Denmark and beyond!

So about a week ago, I went to Denmark for the weekend to visit Rachel, a fellow Sigma from my school. She lives in Copenhagen. I woke up on Thursday morning and took a bus to the train station. From there I took a train from Florence to Rome and then another from the Rome train station to the Rome airport (it's far -- ask my mom). Then I hopped on a 2.5 hour flight to Copenhagen! Rachel had classes and couldn't pick me up immediately, so I willingly agreed to wait in STARBUCKS!!!!! I had not seen a Starbucks in months! Italy doesn't have them.  They have espresso so they don't need Grande non-fat sugar-free vanilla steamers with no whip! As a non-coffee-drinker, I'm having a hard time in the cold weather without having a hot beverage to sip. My grande nonfat chai latte sure hit the spot!

Rachel warned me it was cold in Denmark. I believed her, but I'm from Alabama. The cold weather clothes I own are limited and were too bulky to pack for my European adventure! I brought my down jacket (which I learned yesterday is, in fact, NOT waterproof) and some long sleeve shirts. I figured I'd layer and I'd be fine. Little did I know that I was going further north than I'd ever been in my life (geography was never an interest of mine) and when Rachel said "cold" she meant "bone chilling!!!" I luckily remembered my little knit hats and leather gloves (again, learned they were not waterproof or very warm). So needless to say, though I've said it in excruciating detail, I was FREEZING!!! Not only was it cold, but it was windy! And there was not a snow flake in sight!

Friday, I went to class with Rachel and wandered the city while she was in class. Later, tiny hail started to fall. I am a Southerner who instinctively wondered if classes were cancelled. Then, I realized where I was and that I was surrounded by people who had actually seen snow in the past 5 years. After classes, we went to dinner and then Tivoli, which is this Danish theme park that locals go to. It is decorated to represent the season. Apparently for Halloween, there were dancing children singing and dressed as pumpkins, which I'm bummed I missed. It is Christmas time everywhere except America, who still had Thanksgiving to look forward to. Tivoli was lit up with gorgeous lights and entertaining booths and exhibits. One of my favorite discoveries was hot chocolate with Baileys!! It was so good and warmed me from the inside! 

While at Tivoli.... IT BEGAN TO SNOW!!!! I'm talking really really snow! We watched a laser light show in the river and enjoyed the snowfall. I took more pictures of snow than anything else on this trip, but I was excited! I'll probably do another post of just pictures so y'all can see them all! Or a few of them.

The next day, we went to Lund, Sweden for the day. The snow still covered the ground. I thought Denmark was cold until I got to Sweden, which is apparently further north. The sun came out for about 3 hours while we were there. When it went down at 4 PM we decided it was waaaay too cold to stay. We had amazing potato soup for lunch, by the way. We split a chocolate chip cookie and got on the train. One we got back to Copenhagen, we headed to this bar/pub that a bunch of people from her program frequent: the Dubliner. Denmark has this amazing thing known as the Christmas beer. The night it first went on sale for the season, people jumped out of trucks in blue santa costumes and ran into the bars, etc. to distribute the beer. It's in a can, a bottle or on tap. I got two bottles of it and it was amazing! Then we went back and got warm and I prepared for my early journey home.

The next morning I woke up at 5 and was driven to the train station near the house of the family with whom I was staying. The train ride took about 45 minutes and took me directly into the airport. Once I got to the airport painfully early, I took advantage of my favorite part of international travel: duty free shopping!!!! It was so nice getting back, but I was exhausted! Luckily this week we only had school 2 days rather than 4. Then my dad came for Thanksgiving. That is another entry in and of itself! 

The first photo is from the king's gardens surrounding the palace in Copenhagen. The 2nd picture is of the Lund Cathedral in Sweden. Next, the Christmas beer! Then that is the back of my head with my snow-covered hair. The next picture is of Rachel and me at Tivoli in a North Pole area. The next picture is of the harbor in Copenhagen. Most postcards have that picture of them. The final picture is from the Copenhagen airport.

The Life of a Florentine

Buongiorno!

I know it's been a while since an actual update, but it's going to be a little longer. Right now I'm in Copenhagen, Denmark visiting my friend Rachel from my sorority! I will do an entire entry on this trip, but for now I am just going to talk about Florence. (I was when I typed this. Now I'm back in Italy and am finishing the entry)

I was supposed to go to Spain to visit Lindsay Martin, but it got complicated with my school and I had to cancel, which SUCKED! But, my friend Marisa came to visit that weekend and otherwise I wouldn't have seen her all semester! It was a blast. My roommate, Laura, had a friend visiting then too, so we had some joint-hosting sessions. I ate at this incredible restaurant called Club Paradiso. It's 15€ for an appetizer, a pasta course, a meat course and a side vegetable dish. Plus wine was 5€ a bottle! We had a blast! This Italian man, around my father's age, bought all 4 of us roses. He kept yelling "Cin! Cin!" from across the restaurant. It means "cheers!" Then he insisted that I dance with him. After him buying me a rose and me splitting 3 bottles of red wine, it sounded fun! So that meal was long, fun, and LOUD! Our table was loud, our new-found Italian best friends were loud. It was so fun!

We left and wandered towards the Duomo, which is the center of town. On the way I decided it was a great idea to call Ann, my Alabama buddy in Florence also, and see what she was doing! She just so happened to be a couple bridges over from where I was, so we met up and took her and her friend along with us to the bar. From that bar we went to another bar where i finally met up with Marisa! It was such a fun night! Marisa and I spent the next day together and spent money and quality time catching up. It was so nice to have someone from back home who understands what I'm going through. I think the people who have never studied abroad don't realize how lonely it can get. I sent out pathetic emails to my sorority begging for more mail and have received maybe 2 letters since. It just can get lonely and lead to more homesickness. So, anyway, Marisa and I were on the same page about that and various other topics.

I took her to get my favorite gelato (it's technical name is La Carraia, but I call it One Euro Gelato because that's how much it costs!) and as we were enjoying it on the bridge, we looked into the Arno River and saw a guy floating on an overturned kayak. All his friends were laughing and paddling off. One even came back and paddled near him and then left. Marisa and I dubbed him the "Beached Whale." It has nothing to do with size. It was because of his helplessness. We just stared. You all know my laugh (LOUD!!!!), well, I laughed really hard and full volume and the water made it echo. He heard it, obviously, and looked up at me. I felt so bad, but at the same time, that is totally something that would happen to me. Finally, after about 10 minutes of side-splitting entertainment, a guy in a motor boat can to get him and flip over the kayak. To give the guy (who was a kid, by the way. yes, I'm horrible) some credit, the oars were attached to the kayak, creating a cross-like formation that is understandably difficult to flip back over.
the first picture is my friend Marisa and me! The second is me, with rose in mouth, trying to navigate our way to the bar where we were supposed to meet friends. The last is with me and my biggest fan, dancing.

Photo Journalism

This post is going to be untraditional. I'm going to just put a bunch of pictures and caption them, rather than typing a whole entry. This way, I can tell more with saying less!

This is from Krakow, Poland. The architecture is very distinctive in Poland.

This is part of the Berlin wall. They tore down the actual Berlin wall, but then tourism decreased, so they built another one and hired professional artists to decorate it.

Last night, Laura and I intended to go to an 80s night at this club called 21, but we never made it to the club. We just had some drinks with friends then came home and slept. At least we were rocking the 80s outfits!

The Ponte Vecchio is the most famous bridge in Florence. I'm sitting on the next bridge over from it with it as my backdrop.

San Lorenzo market is probably one of my favorite places in Florence! You can haggle with the vendors to get things for very little money! This is where I've gotten my rainbow assortment of pashminas. It's a great place to pick up souvenirs and gifts.

Another weekend in Roma!

This past weekend my Art History professor took all of us to Rome, which seems appropriate since it's a Roman Art and Architecture class. It was such an incredible trip, but VERY long. I woke up at 5 AM on Friday and walked to the train station to meet my class at 6:15. When we got to Rome we began our tour at the Colosseum and the Forum. Each student was assigned a few monuments or statues along the way to present to the rest of the class. This actually helped me pay attention more because it wasn't one person's voice the whole time. I'm exhausted right now, so I'll just list the places we went to:

Colosseum and the Forum

Spanish Steps

Piazza Navona

The Vatican and St. Peter's

Capitoline Museum

Market's of Trajan and his column

the Pantheon

Trevi Fountain

Ostia Antica (A little Pompeii-like city outside of Rome)

We saw SO MUCH that I probably left off some important sites.

While in Rome I was able to meet up with Adrienne, a fellow Sigma, and we ate dinner together. It was so much fun seeing someone from school! I feel left out having missed out on rush stuff, but I'm here having the time of my life so it's all good! This is seriously a once in a lifetime opportunity. I've been able to travel to some amazing places and 

meet great people and try new things. I'm a HUGE vegetable fan now! I know, everyone in my family probably doubts that, but I LOVE them and eat them as often as possible. I even have cravings for vegetables! It's better for my health than having cravings for gelato!

The first picture is me next to the foot from the colossal statue of Constantine. Note that his toes are larger than my big head, hair included!!! The second picture is of my whole class with our professor in front of Augustus of Prima Porta in the Vatican museum. Hiding behind her is Federica from the Student Life staff. She comes on most of the trips and helps plan them. I love her! She's so cool, sweet and fun! 

The picture right above is of a Tibetan monk tying a bracelet of protection on my wrist. My friends Courtney, Brittany and I were walking through a mall and saw these monks doing various crafts. One monk was painting a very intricate painting and the other was doing these bracelets. He blew on the knot and blessed it (or something) before tying it on me. I have such tiny wrists that he tied it three times and even had enough string to do a fourth time! Everyone else wrapped it twice. The first picture below is from Piazza Navona, which was a former gladiatorial stadium for chariot races. Today there are tons of vendors there. While I was having a necklace made out of wire of my name we saw these in the sky. Every black dot you see is a bird. This isn't even the half of it! It was CRAZY!!!! I don't know what they were doing -- probably some kind of migration, but they were in incredible formations. SO BIZARRE!

This picture is from Ostia Antica, where we went on Sunday before returning to Florence. I told the group it would be an incredible photo opp and then we all climbed on the statue to pose with it! It was a  much taller statue than I thought, which is why I had to hold on with my hands, ruining the illusion. Oh well! Overall, a fabulous trip! I recommend going to Rome with an Art Historian if possible! Your experience will be remarkable. 

Ciao regazzi!!!

A Tuscan Cooking Experience

Ok, I know I promised no more long blog posts, but hopefully they aren't too painful to get through! My mom just left yesterday morning, which is so sad! They lost her luggage too! I miss her already, but I planned this well-- from here until I leave Florence I am traveling every single weekend except one when my dad is here over Thanksgiving. This way, I won't give myself the opportunity to feel homesick!

On Saturday my mom and I woke up (she smuggled me into her hotel room) and caught a cab to the meeting point where a van from our cooking class would pick us up. We had no idea how many people to expect in our cooking class, but we knew it was not just my mom and me, since they had to reschedule us. It turned out to be the two of us and this cute British couple, Simon and Peta. We drove for about 30 minutes to get to this old Tuscan villa where we would have our 5 hour class. The kitchen in this villa was INCREDIBLE. The stove had 8 or 10 eyes and there was a plethora of counter space, which any chef knows is essential for meal preparation. We met the couple who would teach the cooking class and they were sweet as could be! They served us coffee (tea for me!) and then we washed up and put on our aprons. From there we began preparing the meal. 

I won't walk you through the entire thing since not everyone reading this actually cares about cooking, but I'd love to elaborate with anyone who is interested. The menu was as follows:

• Brusccheta (toasted bread with olive oil, tomatoes, basil, oregano, garlic, salt, etc.)
  
• Hand-made ravioli filled with potatoes, prosciutto (Italian version of bacon), and Ricotta cheese covered in a duck ragu (I am a "selective" eater, but I LOVED it!)
  
• Safron and Zucchini Risotto
• Beef stew with palenta (corn flour and water put together to create this spongey concoction) 
• Tiramisu

All of the cooking occurred with a glass of wine in hand -- for me at least. We enjoyed local Tuscan white wine first and then switched to red. The cooking part was so much fun! My mom and I were total goofballs the whole time, which was fun! She cut an onion when she wasn't supposed to and Franco said "No Cut!" I set an oven mitt on fire. Don't worry, it only burned for a few seconds before the British woman alerted me and I extinguished the flame. The best part was eating our delectable creations! I was full after the 2nd fish, but forced myself to eat the rest. It was so amazing that I haven't really even been hungry since! We got to keep our aprons and a big book of Tuscan recipes! Overall, I would highly recommend this to ANYBODY.

Afterwards, my mom and I stumbled through the city in what I call a "food coma."

 All the blood had gone from our brains to our stomachs in order to digest all of that amazing food. Then we wandered around looking for a few final gifts, but decided we were too exhausted to continue. After resting for a while, I said goodbye to my mom and went home. I ended up getting one of the worst migraines I've ever had that night. I was miserable and lonely (because I had just said goodbye to my mom) and just wanted to be home. Once I got to sleep I was fine again.

I have art class in a little while, so I should go. I'll do one entry featuring my art class assignments sometime!

Ciao!

P.S. The top picture is me cooking the duck ragu and having the duck (liver and heart included) splatter all over my face. That is why I am making that face. The next picture is the menu of things we cooked that day. Finally, the Duomo in the most incredible lighting I have ever seen.