went to dance while others of us stayed with the purses. Here we are trying to embody Beyonce's "Single Ladies"...but then we realized we were all wearing rings. The songs were pretty good (even one from Grease!) and considering some of the creep-tastic male interactions we've had over here, it was fun to be in a mostly female atmosphere, of course with the exception of half naked men carrying drinks around.

And then I was creepy and took photos of my friends on the dance floor from the table.

Christmas in Paris

2009-11-27T08:40:00.000-08:00

Last monday, after our literature exam, one of my friends suggested we walk down the Champs Elysees (by the way, this website doesn't let me write accents on things) because it was the first night the Christmas lights would be lit. Of course I was up for that.

I took this near the Arc de Triumphe, right outside the metro stop.

And there it is in all its glory.

Never passing an opportunity for an interactive photo, here I am getting a Christmas present from Mickey. And yes, we did make a stop in the Disney store.

As we got closer to the Place de la Concorde, there were Christmas-y stands with the usual crepes etc and hot wine, candy apples, and some like this with chocolate. No one knew what those blob things were, except me because I am part Danish (on Elisabeth's mother's side of course). I immediately recognized the delectable flodeboller. I love eating these with the Danes and apparently other European countries enjoy them around Christmas, so we each had to get one.

The Christmas village is topped off with a ferris wheel in the Place de la Concorde. It fits in with the historic monuments, right?

And another shot of all the lights, from the other end.

The Eiffel Tower was looking particularly blue that evening.

Adventures in London

2009-11-23T15:02:00.000-08:00

Since we had no class on wednesday, Nov 11 (Armistice Day/Veterans Day), a couple friends and I left for London that tuesday after class and came back at the crack of dawn on friday. We had all traveled together in smaller groups, but this time all five of us were together. We wandered around a bit on tuesday night but were upset to find that things were pretty quiet. Except at the hostel, where we checked out the bar downstairs and met one of our roommates, a French guy who enjoyed hearing himself talk. We bailed on that as quickly as possible and went to bed so we could wake up bright and early.
We woke up at 7 and left at 8 each day, starting wednesday with a walk to the Tower of London. Liz, Kate, and Jill went on the tour while Molly and I crossed the Tower Bridge and walked up river a bit. She stopped for a tour of the Globe and I went next door to check out the Tate Modern. Of course, they had some bizarre modern art, but the collection also includes pieces by Monet, Picasso, Matisse, Lichtenstein, and quite a few by Andy Warhol, who I like a lot. I met Molly after her tour and we did some exploring as we made our way back to the Tower.

Recognize this from Harry Potter? The Millennium Bridge is right by the Tate Modern, so this is where we crossed back to the other side.

We were on a mission to find Indian food and passed a place just as it started to rain!

Next on our schedule was hiking it over to Piccadilly Square for a walking tour. The ground we covered in the walk over there alone could have made a good tour!

The parks were amazing.

We couldn't find the tour, which might have been cancelled to to rain or the holiday, but went again the next morning and found the group. Buckingham Palace was on the tour, but here's a photo from when we walked by wednesday night. The queen's flag was flying, meaning that she was home.

London is soooo ready for Christmas. All the restaurants had signs in the window about making Christmas reservations, a lot of places had decorations up, and we even heard Christmas music during one of our many coffee stops. Molly and I got a little excited and the server said we were the happiest people she'd seen all day.

After dinner at a pub, Molly and I headed next door for some cider while the others went to find Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross. I wish I'd gotten some Harry Potter style photos with them! We met back up at the hostel and prepared for another early morning, which started with a walk to Westminster Abbey. Then we went to Harrods, which was extravagance as I'd never seen it before. A guard told us we couldn't come in as a group of 5 and tried to make 2 or 3 of us go in a different entrance, but settled for letting us walk in different directions. We reconvened outside 20 minutes later to catch the walking tour.

Our tour guide, Smith, took us to "play with the guards." Molly and I got so excited about Kate posing for a photo that we each took several shots and she called us creepy.

After the tour, Molly, Liz, and I joined the tour guides and some other tourists for lunch because you get a discount after the tour and Molly and I were able to buy discounted tickets to the Grim Reaper tour of London later that evening. Between lunch and the tour, the three of us had time to walk to the British Museum. Liz left to meet the others at Westminster for a service or something (at which time it was free, rather than an expensive tour) but Molly and I had about an hour to look around and really liked their Egyptian collection. As well as seeing mummys and cool exhibits on how they were preserved, we also saw the Rosetta Stone, no big deal or anything.

The evening tour, on a dark rainy night, included executions gone wrong, ghosts in the Tower (here's the Tower Bridge, from the Tower of London), the plague, and an emphasis on the story of Jack the Ripper, including stops at where his victims were found.

London by night. After the eerie tour, we had an equally scary meal at an Indian restaurant. My vegetable curry was too spicy to even touch, not to mention was nothing like a curry dish I've ever seen and Molly's was on the other end of the spectrum, which she compared to baby food. We were exhausted by this point, so we asked for the check and left onto the cold, rainy streets, where a woman outside of a pub yelled something at us. We knew the direction of the closest metro station (pardon me, the tube) and hightailed it over there before anything crazier happened. I'm pretty sure the guy in the bunk above me actually had the plague, so between that and chatty/unthoughtful roommates, I barely slept before waking up at 4 to get to King's Cross. Despite our zombie-like demeanor and one skipped class, Molly and I still aced our tests that afternoon, proving there's nothing wrong with skipping class in the name of adventuring every now and then!

Chateau de Malmaison

2009-11-08T01:50:00.000-08:00

In 1799 while Napoleon was off fighting the Egyptians, his wife Josephine thought it would be nice to buy a new house, which she continued to live in after he divorced her and it is now a national museum. It's not very far from Paris, but visitation doesn't seem to be very high; even though my friends and I went on a Saturday, there were hardly any other visitors there. Regardless, the interior was well-preserved and the museum as a whole was put together nicely, making it a fun afternoon excursion.

I think this photo pretty well-captures the bleak weather we have a lot. I'm not sure if the weather has killed the plants or if maybe they haven't been taken care of as of late, but the once impressive gardens weren't looking so hot.

Of course, there were glorious portraits of Napoleon all over the place.

This was Josephine's bedroom...but not quite. There was another less fancy and more comfortable one for her to really use. The furnishings were interesting to see because a lot of them were very modern looking. Definitely more so than at Versailles or the rooms in Carnavalet.

We walked around the surrounding area, Rueil-Malmaison, but didn't really see much else of interest. At least the colors of fall made everything a little prettier! It was nice to get out of the city, even if only to the suburbs.

When we went back to Paris, everyone else went to see Saw VI, to which I said no thank you. Philippe texted me when the movie ended so I could meet back up with them, but then the other three decided not to do anything afterwards. Standing there in the St. Michel area, not wanting to spend money but not wanting to go home, Philippe and I started to walk. Like many an evening walk before, this one led to the Louvre. I don't think I could ever get bored with seeing this building at night, I love it.

We then walked to the edge of the Tulleries to watch the Eiffel Tower sparkling (which it does on the hour) then see a colorful new light show that lasted a few minutes. Since the Tulleries are locked at night, we walked around the side then towards La Place de la Concorde.

Ever wonder why it's called the city of lights?

We were a little confused about what was going on here, but Philippe realized that the thing on the right is the rock that the character Obelix carries in the French cartoon Asterix and Obelix. There's a display in the Latin Quarter of famous paintings in original format next to ones including Asterix and Obelix characters to celebrate the series' 50th anniversary. So this must be something along those lines, mimicking the obelisk with Obelix's rock on its own pedestal. I'm not sure why the obelisk has that thing around it.

Viaje a Madrid

2009-11-02T11:28:00.000-08:00

All of Madrid in one post, I hope you're comfortable.

Friday, like total badasses, Molly, our friend Kate, and I skipped our afternoon grammar class and hopped on a bus to the Paris-Beauvais airport for a flight to Madrid.
Getting to the hostel wasn't too hard, but we were a little worried about what we would find. It was just about the only hostel we could find with three availabilities and there were some pretty terrible reviews of it online. It being Halloween weekend and all, we kind of hoped it would at least be something like a haunted house. Around 9 pm...we approached the building, rang the bell, and I explained in Spanish to the cold voice on the other end that we had a reservation for three. It wasn't as nice as the hostel in Amsterdam, but I don't think it warranted all those bad comments. Although the ones about the gross showers was true, but who has time for that anyway? (I did figure out before this flight, though, that solid deodorant is, in fact, allowed on flights...don't worry about that one)

After dropping off our bags, we hit the town. We picked up a card from a tapas bar at the hostel but didn't like the looks of it and carried on with our search for food. We didn't really figure out the whole tapas thing that night because at the bars we checked out, it looked like you had to order them rather than get them with drinks. Finally, we settled for a kebab place, much like those in Paris, but it was really good and they used a different type of sauce. We considered continuing our bar search after dinner, but opted for ice cream instead. Not only did the waiter let us get ice cream after telling us they were only selling drinks for the rest of the night, but when Molly and I tried to get a photo with their jack o lantern, they let us pick it up and then the waiter even got in the photo. I'm so glad I study Spanish, or this trip would have been a lot more confusing!

Saturday we took Madrid by storm. Those m&m's our roommates gave us on their way out the door in the morning might have helped. Breakfast of champions. We tried to validate it by reasoning that it was Halloween, not to mention all our walking that day.

Molly and Kate, digging in. This was 8 am, but just as well could have been 8 pm...

We started the day with a walking tour from a guide book Kate brought and took lots of photos along the way.

Those shrubs are on the roof of part of the Museo del Prado building. We passed here on the tour and returned at 6 pm for free entrance!

After the tour, we went into the royal botanical gardens and crossed the city to get to the Palacio Real.

We passed through the Plaza Mayor a couple of times during the trip.

Our next goal was paella. We decided to get it for lunch, regardless of price, in order to have a filling and authentic meal. Kate doesn't let us take photos of her, so she became mine and Molly's official photographer. We'll count her fork at the bottom of the vegetable paella pan as her representation here.

Next up, the Reina Sophia, Madrid's modern art museum. For free, I might add (we looked up museums' free times in advance). My friend Laura and I absolutely loved it when we went in high school, so I was really excited to come back. Since we only had one full day, we didn't linger but made sure to see Picasso's Guernica and all of the studies he did in preparation, such as this one.

Then we hit the weird stuff. I like modern art, but not the abstract and out there kind of work, such as this Crystal Times reflexion sin sol/projecciones sin objeto. As far as we could tell, it was a finished exhibit and pretty much a series of empty rooms. We were alone and took some silly pictures to make it more interesting.

Since we still had time before the Prado would be free (heaven forbid we pay), I suggested we check out Atocha because it has a cool rain forest in it. I did not remember turtles, but there were a ton of them too. This is also the station that was attacked in 2004.

After getting jealous of the Madrid railway/metro station with a freaking forest in it, things got worse when we visited the Parque del Retiro. So many French gardens are mega-manicured; you can't walk on the grass and shrubs are shaped like boxes. The Spanish, on the other hand, embrace the whole "natural" aspect of nature and just leave it at that. That waterfall is likely man-made, but look at those nice and normal trees around it!

There were a lot of performance artists around the lake (with boats!) and people selling balloons, like this terribly sad Spiderman. The suit didn't fit him too well, but it looked better than the one with a beer gut we saw the next day in the Plaza Mayor! Kate and I then proceeded to find a nice spot in the grass to crash for about 30 minutes. Afterwards, we got into a huge line for the Prado's free entry, but it went by pretty quickly and we got to see some incridable artwork.

We went for tapas attempt round two in the evening...which sort of worked, but I don't think we got the full effect of going out for Spanish tapas. I think that, however, would have required much more beer consumption. Instead of drinking copious amounts of alcohol, we went to another bar with a stranger! The lesser of two evils, right? We chose the first bar because of its wonderful Halloween decorations and after not getting service at a table and wondering if you have to go to the bar to order, we just found some seats at the bar. Our neighbor over there heard us speaking English and when the game he was watching ended, he joined our conversation - he's a Swede working in Madrid. We haven't been too impressed with young Parisian males, so we were quite pleased to meet someone friendly who didn't say a single creepy comment to us. He showed us another bar nearby that serves a typical local drink consisting of wine with sugar water - he didn't call it sangria, but it had two orange slices in it and I imagine is pretty similar. Walking back to the hostel, the streets were packed! Definitely more crowded than during the day. We could hear people on the streets outside until wayyy into the morning hours. Oh, and there were ladies of the night, if you will, a few streets down too. Kind of like that time I stayed in the red light district in Amsterdam...

We woke up again at 8 on Sunday, checked out of the hostel, and started another day in this beautiful city, absolutely loving the weather. On our way to a market, we kept an eye out for another tradition spanish dish, tortilla espanola (spanish omelet - egg, potato, cheese) for breakfast.

This meal at a little diner was only 3.30 euro! It completely made our day in so many ways - delicious, cheap, the wonderful atmosphere...

We spent the rest of the morning at a market where we each grabbed some good finds before it got uncomfortably crowded. We got lost making our way back to the Plaza Mayor, but everything was okay when we found the bakery at which we drooled while looking at the window display hours earlier. As students in France aka baked goods connoisseurs in training, we had to give the Spanish bakers a chance before we got on the metro and headed back to the airport. We were in such a good mood from the lovely Spanish climate, friendly locals, and vibrant culture that we chatted and laughed our way through the airport downtime and bus ride back to the city (I may or may not have pretty much passed out on the plane).

Paris greeted us with cold weather and rain, but we had expected nothing less.

We'll Always Have Masterdam

2009-10-29T13:15:00.000-07:00

Sunday

We had a little mix up Sunday morning when I woke up, looked at Elisabeth's phone, and saw that it was already 8:43! Turns out the phone didn't automatically change, so it was really 7:43. I'm still not sure how that works with a 7:45 alarm on a phone that thinks it's later, but we woke up just in time. Elisabeth also looked at me as if she had no idea who I was when I woke her up. Sunday is pancake day at the hostel, so we ate those and headed to the Anne Frank House. Elisabeth had been there recently on a school trip, so she went into the oh so impressive Tulip Museum while I toured the house. It was incredible. We reunited and went to the Amsterdam History Museum, where we learned about the city and possibly more importantly, took some more interactive photos.

There were enough silly portraits to go around. The one I'm with is the city's mayor...not so sure about the other.

A friend told me I needed to buy some stroopwafels while in Amsterdam and I'm glad that he did, they were delicious! I'm not really sure what's going on with that window but I take it it was a coffee shop aka place to buy marijuana.

We did some more walking, spending a bit of the afternoon exploring the Jordaan area (which was really cool), but our feet were so tired we found a bench near here to sit a spell. And on our way to the train station, we took the advice of our new pal Jono to check out the library. Oh my goodness, what a library. Elisabeth compared it to a space station in her blog. Join me as we travel into the future.

There were people studying inside of those.

And because we've never been good at acting our age together, we spent at least ten minutes at the airport watching people either step in or avoid this ice cream.

Love You, Phant

2009-10-28T10:29:00.000-07:00

Saturday

I have so many photos, I'll tell the story through captions.

First shot of the day. Like I said, we slept for about four hours, ate, then started our adventure. I'm pretty sure I was not aware I was looking at a draw bridge when I took this because looking at it just now surprised me. Obviously, this was in between cups one and two of coffee.

As much as I enjoy studying French and Spanish and would like to learn another language sometime, I'm not planning on picking up Dutch anytime too soon. The spelling would kill me, check out those words in the blue strip at the top.

This was at Museumplein, the park near museums such as the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum. There are over 100 elephants throughout the city and they'll be auctioned to raise money to help Asian Elephants in Thailand. Elisabeth is with "Love You, Phant."

The park is also the site of an I amsterdam sign where we stopped for photos. I think we look like we're coming out of some doors with that m there. And for this backwards a photo, Elisabeth gave the photographers at the front a nice view.

Houseboats!

Please note the tram on the left - they run on tracks through the street and I got the impression that cars sometimes drove through the same areas. They're pretty frightening. I would also like to comment on the "Grilled Sandwiches" sign - there were some instances of bizarre uses of English (ie no anglophone would name a restaurant that), but pretty much everyone in Amsterdam spoke English really well. I heard it on the streets a lot too.

We were pretty tired after all that walking, so we had a late lunch, changed into some nicer clothes, and left the hostel again to wander around near the venue before going to see the Felice Brothers. I asked a girl at the hostel to take a photo of us and handed her my camera oriented this way so she could get a full length shot...guess she thought that was a pretty important wall behind us.

It rained on the way to the concert. And pretty much throughout the day.

The concert was amazing! The band is so energetic! I worked with them once over the summer and this show sold out, but the tour manager said he'd get us in. Since I hadn't received a confirmation, we showed up a bit early, happened to see one of the guys, and he got us in. The opening band, A.A. Bondy, was really good too and featured another musician I like on bass. When we went up to James, the accordionist/pianist, to thank him for helping us out, he invited us to hang out after the show, so we walked around the city and went out for drinks. Wonderful.

And since we don't really sleep, we went back to the hostel and again talked to our new Australian friend Jono, laughing about the oddities of living abroad until the wee hours of morning. Oh, and we cheated the sytem and got a free hour together in Amsterdam because at 2 am, the clocks went back an hour.

Here's a clip of The Felice Brothers performing "Frankie's Gun."

So you guys just meet up and go on adventures?

2009-10-26T14:51:00.000-07:00

I just got back from Amsterdam! So as not to make one megalong post (and to not sit at my computer forever), I'm splitting up the trip.

I'm not sure how much I elaborated on mine and Elisabeth's relationship on my earlier posts when I was in Denmark with her, so here I go. We'll start at the beginning, on June 5, 1989 when she was born. Three days later, in another city, I was born. Six months later, her family moved across the street from mine in Toledo, Ohio. We became best friends, to the greatest extent that babies can, but were tragically seperated four years later when my family moved to Indiana. We visited twice a summer til we moved farther away, to South Carolina, at which point we started to spend about 2 weeks together once a year. BUT, we changed the course of bestfriendship history this year by not only hanging out in Denmark, but also meeting up in Amsterdam!

Day (Night) 1

We met up in the airport and took a train into the city. The walk to the hostel wasn't long and was facilitated by a map printing machine at the station. You type in a street and it highlights the directions on a map, amazing! Turned out our hostel was in the redlight district. Wait...our Christian hostel was in the redlight district. We found it pretty easily, checked in, dropped our stuff off, and headed out to explore. Evidently midnight isn't the best time to explore Amsterdam; the streets were well-lit and crowded enough for us to feel safe, but not to protect us from creepy comments, like the guy at a kebab stand who asked "Are you looking for me?" No, in fact, we are not. Nor were we interested in answering another guy's question of where we were from. Nor did we have a lighter or want to join some guy and his friend for drinks. We did politely tell that one that we were Canadian though when he asked, he was more respectful, but still creepy.

Amidst some jerks, we still had a good time because we got to go on a ferris wheel! We'd wanted to in Copenhagen, but it was about the equivalent of $16 there. And I bought a chocolate waffle! My anger at it surprisingly costing 4.50 euro abated as soon as I tasted it, absolutely delicious. We got to work on some planning when we got back to the hostel and ended up making friends with the night deskman, he even gave us bowls of ice cream! He's Australian, working at the hostel for a few months, and I think enjoyed some company on his 11pm to 8 am shift. He made us think of our relationship differently when he pointed out that even though we've been friends for nearly 20 (!) years, we've barely seen each other in person. We're just such good communicators that that hardly matters!

We have a thing for maps.

Elisabeth and I have always thought of sleep as a waste of time when we're together, so we slept for 4 hours, ate breakfast at the hostel, and ran off of excitement to be together and coffee for the rest of the day.

Americans in Paris

2009-10-18T03:10:00.000-07:00

Right after my parents left, my cousin Collin and his girlfriend Kim came to visit me. Collin's grandmother lives in Geneva, so they came to this side of the ocean to see her and spend some time abroad with me as well as Kim's cousin who is also studying in France. Getting to see them is always wonderful, but showing them around Paris was even better! They came on monday night and left wednesday, thankfully taking the approach that it would be cool to see anything rather than trying to squeeze in all the sites. I must say though, we covered some ground.

They did quite well getting around on the metro, here they are on their first ride. Our first night, we went out for dinner and did a Paris by night walk from the Latin Quarter, past Notre Dame, and to the Louvre, all of which I love to see lit up at night.

We started tuesday, our only full day, bright and early with a walk to the Bastille and moved on towards the Marais, one of my favorite neighborhoods. I had just been in the Paris history Museum, Musee Carnavalet, a few days before so after we walked around the Place des Vosges (oldest planned square in the city and site of a preserved former home of Victor Hugo), we breezed through the museum. With the Jewish community present in the Marais, finding a delicious lunch at a Jewish bakery was no difficulty and from there were walked towards the Eiffel Tower (and split up because I am, after all, here for classes). The evening was full of excitement because one of my favorite American bands, The Mountain Goats, performed in Paris! My friend Molly joined us for dinner before the two of us headed to the show.

There were two openers, a British band called This Is the Kit and a Swede who now lives in Paris named Herman Dune. His music was good and the (English) lyrics were funny, but I probably would have enjoyed his set more if I hadn't been anxiously awaiting The Mountain Goats!

The show was not, however, the Mountain Goats, but rather John Darnielle, the singer, songwriter, and mastermind behind the band. I have over 200 songs by him and still didn't know everything he played. Prolific is an understatement. He played a few songs from his newest album on the piano then played a lot on guitar (returning to the piano for "Thank You Mario But Our Princess is in Another Castle," a dramatic narrative from Toadstool's point of view). I read online that the venue's capacity is 300 and I think some people left after Herman Dune; I'm pretty sure it's not possible to experience a Mountain Goats show this small and close in the US. He took requests and even closed with one (California Song), the whole set was amazing. Here's a video of one of my favorites, Dance Music, filmed with my mom in mind because she sings along now after I put it on a mix for her.

And wednesday, Collin and Kim left for Geneva, but not without a nice lunch together after visiting the Louvre.

Parks and Gardens

2009-10-14T09:02:00.000-07:00

So much catching up to do...here are the last of the photos from my parents' visit.
One day when I got out of class, I met up with them at the Louvre then we walked through the Tulleries gardens, where we found some wonderfully random sculptures that made for good photo opportunities.

Continuing through the garden, La Place de La Concorde came into view, so we took some more interactive shots...or at least tried. Dad and I tried to lean against the tower, but with it being so far away, I think we achieved more of an about to high five shot. I like it anyway.

And thursday, sadly, was their last day here in Paris (we won't see each other until December! Thank goodness for Skype!) They met up with me and my friends Molly and Philippe in between classes for a picnic in the Luxembourg gardens, which is near where we all have classes.

We spent our final evening in the latin quarter, where I took this photo of them by the middle ages museum. After a delicious dinner, Dad opted for gelato for dessert, but I talked Mom into a nutella crepe from a street stand, a Paris essential if you ask me.

Centre Pompidou

2009-10-11T06:49:00.000-07:00

Here are a few more photos from my parents' visit. We went on a walk (with a tour book) through the Latin Quarter to discover some of the history behind the area where I have classes. Here's Dad and me working on getting back to the hotel - I've got a Plan de Paris (thanks Mrs. Mullane!) and he's got some map program on his phone. Oh, and it started raining while we were out. Not nearly as bad as meeting my host mother and sister at a restaurant - it started pouring as soon as we left the hotel and we got there drenched.

One day before class, we went to the Centre Pompideu, the modern art museum. You can see the city really well from it's top floor - Sacre Coeur is in the back of this one.

And here's Mom and Dad on the escalator that's in a pipe-like structure outside of the main building area.

One of the exhibits we saw was called Elles @ Popideu (Elle=She/her). I liked this one where the artist made famous artist names feminine. Outside of this special exhibit, there were some cool pieces Picasso, Miro, Magritte, and Matisse.

Mom and Dad visit!

2009-10-06T13:17:00.000-07:00

My parents got here on Friday to spend a whole week in Paris!
It's really great just to see them since I've been gone since August. I met them at their hotel on friday and after we got something to eat, they went to bed after so much traveling. The night was young for me though, as my host sister told me we were going to meet some friends at a discotheque called The Queen. That ended up not working out, so we went to someone's house instead and I got to practice my French some more (definitely less difficult than the party on my first night!). I wish I had taken photos there, Carina and I have so much fun going out together!

A late night was poorly timed with an early morning trip to Versailles, but nothing a little coffee couldn't help. This time, I actually went IN the palace rather than just running around the grounds. Tickets come with headphones and a device to punch in numbers and listen to audio for different rooms. I guess they wanted to keep the clips relatively short, but the program didn't do a very good job of interpreting the overall history of the building or give the most relevant information for each room. The random tidbits that we picked up were pretty interesting, and it was fun to just to see everything. Plus, my art history professor talked about Versailles in class the day before, so I was able to notice a few things she talked about (emphasis on few - that class would be overwhelming even in English!). Here's my dad and me strolling through the Gallerie des Glaces.

I keep forgetting my camera, so I'm relying on ones snatched from my mom's. She had her white balance on a weird setting, so all the outdoor photos look blue.

There were sheep in the field behind us. They evaded the camera.

My parents in front of the canal.

I like to think of myself as a master of interactive photos. We had some fun with the statues from a few feet away.

Dad got creative and incorporated a full body pose. I learned from the best.

Sunday my families got to meet each other when my parents came over to the apartment! That was really fun and then I got to show them around my 'hood.

/U/

2009-10-01T10:43:00.000-07:00

Blog neglect! It's been a while - my camera's battery was low and somehow photos I took last weekend were not saved. I really liked the ones from my Saturday walk near the Champs Elysees - a Prada across the street from what I understood to be the president's house and a historic church that had some megaphone-looking speakers on top - possibly a broken bell?
A few highlights since the last post -
On Sunday, my host mother had some family friends over, which included a few adults and 3 siblings between 16 and 23. That was really fun to hear them all talking and follow the conversations because they speak far faster than my professors - real French!
Ever the nerd, I'm excited to get back good tests and papers, but my latest phonetics exam is the best - I got almost all of the hardest ones right, where we had to identify specific vowels and semi-vowels in sentences the professor read, scored 3 for 3 repeating a dictation, aaaand finally on the other speaking section - all we had to do was read a few sentences, but I got 1.75 out of 6 points! It's the damned vowel /u/. I can't say it. Carina has even been trying to help me when we speak together because she's noticed my struggle. This week we've moved on to nasal vowels, which are as awful as the name sounds.
Tuesday was my dad's birthday - I talked to him on the phone and bought a present he may or may not like.
Wednesday I celebrated 5 years of vegetarianism! I had forgotten about it but my plans to meet up with a friend from high school became a celebration of the date, and better yet, she's a vegetarian too. She's doing a program here through her school, Duke, and it was our first time meeting up since we got here. Crepes make for a great celebratory reunion.
Today is Carina's birthday - she's 20! We're the same age now!
And tomorrow, my parents get here and I'm sure I'll rectify this lack of photos problem.

City Canine

2009-09-21T01:30:00.000-07:00

Since it takes me forever to shop for groceries anyway (what with the language difference and products I've never seen), I decided why not make it even longer by walking across the bridge to go to a different Franprix (please don't read that with a French accent, it's funnier that way). I've gone by here on runs but previously failed to notice City Canine! This is pretty much like Dog Services, where my brother works, so I had to take some photos.

City Canine, right next to Franprix!

You can even see the dogs inside - that note on the window asks passers-by not to tap on the glass. I think that white dog was excited to see someone in the window.

Saturday night, Philippe and I got sandwiches for dinner and ate them by the river. When I was in Denmark, Elisabeth and I noticed Pizza Kebab places all over Copenhagen and Helsingborg (Sweden) - Pizza, Kebabs, Falafel, all in one convenient location! Paris has lots of kebab places, but I have only found one that also had pizza. Turns out it's probably best to let them specialize because my falafel sandwich was not as amazing as the last one. For lack of any other photos from the weekend, here are ones from where we ate.

After I took this beauty, a man walking by offered to take one for us...I think he did a better job.

I wish I'd had my camera with me yesterday! My friend Molly and I met up to find the Paris Food Not Bombs group - I'd gotten an e-mail from them about when and where they were meeting but still no luck finding them! I e mailed back asking about the next meeting and will probably ask for a phone number so we can finally track them down. When we quit the search, it was only 1:30, so we hopped back on the metro and headed to the Musee D'Orsay, which has works by the likes of Rodin, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, and van Gogh. We ran into her roommate there, who got in for free by explaining that although she is not a student from an EU nation, she's a student with a French visa. Why didn't we try that? The museum was well worth our 5.50 euro and a reasonable enough size for us to wander through the whole thing in one afternoon. Granted, we did walk through the "Art Nouveau" aka random furniture collection pretty quickly.

Louvre pt 2

2009-09-19T02:43:00.000-07:00

After our failed attempt to take advantage of the Louvre's extended hours on Wednesday, in true nerd form, Philippe and I spent our friday evening at the museum. It looks so pretty lit up at night!

We spent most of our time in the Egyptian collection, which was super cool. They have so many artifacts, from everyday life pieces like jewelry, those things they used to prop their head up when sleeping, and all sorts of jugs and boxes to paintings and sculptures and of course, mummies. Lots of mummies. Mummy cats. Little baby mummy cat. Mummy people. Unwrapped mummy alligator. And lots of sarcophagi.

They liked gold. I'm wearing gold. This is pretty historically accurate.

We found some opportunities for silly pictures.

As you can see here, the building itself would be pretty amazing even if they didn't put anything else in it.

After seeing all things Egypt-related, we looked at some famous art like the Mona Lisa, Liberty Leading the People, Oath of Horatii, and a room of shiny things to make up for the fact that the crown jewels are not on display for the public. There were a few actual jewel-like pieces though, like, oh say, Napoleon I's crown (on the right). And for my Danish best friend, the piece on the bottom right has something to do with the Danish Order of the Elephant.

Montmartre + Le Marais

2009-09-17T13:21:00.000-07:00

My dad just reminded me that I haven't updated the blog in a while, hopefully because I'm having too much fun. Unfortunately, it's more like the terrible combination of having too much fun AND having to study! Shouldn't study abroad just be about having fun? I had a test in my phonetics class today, my second test in the main (10 credit) course is tomorrow, and I have to turn in the final version of a composition Monday! It's not really that much work, tests just make me nervous so I study a lot.

On Sunday, a friend from class and I put my Paris Walks book to use and explored Montmartre. The guidebook doesn't include directions, just maps, and twice friendly locals stopped to help as we looked down at the book and up at street signs with confused expressions on our faces. We walked past the same crossing guard at least 5 times towards the end of the tour. Another detour occurred when we were so distracted by the ice cream we bought that it took a minute before we realized we hadn't consulted the map before wandering down the street. The scavenger hunt nature of our tour only added to the adventure!

It's hard to see them, but there are two musicians performing on the steps of Sacre-Coeur, performing American hits from the '90s. The book said this is the second most popular tourist site in the city; we had to fight our way up the stairs and move through the church at a slow crawl because it was so crowded.

The climb to the top was worth it for the view of the city.

I had to take a picture of this statue of St. Denis after we read about him in my book, "brought here by Roman soldiers to be executed at the Hilltop Temple of Mercury. Too exhausted to complete the climb, the soldiers decapitated him halfway up the hill, whereupon Denis picked up his severed head and staggered on for another 4 miles stopping only to wash it in a nearby fountain." (If you can't tell in the photo, he's holding his head)

My book didn't include the Moulin Rouge, but luckily Molly brought a good map with her, so we found it at the end of our tour.

Other notable activities since my last update include my discovery of the vintage stores and another attempted visit to the Louvre. I did some shopping in the Chatelet area but found that a lot of the small stores outside of the mall carry some of the exact same items that only come the vague sizes of small, medium and large. It's pretty cold by the time classes finish and I only have one jacket here (a red one at that-it doesn't even match everything!), but I returned from Chatelet empty-handed. I think the concept of thrift stores is widely unknown to most Parisians, but thankfully, le Marais has at least three! Although, I think they are "vintage," aimed at the styles of yesteryear, rather than simply secondhand. I'm not sure I'll find many actual clothes at any, but they all had a lot of (modern/normal) jackets and I found one for only 10 euro. I think I'll keep an eye on those stores, even on a tight budget, how could I come home from a semester in Paris without any new additions to my wardrobe?

I went from the Marais to the Louvre to meet Philippe for dinner and an evening at the Louvre (open til 10 wednesday and friday!), but our quest of inexpensive eats led us astray and by the time we finished dinner around Chatelet, it was time for me to go home and study. But we're tentatively planning on making tomorrow night a Louvre night...

And as a preview of what's to come, I now have a ticket to see one of my favorite bands, the Mountain Goats, play here in mid-October AND a plane ticket to meet up with my best friend in Amsterdam! I hear wonderful things about biking in that city...

Classes start

2009-09-10T09:12:00.001-07:00

Classes started Monday and I found out I made it into the advanced level (I tricked them!), which is a French literature course and will hopefully count as such at W&M (language courses won't count for me, but literature and culture will). That course is 2 hours a day and I'm also in three lectures - french literature, art history, and class that appears to be on francophone studies. For the first month, we also have 1 hour a day of phonetics.

The class locations are sooo annoying! Since this is the Sorbonne's program for foreign students, we aren't actually at the Sorbonne, which I luckily already knew or else that would be a real bummer. On lecture days, I start with a lecture at noon (until 1), then have phonetics 1:30-2:30 and the 2 hour class from 3-5. The catch is, the phonetics class is in a different building and metro stations around the first building are all 5-10 minutes away. The first lecture day, a few classmates and I walked to phonetics and got there 10 minutes late...then we returned by metro and were five minutes late. Today we walked both ways and made it on time! So even with two half hour "breaks," we're still busy the whole time. Next, we're going to try the bus...

But even if we aren't in the Sorbonne, there is no lack of historic buildings and I walk past the Pantheon a few times a day (sometimes dodging tourists).

And the trees in the back there are part of the Jardin de Luxembourg, which is really pretty. We actually cut through there to get between buildings (this was taken from the Pantheon, I would turn to the left to get to class). The tiny line between the trees is the Eiffel Tower.

So far homework isn't bad - the only class with real homework is the grammar/literature one because the lecture professors don't care what you do. For the literature lecture, he gave us a list of books we might want to read; he'll lecture on 19th and 20th century French literature and if we want to read on our own, we should (and I will, because there's an exam at the end which I don't think you can do well on without independent work). Since the homework doesn't take all night, Philippe and I found a new hangout - along the banks of the river. We found an inexpensive Lebanese take-out place near my classes one night then discovered the local picnic spot by Ile de la Cite with stairs that lead closer to the water.

Here's our view from where we sat and the photo below shows the tour boats that went by regularly, with their blinding lights.

Louvre, Pt I

2009-09-06T09:41:00.000-07:00

Classes haven't even started and I'm already slowing down with the posts. That means I'm keeping busy though!
Anyway, here are some photos from my first venture inside the Louvre - I went to the courtyard years ago with Elisabeth's family and even though Philippe and I went in this time, we weren't there for long, hence the Pt I title because I'm sure I'll be back. There seem to be lots of loopholes to get in for free - my Sorbonne student ID alone was not enough, but that with my driver's license was...whereas Philippe's French passport worked for him.
We went to the sculpture section and saw busts of French royals, big statues that were in front of the Louvre when it was a palace, and Mesopotamian work, including the Code of Hammurabi.

Unfortunately, the Louvre doesn't have as many opportunities for funny photos as the Danish National Museum, so here is Philippe looking at art...so exciting!

I took the photos above and below in the same room, I think they were Egyptian.

I also made some new friends at Philippe's apartment - his two dogs! This one is Max. They're so much fun.

Versailles

2009-09-02T15:04:00.000-07:00

Carrying on with our adventures, Philippe and I went to Ile de la Cite and Il St Louis last night, visited Notre Dame, then wandered around the Latin Quarter.

I took this on the bridge to Il St Louis (I think), and you can see Notre Dame in the background.

We went in and it was so eerie! They were playing a film, which seemed to be about the history of the church, so it was really dark with a few lights around statues.

This morning, I went on a run at le Parc Andre Citroen and found another one nearby too. I think it's time to find another park though, before I start getting bored! By the time I got back, Philippe was almost ready to go to Versailles, so I met him at a metro station and we began another journey. Our Navigo passes technically don't cover the whole trip, but the station at Versailles is undergoing construction and not making you re-swipe as you leave, perfect! We spent at least three hours there and were pretty exhausted by the time we got back on the train.

Philippe just so happens to know everything pertaining to French history, especially Versailles, and is the perfect travel companion. I learned so many little things today (did you know that the bunnies at the farm are retired show-bunnies? Or that Marie Antoinette distributed extra food grown at Versailles to the poor?), I could point at any random thing and ask a question and he'd have an answer. I was pretty jealous of the people riding around on bikes, that would be so much fun. However, I was not jealous of the people who made use of the golf carts for rent, because that is just lazy.

From right inside the entrance. Oh, by the way, we didn't actually go in. Philippe got in for free as a European, and when I showed the guard my Sorbonne student ID, he told me you have to be an art history student. How do they check that? I think I am even taking an art history course, but we decided to just do the gardens instead (but at another building when Philippe told the guy I'm studying art history, he passed it off as if it didn't matter...).

So many fountains and lakes! And gardens, at that.

Evidently there weren't originally donkeys there, but if they add random modern art, such as fountain centerpieces made of sprinkler heads and colorful hoses, why not add some donkeys for good measure? I think the donkeys were cooler anyway.

Sooo, Marie Antoinette had a cave built to see people approaching the grounds, I believe. There's a tiny hole there that I'm looking through.

And there's Philippe outside! Taking this was awkward because other visitors came into the cave as I was giving him directions on where to stand; I think they were thrown off when they walked in and heard, "Step forward a bit!"

After such a long day, watching French television with Carina was a perfect way to relax. Although there might be easier things for me to understand than mystery dramas!

Registration + Free Time

2009-09-01T05:08:00.000-07:00

Until yesterday, I was only a pre-registered for classes, but I am now a legit student of the Course de Civilisation Francaise de La Sorbonne and have a student ID to prove it. I also have a month-long metro pass and a cell phone, so official. I took a placement test today - the majority of it was written, which was easy, but the oral part was not so great. I spent a lot of my time yesterday studying grammar (which paid off!) and now have until the 7th to amuse myself in Paris without any commitments.

There's a metro station right around the corner from where I'm staying, but the line does a loop, so it's faster to take that one when I'm going out but stop at the one before it when I'm coming back - plus I get to walk across the bridge and see this.

Here's a photo of my host sister and me - she's so much fun!

During my first full day here, Philippe and I walked around the city a bit. First stop, Eiffel Tower.

There are about a million cannon at Les Invalides, Philippe said they were maybe captured in battles. This one had dragons on it - best cannon ever.

Our last stop was the gardens at the Rodin Musem, here you can see Le Penseur with Les Invalides in the background.

Copenhague a Paris

2009-08-30T04:40:00.000-07:00

Recap of the past few days

Friday - my last full day in Denmark
Another bike ride, of course. We wanted to bike to the coast again, but there was a chance of rain, so we went on some trails through a forest instead.

I am a master bike-packer.

We found some beautiful scenery, like this lake and some horses (technically, horses aren't scenery, are they?). The trails we a bit confusing and since we didn't want to check the map at every intersection, we got lost on the way back (but ended up on a main road and made it home just fine).

That evening, we went to a party for students in Elisabeth's program (she got me in too) and made new friends. Some were Danes, plus an American and a Canadian, so even if I don't get to see that fun group again, I know I'm leaving Elisabeth in good hands.

We turned the corner while biking to the train station before the party and saw this.

Saturday - travelday

I hardly saw Elisabeth's other uncle's family during the trip, so we went over there for a wonderful brunch before leaving for the airport. Elisabeth and I took the elevator to the tracks because of my luggage. Good thing, because I'd forgotten what Morten told us about how Danish elevators tell you that they're moving: i fart. We are very mature.

It was so sad to say goodbye, but at least I only have to wait until October to see her again, rather than the usual 1 year.

Best friends of 19 years!

Saturday afternoon-Sunday
Thank goodness my friend Philippe met me at the airport, because I would have been sooo lost without him! We took a train to a metro station, then switched metro lines twice before reaching one near where I'm staying. We got there around six and I finally got to meet my host family, Rosemary and Carina. Carina, who's my age, made us a cake! That was a nice surprise, then I got to unpack, eat dinner with Carina, and get ready to go out. One of her friends was having a party, and getting ready together was a lot of fun. It was great to meet her friends, but I couldn't understand them when they talked to each other, only when they slowed down to talk with me. I was surprised that when people heard me speaking English with others, they asked me where I'm from rather than assuming the US. Nothing like chatting with strangers in a language I haen't had to speak in a year after an exhausting day of travel! I'm really glad I'm staying with another student my age so I can meet other people from around here.

I went to the ATM and grocery store this morning, worked on my French grammar activities to practice for my placement exam, and might meet up with Philippe in a bit to wander around the city.

Kobenhavn

2009-08-27T12:46:00.000-07:00

I was far too exhausted by the end of the night (that would be 10 pm) to write anything intelligible, but took sooooo many photos yesterday that I've got to update now. Someone had her first day of school yesterday!

I think her expression explains that we woke up at 6:30 to make pancakes for the family.

While everyone was hustling about, doing important thinks like going to school and work, I went on a walk to see the cows again, armed with my camera this time. I took a ton of photos - the fields are so amazing! You can see the beautiful landscape behind the cow in this photo, with a lake way in the back there.

Clearly, I caught him mid-sentence.

These ones were posing for me. In the whole huge field, there couldn't have been more than about fifteen cows, which is really nice.

Since Elisabeth had class until three, I went to the Museum of Danish Resistance 1940-1945 and wandered around that area for a while. The museum was really cool and covered Denmark's Nazi occupation during World War II. Some resistance efforts included industrial sabotage, but since the Danes would be using their factories for their own needs after the war, one tactic was to pour some really smelly liquid on machines to temporarily prevent them from being used. There was also info on secret communications, like illegal newspapers and radio - BBC in Danish was not outlawed, but the antennae necessary to receive it were banned mid-war. The British dropped supplies and later arms for the underground army, broadcasting the locations on BBC in code.

Danish Jews escaped to neutral Sweden via rail or boat - I think this buoy was used to mark receiving posts.

I also went to Kastellet, one of northern Europe's best-preserved fortifications. That was particularly interesting because I vaguely remember going there five years ago with Elisabeth's family.

At three, I met her at a fountain near Amalienborg, where we also met up with Hjalte (pronounced kind of like yelt-a). His dad is friends with one of Elisabeth's uncles and her mom thought they should meet. He was really nice and showed us more of the city, including the Norrebro area. It's less touristy but still had a lot of restaurants (we stopped for coffee/ice cream), which are less expensive because it's outside the center of the city.

We headed home around five or six, which meant the S-train was packed for rush hour, and spent the rest of the evening jumping on the trampoline, eating, and playing a dice game.

Today is my last full day here!

Magnetic Soap

2009-08-26T12:48:00.000-07:00

I was not going to post anything tonight, but magnetic soap made me change my mind. I'll try to post some of the more unusual things I see over here (well, unusual to Americans, at least). When I saw this soap, I thought it was jammed on an extra faucet until I accidentally hit it and realized it was magnetic (it's like a normal bar with a circular magnet in the top). Elisabeth has seen this on previous trips and said, "Every time I come to Denmark, someone's got magnetic soap!" as if it were perfectly normal. Not quite!

Birthe works for Bodum and gets a nice discount on their items, so the kitchen is a wonderland of gadgets and coffee/tea accessories, such as these coffee cups that have two separate layers of glass to keep the coffee warm and not burn your hand. Brilliant.

Here, my beautiful best friend is modeling a high-waisted apron. We made dinner of black bean burgers (sort of, you can't find black beans here, so misc. bean burgers), chickpea spinach salad, sweet potato fries, and rum cake. Except there was no rum so we used brandy, and the instant pudding and cake mixes are not as common here, so I think the Danish alternatives might have made it more dense (mom, it wasn't as good as yours!).

I got to talk to my parents on Skype today, which was wonderful even if they had to type to me due to microphone problems. I showed my mom the turtle, Speedy, but he wasn't awake when I wanted a photo with him. He's runs all over his tank, climbs things, and is quite the active turtle. Here's Speedy hiding in his shell sleeping (doesn't my arm look weird?).

After dinner, we walked through some fields and the cows came over to check us out. I'm definitely taking my camera next time we go over there.

Castles, National Museum, Elves

2009-08-25T11:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my Copenhagen sightseeing day by myself, and I sure did cover some ground. Elisabeth was busy with orientation for most of the day, but met me for lunch in a park between sessions. Afterwards, I set off with a map to do some sightseeing. Morten suggested I visit the parliament building and I remembered liking Amalienborg Palace (the winter home for the Danish royal family), so I set those as my destinations and took a roundabout route there, spending some time along the water and also checking out a few of the pedestrian streets. The photos I posted below are the two palaces (slot is the Danish word used for castle/palace), Christianborg (now parliament) on the top and Amalienborg on the bottom. I left my memory card in my computer and took the camera without it, but had to post these photos I found online.

Today, we met for lunch in a different park and Elisabeth got to join me for more touring. I really wanted to see the National Museum, so we spent the afternoon there. It's a huge museum, which covers the entire cultural history of Denmark and is housed in a historic mansion (we saw an exhibit that traced the history of the building, originally as the home of a wealthy merchant, but added to over time) almost in the center of the city. Elisabeth's program had an activity fair at 5, so we only had a few hours to learn about everything that ever happened in Denmark.

We took as many interactive photos as we could. I think the horns suit her.

Danish fashion - bronze age era.

I found another cannon! After I got so excited over the ones at Kronborg, I didn't even have to ask Elisabeth to take a photo of me with it.

If you look at the glass cylinder, you can see the not-so-contorted image of the king. Who thinks of things like this?

We had to rush at the end, breezing through the second half of the "Denmark 1660-2000" exhibit to make it to the activities fair, where a guy approached us with information on live action role playing. They had a bunch of medieval replica gear and he said that a lot of women like to be elves...I don't quite remember why, but something about dancing and singing in the forest.

Lazy Sunday

2009-08-23T12:06:00.000-07:00

We had a pretty laid back day today, starting with french toast Morten made for breakfast. I'm glad I changed from vegan to vegetarian before this trip, because I would have some difficulties eating here otherwise. And be missing out on some good food in favor of bread and salad.

Today was Elisabeth's first day of orientation, so she had to head into the city to pick up her schedule for the rest of the week. I stayed home and went through a French textbook I brought with me to prepare for my placement test. She left the house sporting a new do though, because I cut her hair this afternoon (last year we cut each others' hair, this year, only she was brave enough).

When she got back, we went on a walk to a lake nearby. Actually, we went on a walk to get ice cream bars, and enjoy them on the lake. Here, you can see her haircut...just don't look too closely. The second picture is a field the walking path goes by, but keep in mind, this isn't even in the country, but rather just a suburb of Copenhagen. At the top of the field, you can see a few dark spots, which are cows.

And now, it's time for a metro tutorial so I can bike to the station, buy a ticket, and take a train into the city all by myself to meet Elisabeth for her three hour break in between orientation sessions (and do some sight seeing on my own!). She's got activities or classes for the rest of the time I'm here, but it's not so bad because I can study French and sight see while she's busy, and we've still got plenty of time together.

Go Big or Go Back to Denmark

2009-08-22T12:40:00.000-07:00

CYCLING HOLIDAY

Yesterday and today, Elisabeth and I biked over 70 km, exploring the northwestern region of Zealand, the island containing Copenhagen. It was an inredible trip. We left the house at 9:30 on Friday and biked up the coast, reaching Helsingor (the northern tip of Zealand) by noon, which allowed for plenty of stops along the way, including our first water break at a marina. Once in Helsingor, we visited Kronborg, also known as "Hamlet's Castle" or "Elsinore," as the setting of Hamlet. After a picnic under a shelter while some rain clouds passed by, we went into the castle, visited the courtyard (passing by the rooms open to the public for a fee) and moved onto the grounds. We found seventeen or so cannon and Elisabeth made fun of me for my excitement at seeing them (since part of my job with the Park Service consisted of giving "Cannon Talks").

Stops 1 and 2. In 2, you see the common scene of Elisabeth checking her wonderful map book (while I handled snacks-she just polished off a digestive (delicious cookie/cracker)). Quote of the day: "Biking and digestives, pretty much my life."

The scenery wasn't so bad...

We investigated the beach at Helsingor, but decided it was too cold to swim and biked back to where the ferries were to get from Helsingor to Helsingborg, Sweden. We had a little bit of trouble figuring out how to buy ferry tickets and one left while we were still working on that. We were in no rush though and waited for the next. Being completely unexperienced with Scandinavian ferries, we decided it would be best to follow the other two bikers onto the ferry as they rode to the front and parked. That meant that cyclists were also the first off the ferry, at which point we followed those ladies again to see how to get out of the docking area. Turns out the roundabout we used for reference on the map was not the one we thought it was and we got a bit turned around finding out hotel. We looked into booking hostels, but for a price difference of $4 each, we were able to book a hotel (for 650 Swedish krona), which was upgraded from a single with an extra bed to a double! We immediately showered because we were so gross (see before and after pictures) and went out to explore the town some more. It took a while to find a place that accepted credit cards, but we eventually bought ourselves a pizza, returned to the hotel to relax, then went back out to watch a free running/parkour/freestyle walking/urban gymnastics whathaveyou competition. We were wrong, the competition was the next night (sponsored by Red Bull), but we watched some people practicing in front of what looked like a castle and walked around the harbor a bit before calling it a night.

We woke up at 7:45 and took full advantage of our free breakfast at the hotel to gear up for a lot of biking. The first leg of the day (after another confusing ferry loading) seemed to be alllll uphill, but was only 10 km. The castle at Fredensborg had some beautiful gardens, where we again picnicked on trail mix, digestives, apples, and cookies. There were gaurds in front of the castle, so we couldn't get very close, but did have a man take a photo in which we effectively block your view of it. The next leg was the longest, but not as bad with the hills. The second day was also through the countryside rather than along the coast, so we got to see a lot of beautiful fields and forests. The Danes are also wonderful about bike lanes - we were on a raised bike line almost the entire trip, including along highway, and some were even seperated from the road by trees, so it was like biking through a forest. This longer but less greuling ride brought us to Fredericksborg, where we found the most impressive castle of the trip. It was on a big lake, surrounded by gardens, and was ginormous. I haven't been able to find brouchures at any of these sites, so I don't know its history, but it sure did look impressive. There were three wedding parties there for photos.

The last part of the trip was about another 15 km and included more beautiful scenery. We liked to say "We're making great time," but since we've never biked this much, we really aren't sure how great of time we made. I definitely slowed us down the last couple of kilometers because it hurt to extend my left knee (it still hurts to get out of chairs, etc, but I'm not too concerned). It wasn't too much of a problem timewise, though, because we still crossed the border, biked 40 km, visited two castles, and made it home by 4 o'clock. We've spent the rest of the evening relaxing, enjoying a delicious meal made by Birthe (Bierd-ah) and Morten (Elisabeth's aunt and uncle), and playing games with the family. Birthe mentioned taking the kids for a bike ride tomorrow, but I think I'll be okay missing out on that...

Welcome to Denmark

2009-08-20T12:48:00.000-07:00

After driving to Dulles, flying to Charles de Gaulle, and surviving a seven hour layover, I finally reached Copenhagen for a reunion with my best friend! No time for jet lag-there's too much to do! It was Elisabeth's mom's last night in Denmark, so we had a traditional Danish lunch for dinner with bonus not-so-Danish vegetarian options. Check out the eel Mrs. A prepared...we were not so pleased when she assulted us with it while we were cooking.

This morning, we had a family breakfast, said farewell to the madre, then Elisabeth and I took the metro to downtown Copenhagen. We spent most of our time at a swimming area built into the harbor, where the water was 18 degrees Celcius, so cold! During our exploration of the city, we ran into interesting things like a "Skills Show," where craftsmen and chefs impressed show goers as a (not so good) Danish rapper performed. We walked through a beautiful park hidden behind a museum and made our way through the crowded streets along the canal en route back to the metro station. I would also like to add that Elisabeth's Danish is coming along fabulously.

Before and after our Copenhagen trip, we made some preparations for our "cycling holiday," as Elisabeth has taken to calling it. We bought a tire repair kit and found these gems of helmets at the bike store, made to look like hats (and actually saw a woman wearing one of the three styles today).