Final Post

Well this is it! After 4ish months of living in Copenhagen I am coming home. Also, thank you for letting me share my experience with you online (whee!). This semester was a truly wonderful one, and I will never forget the time I spent here or the people I spent it with. There is not a thing that I would change about these past four months and my only hope for the future is that I:
1. am able to return to Copenhagen some day (maybe with some of you guys!)
2. will be able to evolve from the person this experience has helped me to become (a little weirder and more culturally conscious version of the me who left in January). AND
3. can look back at this experience and remember Copenhagen as the beautiful home it was to me.

so here are some final pictures of the city I had on my camera from this past week!:

Nyhavn on a summer day from far away

Kira on the bridge swing!

The view from the top of Christianshavn tower

A Cope wall mural.

My visiting mom Linda!

...and her dog Lappi. ISNT HE THE CUTEST (besides dooley and tazo)

So America, here I come! Thank you one last time to Jess (my abroad advisor), DIS, Denmark, Linda and Morten, and my parents for helping this actually happen. I can't tell you how much it means to me. See you all soon back in the states!

Vi Ses

Love

Rebecca

Milan. A normal post.

Hi everyone! Last weekend my roommate Kira and I went to Milan for the weekend! Our trip was a short one but incredible nonetheless. Here are some photos from our 1.75 days there:

If I could sum up Milan in 3 words they would be: Gelato Trolly Shopping < I wish this was a real thing. Gelato because we somehow ended up being able to get gelato three times...no shame.) Trollies because the whole city center seemed to be run by these trolly railway things (some actually looked as if the ancient Romans had jaunted up to Milan in the B.C. times and put them together by hand). Shopping should be the most obvious one, I think over the weekend we saw at least 3 Louis Vuitton stores, 4 Prada shops, and an ENTIRE BLOCK dedicated to Dolce and Gabbana merchandise. And that is not even the tip of the iceberg people. 

I made new friends!

Then Kira stole all of my friends.......

This guy was amazing. I'm sorry if you have ever seen anything like this before and aren't as excited as I was about him, but he carved a dragon out of a carrot. I don't know if I will ever see anything as magical again. Oh yeah, and those are flowers made out of turnips and beets (are they beets? they seem awfully huge).

Our first shopping stop.

Duomo

A beautiful park we found near the old Castle/Fort.

Ok so somebody needs to do this please:

Gelato Trolly Shopping: an amazing experience where a personal trolly takes you around Milan's best shopping streets while giving you complementary gelato served by Fabio.

16 days from today I will be returning to the U.S.A. It has been a wonderful journey and I am definitely sad to see this semester coming to a close. SO here is to making some memories these next two weeks in Copenhagen. I might not post again for a while but i'll be thinking about you all, and I can't wait to see most of you again in about 2 weeks!

also Happy Derby everyone!

Love, Becca

MY MOM MAILED ME GOLDFISH

GUYS! Today is truly a monumental day. Do you want to know why? Yes? It is because MY MOM MAILED ME A BAG OF GOLDFISH!!!!!!!!!!! Never ever ever in all of my 21 years has anything tasted so good as these aurous flaky crumbly tiny little fish. This makes me slightly concerned for what awaits me when I return to the US: the land of doughnuts and pancakes (real pancakes...crepes, I have discovered, are not real pancakes). Also she sent me bubbles, which are always fun. I guess my point is that goldfish are awesome and that if you don't like bubbles you are satan. Just kidding, I know that is offensive. Ill post Milan pics soon!
P.S. thanks mam!

Kim and Paul take Copenhagen

As you all know, last week was my third and final week break here in Copenhagen. Besides being incredibly sad that I didn't have any more spring breaks (3 is a ridiculous amount anyway, welcome to Europe!) I was also incredibly happy because my parents were coming to visit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HERE THEY ARE!

Here is half of my visiting family: Linda in the white and Max in the blue. They took us to Bakken, the worlds oldest operating amusement park, where there is an insanely old wooden roller coaster (of course Dad and I rode it. whee!), the game booths promise prizes of giant bars of chocolate, and the local danes come in mass amounts on sunny days to drink beer and eat ice cream. 

After my parents landed in the Cope we explored the city, went to Bakken, then traveled to Norway to play with the Norwegians. Our first stop was Oslo (the industrial growth capitol of Scandinavia), then we trained/boated/bussed/trained again across the country to Bergen! The coastal city of Bergen was hands down our favorite city (sorry Oslo, you were kinda scary). 

Here we are in the heart of Fjord-country in between Oslo and Bergen on the Norway in a Nutshell trip. (Photo cred: Dad)

After a few days in Norway we made it back to Denmark and proceeded to work my way through the list of things I had for my parents to do. (We actually ended up throwing out the list fairly early on and just ran around the city as we pleased.) This resulted in us stopping at a Danish hot-dog stand. YUM!

Some other things that happened:

1. Prepare yourselves for my mom's upcoming photography book: Babies: Scandinavia edition. Coming soon to stores near you! She didn't send me any of the photo's she took but believe me, she has  A TON of Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian baby photos in that camera of hers and with good reason: Scandinavian babies are the cutest babies in the world! 

2. We made some great new friends on this trip (thanks to my parent's outgoing ways), and I have to say that last week was memorable not only for the memories my parents and I made traveling together but because of the people we met. So a thank you should go out to Claire and Benoit, a couple from France whom we met in Norway; and to K.I.M (it stands for K. something I. something Maximus I think) and David from our Copenhagen hotel who were just fabulous and wonderful and so much fun. Its not easy to make it on my mom's Christmas list, but dammit you guys did it (and in less than a week no less).

3. Either Justin Bieber was following us around during our travels or my parents are actually secret Bieber groupies because we seemed to have stumbled upon and followed EXACTLY the Scandinavian leg of his european tour. OOPS haha. Never have I ever seen so many screaming pre-teen girls with "I <3 Justin Bieber" sweatshirts in my life. 

To sum up our trip for now, the fjords were beautiful, we had so much fun (even climbing up a Bergen-ese mountain in the rain, with an inside out umbrella, and trying to find our hotel), and it was such a privilege to show them around Copenhagen. As an endnote to this post I would just like to say that going into this trip I was thinking about how much I would be showing and teaching them about the place I call my temporary home. Instead our trip together turned into them teaching me a few lessons. Traveling with my parents made me realize how lucky I am to have those two fantastic people as my mom and dad, and I can't wait to learn even more from you two in the years to come. 

Love you all!
Becca

Random Adventures

 Hi everyone! After arriving home from Paris I had a crazy revelation that my time in Denmark is slowly coming to a close. With three months down and one to go, I have only about 4 weeks left here in the land of fish and pastries (mmmm appetizing). SO, with that being said, I have devoted this past week to exploring my lovely home base of Copenhagen.

Our first stop was the Statens Museum for Kunst ("kunst" means art in Danish) which has a fabulous collection of renowned Danish artists and a great modern art collection. 

INFORMATION!

Next, I went on a trip with my Nordic Mythology class to the Viking museum in Roskilde (which is about a 30 min drive outside the city). This boat you see here was found in the water along with 4 others in the 1960's. All of the boats date back to the 11th century and were used to protect Roskilde, which was then Denmark's Capitol. 

View from land in Roskilde.

Viking Clothes: comfy AND made out of animal byproducts.

Viking ship launch: this may or may not have been a reenactment....but everyone looks normal so i'm gonna say not. 

Iron age burial mound.

The Danish countryside.

More countryside. (This also happens to be near where Beowulf was said to have taken place).

After returning to the Cope my next stop was the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. As you can see we were greeted by some aincent, greek, and not-so-familiar faces! The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek was founded by Carl Jacobsen, the CEO and son of the founder of Carlsberg.

Glyptotekin it.

Construction decoration!

Today there was more exploring in a different part of the city (forgot camera again.....whoops), and some friends and I tried out a mexican restaurant that we have been eying. I've always wanted to eat mexican food in Denmark! ALSO My parents get here tomorrow so I'll be posting about that next. I think we are going to Norway!

Love, Becca

France: The Trifecta (part 3)

PARIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the oldest Café in Paris, and it was located conveniently 10 feet from our hotel.

This was taken in the same Arcade that the oldest café is in. Parisian arcades are small shopping streets that are usually covered (while this one isn't...oops) and contain all kinds of cute shops and boutiques.

Our first day in Paris began with a tour. Usually I avoid city tours because I like to pretend that I am a "non-tourist tourist", but in this case it was nice! Our tour guide was a wonderful, matter-of-fact, and proper Swedish-Parisian named Leif, and he gave us a smashing tour chock full of America jokes and historical info.

Park in Paris

Luxembourg Gardens

Where Napoleon is buried. "My, what a big box for such a little man." - Leif.

Café

Just a quick word on café. In France if you order a 'café' that means espresso. I did not know this. So I accidentally ordered espresso 4 times and each time had no idea why my cup was so tiny. Just kidding I know what espresso is, but I had actually never had it before our trip. Most of you know that I have a terrible caffeine/Starbucks addiction (gold card holla!), so I was really excited to try straight espresso for the first time. Unfortunately, I hated it with every fiber in my being.

What happened when we were served espresso with our teachers (go to 00:45).

The French way is to drink espresso with one sugar and no milk......which is all fine and dandy but I will stick to my lattes thank you!

Ooh la la! Eet eez ze Eiffel Tower!

If you ever go to Paris you simply MUST go to this Mannequin store. Only the best people buy their personal mannequins in Paris.

After our tour, Lief dropped us off at Hôtel du Nord for lunch. Hôtel du Nord became famous after the release of the movie Hôtel du Nord in 1938. The restaurant you see in the hotel today was actually refurbished and created to more resemble the movie, regardless it was easily some of the best food we had on our trip. We also realized very quickly that 'medium rare' steak doesn't mean the same thing in France as it does back home.....

Pompidou! You may think this building looks normal (ish) now, but imagine what people thought when it was completed in 1977. (*The Pompidou is a modern art museum that hosts the likes of Picasso, Chagall, and Matisse.)

Paris from the top of the Pompidou.

More Pompidou. Blocking people when they are pondering modern art = a Pompi-don't. HA HA!

I am in Louvre with Paris.

My girl Mona!

Sadly, I didn't get to go inside of the Notre Dame, so it'll just have to go on the bucket list for next time! 

One of the many lock bridges on the Seine. I wonder if there is anybody who keeps track of these things. You know, like a person who picks up a lock and says, "hmm 'Albert and Shannon 2gether 4 ever.' Oh, so they aren't dating anymore? Somebody, quick, get me my bolt cutter!"

Later we went to the Shoah Memorial which was very sobering. With all of the traveling that comes with studying abroad, I sometimes forget to notice the still-dark-marks that WWII left on Europe. The Memorial itself is in an area where hundreds of Jewish children were taken and sent to extermination camps like Auschwitz. It is not only a memory site but a reminder to the people of Paris that a tragedy like the Holocaust should never happen again.

My friends Nathaniel and Abigail are Jewish, so seeing as we were in Paris during Passover we went to the famous Le Marais district. This bakery was one of the only places open and had a completely kosher selection. (I recommend the Kosher-Cheesecake as it was excellent, la heim!).

My friend Nathaniel and I standing in front of the Eiffel tower!!! (20 pictures later).

View from the middle! (We caught the last elevator up, they close the highest level of the tower at 10:30.)

On our last day we all took a French cooking class (which was just as fun as it sounds!). They split us into two groups, so while one group was making the starter the other was....you guessed it.....painting with chocolate! One group made a portrait of Nathaniel's face, isn't he purty?

Choooooooocooooolaaaaate!

Tuileries Garden

Public relaxation: they even have chairs that make you recline and relax! (See the second gentlemen from the left)

Maggie and Colin!

Lock bridge - Take two

As a whole, our trip was fantastic! DIS had the great habit of buying us lunch every day (they spoiled us) and these meals almost always consisted of 3 courses. So my first night home I definitely thought, "By George! Where is my 3 course meal!?" Also while we are on the subject of food, our hotel in paris had a very extensive daily menu for breakfast everyday. This menu consisted of a baguette with butter and jam and tea or coffee. That is all. Which makes me wonder...what would french people do if they went out to breakfast at an IHOP back in the states? Probably run away screaming. That seems like the only logical reaction. 

OH! Funny story, so my friend abigail got pooped on by a bird and it was the funniest thing ever!! I am starting to realize that this may not be funny to you because you were not there to see it land directly on her head, but I have not laughed so hard in my whole life. Just thinking about it is making me giggle. Please don't think i'm a bad person. It's too late isn't it? 

Cultural note: I didn't really meet any rude French men or women, and I tried really hard! Just kidding, but besides a few weird looks when our tour group was being particularly loud nothing really happened. Not to say that they don't exist, i'm sure they do as every society has rude people. I just thought this was interesting paired with something Leif said during our tour, "America and France are like bratty siblings that don't get along. They can't live with or without each other." 

I hope you all have had lovely weeks! Talk to you soon!

Love, Rebecca