Well, I slept my way back to France after a little over a week of reveling in being home and seeing family and friends. It was a much needed little dose of New Mexico and I had SO much fun. I was a little nervous about culture shock and what not, but really it wasn't that bad. I was just so happy to be home. The one main thing I noticed was that, when I was in a public place--the Denver airport, for example--I had no idea what people around me were saying or what language they were speaking...and it was all in english. I didn't have any trouble understanding when people were talking to me, because I really do speak quite a bit of english here, but I couldn't figure it out when it was backup noise, because that I'm not used to. Then there were those moments of not being able to think of english words occasionally, but like I said, I do speak quite a lot of english here, for better or worse. Another thing I noticed was that everything was louder. I don't know if that's necessarily true, but I noticed, again in the Denver airport, that the people were talking louder and there was a sort of a dull noise that was everywhere. I didn't notice it as much other places, but now that I think about it, everything really is a little bit louder. Even when I listened to music at home or in the car, I felt like it needed to be louder (although the reason why I keep my music relatively low here is because I have a roommate about 5 ft away from my room and don't want to blast her with my music...we have to find a balance and it's on a lower level.
Despite these little things, I fell pretty easily back into NM life, enjoying driving (even though I couldn't drive my own car...) and amazing food, and seeing my family and friends and all of those things. And it was really good for me. And it was especially good for me to be able to do the memorial service thing for my grandpa, because I was realizing that I had really put all of my thoughts and emotions to the back of my mind because I just couldn't deal with them at a distance very well. It was good to face it and have the support that I needed, and to be there for my mom and my grandma.
Aside from the unfortunate and trying circumstances of my first couple days home (and the hangover/food poisoning/stomach bug that had m down for a couple days), the trip was a whole was really good. I got to see everyone I wanted to see (except for one who tried but had funding issues and couldn't make it home to see me...I still love you girl!), even my dad a little sister and an old friend who I haven't seen in two years. I may not have gotten to see everyone for as long as I would have liked, but got my fix. And, considering the relative shortness of my trip, I crammed quite a lot in: Valentine's dinner with my friend's mom (cuz I'm just that cool), Ozomatli concert, which was AMAZING and filled with very therapeutic dancing and fun as usual, the zoo with the lil' sis', Santa Fe, multiple trips to Target (I'm a dork, I know, but I love it), shopping for not horrendously expensive jeans, birthday brunch with my favorite carrot cake ever, bday dinner with my grandma, the classic bar-outing that is necessary when you turn 21 with my two best friends, some laying in bed watching movies and feeling relatively crappy, Borders with my fellow book-lover, went to the movies with my mom, lunch outing with my grandma, delicious collective bday dinner with Boe's family, getting official with a new horizontal ID, feeding animals at Wildlife West, shoe shopping with Boe, seeing Marvin after 2 years and playing pool, picking up yummy New Mexico food to bring back to France, and early morning coffee with my favorite asian. And somehow I still had time to finish a really long book, cruise around in my mom's car, eat lots of delicious New Mexico food, talk to people in Cali and Oregon that i don't talk to nearly enough, and all sorts of other little random things. I really don't think I could ask for a better time, even with the little problems that came up. It was a really good thing for me to go home.
In the end, I was actually kind of nervous about coming back to France. I overheard someone else talking about going home for Xmas break and having a really hard time coming back and settling back into life here. I think that, on the one hand, I would have been happy being home for good, because I really do miss home a lot, but it was also kind of a reminder that tree months really isn't all that long and, if I really work at it, there are a lot of amazing things that could be fit into that time. And there are a lot of things I could still stand to do in France and Europe in general. Of course, being back also means I have a lot of school and work ahead of me, which will take up a lot of time, but I am actually kind of looking forward to my classes this semester, even though I think I may be overloading my plate. I'm good at that, though, and all the classes hold some sort of interest for me, so I think I'll make it through.
Here, briefly, are the classes I'm taking:
~Public Policy Analysis - this class will be the most challenging for me because it's full of a lot of theories (particularly economics, which really just doesn't excite me), but my major is Public Policy, so it's stuff i should know...
~Careers in and Sociology of Associations and Humanitarian Work - this is two classes that are intertwined and basically taught together. I'm actually quite excited about this one.
~Political Issues of Globalization - pretty self-explanatory. We are looking at the history of the idea of globalization and the different definitions and critiques of globalization, as well as at specific things that are affected by globalization.
~Portuguese - I'm really having fun learning the language, which is really beautiful. It doesn't come as easily as French did, and I think it's a lot more nuanced, but it's a nice break from all the technical political stuff.
~A Literature class that looks at historical fiction through the works of an author who wrote novels about the holocaust. I'm not a huge fan of lit classes, but it's the only way to get french credit back at U of O (because ALL of the other classes that I take IN FRENCH about FRENCHY subjects for which I read IN FRENCH and write papers IN FRENCH and do presentations IN FRENCH just aren't good enough...). At least, I like historical fiction and I enjoy reading WWII books.
~Capoeira, which I am still loving and is still kicking my butt.
That's pretty much where I'm at right now. Trying to get back into the swing of things, but jet-lagged and tired and I think I'm getting sick...my throat is all scratchy. But I'm taking my emergen-c and drinking lots of water and sleeping as much as I can, and I think I'll survive.
Speaking of getting sleep, despite my 3 hour nap this afternoon, I'm ready for bed, so I'm gonna end this here.
Biz.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Sunshine
Today was the first nice, sunshiny day in a while, and all of Lyon was outside walking around, riding bikes, chasing pigeons, and, of course, making out wherever they pleased :-P Katie and I wandered the artisans market and then hung out at the fountain in Place des Terreaux eating ice cream and watching kids play soccer and chase pigeons. It was SO nice! And it made me SO happy! And now I really want to go to sleep, but I just felt like sharing that today was wonderful.
Also, it's almost exactly 4 days til my plane lands in ABQ, which is also wonderful.
Also, it's almost exactly 4 days til my plane lands in ABQ, which is also wonderful.
Copenhagen, Denmark/Malmö, Sweden
Finally, the last leg of the trip. I think part of the reason I've been procrastinating on this one is because I'm not quite sure how to tackle it. Katie and I both left Copenhagen somewhat disappointed (her more than me). I think there are four major reasons for this:
(1) Copenhagen is not quite as touristy as Edinburgh or Amsterdam. This can be good, but in a country you don't know much about and where you REALLY don't speak the language, it's nice to feel like you have something to fall back on.
(2) For what tourist-friendly stuff there is in Copenhagen, January certainly isn't the high season. Being outside and wandering around wasn't all that pleasant because it was cold and kind of dreary, and things like Tivoli Gardens, outdoorsy kinds of attractions, weren't even open. Also, in the summer they have a free bike rental system, but in the winter you have to find a bike rental shop and pay a sum that came out to be about $15 (not bad, but still...).
(3) Scandinavian countries have really strong economies, and therefore everything was quite a bit more expensive than we were ready for after the rest of our trip (even Edinburgh, which is on the pound, was cheap in comparison). To give you an idea, we spent upwards of $20 on mediocre take-out Mexican food, and breakfast at our hostel was $8 (compared to less than $4 in Edinburgh and free in Amsterdam). This kind of killed the fun wandering around window shopping mentality that we had the rest of the trip, not that there was much good shopping anyway.
(4) I think we were both kind of burned out by the time we got there, which made the previous three things, and any other negative experience, seem a lot more serious than they were.
So when I look back on Copenhagen, I feel like there's a slightly negative haze that has fallen over it, even though we actually did have some really good experiences there. Another thing I'm kind of disappointed about is that we didn't make it out into Denmark, partly because of the cost, and partly because of the tired. We planned 4 days there because we expected to have to do a certain amount of discovering. I was also thinking maybe we could do a day at LegoLand (because, who doesn't love Legos?!?!) and/or a day trip the Viking Ship Museum or to Helsingor (aka Elsinor...Hamlet, anyone?) Castle. I think it was cost that decided they were prohibitive, although we were totally just guessing on LegoLand (amusement parks tend to be heinously expensive even in crappy economies, so we could just imagine what kind of a twist Denmark could take on that). I also wasn't too sure about how much Helsingor would be open. Winter openings for things like that were seriously reduced. Alas, we had 4 days to wander around.
We did manage to see quite a bit, though. On our first day out wandering around, after chilling in a coffee shop and reading for about an hour, we passed City Hall, where a huge group of people wearing Danish flag hats and carrying around Danish flags, and even with Danish flags painted on their faces (two really cute little girls were running around with their faces painted). We timidly found some women who spoke a wee bit of English and asked what was going on. Turns out the Danish handball team had one some big competition and they were going to be there. It was pretty cool that that many people were gathered, although, really, who plays handball? Anyway, we weren't really in the mood to stand around, so we wandered off and went to the "Black Diamond," which is the Royal Library. They had a conceptual photography exhibit, which I found kind of interesting, but Katie was not terribly impressed. So we left there and were thinking about grabbing a bite to eat, when we passed by City Hall again, which had turned into a crazy place. The team had finally shown up and were showing off their trophies and the crowd had basically tripled and were going crazy. We were sort of wandering looking for affordable food and half paying attention when they started shooting off fireworks literally across the street from where we were standing, so we oohed and ahed until that was over and the crowd started to disperse. Then we ended up at a bagel sandwich shop and ended up sitting there for a while watching Battlestar Gallactica (I do not understand the obsession) before going back to the hostel and crashing.
The next day we asked about bike rentals and were directed to this little shop, where we rented bikes from the day. And I think our favorite Copenhagen person was the guy that worked there. He looked about 19 and was kind of this skater gangsta looking guy (plus 50 Cent was playing in the back) who, while getting our bikes did something that led to him saying "fuck," to which Katie asked why he swore in English. His response was just awesome: "Of course I swear in English. We don't swear in Danish." Ok, so maybe it was something of a you-had-to-be-there moment, but we were quite amused. He seemed like a cool guy. Anyway, equipped with bikes, which are a really good idea because things in Copenhagen are pretty spread out, we went to the National Gallery, which had a really great collection of modern art, and we had a really good time there, and then to the National Museum. This was a jewel of a museum, really. We started in the children's section, which, much like in Edinburgh, was quite the experience and photo-op for us. They had dress up and things you could play with and all kinds of good stuff. Then we wandered through the anthropological treasures section, which was a really impressive of artifacts from all of the world and all sorts of ancient periods. Katie was in heaven because she's an anthro major, and I was also really in awe of the whole thing. So our museum experiences were actually quite positive, and on top of that both of those museums were free admission (score!). Next we made the trek out to the Little Mermaid statue. Hans Christian Andersen, who wrote the Little Mermaid, was Danish (and is actually buried in the cemetery across the street from our hostel), and this statue is probably one of the most famous things in the whole country. After crossing that off our list, we dropped our bikes off, headed back to the hostel, and feasted on take-out Indian food, which wasn't cheap but was delicious.
The next day, we met up with Katie's roommate-to-be, who just happened to have arrived in Copenhagen the week before to study (thank goodness for facebook!). Our plan was to visit the Free Town of Christiania (which started as a hippie commune in the late 60s, and the Danish government decided to let it stay that way), and then the Carlsberg brewery, and then Katie and I were going to catch a train to Sweden on a suggestion from a friend of mine from Lyon, and spend our last night there. Things didn't quite go as planned. First of all, we got to Christiania around 10:30 am...bad idea. The only activity in the whole place were a couple of little shops selling weed and other paraphernalia. Apparently they don't get out of bed til about 2:00 in the afternoon. We admired the graffiti/murals and disappointedly set out in the direction of the brewery. We paid the equivalent of about $10 for a self guided tour of the old brewery, which was actually pretty interesting, and also got two tickets to taste the beer in the bar at the end of the tour. Well, we hadn't eaten, and we ended up talking to 2 Aussie guys who let us know that the bartenders really didn't care much about the tickets, so two beers turned into too many beers, and, without going into the details, Katie and I didn't make the train to Sweden and were asleep at the hostel by about 9pm. Good times...
The next morning, we decided that we were going to clean up a bit and take the train to Sweden, because our flight wasn't until 8:00 that evening. It was a seriously palpable change, oddly enough. We walked out of the train station and were both immediately happy and doing good. Malmö is a really cool city and I'd love to spend more time there (maybe in the summer, because, as cool as it was, it was kind of dead). We saw a bunch of IKEA-esque stores, ate sushi, checked out the graffiti, hit up H&M #3 along with some other fun stores, tried to go to a free modern art museum, which was closed, went to two different cafés to avoid the cold, split a "Red Latte," which is a latte made with rooibos tea and was AMAZING, and...I think that's it. It was awesome. A really really great way to end the trip.
And then we got back on the train, went to the airport, and got on a plane to Lyon. We were both totally exhausted and giddy to get back home, and even to hear people speaking French on the plane. I got back to my apartment around midnight and fell into bed. It was very very nice.
And there you have it. Finally. Now all I have to do is catch up on the craziness of back to school and I will be good to go (HOME!). But that is for later because now I have to get ready to go to the artisans market and do some wandering. And I need to finish the organizing/cleaning of my room, which started yesterday, and is unfinished, in the form of random stacks of paper and other things on the floor. Joy.
Biz!
(4 DAYS!!!!!!!)
(1) Copenhagen is not quite as touristy as Edinburgh or Amsterdam. This can be good, but in a country you don't know much about and where you REALLY don't speak the language, it's nice to feel like you have something to fall back on.
(2) For what tourist-friendly stuff there is in Copenhagen, January certainly isn't the high season. Being outside and wandering around wasn't all that pleasant because it was cold and kind of dreary, and things like Tivoli Gardens, outdoorsy kinds of attractions, weren't even open. Also, in the summer they have a free bike rental system, but in the winter you have to find a bike rental shop and pay a sum that came out to be about $15 (not bad, but still...).
(3) Scandinavian countries have really strong economies, and therefore everything was quite a bit more expensive than we were ready for after the rest of our trip (even Edinburgh, which is on the pound, was cheap in comparison). To give you an idea, we spent upwards of $20 on mediocre take-out Mexican food, and breakfast at our hostel was $8 (compared to less than $4 in Edinburgh and free in Amsterdam). This kind of killed the fun wandering around window shopping mentality that we had the rest of the trip, not that there was much good shopping anyway.
(4) I think we were both kind of burned out by the time we got there, which made the previous three things, and any other negative experience, seem a lot more serious than they were.
So when I look back on Copenhagen, I feel like there's a slightly negative haze that has fallen over it, even though we actually did have some really good experiences there. Another thing I'm kind of disappointed about is that we didn't make it out into Denmark, partly because of the cost, and partly because of the tired. We planned 4 days there because we expected to have to do a certain amount of discovering. I was also thinking maybe we could do a day at LegoLand (because, who doesn't love Legos?!?!) and/or a day trip the Viking Ship Museum or to Helsingor (aka Elsinor...Hamlet, anyone?) Castle. I think it was cost that decided they were prohibitive, although we were totally just guessing on LegoLand (amusement parks tend to be heinously expensive even in crappy economies, so we could just imagine what kind of a twist Denmark could take on that). I also wasn't too sure about how much Helsingor would be open. Winter openings for things like that were seriously reduced. Alas, we had 4 days to wander around.
We did manage to see quite a bit, though. On our first day out wandering around, after chilling in a coffee shop and reading for about an hour, we passed City Hall, where a huge group of people wearing Danish flag hats and carrying around Danish flags, and even with Danish flags painted on their faces (two really cute little girls were running around with their faces painted). We timidly found some women who spoke a wee bit of English and asked what was going on. Turns out the Danish handball team had one some big competition and they were going to be there. It was pretty cool that that many people were gathered, although, really, who plays handball? Anyway, we weren't really in the mood to stand around, so we wandered off and went to the "Black Diamond," which is the Royal Library. They had a conceptual photography exhibit, which I found kind of interesting, but Katie was not terribly impressed. So we left there and were thinking about grabbing a bite to eat, when we passed by City Hall again, which had turned into a crazy place. The team had finally shown up and were showing off their trophies and the crowd had basically tripled and were going crazy. We were sort of wandering looking for affordable food and half paying attention when they started shooting off fireworks literally across the street from where we were standing, so we oohed and ahed until that was over and the crowd started to disperse. Then we ended up at a bagel sandwich shop and ended up sitting there for a while watching Battlestar Gallactica (I do not understand the obsession) before going back to the hostel and crashing.
The next day we asked about bike rentals and were directed to this little shop, where we rented bikes from the day. And I think our favorite Copenhagen person was the guy that worked there. He looked about 19 and was kind of this skater gangsta looking guy (plus 50 Cent was playing in the back) who, while getting our bikes did something that led to him saying "fuck," to which Katie asked why he swore in English. His response was just awesome: "Of course I swear in English. We don't swear in Danish." Ok, so maybe it was something of a you-had-to-be-there moment, but we were quite amused. He seemed like a cool guy. Anyway, equipped with bikes, which are a really good idea because things in Copenhagen are pretty spread out, we went to the National Gallery, which had a really great collection of modern art, and we had a really good time there, and then to the National Museum. This was a jewel of a museum, really. We started in the children's section, which, much like in Edinburgh, was quite the experience and photo-op for us. They had dress up and things you could play with and all kinds of good stuff. Then we wandered through the anthropological treasures section, which was a really impressive of artifacts from all of the world and all sorts of ancient periods. Katie was in heaven because she's an anthro major, and I was also really in awe of the whole thing. So our museum experiences were actually quite positive, and on top of that both of those museums were free admission (score!). Next we made the trek out to the Little Mermaid statue. Hans Christian Andersen, who wrote the Little Mermaid, was Danish (and is actually buried in the cemetery across the street from our hostel), and this statue is probably one of the most famous things in the whole country. After crossing that off our list, we dropped our bikes off, headed back to the hostel, and feasted on take-out Indian food, which wasn't cheap but was delicious.
The next day, we met up with Katie's roommate-to-be, who just happened to have arrived in Copenhagen the week before to study (thank goodness for facebook!). Our plan was to visit the Free Town of Christiania (which started as a hippie commune in the late 60s, and the Danish government decided to let it stay that way), and then the Carlsberg brewery, and then Katie and I were going to catch a train to Sweden on a suggestion from a friend of mine from Lyon, and spend our last night there. Things didn't quite go as planned. First of all, we got to Christiania around 10:30 am...bad idea. The only activity in the whole place were a couple of little shops selling weed and other paraphernalia. Apparently they don't get out of bed til about 2:00 in the afternoon. We admired the graffiti/murals and disappointedly set out in the direction of the brewery. We paid the equivalent of about $10 for a self guided tour of the old brewery, which was actually pretty interesting, and also got two tickets to taste the beer in the bar at the end of the tour. Well, we hadn't eaten, and we ended up talking to 2 Aussie guys who let us know that the bartenders really didn't care much about the tickets, so two beers turned into too many beers, and, without going into the details, Katie and I didn't make the train to Sweden and were asleep at the hostel by about 9pm. Good times...
The next morning, we decided that we were going to clean up a bit and take the train to Sweden, because our flight wasn't until 8:00 that evening. It was a seriously palpable change, oddly enough. We walked out of the train station and were both immediately happy and doing good. Malmö is a really cool city and I'd love to spend more time there (maybe in the summer, because, as cool as it was, it was kind of dead). We saw a bunch of IKEA-esque stores, ate sushi, checked out the graffiti, hit up H&M #3 along with some other fun stores, tried to go to a free modern art museum, which was closed, went to two different cafés to avoid the cold, split a "Red Latte," which is a latte made with rooibos tea and was AMAZING, and...I think that's it. It was awesome. A really really great way to end the trip.
And then we got back on the train, went to the airport, and got on a plane to Lyon. We were both totally exhausted and giddy to get back home, and even to hear people speaking French on the plane. I got back to my apartment around midnight and fell into bed. It was very very nice.
And there you have it. Finally. Now all I have to do is catch up on the craziness of back to school and I will be good to go (HOME!). But that is for later because now I have to get ready to go to the artisans market and do some wandering. And I need to finish the organizing/cleaning of my room, which started yesterday, and is unfinished, in the form of random stacks of paper and other things on the floor. Joy.
Biz!
(4 DAYS!!!!!!!)
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Before I start, I just have to make it very clear to the universe that I REFUSE to get sick right now, despite the fact that everyone around me seems to be sick. Take that, bitch.
So much for getting this whole trip business blogged about before getting back to having a life and having new things to write about. But I WILL get it done before I start forgetting everything that we did on the trip. And I'll wait to resume my first week back to reality.
As i started out the last blog being amazed at how easy it is to travel here, I would also like to mention how amazing it is that all of our travel went without a hitch. We had multiple flights on EasyJet, which is a low cost airline in Europe that several people I know have had problems with, but nothing ever went wrong with any of our flights, which kind of amazes me (*knock on wood*).
The hostel experience was also more or less positive, except for our first night in Amsterdam. In looking at different hostels online, there were a lot that got pretty bad ratings, but most of the ones that didn't seem completely trashy were pretty expensive, especially because we were there for the weekend. So I had booked one that was supposed to be really nice and was relatively new. Now, according to the website, they were a little bit out of the way, but only about 10 minutes from Central Station on a bus. Well, first we got on the bus going in the wrong direction, and had to ride it all the way back and then in the right direction, but it was still almost 20 minutes from Central Station (and this is in the evening with very little traffic). And then it was a little bit of a walk through a really dead neighborhood from the bus stop, so we decided to check in and stay the night there but try to find another hostel for the other two nights. This happened pretty easily and without a huge cost difference, so we happily found our room and threw down our bags and checked out the place we were staying, which, if it weren't so far away from everything there is to do in Amsterdam, was quite a place. It was basically like staying in a relatively nice hotel except that you had to share a room with other people. Which we actually didn't have to do because the place is equipped to hold a TON of people and there weren't very many there, so Katie and I had a room to ourselves, which was nice. We had some dinner at the restaurant of the hostel (decent, but nothing special) and then pretty quickly crashed out. The next morning we ate breakfast, donned our backpacks, and headed to the other hostel, which Katie had stayed in before. MUCH better, and within walking distance of museumplein and leidseplein, which are basically the main areas of town...museumplein being where all the (shocker) museums are, and leidseplein being a lot of little shops and restaurants.
We couldn't actually get into our room until 2, so we put our bags in a locker and checked out leidseplein: H&M #2 was less exciting than the one in Edinburgh, but not bad at all, and there were a bunch of other fun shops, especially places to buy fun colorful shoes, which was exciting, but it was all also very expensive and I was running out of room in my bag already, so I dutifully abstained from buying anything. After putting out bags in our room, we decided to get the museums out of the way. We went to the Rijksmuseum, which was not terribly exciting, but there were some really nice paintings. On our way from there to the Van Gogh museum, we found an ice skating rink, that most people were just playing around on in their shoes, so we did that for a little while, and then saw these people jumping around on what looked like a slab of concrete, except that there were noises coming from it. Upon closer inspection, we found 9 squares of metal which, when you stepped on them, made a sort of bell noise. Needless to say this offered tons of enjoyment to us for like 10 minutes until we decided to let the little kids all around us have a turn and went in search of more art.
I would just like to say that I LOVE the Van Gogh museum. Until recently, I really wasn't all that big of a Van Gogh, but my best friend's passion for him has led me to see more and more of his paintings and realize how amazing he really is. And the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam made that even more real. It was interesting to see the evolution of his work (the museum is organized in chronological order) and all of the different movements and people who influenced him. And, because he was pretty tight with Gaugin, there were also several Gaugin paintings, and he is another paiter that I am starting to appreciate more and more. AND there was a portrait of Van Gogh painted by none other than my favorite painter ever, Toulouse-Lautrec, which made me SO happy, even though it wasn't a particularly spectacular painting.
After a nice afternoon dose of culture, we headed in search of dinner at a pancake restaurant that Katie had gone to the last time she was in Amsterdam, where we split a dinner pancake, which was basically a giant crepe with spinach, french cheese (pretty sure it was brie), and cashews, which was quite delicious. Then we had poffertjes, which are a dutch desert...little balls of dough served with syrup or sugar or some other sweet thing. In my case, ice cream. After eating, we were on our way to meet up with some girls who are from Oregon and also studying in Lyon, and just happened to be in Amserdam at the same time. On the way, we got caught up in this major giggle fest to the point that we couldn't even walk. It started with Katie saying: "You know what would suck? To be a penguin." And there we were, standing on a sidewalk in Amsterdam laughing like crazy and this couple walks by and the man shakes his head and says "Weed," which made us laugh even more because we were not high at all. It was good times.
So then we made our way to meet up with the girls at their hostel smack dab in the middle of the Red Light district. We wandered around with them for a while, and ended up at the Bulldog, which is a pretty well known bar, and we danced and made fun of two groups of really drunk women. One being a small group of women in their mid/late 30s probably who were dressed like skanky 18 year olds, and the other was a bigger group of VERY drunk women wearing matching hand-painted shirts with tacky nicknames like "Blow Jo" and "Emma Rhoids" who turned out to be a bachelorette party from England who had been drinking since 11 that morning. They were quite amusing and we even got a picture with them. I wasn't much for hanging out in the bar because I'm not a huge fan of bad electronica (when we first got there they were playing reggaeton and decent hip-hop, but it quickly switched to "dance" music...ugh) or being inundated by cigarette smoke, so I dragged Katie across the street to Boom Chicago, which is an improv comedy club. Much more my style. We stayed there til about 2am being highly amused, and then headed back to the hostel and happily settled into bed.
Saturday was pretty busy. We started off the morning buying exotic fruit (a dragon fruit and a passion fruit, neither of which I had ever actually seen before), and eating it while sitting on the side of one of the canals until a gust of wind blew it all into the canal. Oops. It was good stuff, though. Then we went to a gallery called Foam, which was a photo gallery with two really interesting shows. One was a series of photos displaying the "unseen" aspects of America. Some of the photos included a nuclear waste storage tank, a highly deformed white tiger (all white tigers are the product of selective inbreeding, which leads to deformities), a military training town, and brown bears in hibernation. There were a bunch more and it was a really interesting exhibition. The other exhibit was this photographer from the 30s who was a photo journalist who mostly photographed murder victims and other "hot topic" sort of subjects. Some of the images were really difficult, but it was an impressive series of photographs. I *heart* photography so much. From there, we went to the Anne Frank museum, which I went through by myself because Katie had already done it. I don't really know what to say about it. It was intense and interesting to see the place that I've heard described SO many times and see the place where she was writing her diary, which I've read a couple of times. And it was hard, but I kind of feel like I've read/heard the stories so many times that it almost doesn't really impact me as much as I expected it to. But I'm definitely glad I went.
I met up with Katie at a bagel shop right next to the museum, and I walked in to the seemingly calm café while reading a text Katie had sent me while I was in the museum, which said, "You are never allowed to try shrooms!" Apparently barely 10 minutes before I got there, a guy who was there with a bunch of friends started having a seizure and was throwing up and it was really intense...and the only reason they could come up with was that he and all his friends had just been doing shrooms. So that had Katie totally wigged out. It was strange to hear the story and know it had just happened, but look around the café and find no trace of it. Anyway, we got out of there pretty quickly and headed to meet up with our friends again (because I'm really dumb and had left my camera at the Bulldog and thankfully they picked it up for me) and then went to Madame Tussaud's and took pictures with celebrities. We finished off the day with a canal boat tour, which was disappointingly uninteresting. So much so that Katie fell asleep for part of it. We had italian for dinner and then went back to the hostel, where we were thinking about passing out, until I got a text from the other girls seeing if we wanted to meet up with them, which we did for a while, and ended up hanging out with them at a coffee shop watching Pulp Fiction with no sound and dutch subtitles. Which was really weird. And meanwhile I wrote postcards, which everyone was all surprised by, and which I proceeded to put in the mail with incomplete addresses. Which was SO dumb.
On Sunday morning, we whizzed through an Art Nouveau expo at the Hermitage museum, which was full of beautiful art. We were a bit short on time, because we had a flight to catch that afternoon, but we were trying to get the most out of these tourist discount cards we had bought (I AMsterdam card. Totally worth it if you are prepared to museum/tourist it up). Then we bought muffins and made our way to the airport.
And that was Amsterdam. Not the drug/partying spree that most people my age have there. And it wasn't quite as stunning as I had heard (then again, might have something to do with the fact that it was January and therefore the weather was not entirely favorable to gorgeousness...and maybe the lack of pot-induced awe had something to do with my differing opinion as well). That's not to say that it wasn't a really interesting and beautiful city. It just wasn't what I was expecting. But I had a really good time and wouldn't mind going back. Maybe when the weather is better and it is more pleasant to rent a bike and just tour around the city. And to try to find more fun galleries and museums because I bet there could be some really interesting stuff there if you look for it.
Wow, that was long. Thanks for bearing with me if you made it to the end!
Biz.
So much for getting this whole trip business blogged about before getting back to having a life and having new things to write about. But I WILL get it done before I start forgetting everything that we did on the trip. And I'll wait to resume my first week back to reality.
As i started out the last blog being amazed at how easy it is to travel here, I would also like to mention how amazing it is that all of our travel went without a hitch. We had multiple flights on EasyJet, which is a low cost airline in Europe that several people I know have had problems with, but nothing ever went wrong with any of our flights, which kind of amazes me (*knock on wood*).
The hostel experience was also more or less positive, except for our first night in Amsterdam. In looking at different hostels online, there were a lot that got pretty bad ratings, but most of the ones that didn't seem completely trashy were pretty expensive, especially because we were there for the weekend. So I had booked one that was supposed to be really nice and was relatively new. Now, according to the website, they were a little bit out of the way, but only about 10 minutes from Central Station on a bus. Well, first we got on the bus going in the wrong direction, and had to ride it all the way back and then in the right direction, but it was still almost 20 minutes from Central Station (and this is in the evening with very little traffic). And then it was a little bit of a walk through a really dead neighborhood from the bus stop, so we decided to check in and stay the night there but try to find another hostel for the other two nights. This happened pretty easily and without a huge cost difference, so we happily found our room and threw down our bags and checked out the place we were staying, which, if it weren't so far away from everything there is to do in Amsterdam, was quite a place. It was basically like staying in a relatively nice hotel except that you had to share a room with other people. Which we actually didn't have to do because the place is equipped to hold a TON of people and there weren't very many there, so Katie and I had a room to ourselves, which was nice. We had some dinner at the restaurant of the hostel (decent, but nothing special) and then pretty quickly crashed out. The next morning we ate breakfast, donned our backpacks, and headed to the other hostel, which Katie had stayed in before. MUCH better, and within walking distance of museumplein and leidseplein, which are basically the main areas of town...museumplein being where all the (shocker) museums are, and leidseplein being a lot of little shops and restaurants.
We couldn't actually get into our room until 2, so we put our bags in a locker and checked out leidseplein: H&M #2 was less exciting than the one in Edinburgh, but not bad at all, and there were a bunch of other fun shops, especially places to buy fun colorful shoes, which was exciting, but it was all also very expensive and I was running out of room in my bag already, so I dutifully abstained from buying anything. After putting out bags in our room, we decided to get the museums out of the way. We went to the Rijksmuseum, which was not terribly exciting, but there were some really nice paintings. On our way from there to the Van Gogh museum, we found an ice skating rink, that most people were just playing around on in their shoes, so we did that for a little while, and then saw these people jumping around on what looked like a slab of concrete, except that there were noises coming from it. Upon closer inspection, we found 9 squares of metal which, when you stepped on them, made a sort of bell noise. Needless to say this offered tons of enjoyment to us for like 10 minutes until we decided to let the little kids all around us have a turn and went in search of more art.
I would just like to say that I LOVE the Van Gogh museum. Until recently, I really wasn't all that big of a Van Gogh, but my best friend's passion for him has led me to see more and more of his paintings and realize how amazing he really is. And the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam made that even more real. It was interesting to see the evolution of his work (the museum is organized in chronological order) and all of the different movements and people who influenced him. And, because he was pretty tight with Gaugin, there were also several Gaugin paintings, and he is another paiter that I am starting to appreciate more and more. AND there was a portrait of Van Gogh painted by none other than my favorite painter ever, Toulouse-Lautrec, which made me SO happy, even though it wasn't a particularly spectacular painting.
After a nice afternoon dose of culture, we headed in search of dinner at a pancake restaurant that Katie had gone to the last time she was in Amsterdam, where we split a dinner pancake, which was basically a giant crepe with spinach, french cheese (pretty sure it was brie), and cashews, which was quite delicious. Then we had poffertjes, which are a dutch desert...little balls of dough served with syrup or sugar or some other sweet thing. In my case, ice cream. After eating, we were on our way to meet up with some girls who are from Oregon and also studying in Lyon, and just happened to be in Amserdam at the same time. On the way, we got caught up in this major giggle fest to the point that we couldn't even walk. It started with Katie saying: "You know what would suck? To be a penguin." And there we were, standing on a sidewalk in Amsterdam laughing like crazy and this couple walks by and the man shakes his head and says "Weed," which made us laugh even more because we were not high at all. It was good times.
So then we made our way to meet up with the girls at their hostel smack dab in the middle of the Red Light district. We wandered around with them for a while, and ended up at the Bulldog, which is a pretty well known bar, and we danced and made fun of two groups of really drunk women. One being a small group of women in their mid/late 30s probably who were dressed like skanky 18 year olds, and the other was a bigger group of VERY drunk women wearing matching hand-painted shirts with tacky nicknames like "Blow Jo" and "Emma Rhoids" who turned out to be a bachelorette party from England who had been drinking since 11 that morning. They were quite amusing and we even got a picture with them. I wasn't much for hanging out in the bar because I'm not a huge fan of bad electronica (when we first got there they were playing reggaeton and decent hip-hop, but it quickly switched to "dance" music...ugh) or being inundated by cigarette smoke, so I dragged Katie across the street to Boom Chicago, which is an improv comedy club. Much more my style. We stayed there til about 2am being highly amused, and then headed back to the hostel and happily settled into bed.
Saturday was pretty busy. We started off the morning buying exotic fruit (a dragon fruit and a passion fruit, neither of which I had ever actually seen before), and eating it while sitting on the side of one of the canals until a gust of wind blew it all into the canal. Oops. It was good stuff, though. Then we went to a gallery called Foam, which was a photo gallery with two really interesting shows. One was a series of photos displaying the "unseen" aspects of America. Some of the photos included a nuclear waste storage tank, a highly deformed white tiger (all white tigers are the product of selective inbreeding, which leads to deformities), a military training town, and brown bears in hibernation. There were a bunch more and it was a really interesting exhibition. The other exhibit was this photographer from the 30s who was a photo journalist who mostly photographed murder victims and other "hot topic" sort of subjects. Some of the images were really difficult, but it was an impressive series of photographs. I *heart* photography so much. From there, we went to the Anne Frank museum, which I went through by myself because Katie had already done it. I don't really know what to say about it. It was intense and interesting to see the place that I've heard described SO many times and see the place where she was writing her diary, which I've read a couple of times. And it was hard, but I kind of feel like I've read/heard the stories so many times that it almost doesn't really impact me as much as I expected it to. But I'm definitely glad I went.
I met up with Katie at a bagel shop right next to the museum, and I walked in to the seemingly calm café while reading a text Katie had sent me while I was in the museum, which said, "You are never allowed to try shrooms!" Apparently barely 10 minutes before I got there, a guy who was there with a bunch of friends started having a seizure and was throwing up and it was really intense...and the only reason they could come up with was that he and all his friends had just been doing shrooms. So that had Katie totally wigged out. It was strange to hear the story and know it had just happened, but look around the café and find no trace of it. Anyway, we got out of there pretty quickly and headed to meet up with our friends again (because I'm really dumb and had left my camera at the Bulldog and thankfully they picked it up for me) and then went to Madame Tussaud's and took pictures with celebrities. We finished off the day with a canal boat tour, which was disappointingly uninteresting. So much so that Katie fell asleep for part of it. We had italian for dinner and then went back to the hostel, where we were thinking about passing out, until I got a text from the other girls seeing if we wanted to meet up with them, which we did for a while, and ended up hanging out with them at a coffee shop watching Pulp Fiction with no sound and dutch subtitles. Which was really weird. And meanwhile I wrote postcards, which everyone was all surprised by, and which I proceeded to put in the mail with incomplete addresses. Which was SO dumb.
On Sunday morning, we whizzed through an Art Nouveau expo at the Hermitage museum, which was full of beautiful art. We were a bit short on time, because we had a flight to catch that afternoon, but we were trying to get the most out of these tourist discount cards we had bought (I AMsterdam card. Totally worth it if you are prepared to museum/tourist it up). Then we bought muffins and made our way to the airport.
And that was Amsterdam. Not the drug/partying spree that most people my age have there. And it wasn't quite as stunning as I had heard (then again, might have something to do with the fact that it was January and therefore the weather was not entirely favorable to gorgeousness...and maybe the lack of pot-induced awe had something to do with my differing opinion as well). That's not to say that it wasn't a really interesting and beautiful city. It just wasn't what I was expecting. But I had a really good time and wouldn't mind going back. Maybe when the weather is better and it is more pleasant to rent a bike and just tour around the city. And to try to find more fun galleries and museums because I bet there could be some really interesting stuff there if you look for it.
Wow, that was long. Thanks for bearing with me if you made it to the end!
Biz.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Edinburgh, Scotland
Ok, so I'm ready to try to tackle my trip...one city at a time. Beginning with Edinburgh.
It still amazes me how I easy it is to travel here. I jumped on a train in Lyon, chilled for 2 hours, arrived in Paris, caught a couple metros, jumped on a plane, and less than 2 hours later I was giving Katie a big hug in Edinburgh, and then we caught a bus and were dropped off about 10 minutes away from our hostel. The only unfortunate part of the whole thing was having to trek up a relatively steep hill with our big ol' backpacks on. And there we were, at the High Street Hostel in Edinburgh, which may be one of my favorite places ever. I don't by any means consider myself an expert on hostels, but I'm getting used to them, and this one was just plain awesome. The staff was amazing, and it was a totally funky place with murals on the walls and a giant stuffed shark (which I failed to take a picture of...which I regret now as it was amazing) and all sorts of cool people staying there. Upon arrival, Katie and I dropped our backpacks off in the room with our beds, Edinburgh (Katie) and Falkirk (me), and went off in search of something quick and easy to eat. We grabbed a sandwich and some apples at a convenient store down the street (pretty much the only not at least a little bit exciting food of the whole trip, although the apples were amazing and we got 3 for 1 pound). We took the food back to the hostel and ate it in the lounge, while sipping deliciously free hot chocolate and smelling all the delicious food that people were cooking in the giant kitchen. Soon after, we were in bed reading...we decided to start off the trip with a good night's sleep.
The next morning we woke up and ate meusli and scones before going on a free tour of the city. If you are ever in Europe, look for the NewEurope tour, which they have in most major cities. It's basically a free tour, although the tour guides don't actually get paid so they usually ask for a little something in return, but from my experience they are totally worth it. They usually have one 3 hour tour of the city and then another shorter themed tour...and I think a lot of times they do a pub crawl as well. Anyway, over the course of the three hours, we saw the majority of Edinburgh's old city (which is actually quite small) and heard a lot of interesting histories and stories about the different buildings in monuments. The major stops were St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh Castle, and this big park that runs between the new city and the old city. We also saw the oldest building in Edinburgh, the school that inspired Hogwarts and the café where J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book, the old prison, a cemetery, and heard stories about the Stone of Destiny, Greyfriar's Bobby (quite possibly the coolest dog ever), and the history of the term "rip off," which apparently originated right in the middle of Edinburgh. And we took a lunch break during which we paid 5 pounds for a hamburger (or veggie burger in my case) and a pint.
Which actually brings me to the food portion of this blog. I LOVE Scotland because it is SO easy to find vegetarian food. I'm so used to going out to eat and having to order fish. Don't get me wrong, I like fish, but I prefer not to eat it all the time because fishing practices really aren't all that much better than other meat-production practices (my main reasons for being a veg-head). But they had veggie burgers in Scotland! AND vegetarian haggis. I guess you could say that defeats the purpose of the meal, but I was assured that the neeps and tatties (turnips and potatoes) made it worth it. Plus I kind of like fake sausages, which were the substitute for stomach and internal organs. Other than haggis and veggie burgers, we also had fish n chips and baked potatoes at a little restaurant dedicated to baked potatoes (which was a vegetarian/vegan restaurant...YES!). And amazing deserts, my favorite of which was called cranachan and was kind of like a berry parfait with oats...ie quite possibly my favorite thing ever. Oh, and can't forget the shortbread cookies and the fudge we bought at the fudge kitchen. Basically the food in Scotland was amazing.
The shopping in Scotland was also amazing. If their veg-friendliness wasn't enough to draw me in, their fashions were. There were so many funky little clothing shops all over the place. For those of you in Burque, think Beeps only they have clothes too, and all over the place. And even better, if you can stretch your mind that far. And to satisfy my preppy side, there were cashmere argyle sweaters everywhere. I didn't buy one because, even on sale, they were ridiculously expensive, although now I'm starting to think I should have splurged. Maybe I'll just have to go back (shucks!). The new city was basically all shopping, and we did our share of wandering around there, although I much preferred the old city with its funky shops and old buildings and whatnot to the new city with it's brand name stores that you find pretty much everywhere in Europe (not that I'm not glad we hit up all the H&Ms that we could on this trip).
Other than eating and shopping, we mostly just wandered a lot. Edinburgh is actually really small, so it's a great place to just walk around and look at old buildings. Might sound boring, but it totally wasn't. It was really fun. We also ended up hanging at the hostel a lot, reading, listening to music, and chatting with the other people staying there. And taking full advantage of the free tea, hot chocolate, and coffee offered. I was really amazed at how many people were there for like 2 months, just taking time off and living in a different country and doing it all in a hostel. Most of them worked in bars or restaurants or handing out free newspapers to pay the bills, but some of them really just seemed like they were bumming around, which to me seems really strange. I'm not sure it's something I would want to do because I don't do well without purpose, but at the same time, it's kind of an intriguing idea (Dear family, don't worry, I won't drop out of school and move into a hostel and do nothing but go out drinking and sleeping for two months). By far my and Katie's favorite of the other hostel residents was this really fabulous guy named Toby, who was from London, I think. We went out with him, 2 germans, and a canadian girl one night to a pub called Finnegan's Wake (like the Dropkick Murphy's song!!!) and to the Jazz Bar, where we listened to decent but not fabulous jazz music, before heading back to the hostel to sleep.
Um...I think maybe that's it for Edinburgh...oh! except for the BEST part, which was the Museum of Childhood, which was a prime place for us to have fun and take silly pictures. With the exception of the doll room, which was just creepy, the museum was full of fun old toys and there were a lot of interactive things, like games and dress up, etc. SO much fun!!!
And there you have it. I'm going to take a wee break, but I'll try to get to Amsterdam tonight. Because I know everyone is just itching to read more (nevermind that pretty much everyone who reads this is probably asleep).
Biz.
(ps. I would like to add a little countdown...11 days til I'm home!)
It still amazes me how I easy it is to travel here. I jumped on a train in Lyon, chilled for 2 hours, arrived in Paris, caught a couple metros, jumped on a plane, and less than 2 hours later I was giving Katie a big hug in Edinburgh, and then we caught a bus and were dropped off about 10 minutes away from our hostel. The only unfortunate part of the whole thing was having to trek up a relatively steep hill with our big ol' backpacks on. And there we were, at the High Street Hostel in Edinburgh, which may be one of my favorite places ever. I don't by any means consider myself an expert on hostels, but I'm getting used to them, and this one was just plain awesome. The staff was amazing, and it was a totally funky place with murals on the walls and a giant stuffed shark (which I failed to take a picture of...which I regret now as it was amazing) and all sorts of cool people staying there. Upon arrival, Katie and I dropped our backpacks off in the room with our beds, Edinburgh (Katie) and Falkirk (me), and went off in search of something quick and easy to eat. We grabbed a sandwich and some apples at a convenient store down the street (pretty much the only not at least a little bit exciting food of the whole trip, although the apples were amazing and we got 3 for 1 pound). We took the food back to the hostel and ate it in the lounge, while sipping deliciously free hot chocolate and smelling all the delicious food that people were cooking in the giant kitchen. Soon after, we were in bed reading...we decided to start off the trip with a good night's sleep.
The next morning we woke up and ate meusli and scones before going on a free tour of the city. If you are ever in Europe, look for the NewEurope tour, which they have in most major cities. It's basically a free tour, although the tour guides don't actually get paid so they usually ask for a little something in return, but from my experience they are totally worth it. They usually have one 3 hour tour of the city and then another shorter themed tour...and I think a lot of times they do a pub crawl as well. Anyway, over the course of the three hours, we saw the majority of Edinburgh's old city (which is actually quite small) and heard a lot of interesting histories and stories about the different buildings in monuments. The major stops were St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh Castle, and this big park that runs between the new city and the old city. We also saw the oldest building in Edinburgh, the school that inspired Hogwarts and the café where J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book, the old prison, a cemetery, and heard stories about the Stone of Destiny, Greyfriar's Bobby (quite possibly the coolest dog ever), and the history of the term "rip off," which apparently originated right in the middle of Edinburgh. And we took a lunch break during which we paid 5 pounds for a hamburger (or veggie burger in my case) and a pint.
Which actually brings me to the food portion of this blog. I LOVE Scotland because it is SO easy to find vegetarian food. I'm so used to going out to eat and having to order fish. Don't get me wrong, I like fish, but I prefer not to eat it all the time because fishing practices really aren't all that much better than other meat-production practices (my main reasons for being a veg-head). But they had veggie burgers in Scotland! AND vegetarian haggis. I guess you could say that defeats the purpose of the meal, but I was assured that the neeps and tatties (turnips and potatoes) made it worth it. Plus I kind of like fake sausages, which were the substitute for stomach and internal organs. Other than haggis and veggie burgers, we also had fish n chips and baked potatoes at a little restaurant dedicated to baked potatoes (which was a vegetarian/vegan restaurant...YES!). And amazing deserts, my favorite of which was called cranachan and was kind of like a berry parfait with oats...ie quite possibly my favorite thing ever. Oh, and can't forget the shortbread cookies and the fudge we bought at the fudge kitchen. Basically the food in Scotland was amazing.
The shopping in Scotland was also amazing. If their veg-friendliness wasn't enough to draw me in, their fashions were. There were so many funky little clothing shops all over the place. For those of you in Burque, think Beeps only they have clothes too, and all over the place. And even better, if you can stretch your mind that far. And to satisfy my preppy side, there were cashmere argyle sweaters everywhere. I didn't buy one because, even on sale, they were ridiculously expensive, although now I'm starting to think I should have splurged. Maybe I'll just have to go back (shucks!). The new city was basically all shopping, and we did our share of wandering around there, although I much preferred the old city with its funky shops and old buildings and whatnot to the new city with it's brand name stores that you find pretty much everywhere in Europe (not that I'm not glad we hit up all the H&Ms that we could on this trip).
Other than eating and shopping, we mostly just wandered a lot. Edinburgh is actually really small, so it's a great place to just walk around and look at old buildings. Might sound boring, but it totally wasn't. It was really fun. We also ended up hanging at the hostel a lot, reading, listening to music, and chatting with the other people staying there. And taking full advantage of the free tea, hot chocolate, and coffee offered. I was really amazed at how many people were there for like 2 months, just taking time off and living in a different country and doing it all in a hostel. Most of them worked in bars or restaurants or handing out free newspapers to pay the bills, but some of them really just seemed like they were bumming around, which to me seems really strange. I'm not sure it's something I would want to do because I don't do well without purpose, but at the same time, it's kind of an intriguing idea (Dear family, don't worry, I won't drop out of school and move into a hostel and do nothing but go out drinking and sleeping for two months). By far my and Katie's favorite of the other hostel residents was this really fabulous guy named Toby, who was from London, I think. We went out with him, 2 germans, and a canadian girl one night to a pub called Finnegan's Wake (like the Dropkick Murphy's song!!!) and to the Jazz Bar, where we listened to decent but not fabulous jazz music, before heading back to the hostel to sleep.
Um...I think maybe that's it for Edinburgh...oh! except for the BEST part, which was the Museum of Childhood, which was a prime place for us to have fun and take silly pictures. With the exception of the doll room, which was just creepy, the museum was full of fun old toys and there were a lot of interactive things, like games and dress up, etc. SO much fun!!!
And there you have it. I'm going to take a wee break, but I'll try to get to Amsterdam tonight. Because I know everyone is just itching to read more (nevermind that pretty much everyone who reads this is probably asleep).
Biz.
(ps. I would like to add a little countdown...11 days til I'm home!)
Friday, February 1, 2008
Recovering
Well, I made it back to Lyon in one piece (well, three if you count my luggage) last night and crawled thankfully into my bed around midnight. The trip was absolutely amazing. There were a few minor hiccups, but nothing ruinous, and my travel buddy and I managed to make it through a week and a half without starting to hate each other, and were even sad to part in the metro when we got to Lyon.
I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to put the experience into words without just listing everything we did, so I'm not going to try just yet. But I promise to do that over the next couple of days. In between catching up on sleep, doing laundry, buying food, and celebrating Paul and Claudia's birthdays. Oh, and going back to school...
To provide a brief overview, Edinburgh was probably my favorite of our little stops, maybe because it was first and we had the most energy, but more likely because it was just plain awesome...and much more veg-friendly than most everywhere else in Europe (meat-free haggis!!)...and everyone spoke our language, which always helps. Amsterdam was a lot of fun as well, and it was nice to be back on the euro, which I never thought I would say. We were much more into the daytime life and the culture-y stuff than most people who go to Amsterdam, and I was glad Katie was ok with that, too. Not that we didn't go out and have a good time, too. Copenhagen was a little disappointing...there wasn't a whole lot to do. I think it is a much more exciting place in the summer. We did have fun though, and it was a unanimous decision that the museums there were the most interesting of the whole trip. On a tip from a friend of mine, we spent our last day in Malmo, Sweden, which was about a 30 minute train ride from Copenhagen. It was probably the best way to spend the last day of our trip. Sweden is pretty much awesome, and I hope I can make it back there (and on to Norway, land of my ancestors) sometime.
I am still completely exhausted after all of the traveling, and kind of just want to lay in bed and read. Despite how much fun our adventures were, it's nice to be back to a place that I know well. Seriously, hearing French on the plane last night was one of the most exhilarating things ever, and seeing things that I recognized from the window of the bus made me feel so happy. If that was even just a fraction of what I'm gonna feel when I get home (in less than two weeks!), I can't wait. Not that I could wait before.
A trip like that certainly requires a bit of recovery time, though. A LOT was done, and I had a hard time getting as much sleep as I probably should have, and I'm basically beat. So I'm going to drink another cup of tea and curl up with my book for a while before I brave the real world to buy groceries...even though I kind of feel like I should fast for a week after all the amazing food we ate over the past week. Not eating isn't really conducive to getting things done and surviving the stress of back to school and hoping that my classes work out the way I hope they will. But I will happily revert back to yogurt and fresh fruits and veggies and soup. And lots of tea.
So there you have it. More detailed recaps from the trip will come soon!
I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to put the experience into words without just listing everything we did, so I'm not going to try just yet. But I promise to do that over the next couple of days. In between catching up on sleep, doing laundry, buying food, and celebrating Paul and Claudia's birthdays. Oh, and going back to school...
To provide a brief overview, Edinburgh was probably my favorite of our little stops, maybe because it was first and we had the most energy, but more likely because it was just plain awesome...and much more veg-friendly than most everywhere else in Europe (meat-free haggis!!)...and everyone spoke our language, which always helps. Amsterdam was a lot of fun as well, and it was nice to be back on the euro, which I never thought I would say. We were much more into the daytime life and the culture-y stuff than most people who go to Amsterdam, and I was glad Katie was ok with that, too. Not that we didn't go out and have a good time, too. Copenhagen was a little disappointing...there wasn't a whole lot to do. I think it is a much more exciting place in the summer. We did have fun though, and it was a unanimous decision that the museums there were the most interesting of the whole trip. On a tip from a friend of mine, we spent our last day in Malmo, Sweden, which was about a 30 minute train ride from Copenhagen. It was probably the best way to spend the last day of our trip. Sweden is pretty much awesome, and I hope I can make it back there (and on to Norway, land of my ancestors) sometime.
I am still completely exhausted after all of the traveling, and kind of just want to lay in bed and read. Despite how much fun our adventures were, it's nice to be back to a place that I know well. Seriously, hearing French on the plane last night was one of the most exhilarating things ever, and seeing things that I recognized from the window of the bus made me feel so happy. If that was even just a fraction of what I'm gonna feel when I get home (in less than two weeks!), I can't wait. Not that I could wait before.
A trip like that certainly requires a bit of recovery time, though. A LOT was done, and I had a hard time getting as much sleep as I probably should have, and I'm basically beat. So I'm going to drink another cup of tea and curl up with my book for a while before I brave the real world to buy groceries...even though I kind of feel like I should fast for a week after all the amazing food we ate over the past week. Not eating isn't really conducive to getting things done and surviving the stress of back to school and hoping that my classes work out the way I hope they will. But I will happily revert back to yogurt and fresh fruits and veggies and soup. And lots of tea.
So there you have it. More detailed recaps from the trip will come soon!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
