Now that I am back in California for the summer and have sorted through all of my 10,000 pictures I took on the trip and gone through all of the brochures, and things I have collected on my travels, I am finally getting around to finishing my blog with my last couple of weeks in Denmark, my parents’ arrival and our 2 week trip to Italy.
Obviously I am writing this several weeks after the fact, but I have a decent memory, so here is what I remember doing/thinking…
Thoughts on Europe In General
1. The thing I miss the most about being in Europe is having good public transportation and not having to drive a car. One of the biggest pains with having to drive instead of taking public transportation is find parking, which can be very difficult in downtown Walnut Creek. Also, I miss being able to space out when traveling on public transportation (since its not really so good to space out while driving).
2. Being in a more socially liberal place where the government provides more for you. Also, I like how Europeans are much more aware of world events and other countries than the US.
3. Americans really are fat compared to Europe.
4. As a whole, Americans dress much more casually and not as fashionably than Europeans.
5. Walnut Creek seemed much smaller and the buildings a lot shorter after living in a city for 4 months (even though Copenhagen wasn’t a particularly tall city).
6. However, it is nice to be able to go out to eat to a decent restaurant and not pay the equivalent of $18.
7. It’s also nice to be able to carry on a bag plus a backpack and to be able to check two bags for free when I fly.
8. One of the things that struck me the most when I got back was how it was so easy to go into shops and stores because I could talk to the people who worked there.
9. The top places I want to go back to are England, Austria and Switzerland.
10. Although I really enjoyed traveling so much and seeing a lot of places even if it meant only being in a city for a couple of days, I think in the future, I will want to spend a little longer in a city so I can learn the city more.
11. Future trips I want to make: A Nordic Trip which would including Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland; a German trip where I train all around Germany; a Spain trip, including southern Spain, Madrid, Barcelona (and maybe Portugal); England – where I see some of the smaller English towns in addition to London; Austria and Switzerland Trip
Friday, July 10, 2009
Italy (Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome and back to Milan)
Italy
We finally arrived in Milan at 8 am night on Monday the 18th, a long time after leaving Copenhagen. Fortunately, all 5 of our bags (my 3 from being abroad and my parents 2 carry-ons) arrived and we took a taxi to our hotel.
What we did:
Tuesday, May 19th
We woke up early, got a big breakfast at the hotel, took the Metro to the Central Train Station and got our train to Venice. My parents got 1st class Eurorail tickets so we sat in pretty nice chairs with decent air conditioning. However, the train broke down in Verona, so we had to get on another train (that was already full) to Venice and so ended up standing for most of the rest of the ride in an un-airconditioned crowded 2nd class car. After arriving in Venice, we took the Vaporetto to our hotel, which was in a great location right next to the Rialto Bridge. After settling in to our hotel, we walked to Piazza San Marco, went into the Basilica San Marco, climbed up to the top, walked around the plaza, got gelato and went into the Ducal Palace. Afterwards, we just walked around that area a little big, got dinner by the Grand Canal at a very touristy (but pretty) restaurant,
Wednesday, May 20th
1. Breakfast at the hotel
2. Took the vaporetto up to the old Jewish Ghetto and walked around a bit and then crossed the Grand Canal and walked around Santa Croce area.
3. Went into the I Frai (a large church)
4. Got lunch on a canal
5. Walked over to the new Calatrava bridge (it looks like a fishtail)
6. Took the Vaporetto around the back side of Venice to San Giorgio Magiori, a famous Palladio church
7. Took the Vaporetto back to Piazza San Marco, walked around, my parents bought some glass
8. Took a break and got some gelato, bought some venetian marbled books
9. Back to the hotel and dinner at a restaurant relatively off the tourist path (although this is of course impossible in Venice)
Thursday, May 21st
We had a mid-morning train to Florence; so after breakfast, my mom and I went out to a bakery and to the market to get some food for lunch on the train. Then we went to the train station and boarded our train for Florence.
Thoughts on Venice (in no particular order):
1. Venice is pretty much exactly like how you expect it to be, there are little canals everywhere and you are constantly running into the stereotypical arched bridges and cute little corners. Venice was very beautiful, picturesque and photogenic.
2. I thought it was pretty cool how there were absolutely no cars in Venice. I had never really realized/thought about that before, but there would be no way to drive cars since you would always be coming to bridges etc. Also, there weren’t really any mopeds, which made walking around a lot nicer.
3. I loved all of the old twisting, narrow roads and didn’t really have a hard time finding my way around since the Grand Canal was a good landmark.
4. The food in Venice wasn’t that good, our second dinner was pretty good, but other than that, nothing special.
5. I thought the buildings were very cool, not just because they came right up to the water but the way they mixed Italian architecture with Eastern, Byzantine and Ottoman influences. I thought the more ornate style also helped make the city more attractive and pleasant to walk around.
6. Piazza San Marco was very beautiful, but I really didn’t like how there were no places (besides the restaurants) where you could sit in the square. It seems like the really discourage people from using the square as a public meeting/hanging our place since you aren’t supposed to bring food and eat it there and as there are no benches. (This is very different from Copenhagen where they try to make the squares good for people to hang out in).
7. One of the first things I noticed about Venice/Italy in regards to Denmark was how everyone tried to sit in the shade, whereas it is totally the opposite in Denmark. Of course, this makes sense as it get hot in Italy and as the Danes are without sunshine for most of the winter and so appreciate it more, but I just thought the contrast was interesting.
8. In all of my travels, Venice was the best city to get souvenirs from since the city is known for so many things such as glass, paper marbling, carneval etc and there are lots of artisan shops.
Florence
What we did:
Thursday, May 21st
We arrived in Florence from Venice (fortunately nothing went wrong with the train this time) in the early afternoon. We rented an apartment in Florence, which was right across from the Duomo, and about a 10-minute walk from the train station. We got to the apartment, and the owner who was very nice and helpful let us in and showed us around. It was very hot that day so we rested inside for a bit and then just went out and walked around Florence for a while, down to Ponte Vecchio. We stopped for dinner at a random touristy restaurant and then headed back to our apartment.
Friday, May 22nd
1. Breakfast in our apt
2. Went to the Duomo and stood in line before it opened, but the line moved pretty quickly once the Cathedral opened
3. Climbed up the to the top of the Dome (400+ steps) which was cool, once we got high enough, the steps were actually in between the two layers of the dome.
4. Lunch at a bar
5. Walked over to Piazza Signoria and the Loggia dei Lanzi, got gelato
6. Went to the Uffizi Gallery where we had already booked our tickets, so we didn’t have to wait in the long line
7. Walked over to St. Croce, got gelato at Il Vivoli
8. Walked across the Arno and over to the Pitti Palace and then back to our apartment
9. Dinner at a nearby restaurant recommended to us by the owner of the apartment we rented
Saturday, May 23rd
1. Got up early and went to the Accademia, which really only has David and nothing else, but David was really cool to see
2. Went to San Lorenzo, a famous church built by Brunelleschi, unfortunately, the attached Laurentian Library was closed (it has some really neat steps by Michelangelo), also went to the attached Medici Chapel (by Michelangelo)
3. Went to the nearby Central market, got lunch and food for a dinner in the apartment.
4. Walked around, got gelato/drinks/coffee at Café Gilli
5. Walked back to the stalls outside San Lorenzo to get a couple of souvenir leather purses
6. Back to the apartment and made dinner (pasta, pesto, prosciutto, bread, fruit and veggies, wine, biscotti and limoncello)
Sunday, May 24th
1. We got up early and caught a local train to Pisa
2. Got to Pisa and walked to the Leaning tower, the Cathedral and the Baptistery
3. Got lunch at a bar
4. Took a train to Lucca, walked around, got gelato, walked on the wall
5. Took a extremely crowded, hot, slow local train from Lucca to Florence
6. Ate dinner in the apt with pasta and bread we bought in Lucca
Monday, May 25th
1. Took the train to Siena, got a very crowded bus up to the historical center of town
2. Walked to Il Campo and got lunch, walked around Siena and to the Duomo
3. My parents bought a really nice hand painted Tuscan bowl
4. Got good gelato
5. Took the train back to Florence (no a/c)
6. Dinner at a nearby restaurant.
Tuesday, May 26th
After waking up two mornings in a row, we slept in a bit and then Mom and I did a little shoe shopping for sandals. Then we walked up to the Ospedale degli Innocenti (foundling hospital) which was a very important Renaissance building from 1424 by Brunelleschi again. Then we walked over to Santa Maria Novella, the only Renaissance church in Florence to have its façade completed during the Renaissance (the other churchs all had their facades put on in the 18th century). After lunch we went to the Baptistry, across from the Duomo. Then we walked over to Il Vivoli for gelato again and walked around for a bit and then got a rest at Piazza Signoria at Café Rivori for drinks. Then just Dad and I went to the Palazzo Medici, the first of many Renaissance palazzos in Florence and italy. For dinner we ended up going back to Antico Noe since it was the closest and best place we had been to so far.
Wednesday, May 27th
1. Got up and took the train left from Florence to Rome at 11:30 with great scenery
2. Took a prius taxi from the train station to our apartment, it was very large but a little older and not as modern inside, but it had great wood beam ceilings.
3. Walked around, over Piazza Navona, to the Pantheon, the Trevi fountain and up to the Spanish Steps. Both the Trevi fountain and the Spanish Steps were full of Barcelona fans. Walked around the area next to Spanish steps, back to apartment, showers and dinner downstairs (with no wine due to the soccer game.)
Thursday, May 28th
1. Up early and walked over to Capotiline Hill, walked around to the Forum and Palatine Hill, then over to the Colesseum where we skipped most of the line because we had Roma passes
2. Took the Metro down to the Baths of Caracalla, the Metro was really croweded and hot
3. Got a late lunch
4. Back to apt, rested, got showers and out to dinner
Friday, May 29th
1. I got up early and walked over to Il Gesu, a great baroque church, then I walked over to Trastavere, wandered around there a bit and walked up a big hill to San Pietro in Monotorio, and to Bramante’s Tiempetto.
2. Met my parents at a recommended pizza place for lunch
3. Walked over to look at two more famous churchs, a little farther out
4. Back to apt, and went downstairs (in the other direction 2 steps) to dinner
Saturday, May 29th
1. Spent most of the day in Vatican City – went to the Vatican Museums, got lunch in the museum (whose cafeteria had the typical Danish series 7 chair!)
2. Went to St. Peters
3. Got gelato at Giolitti, back to apt, dinner etc.
Sunday, May 30th
1. Got up and had breakfast at the Piazza della Rotunda (just crossaint and very weak cappuccino), walked over to Giolitti for another cappuccino (much better)
2. Got a taxi next to the Pantheon to the train station
3. Took train to Milan fortified with bread and wine
4. Checked into hotel in Milan and got the rest of my luggage
5. Walked over to the Milan Cathedral, went to and walked around the nice shopping area next to it, got dinner
6. Back to apt and another reorganizing of the luggage to fit within the 50 lb limit per bag
Monday, June 1
1. Left Milan early plan to Frankfurt and then from Frankfurt to SFO!
Thoughts on Florence/Tuscany
1. Florence was much, much louder and not as pleasant as I was expecting
2. Hard to walk because even mopeds and bikes seemed to go everywhere, even on “pedestrian streets” which made it harder to walk around since you had to keep moving over to let them by
3. It was very hot which probably negatively influenced by perception of the city
4. Florence was very small but had a ton of old Renaissance buildings I had learned about in my classes which was cool
5. I didn’t think Florence as a city on the whole was very pleasant or very pretty. Although I like the idea of the simplicity of Italian buildings as compared in French buildings, I felt that in person, they were really flat and 2 dimensional which made the city less interesting to walk around. Part of this I think is because when you see pictures of building, it is usually of the whole building, so you can appreciate its simplicity but when you are just walking, you really only notice the ground level unless you are always looking up (which is hard to do when walking around), and so you can’t appreciate the simplicity as well.
6. I was surprised by the lack of small cobblestones in Florence, the streets and sidewalks were mostly larger flagstones which actually were a lot more comfortable to walk on than cobblestones.
7. I still don’t really understand how one small city can (and could during the Renaissance) support so many large churchs. Especially now that not everyone goes to church, what do they do with the smaller churches, it seems like it would be very expensive to keep them up even if no one is using them. Also, who is responsible for keeping them up? The city, the parishoners or the Vatican?
8. The food was much better in Florence than Venice but I ended up eating pasta the entire time because as I discovered, Italians don’t really eat much chicken and tend towards meats that I don’t eat (which is I guess basically anything besides chicken, turkey or pork).
9. The tourist gelato places weren’t anything special, and were expensive. Il Vivoli which was recommended to us was really good, but it wasn’t as special as I was expecting.
10. The hills around Florence were really pretty, and when we took our day trips, it was incredible how they looked exactly like all of the pictures and paintings one sees. I think overall, Italy was the one place that looked exactly like its representations.
11. Another reason Florence wasn’t as pleasant feeling of a city was that there wasn’t a lot of work paid towards making the major squares really pleasant to be in. Like in Venice, there weren’t places to sit in the squares and in the Loggia dei Lonzi on the side of Piazza Signoria; you couldn’t eat which was kind of annoying.
12. We didn’t really do anything in Pisa except see the Cathedral, leaning tower and Baptistery, so I don’t really have much impression of the town. Also, we went on Sunday so everything was closed.
13. Lucca was a really nice, cute little city. It is one of the few cities in Italy to retain its old medieval wall, which is 25 feet thick or more and has a path on top that goes around the medieval core. Lucca was much quieter than Florence or Pisa and was more what I expected from Florence. However, we went on Sunday so there weren’t really many people out and most of the stores were closed but I still really enjoyed it.
14. Siena was definitely older feeling, especially in terms of architecture than the other places we visited. I liked how it was located on a hill because the up and downhills gave the city more interest. Also, on the bus ride down to the train station, there were really great views of the surrounding hills.
Rome:
What we did:
Wednesday, May 27th
4. Got up and took the train left from Florence to Rome at 11:30 with great scenery
5. Took a Prius taxi from the train station to our apartment, it was very large but a little older and not as modern inside, but it had great wood beam ceilings.
6. Walked around, over Piazza Navona, to the Pantheon, the Trevi fountain and up to the Spanish Steps. Both the Trevi fountain and the Spanish Steps were full of Barcelona fans. Walked around the area next to Spanish steps, back to apartment, showers and dinner downstairs (with no wine due to the soccer game.)
Thursday, May 28th
5. Up early and walked over to Capitoline Hill, walked around to the Forum and Palatine Hill, then over to the Colesseum where we skipped most of the line because we had Roma passes
6. Took the Metro down to the Baths of Caracalla, the Metro was really crowded and hot
7. Got a late lunch
8. Back to apt, rested, got showers and out to dinner
Friday, May 29th
5. I got up early and walked over to Il Gesu, a great baroque church, then I walked over to Trastavere, wandered around there a bit and walked up a big hill to San Pietro in Monotorio, and to Bramante’s Tiempetto.
6. Met my parents at a recommended pizza place for lunch
7. Walked over to look at two more famous churches, a little farther out
8. Back to apt, and went downstairs (in the other direction 2 steps) to dinner
Saturday, May 30h
4. Spent most of the day in Vatican City – went to the Vatican Museums, got lunch in the museum (whose cafeteria had the typical Danish series 7 chair!)
5. Went to St. Peters
6. Got gelato at Giolitti, back to apt, dinner etc.
Sunday, May 31st
7. Got up and had breakfast at the Piazza della Rotunda (just croissant and very weak cappuccino), walked over to Giolitti for another cappuccino (much better)
8. Got a taxi next to the Pantheon to the train station
9. Took train to Milan fortified with bread and wine
10. Checked into hotel in Milan and got the rest of my luggage
11. Walked over to the Milan Cathedral, went to and walked around the nice shopping area next to it, got dinner
12. Back to apt and another reorganizing of the luggage to fit within the 50 lb limit per bag
Monday, June 1
1. Left Milan early plan to Frankfurt and then from Frankfurt to SFO!
Thoughts on Rome:
1. I liked Rome much more than Florence, it seemed quieter even thought it was 10 times bigger in size and population. I think it seemed quieter because I was expecting it to be loud since it was a big city and also because there were fewer mopeds in the little, pedestrian streets. Rome had several large thoroughfare roads that held most of the traffic and noise but kept both off of the smaller streets, which were most of the ones, we walked around.
2. I also like Rome better because it was less touristy. While there were still tons of tourists, it was easier to get off the beaten path and there were still plenty of people who actually lived in Rome.
3. Also, because Rome was less touristy, it was easier to find better restaurants because they didn’t just cater to tourists.
4. It was actually really nice that we went to Florence before Rome because most of the architecture in Rome is from the later Renaissance to the Baroque period whereas the architecture in Florence is either medieval or early-mid Renaissance. It was neat to see how the architecture styles evolved from Florence to Rome in person as opposed to just learning about them in class.
5. There are REALLY a lot of churches in Rome. I think I saw somewhere that there were over 900! Which seems possible since there were churches around every corner. The churches I went in were mostly High Renaissance and Baroque and had a lot more depth and movement than the flatter, more 2D churches in Florence.
6. Italian marmalade croissants are not very good, they are very sweet and the croissant part is much more solid feeling and not very flakey.
7. Rome did not have many good souvenirs.
8. The old Roman ruins were cool, but at the same time it does seem kind of strange? That people are still copying Roman architecture 2 millennia later.
9. Trastevere was really nice and much smaller/quieter/more quaint seeming than the rest of Rome.
10. I’m not a huge fan of statues, after a while they all tend to look the same, especially when they are not full statues but ruins.
11. I really enjoyed seeing Michelangelo and Bramante’s buildings.
12. My favorite building I saw the entire time I was in Italy was Bramante’s Tiempetto, a very small temple built over the spot St. Peter was supposedly killed. It is a very simple, but well proportioned building and it is rare since few churches/buildings are actually perfectly circular.
Thoughts on Italy overall
1. I think overall Italy was my least favorite place that I visited. I think food was a big reason for this; Italian food is not really that different seeming and is not as interesting to me as other food. This is partly because I am a picky eater, and don’t like cheese or most meat. However, there are not many other kinds of restaurants in Italy besides Italian (and most Italian restaurants have very similar things to each other) so it doesn’t make for very varied eating. For example, one reason I really liked London so much was the food (which might seem kind of paradoxical). But London has pretty much any kind of ethnic food, and its good! So there are lots of choices, especially Asian, which is what I prefer to European food.
2. Even though we were only in Milan for a few hours, I like how the city felt much more than Florence or Rome. Milan felt a lot more French, especially with its more French, 2nd Empire buildings.
We finally arrived in Milan at 8 am night on Monday the 18th, a long time after leaving Copenhagen. Fortunately, all 5 of our bags (my 3 from being abroad and my parents 2 carry-ons) arrived and we took a taxi to our hotel.
What we did:
Tuesday, May 19th
We woke up early, got a big breakfast at the hotel, took the Metro to the Central Train Station and got our train to Venice. My parents got 1st class Eurorail tickets so we sat in pretty nice chairs with decent air conditioning. However, the train broke down in Verona, so we had to get on another train (that was already full) to Venice and so ended up standing for most of the rest of the ride in an un-airconditioned crowded 2nd class car. After arriving in Venice, we took the Vaporetto to our hotel, which was in a great location right next to the Rialto Bridge. After settling in to our hotel, we walked to Piazza San Marco, went into the Basilica San Marco, climbed up to the top, walked around the plaza, got gelato and went into the Ducal Palace. Afterwards, we just walked around that area a little big, got dinner by the Grand Canal at a very touristy (but pretty) restaurant,
Wednesday, May 20th
1. Breakfast at the hotel
2. Took the vaporetto up to the old Jewish Ghetto and walked around a bit and then crossed the Grand Canal and walked around Santa Croce area.
3. Went into the I Frai (a large church)
4. Got lunch on a canal
5. Walked over to the new Calatrava bridge (it looks like a fishtail)
6. Took the Vaporetto around the back side of Venice to San Giorgio Magiori, a famous Palladio church
7. Took the Vaporetto back to Piazza San Marco, walked around, my parents bought some glass
8. Took a break and got some gelato, bought some venetian marbled books
9. Back to the hotel and dinner at a restaurant relatively off the tourist path (although this is of course impossible in Venice)
Thursday, May 21st
We had a mid-morning train to Florence; so after breakfast, my mom and I went out to a bakery and to the market to get some food for lunch on the train. Then we went to the train station and boarded our train for Florence.
Thoughts on Venice (in no particular order):
1. Venice is pretty much exactly like how you expect it to be, there are little canals everywhere and you are constantly running into the stereotypical arched bridges and cute little corners. Venice was very beautiful, picturesque and photogenic.
2. I thought it was pretty cool how there were absolutely no cars in Venice. I had never really realized/thought about that before, but there would be no way to drive cars since you would always be coming to bridges etc. Also, there weren’t really any mopeds, which made walking around a lot nicer.
3. I loved all of the old twisting, narrow roads and didn’t really have a hard time finding my way around since the Grand Canal was a good landmark.
4. The food in Venice wasn’t that good, our second dinner was pretty good, but other than that, nothing special.
5. I thought the buildings were very cool, not just because they came right up to the water but the way they mixed Italian architecture with Eastern, Byzantine and Ottoman influences. I thought the more ornate style also helped make the city more attractive and pleasant to walk around.
6. Piazza San Marco was very beautiful, but I really didn’t like how there were no places (besides the restaurants) where you could sit in the square. It seems like the really discourage people from using the square as a public meeting/hanging our place since you aren’t supposed to bring food and eat it there and as there are no benches. (This is very different from Copenhagen where they try to make the squares good for people to hang out in).
7. One of the first things I noticed about Venice/Italy in regards to Denmark was how everyone tried to sit in the shade, whereas it is totally the opposite in Denmark. Of course, this makes sense as it get hot in Italy and as the Danes are without sunshine for most of the winter and so appreciate it more, but I just thought the contrast was interesting.
8. In all of my travels, Venice was the best city to get souvenirs from since the city is known for so many things such as glass, paper marbling, carneval etc and there are lots of artisan shops.
Florence
What we did:
Thursday, May 21st
We arrived in Florence from Venice (fortunately nothing went wrong with the train this time) in the early afternoon. We rented an apartment in Florence, which was right across from the Duomo, and about a 10-minute walk from the train station. We got to the apartment, and the owner who was very nice and helpful let us in and showed us around. It was very hot that day so we rested inside for a bit and then just went out and walked around Florence for a while, down to Ponte Vecchio. We stopped for dinner at a random touristy restaurant and then headed back to our apartment.
Friday, May 22nd
1. Breakfast in our apt
2. Went to the Duomo and stood in line before it opened, but the line moved pretty quickly once the Cathedral opened
3. Climbed up the to the top of the Dome (400+ steps) which was cool, once we got high enough, the steps were actually in between the two layers of the dome.
4. Lunch at a bar
5. Walked over to Piazza Signoria and the Loggia dei Lanzi, got gelato
6. Went to the Uffizi Gallery where we had already booked our tickets, so we didn’t have to wait in the long line
7. Walked over to St. Croce, got gelato at Il Vivoli
8. Walked across the Arno and over to the Pitti Palace and then back to our apartment
9. Dinner at a nearby restaurant recommended to us by the owner of the apartment we rented
Saturday, May 23rd
1. Got up early and went to the Accademia, which really only has David and nothing else, but David was really cool to see
2. Went to San Lorenzo, a famous church built by Brunelleschi, unfortunately, the attached Laurentian Library was closed (it has some really neat steps by Michelangelo), also went to the attached Medici Chapel (by Michelangelo)
3. Went to the nearby Central market, got lunch and food for a dinner in the apartment.
4. Walked around, got gelato/drinks/coffee at Café Gilli
5. Walked back to the stalls outside San Lorenzo to get a couple of souvenir leather purses
6. Back to the apartment and made dinner (pasta, pesto, prosciutto, bread, fruit and veggies, wine, biscotti and limoncello)
Sunday, May 24th
1. We got up early and caught a local train to Pisa
2. Got to Pisa and walked to the Leaning tower, the Cathedral and the Baptistery
3. Got lunch at a bar
4. Took a train to Lucca, walked around, got gelato, walked on the wall
5. Took a extremely crowded, hot, slow local train from Lucca to Florence
6. Ate dinner in the apt with pasta and bread we bought in Lucca
Monday, May 25th
1. Took the train to Siena, got a very crowded bus up to the historical center of town
2. Walked to Il Campo and got lunch, walked around Siena and to the Duomo
3. My parents bought a really nice hand painted Tuscan bowl
4. Got good gelato
5. Took the train back to Florence (no a/c)
6. Dinner at a nearby restaurant.
Tuesday, May 26th
After waking up two mornings in a row, we slept in a bit and then Mom and I did a little shoe shopping for sandals. Then we walked up to the Ospedale degli Innocenti (foundling hospital) which was a very important Renaissance building from 1424 by Brunelleschi again. Then we walked over to Santa Maria Novella, the only Renaissance church in Florence to have its façade completed during the Renaissance (the other churchs all had their facades put on in the 18th century). After lunch we went to the Baptistry, across from the Duomo. Then we walked over to Il Vivoli for gelato again and walked around for a bit and then got a rest at Piazza Signoria at Café Rivori for drinks. Then just Dad and I went to the Palazzo Medici, the first of many Renaissance palazzos in Florence and italy. For dinner we ended up going back to Antico Noe since it was the closest and best place we had been to so far.
Wednesday, May 27th
1. Got up and took the train left from Florence to Rome at 11:30 with great scenery
2. Took a prius taxi from the train station to our apartment, it was very large but a little older and not as modern inside, but it had great wood beam ceilings.
3. Walked around, over Piazza Navona, to the Pantheon, the Trevi fountain and up to the Spanish Steps. Both the Trevi fountain and the Spanish Steps were full of Barcelona fans. Walked around the area next to Spanish steps, back to apartment, showers and dinner downstairs (with no wine due to the soccer game.)
Thursday, May 28th
1. Up early and walked over to Capotiline Hill, walked around to the Forum and Palatine Hill, then over to the Colesseum where we skipped most of the line because we had Roma passes
2. Took the Metro down to the Baths of Caracalla, the Metro was really croweded and hot
3. Got a late lunch
4. Back to apt, rested, got showers and out to dinner
Friday, May 29th
1. I got up early and walked over to Il Gesu, a great baroque church, then I walked over to Trastavere, wandered around there a bit and walked up a big hill to San Pietro in Monotorio, and to Bramante’s Tiempetto.
2. Met my parents at a recommended pizza place for lunch
3. Walked over to look at two more famous churchs, a little farther out
4. Back to apt, and went downstairs (in the other direction 2 steps) to dinner
Saturday, May 29th
1. Spent most of the day in Vatican City – went to the Vatican Museums, got lunch in the museum (whose cafeteria had the typical Danish series 7 chair!)
2. Went to St. Peters
3. Got gelato at Giolitti, back to apt, dinner etc.
Sunday, May 30th
1. Got up and had breakfast at the Piazza della Rotunda (just crossaint and very weak cappuccino), walked over to Giolitti for another cappuccino (much better)
2. Got a taxi next to the Pantheon to the train station
3. Took train to Milan fortified with bread and wine
4. Checked into hotel in Milan and got the rest of my luggage
5. Walked over to the Milan Cathedral, went to and walked around the nice shopping area next to it, got dinner
6. Back to apt and another reorganizing of the luggage to fit within the 50 lb limit per bag
Monday, June 1
1. Left Milan early plan to Frankfurt and then from Frankfurt to SFO!
Thoughts on Florence/Tuscany
1. Florence was much, much louder and not as pleasant as I was expecting
2. Hard to walk because even mopeds and bikes seemed to go everywhere, even on “pedestrian streets” which made it harder to walk around since you had to keep moving over to let them by
3. It was very hot which probably negatively influenced by perception of the city
4. Florence was very small but had a ton of old Renaissance buildings I had learned about in my classes which was cool
5. I didn’t think Florence as a city on the whole was very pleasant or very pretty. Although I like the idea of the simplicity of Italian buildings as compared in French buildings, I felt that in person, they were really flat and 2 dimensional which made the city less interesting to walk around. Part of this I think is because when you see pictures of building, it is usually of the whole building, so you can appreciate its simplicity but when you are just walking, you really only notice the ground level unless you are always looking up (which is hard to do when walking around), and so you can’t appreciate the simplicity as well.
6. I was surprised by the lack of small cobblestones in Florence, the streets and sidewalks were mostly larger flagstones which actually were a lot more comfortable to walk on than cobblestones.
7. I still don’t really understand how one small city can (and could during the Renaissance) support so many large churchs. Especially now that not everyone goes to church, what do they do with the smaller churches, it seems like it would be very expensive to keep them up even if no one is using them. Also, who is responsible for keeping them up? The city, the parishoners or the Vatican?
8. The food was much better in Florence than Venice but I ended up eating pasta the entire time because as I discovered, Italians don’t really eat much chicken and tend towards meats that I don’t eat (which is I guess basically anything besides chicken, turkey or pork).
9. The tourist gelato places weren’t anything special, and were expensive. Il Vivoli which was recommended to us was really good, but it wasn’t as special as I was expecting.
10. The hills around Florence were really pretty, and when we took our day trips, it was incredible how they looked exactly like all of the pictures and paintings one sees. I think overall, Italy was the one place that looked exactly like its representations.
11. Another reason Florence wasn’t as pleasant feeling of a city was that there wasn’t a lot of work paid towards making the major squares really pleasant to be in. Like in Venice, there weren’t places to sit in the squares and in the Loggia dei Lonzi on the side of Piazza Signoria; you couldn’t eat which was kind of annoying.
12. We didn’t really do anything in Pisa except see the Cathedral, leaning tower and Baptistery, so I don’t really have much impression of the town. Also, we went on Sunday so everything was closed.
13. Lucca was a really nice, cute little city. It is one of the few cities in Italy to retain its old medieval wall, which is 25 feet thick or more and has a path on top that goes around the medieval core. Lucca was much quieter than Florence or Pisa and was more what I expected from Florence. However, we went on Sunday so there weren’t really many people out and most of the stores were closed but I still really enjoyed it.
14. Siena was definitely older feeling, especially in terms of architecture than the other places we visited. I liked how it was located on a hill because the up and downhills gave the city more interest. Also, on the bus ride down to the train station, there were really great views of the surrounding hills.
Rome:
What we did:
Wednesday, May 27th
4. Got up and took the train left from Florence to Rome at 11:30 with great scenery
5. Took a Prius taxi from the train station to our apartment, it was very large but a little older and not as modern inside, but it had great wood beam ceilings.
6. Walked around, over Piazza Navona, to the Pantheon, the Trevi fountain and up to the Spanish Steps. Both the Trevi fountain and the Spanish Steps were full of Barcelona fans. Walked around the area next to Spanish steps, back to apartment, showers and dinner downstairs (with no wine due to the soccer game.)
Thursday, May 28th
5. Up early and walked over to Capitoline Hill, walked around to the Forum and Palatine Hill, then over to the Colesseum where we skipped most of the line because we had Roma passes
6. Took the Metro down to the Baths of Caracalla, the Metro was really crowded and hot
7. Got a late lunch
8. Back to apt, rested, got showers and out to dinner
Friday, May 29th
5. I got up early and walked over to Il Gesu, a great baroque church, then I walked over to Trastavere, wandered around there a bit and walked up a big hill to San Pietro in Monotorio, and to Bramante’s Tiempetto.
6. Met my parents at a recommended pizza place for lunch
7. Walked over to look at two more famous churches, a little farther out
8. Back to apt, and went downstairs (in the other direction 2 steps) to dinner
Saturday, May 30h
4. Spent most of the day in Vatican City – went to the Vatican Museums, got lunch in the museum (whose cafeteria had the typical Danish series 7 chair!)
5. Went to St. Peters
6. Got gelato at Giolitti, back to apt, dinner etc.
Sunday, May 31st
7. Got up and had breakfast at the Piazza della Rotunda (just croissant and very weak cappuccino), walked over to Giolitti for another cappuccino (much better)
8. Got a taxi next to the Pantheon to the train station
9. Took train to Milan fortified with bread and wine
10. Checked into hotel in Milan and got the rest of my luggage
11. Walked over to the Milan Cathedral, went to and walked around the nice shopping area next to it, got dinner
12. Back to apt and another reorganizing of the luggage to fit within the 50 lb limit per bag
Monday, June 1
1. Left Milan early plan to Frankfurt and then from Frankfurt to SFO!
Thoughts on Rome:
1. I liked Rome much more than Florence, it seemed quieter even thought it was 10 times bigger in size and population. I think it seemed quieter because I was expecting it to be loud since it was a big city and also because there were fewer mopeds in the little, pedestrian streets. Rome had several large thoroughfare roads that held most of the traffic and noise but kept both off of the smaller streets, which were most of the ones, we walked around.
2. I also like Rome better because it was less touristy. While there were still tons of tourists, it was easier to get off the beaten path and there were still plenty of people who actually lived in Rome.
3. Also, because Rome was less touristy, it was easier to find better restaurants because they didn’t just cater to tourists.
4. It was actually really nice that we went to Florence before Rome because most of the architecture in Rome is from the later Renaissance to the Baroque period whereas the architecture in Florence is either medieval or early-mid Renaissance. It was neat to see how the architecture styles evolved from Florence to Rome in person as opposed to just learning about them in class.
5. There are REALLY a lot of churches in Rome. I think I saw somewhere that there were over 900! Which seems possible since there were churches around every corner. The churches I went in were mostly High Renaissance and Baroque and had a lot more depth and movement than the flatter, more 2D churches in Florence.
6. Italian marmalade croissants are not very good, they are very sweet and the croissant part is much more solid feeling and not very flakey.
7. Rome did not have many good souvenirs.
8. The old Roman ruins were cool, but at the same time it does seem kind of strange? That people are still copying Roman architecture 2 millennia later.
9. Trastevere was really nice and much smaller/quieter/more quaint seeming than the rest of Rome.
10. I’m not a huge fan of statues, after a while they all tend to look the same, especially when they are not full statues but ruins.
11. I really enjoyed seeing Michelangelo and Bramante’s buildings.
12. My favorite building I saw the entire time I was in Italy was Bramante’s Tiempetto, a very small temple built over the spot St. Peter was supposedly killed. It is a very simple, but well proportioned building and it is rare since few churches/buildings are actually perfectly circular.
Thoughts on Italy overall
1. I think overall Italy was my least favorite place that I visited. I think food was a big reason for this; Italian food is not really that different seeming and is not as interesting to me as other food. This is partly because I am a picky eater, and don’t like cheese or most meat. However, there are not many other kinds of restaurants in Italy besides Italian (and most Italian restaurants have very similar things to each other) so it doesn’t make for very varied eating. For example, one reason I really liked London so much was the food (which might seem kind of paradoxical). But London has pretty much any kind of ethnic food, and its good! So there are lots of choices, especially Asian, which is what I prefer to European food.
2. Even though we were only in Milan for a few hours, I like how the city felt much more than Florence or Rome. Milan felt a lot more French, especially with its more French, 2nd Empire buildings.
Last Weeks in Copenhagen
One of my favorite things I did in my last couple of weeks in Copenhagen was make a trip up to the Louisiana Museum (named after the founder’s wife, not the state). The Louisiana Museum is located in Humelbaek, at the northern end of Zealand, the island that Copenhagen is on and is about a 30-minute train ride from Copenhagen and then a 10-minute walk from the station. The Louisiana Museum is very well known art museum in Denmark, it specializes in modern art and most of the museum is given over to special exhibits, and only a small portion of their permanent collection is shown in the museum, apparently they have a really good permanent collection and they are able to get a lot of special exhibitions because they lend out the art that they own. The Louisiana Museum is also really special because of its location and the way the building interacts with the outside. The museum was built in 1958 and is a really good example of Danish modernism and the practice of creating a building that “brings the outside in” and has very simple, straight, clean lines. Furthermore, although the Louisiana Museum is a very simple modernist building, there is a lot of wood and brick used on the inside, which gives that building a warmer feeling. This use of wood and natural materials is very typical of Danish architecture as opposed to the Germans who tend towards a more industrial look. The site of the building overlooks the Øresund (the stretch of water that separates Denmark and Sweden) and the building blends in really well to its surroundings. Besides being located overlooking the water, the building is surrounded by beautifully landscaped gardens with lots of great trees. I went when it had finally started to get warm and spring-like so the site was really beautiful with all of the blossoming trees, bright green grass and a sunny sky. While the building does blend in to the landscape from the outside, from the inside its huge floor-to-ceiling windows are give great, uninterrupted views of the outside. While this was one of my favorite museums to go to, I wasn’t a huge fan of most of the art that was displayed, for one part, the main special exhibit was on art by Max Ernst, and I found his stuff a little too strange for me. Also, one wing was closed due to installation of another special exhibit. However, I did enjoy most of the museum’s permanent collections and wish they had more of it on display.
Another couple of things:
I live about 10 minutes away from the US embassy and so on my way back from Østerport station, I decided to walk through some gardens and past the US embassy. As I was walking past the embassy I took several pictures and then promptly a guard came out from the building and told me that I wasn’t allowed to take pictures and then he asked to watch me delete all of the pictures I took. So I deleted the several pictures I took of the embassy while remarking that there was no sign or anything telling you not to take pictures to which the guard responded that yeah there weren’t and that there was no way I should know not to take pictures. I thought the whole thing was kind of strange. While I understand that they may not want people taking pictures of the embassy for security purposes, there really was no way that they could prevent people from taking pictures from across the street, from the building across the street, or even from the car or a bus and it just seemed kind of silly. But so that was my experience with the American Embassy in Denmark.
Another afternoon, I decided to walk around a big cemetery in the middle of Nørrebro, which several famous Danes are buried such as Hans Christian Anderson and Søren Kierkegaard. The cemetery was really beautiful and was really more like an enormous garden with headstones in it.
On one of the last days in Copenhagen, I took a trip out to some new development in Amager Island (which is part of Copenhagen but on a different island than the main city). I went with another one of my architecture friends and we visited a couple of really new and cool buildings. One of the first buildings we visited was a round Kolligeum (a Danish student residence) that was shaped like a donut with rooms around the outside and large open circle in the middle. The entire building was clad in bronze and on the inside, the rooms were arranged so that any resident can see what is going on in the entire building, which could be kind of annoying for lack of privacy but is good for fostering a sense of community (and for knowing where the good parties are). The building was pretty new but very nice and located right next to a Metro stop for easy access into the center of Copenhagen. A couple of Metro stops later, we came to another area where a large Danish architecture firm (BIG) has built several new and interesting/strange buildings. Both are apartment buildings, one where the balconies come out in sharp triangles and the other built to resemble a mountain. Finally, we decided to take the Metro one more stop, to the last stop on the line and once we were there, we found that we had literally reached the edge of Copenhagen. There were a few buildings being built and beyond them were just green fields and trees. Even the road that had been running out into Amager and paralleling the Metro line look a sharp 90 degree turn at this point, as if it had reached an edge and could go no further in that direction.
Besides doing any last minute sight seeing during my last couple of weeks in Copenhagen, I had to deal with finals, final papers and a final architecture project. It was really hard to feel like doing any work, especially studying for finals, but fortunately I didn’t really have that much to do besides my architecture project. The assignment for the final architecture project was to build a pavilion that would be put up during the COP15 conference that is going to be held in Copenhagen this December. The COP15 conference is a climate change conference whose goal is to renew the Kyoto Protocol (which expires in 2012) and to countries such as the US and China to sign and agree to its conditions about lowering CO2 emissions. Our main criterion for the pavilion was that it could be no bigger than 3 m3 (we found this to be flexible) and had to be made out of wood. This project was also done in groups of 3 (my studio of 9 people mixed with another studio and out groups were made out of people from both studios, and we got two teacher’s feedback which was great). Our professors wanted us to work in groups because architecture is done in groups and because only by working together are humans going to be able to solve global warming. My group ended up working pretty well together and our final pavilion ended up being 8 3D benches that would sit out in a nearby square and act as both a place for people to sit, to meet each other and to gather while providing protection from the strong wind in Copenhagen. For each day of the conference, the chairs would be arranged in a different way to encourage people to interact in different ways and to be symbolic. Also, since the COP15 is being held during Christmas time in Copenhagen (which is a really big deal apparently), we were going to have a guy serving hot drinks and mold wine in the square to add incentive for people to come and sit down.
During my last week I also spent a lot of my time trying to find gifts for people back home and I discovered that Copenhagen and Denmark in general are not great places to get souvenirs. For one thing, everything is really expensive (Souvenir store t-shirts were twice as expensive as in Italy), and for another, the things that Denmark is really good at and that you want to remember are not good for souvenirs and are hard to transport back home. For example, I would have loved to been able to buy everyone and myself examples of Danish Design, which is mostly furniture and house wares, but besides being expensive (I found a cool, and cheaper colander for over $50), it is just too big to bring home with you. Also, for some reason, the souvenir stores did not have many good designs for T-shirts.
My Parents Arrive:
My parents came to Copenhagen for a few days before we went to Italy, so I had a very busy last couple of days in Copenhagen between showing my parents around and packing up 4 months worth of stuff. However, I really enjoyed showing my parents around Copenhagen and they really enjoyed the fact that I knew where to go and what things they should and shouldn’t see while they were in town. My parents stayed in a hotel right by Radhauspladsen (City hall square), which is right in the middle of things, and right on my bus line so it was really convenient to get there and it was close to everything. Also, I never really went out to eat much in Copenhagen since everything was so expensive, so it was nice to be able to go out to with my parents. It was also fun to take my parents to the pølser stands (hot dog/sausage stands) and to the schwarma restaurants since we don’t really have them in the US. Just a couple of things that we did: we went on a canal tour of Copenhagen which was fun because I got a different view of the city and it was funny to hear the tour guide talking about stuff that I already knew. We also went to Tivoli (a really old amusement park right in the middle of the city) one night, and although we didn’t go on any of the rides, it was fun just to walk around with all of the lights. My parents were really only in Copenhagen for 2.5 days before we went to Italy, but we managed to squeeze a lot in.
While my parents were visiting, I was also busy packing all of my stuff up and it turned out to be harder than I thought – I had lots of extra room but no extra weight since all of my packs were almost 50 lbs. Fortunately, my parents had packed light so I was able to put my extra heavy stuff in their carry-ons.
We left Copenhagen early Monday morning with an indirect flight to Milan via Dusseldorf (and an 8 hr layover).
Another couple of things:
I live about 10 minutes away from the US embassy and so on my way back from Østerport station, I decided to walk through some gardens and past the US embassy. As I was walking past the embassy I took several pictures and then promptly a guard came out from the building and told me that I wasn’t allowed to take pictures and then he asked to watch me delete all of the pictures I took. So I deleted the several pictures I took of the embassy while remarking that there was no sign or anything telling you not to take pictures to which the guard responded that yeah there weren’t and that there was no way I should know not to take pictures. I thought the whole thing was kind of strange. While I understand that they may not want people taking pictures of the embassy for security purposes, there really was no way that they could prevent people from taking pictures from across the street, from the building across the street, or even from the car or a bus and it just seemed kind of silly. But so that was my experience with the American Embassy in Denmark.
Another afternoon, I decided to walk around a big cemetery in the middle of Nørrebro, which several famous Danes are buried such as Hans Christian Anderson and Søren Kierkegaard. The cemetery was really beautiful and was really more like an enormous garden with headstones in it.
On one of the last days in Copenhagen, I took a trip out to some new development in Amager Island (which is part of Copenhagen but on a different island than the main city). I went with another one of my architecture friends and we visited a couple of really new and cool buildings. One of the first buildings we visited was a round Kolligeum (a Danish student residence) that was shaped like a donut with rooms around the outside and large open circle in the middle. The entire building was clad in bronze and on the inside, the rooms were arranged so that any resident can see what is going on in the entire building, which could be kind of annoying for lack of privacy but is good for fostering a sense of community (and for knowing where the good parties are). The building was pretty new but very nice and located right next to a Metro stop for easy access into the center of Copenhagen. A couple of Metro stops later, we came to another area where a large Danish architecture firm (BIG) has built several new and interesting/strange buildings. Both are apartment buildings, one where the balconies come out in sharp triangles and the other built to resemble a mountain. Finally, we decided to take the Metro one more stop, to the last stop on the line and once we were there, we found that we had literally reached the edge of Copenhagen. There were a few buildings being built and beyond them were just green fields and trees. Even the road that had been running out into Amager and paralleling the Metro line look a sharp 90 degree turn at this point, as if it had reached an edge and could go no further in that direction.
Besides doing any last minute sight seeing during my last couple of weeks in Copenhagen, I had to deal with finals, final papers and a final architecture project. It was really hard to feel like doing any work, especially studying for finals, but fortunately I didn’t really have that much to do besides my architecture project. The assignment for the final architecture project was to build a pavilion that would be put up during the COP15 conference that is going to be held in Copenhagen this December. The COP15 conference is a climate change conference whose goal is to renew the Kyoto Protocol (which expires in 2012) and to countries such as the US and China to sign and agree to its conditions about lowering CO2 emissions. Our main criterion for the pavilion was that it could be no bigger than 3 m3 (we found this to be flexible) and had to be made out of wood. This project was also done in groups of 3 (my studio of 9 people mixed with another studio and out groups were made out of people from both studios, and we got two teacher’s feedback which was great). Our professors wanted us to work in groups because architecture is done in groups and because only by working together are humans going to be able to solve global warming. My group ended up working pretty well together and our final pavilion ended up being 8 3D benches that would sit out in a nearby square and act as both a place for people to sit, to meet each other and to gather while providing protection from the strong wind in Copenhagen. For each day of the conference, the chairs would be arranged in a different way to encourage people to interact in different ways and to be symbolic. Also, since the COP15 is being held during Christmas time in Copenhagen (which is a really big deal apparently), we were going to have a guy serving hot drinks and mold wine in the square to add incentive for people to come and sit down.
During my last week I also spent a lot of my time trying to find gifts for people back home and I discovered that Copenhagen and Denmark in general are not great places to get souvenirs. For one thing, everything is really expensive (Souvenir store t-shirts were twice as expensive as in Italy), and for another, the things that Denmark is really good at and that you want to remember are not good for souvenirs and are hard to transport back home. For example, I would have loved to been able to buy everyone and myself examples of Danish Design, which is mostly furniture and house wares, but besides being expensive (I found a cool, and cheaper colander for over $50), it is just too big to bring home with you. Also, for some reason, the souvenir stores did not have many good designs for T-shirts.
My Parents Arrive:
My parents came to Copenhagen for a few days before we went to Italy, so I had a very busy last couple of days in Copenhagen between showing my parents around and packing up 4 months worth of stuff. However, I really enjoyed showing my parents around Copenhagen and they really enjoyed the fact that I knew where to go and what things they should and shouldn’t see while they were in town. My parents stayed in a hotel right by Radhauspladsen (City hall square), which is right in the middle of things, and right on my bus line so it was really convenient to get there and it was close to everything. Also, I never really went out to eat much in Copenhagen since everything was so expensive, so it was nice to be able to go out to with my parents. It was also fun to take my parents to the pølser stands (hot dog/sausage stands) and to the schwarma restaurants since we don’t really have them in the US. Just a couple of things that we did: we went on a canal tour of Copenhagen which was fun because I got a different view of the city and it was funny to hear the tour guide talking about stuff that I already knew. We also went to Tivoli (a really old amusement park right in the middle of the city) one night, and although we didn’t go on any of the rides, it was fun just to walk around with all of the lights. My parents were really only in Copenhagen for 2.5 days before we went to Italy, but we managed to squeeze a lot in.
While my parents were visiting, I was also busy packing all of my stuff up and it turned out to be harder than I thought – I had lots of extra room but no extra weight since all of my packs were almost 50 lbs. Fortunately, my parents had packed light so I was able to put my extra heavy stuff in their carry-ons.
We left Copenhagen early Monday morning with an indirect flight to Milan via Dusseldorf (and an 8 hr layover).
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
On Denmark's Homogenity.
One of the things that I have really started to notice/dislike about Copenhagen it its homogenity and lack of a diverse ethnic population. One of my favorite things about cities is their diversity and their lots of cheap ethnic food. While there are more immigrants in Copenhagen than the rest of Denmark in general, there is not a lot of diversity in the immigrants and most are from Turkey or the Middle East and while there is Schwarma (known as Kebap in Germany/Austria) which is Turkish, that is pretty much the only cheap ethnic food.
On this same idea, one of the reasons I liked London so much was its incredible diversity and its huge (and really good) range of ethnic food. After having lived in Copenhagen for 3 months now, I think the lack of diversity and the lack of good ethnic food options would really start to bug me if I lived here for longer. That being said, I think Denmark's homogenity is a huge reason why it was able to develop into the liberal, progressive and social welfare state that it did. Because Denmark has historically been so ethnically homogenous, no one had to prove that they were Danish and so the Danes were able to concentrate on economic growth and social liberalization. Also, because everyone was ethnic dane, there was a "tribe" mentality which was a huge factor towards the development of Denmark's universal welfare state.
On this same idea, one of the reasons I liked London so much was its incredible diversity and its huge (and really good) range of ethnic food. After having lived in Copenhagen for 3 months now, I think the lack of diversity and the lack of good ethnic food options would really start to bug me if I lived here for longer. That being said, I think Denmark's homogenity is a huge reason why it was able to develop into the liberal, progressive and social welfare state that it did. Because Denmark has historically been so ethnically homogenous, no one had to prove that they were Danish and so the Danes were able to concentrate on economic growth and social liberalization. Also, because everyone was ethnic dane, there was a "tribe" mentality which was a huge factor towards the development of Denmark's universal welfare state.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Vienna and lots of Coffee
Vienna
Saturday, May 2nd
Flight from Copenhagen at 7:40 (where I got a free breakfast, coffee and water!) arrived at hotel in Vienna at 10:30. I walked from my hotel down the main street in Vienna, saw the Stephensdom and walked around the medieval part of the city, got Kebap, walked around part of the Ringstrasse, and got my first Viennese coffee at Café Mozart. Then I walked around the Hofburg Palace, went to one of the many art museums in Vienna, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, got an Eispanner (espresso with whipped cream) and an apple strudel at the museum café. Then I walked around more, got dinner of a sausage and roll and headed back to my hotel.
Sunday May 3rd
Went to the Belvedere and went to the Upper Belvedere art museum. Walked past the Secession Building went to Café Museum where I got another Mélange (the typical Viennese coffee drink, espresso with whipped milk) and a strudel and then I went over to Schönbrunn, the large Hapsburg Palace where I took a tour of the palace and walked around the gardens. Then I went back to the central part of Vienna, walked around, got an Eispanner and slice of cake at a bakery and then walked up to my hotel and through a large park near the hotel.
Monday, May 4th
After dropping my bag off at a train station where I could pick it up before heading to the airport, I went to Hotel Sacher (where the Sacher Torte was invented) and had a Mélange and a slice of sacher torte. Then I went to the Leopold Museum (19th and early 20th century art), walked down a major shopping street, got lunch at the Neumarkt (which is a series of stands and small restaurants, a lot of them ethnic). Then I went to another café, got my 2nd to last Mélange and a Kaiserschmarm (egg pancakes and sour cherry sauce.) Then I headed to the airport where I was really early (as usual) so I got another mélange at a good looking café at the airport.
Thoughts on Vienna
1. Feels more like turn of the century and they seem to emphasize that with the horses and buggies and with the drivers wearing bowler hats
2. People don’t seem to dress as girly as in Copenhagen, but I have mostly been around tourists and not Viennese
3. I like Austria a lot, it seems prettier and more laid back than Germany but not as much as Switzerland. Like a softer version of Germany and kind of a middle ground between Germany and Switzerland.
4. Catholic instead of Protestant – grander buildings.
5. Lots of good looking bakeries and coffee houses
6. They are really in strawberries for dessert.
7. Lots of Italian tourists here.
8. I kept accidentally getting cheese in things which was annoying and totally my fault since I kept forgetting to check if things had cheese in them.
9. Coffee was really good.
10. People kept getting really close to me when I was waiting in lines and it was very uncomfortable.
11. Groups of Chinese tourists are both really annoying and funny because they travel in huge packs, are mostly middle age kind of dorky looking couples, they also tend to get confused and then take forever and inevitably, you get stuck behind them. Also, since they travel in huge groups, they can really get in the way of pictures.
12. Restaurant service in Europe is generally not as good in America and it is getting really annoying always having to get the waiter’s attention to pay the bill.
13. Street food is very cheap in Vienna; I got 3 slices of pizza for 2.30 Euros and 3 scoops of ice cream in a big cone for 2.20 Euros.
14. There weren’t many bathroom stalls in large tourist places like museums or airports, which was kind of annoying.
15. Austrians have a certain look to them, blonde but sharper features than Germans.
16. Why doesn’t Austria have its own language? After all, almost every other small country in Europe has its only language.
17. I watched CNN a lot since it was one of the 3 channels in English at the hotel and I realized how terrible TV news is, most of the time, they didn’t say anything new or interesting and really harped on the same story for way too long.
18. There was lots of other food that I would have liked to try in Vienna.
19. I really like how Vienna was surrounded by hills, it gives the city more interest and it a nice break from the flatness of Denmark.
20. The Kunsthistoriche museum (art museum) had the best seating in the galleries of any musuem I have even been to. Many art museums have very limited seating in the galleries which is annoying becasue musuems are very tiring but this museum in Vienna had lots of seats in every room and the seats were very fancy, plush couches that were great to sit in!
Saturday, May 2nd
Flight from Copenhagen at 7:40 (where I got a free breakfast, coffee and water!) arrived at hotel in Vienna at 10:30. I walked from my hotel down the main street in Vienna, saw the Stephensdom and walked around the medieval part of the city, got Kebap, walked around part of the Ringstrasse, and got my first Viennese coffee at Café Mozart. Then I walked around the Hofburg Palace, went to one of the many art museums in Vienna, the Kunsthistorisches Museum, got an Eispanner (espresso with whipped cream) and an apple strudel at the museum café. Then I walked around more, got dinner of a sausage and roll and headed back to my hotel.
Sunday May 3rd
Went to the Belvedere and went to the Upper Belvedere art museum. Walked past the Secession Building went to Café Museum where I got another Mélange (the typical Viennese coffee drink, espresso with whipped milk) and a strudel and then I went over to Schönbrunn, the large Hapsburg Palace where I took a tour of the palace and walked around the gardens. Then I went back to the central part of Vienna, walked around, got an Eispanner and slice of cake at a bakery and then walked up to my hotel and through a large park near the hotel.
Monday, May 4th
After dropping my bag off at a train station where I could pick it up before heading to the airport, I went to Hotel Sacher (where the Sacher Torte was invented) and had a Mélange and a slice of sacher torte. Then I went to the Leopold Museum (19th and early 20th century art), walked down a major shopping street, got lunch at the Neumarkt (which is a series of stands and small restaurants, a lot of them ethnic). Then I went to another café, got my 2nd to last Mélange and a Kaiserschmarm (egg pancakes and sour cherry sauce.) Then I headed to the airport where I was really early (as usual) so I got another mélange at a good looking café at the airport.
Thoughts on Vienna
1. Feels more like turn of the century and they seem to emphasize that with the horses and buggies and with the drivers wearing bowler hats
2. People don’t seem to dress as girly as in Copenhagen, but I have mostly been around tourists and not Viennese
3. I like Austria a lot, it seems prettier and more laid back than Germany but not as much as Switzerland. Like a softer version of Germany and kind of a middle ground between Germany and Switzerland.
4. Catholic instead of Protestant – grander buildings.
5. Lots of good looking bakeries and coffee houses
6. They are really in strawberries for dessert.
7. Lots of Italian tourists here.
8. I kept accidentally getting cheese in things which was annoying and totally my fault since I kept forgetting to check if things had cheese in them.
9. Coffee was really good.
10. People kept getting really close to me when I was waiting in lines and it was very uncomfortable.
11. Groups of Chinese tourists are both really annoying and funny because they travel in huge packs, are mostly middle age kind of dorky looking couples, they also tend to get confused and then take forever and inevitably, you get stuck behind them. Also, since they travel in huge groups, they can really get in the way of pictures.
12. Restaurant service in Europe is generally not as good in America and it is getting really annoying always having to get the waiter’s attention to pay the bill.
13. Street food is very cheap in Vienna; I got 3 slices of pizza for 2.30 Euros and 3 scoops of ice cream in a big cone for 2.20 Euros.
14. There weren’t many bathroom stalls in large tourist places like museums or airports, which was kind of annoying.
15. Austrians have a certain look to them, blonde but sharper features than Germans.
16. Why doesn’t Austria have its own language? After all, almost every other small country in Europe has its only language.
17. I watched CNN a lot since it was one of the 3 channels in English at the hotel and I realized how terrible TV news is, most of the time, they didn’t say anything new or interesting and really harped on the same story for way too long.
18. There was lots of other food that I would have liked to try in Vienna.
19. I really like how Vienna was surrounded by hills, it gives the city more interest and it a nice break from the flatness of Denmark.
20. The Kunsthistoriche museum (art museum) had the best seating in the galleries of any musuem I have even been to. Many art museums have very limited seating in the galleries which is annoying becasue musuems are very tiring but this museum in Vienna had lots of seats in every room and the seats were very fancy, plush couches that were great to sit in!
Springtime in Copenhagen
Springtime in Copenhagen
1. Copenhagen had changed a lot since it has gotten warm, there are a lot more people out and a lot more tourists but I still see more Danes in the major places than tourists (this isn’t the case in other cities).
2. The Danes seem a lot more outgoing now that it is warm out and there are tons of people hanging out in squares and parks.
3. Fashion – tights with loose, blousy shirts, gladiator shoes and diaper capris (capris that are tight at the knee and whose crotch has been lowered about a foot, so it basically looks like you are wearing an oversized diaper or like you just have a saggy crotch).
4. Lots of ice creams everywhere! But very expensive and every place has the same flavor selection.
5. I have realized that I don’t like walking around the residential areas of Copenhagen because most of the buildings are brick and I do not really like brick buildings 0 I think they give a city a dirtier, more industrial look.
6. A lot more going on in Vesterbro than either Norrebro or Osterbro (where I like). I like the feel of Vesterbro (a working class area that is becoming more upscale).
7. City is very different with the sun out and everything is much prettier. I feel as if I have to retake all of my pictures with a blue sky instead of the grey winter skies.
1. Copenhagen had changed a lot since it has gotten warm, there are a lot more people out and a lot more tourists but I still see more Danes in the major places than tourists (this isn’t the case in other cities).
2. The Danes seem a lot more outgoing now that it is warm out and there are tons of people hanging out in squares and parks.
3. Fashion – tights with loose, blousy shirts, gladiator shoes and diaper capris (capris that are tight at the knee and whose crotch has been lowered about a foot, so it basically looks like you are wearing an oversized diaper or like you just have a saggy crotch).
4. Lots of ice creams everywhere! But very expensive and every place has the same flavor selection.
5. I have realized that I don’t like walking around the residential areas of Copenhagen because most of the buildings are brick and I do not really like brick buildings 0 I think they give a city a dirtier, more industrial look.
6. A lot more going on in Vesterbro than either Norrebro or Osterbro (where I like). I like the feel of Vesterbro (a working class area that is becoming more upscale).
7. City is very different with the sun out and everything is much prettier. I feel as if I have to retake all of my pictures with a blue sky instead of the grey winter skies.
Switzerland, Budapest and Prague
Switzerland, Budapest and Prague
From London, Lexi and I flew to Zurich, where we spent three days and stayed with another one of Lexi’s relatives.
Here’s a list of what we did:
Monday, April 6th
Arrived at 12
Walked around Zurich and had dinner at an Italian restaurant and realized how expensive everything in Switzerland was (the water at dinner cost 6.50 CHF, or around 5 dollars!)
Tuesday April 7th
Train to Luzerne (1 hr), explored Luzerne and then we spontaneously decided to go to Basel (train 45 mins) where we walked around and had dinner at a really good restaurant recommended to us by the lady who worked at a tea house we stopped at. Train back to Zurich.
Wednesday April 8th
Train up to northeastern Switzerland and took a train along a river and the Bodensee (I think that’s what it is called). We got off the train and walked around a small town called Ermantingen and then we took the train back to Schaffhausen where we got lunch and went to the Rhinefall which is the largest waterfall in Europe (although it really wasn’t that big), but it was cool to see. Then we took the train back to Zurich, explored the city some more, bought some Swiss chocolate, had dinner at a Spanish/Mexican/Exotic restaurant where I had a pineapple stuffed with chicken curry, rice and exotic fruits! and then took an overnight train to Budapest.
Thoughts on Switzerland:
1. Small, cute and people are very nice and cars always stop for you, even if you are not very near the intersection
2. People speak to you more in German, even after they know that you don’t speak German
3. Zurich is really nice and pretty, and very clean, buildings are very clean
4. Basel seemed dirtier (by Switzerland standards, so still very clean), but younger
5. Lots of strange statues in Switzerland and strange water fountains
6. Switzerland is very, very expensive, especially the clothing (I think its even more expensive than Copenhagen)
7. Mixed German and French when they spoke
8. Switzerland had the best looking pastry shops in Europe, they all looked like they were overflowing with pastries and chocolates.
9. Much more relaxing than my earlier travels.
10. I really realized how great Eurail was and it turned out to be better/easier to use and much more convenient than I originally thought. Lexi and I had bought 5 day passes (the minimum available) and were only going to use 2 days so we were able to travel all around Switzerland without having to pay extra for any of the trains. This allowed us to be much more spontaneous with our plans in Switzerland.
11. I really enjoyed traveling by train in Switzerland because it is relaxed feeling and you get to see the scenery. Also, everything in Switzerland is very close, and there were lots of things within an hr train ride from Zurich.
Budapest
What we did:
Took a night train from Zurich to Budapest
Thursday, April 9th
Arrived Budapest at 11:30, checked into our hostel which was 200 m from the train station
Took the Metro to a big market where we got lunch of traditional Hungarian food (heavy, sausages, goulash etc.). Walked down the main shopping street, stopped for ice coffee (which turned out to be espresso, cream, ice cream and whipped cream, not just coffee and ice). Walked around and saw St. Stephens, got another coffee, walked around to the Opera, down to Parliament and along the river Danube. Then we got dinner at a famous restaurant (The Geband) and back to the hostel for an early night.
Friday, April 10th
First, we had to deal with some train issues, the train reservation we had booked to Prague went through Slovakia which our Eurail Passes didn’t cover, so we had to change out plans to go from Budapest to Vienna and Vienna to Prague. After getting this sorted out, we went to the largest synagogue in Europe and then we walked over to the Buda side of Budapest, which is the older, more medieval part of the city. We walked around the Pest side more after that got lunch at an Indian restaurant and then went back to the hostel to freshen up before our train to Vienna and then Prague.
Thoughts on Budapest
1. The city itself was very different than I expected, Pest was like an old, grand imperial capital that hasn’t been important or rich in a long time (this makes sense considering its history…the Hapsburgs built Budapest up in its current grand style and then Hungary fell to Communism and is still working on coming out of it.)
2. People and the things in the buildings don’t match the grand buildings.
3. Buildings are dirtier and not in very good repair.
4. Definitely part of Eastern Europe, people looked and dressed like one would expect from Eastern Europe (more 80s/early 90s inspired).
5. Buda and Pest were very different from each other (Budapest used to be two different cities which the Hapsburgs combined in the late 1800s).
6. The Metro was very good (it was the first built in Continental Europe) but people were very strict about checking tickets.
7. The pastry shops don’t look very appealing; they didn’t have the overflowing effect of the ones in Switzerland.
8. Not many newer buildings.
9. St. Stephens was one of the few major buildings in Europe that didn’t have scaffolding – but this is probably because it was reconstructed after WWII.
10. The Hapsburg buildings have a lot of movement, depth and a lot of people as columns holding up the buildings. This is kind of an interesting phenomenon as it promotes the idea of hierarchy and servant/slave class). Also, does anyone really want a human holding a building up?
11. Budapest was cheap, but not that cheap.
12. The money was strange to get used to because $1=200 HUF, so we had lots of BIG bills, like 10,000, and it was easy to get a 10,000 bill mixed up with a 1,000 bill because each has so many 0s.
13. Our hostel was very good and very accommodating.
14. Not great service at restaurant.
14. A lot more people spoke English than I thought would, everyone I interact with spoke English.
15. The Pest side didn’t look at all what I expected Eastern Europe to look like and in all of Budapest; I didn’t really see the Soviet influence I saw in Berlin.
Prague
Arrive Sat April 11th
Depart Monday April 13th
We arrived at 3:40 am on Saturday April 11th so we went to the hostel and slept in the lounge for a couple of hours until a room was ready for us. Then we both took showers and went out to explore Prague. First, we went to the castle and cathedral (where I saw two people from Haverford!). Then we got lunch at a traditional Czech restaurant (beef goulash and beer). We then walked around the old town, to two of the Easter markets and down to the Frank Ghery house that is supposed to look like Fred and Ginger dancing. Lexi then went back to the hostel to take a nap and I did some shopping since I figured it would be much cheaper to do it in Prague than in Copenhagen. I then went back to the hostel, and Lexi and I went out for a light dinner.
Sunday, April 12th (Easter)
Today was Lexi’s 21st Birthday, so we slept in and got a later start which was fine since we had pretty much seen everything we needed to see on Saturday (there really aren’t that many sights that you have to see in Prague). We walked around the Jewish quarter, got lunch, explored the markets some more and basically walked from café to café getting beer, wine, tea, ice cream etc. until dinner time and then back to the hostel.
Monday, April 13th
Back to Copenhagen!
Thoughts on Prague
1. Not a ton of tourist stuff that I felt I had to do which was kind of nice after traveling for 3 weeks.
2. Much less Eastern European seeming than Hungary and much wealthier.
3. Prices are comparable to the US, which is cheap for Europe.
4. Not that many looking restaurants, but a lot of Czech places.
5. Even though I am as much Czech as Danish, I felt/feel a much stronger connection to Denmark than to the Czech Republic.
6. Prague was very pretty, there were a lot more classical buildings than I expected and the cathedrals and spires looked like they were straight out of a fairy tale/Disney movie.
7. Restaurants don’t have ice for coffee.
8. The air was very hazy (also like this in Switzerland and Budapest). Why?
9. Much cleaner and better kept up than Budapest.
10. Not many bakeries.
11. Money/prices were kind of throwing me off, some of the meal prices were similar numerically to the prices in Copenhagen, except there are 20 Czech Koruna to $1 instead of 6 DKK to the dollar!
12. People didn’t seem that friendly.
13. Service at restaurants was not very good.
14. Prague very picturesque.
15. Very cheap and easy to use the Metro and getting to the Prague airport was very easy and cheap.
16. Beer very cheap! (Kozel dark was really good!)
From London, Lexi and I flew to Zurich, where we spent three days and stayed with another one of Lexi’s relatives.
Here’s a list of what we did:
Monday, April 6th
Arrived at 12
Walked around Zurich and had dinner at an Italian restaurant and realized how expensive everything in Switzerland was (the water at dinner cost 6.50 CHF, or around 5 dollars!)
Tuesday April 7th
Train to Luzerne (1 hr), explored Luzerne and then we spontaneously decided to go to Basel (train 45 mins) where we walked around and had dinner at a really good restaurant recommended to us by the lady who worked at a tea house we stopped at. Train back to Zurich.
Wednesday April 8th
Train up to northeastern Switzerland and took a train along a river and the Bodensee (I think that’s what it is called). We got off the train and walked around a small town called Ermantingen and then we took the train back to Schaffhausen where we got lunch and went to the Rhinefall which is the largest waterfall in Europe (although it really wasn’t that big), but it was cool to see. Then we took the train back to Zurich, explored the city some more, bought some Swiss chocolate, had dinner at a Spanish/Mexican/Exotic restaurant where I had a pineapple stuffed with chicken curry, rice and exotic fruits! and then took an overnight train to Budapest.
Thoughts on Switzerland:
1. Small, cute and people are very nice and cars always stop for you, even if you are not very near the intersection
2. People speak to you more in German, even after they know that you don’t speak German
3. Zurich is really nice and pretty, and very clean, buildings are very clean
4. Basel seemed dirtier (by Switzerland standards, so still very clean), but younger
5. Lots of strange statues in Switzerland and strange water fountains
6. Switzerland is very, very expensive, especially the clothing (I think its even more expensive than Copenhagen)
7. Mixed German and French when they spoke
8. Switzerland had the best looking pastry shops in Europe, they all looked like they were overflowing with pastries and chocolates.
9. Much more relaxing than my earlier travels.
10. I really realized how great Eurail was and it turned out to be better/easier to use and much more convenient than I originally thought. Lexi and I had bought 5 day passes (the minimum available) and were only going to use 2 days so we were able to travel all around Switzerland without having to pay extra for any of the trains. This allowed us to be much more spontaneous with our plans in Switzerland.
11. I really enjoyed traveling by train in Switzerland because it is relaxed feeling and you get to see the scenery. Also, everything in Switzerland is very close, and there were lots of things within an hr train ride from Zurich.
Budapest
What we did:
Took a night train from Zurich to Budapest
Thursday, April 9th
Arrived Budapest at 11:30, checked into our hostel which was 200 m from the train station
Took the Metro to a big market where we got lunch of traditional Hungarian food (heavy, sausages, goulash etc.). Walked down the main shopping street, stopped for ice coffee (which turned out to be espresso, cream, ice cream and whipped cream, not just coffee and ice). Walked around and saw St. Stephens, got another coffee, walked around to the Opera, down to Parliament and along the river Danube. Then we got dinner at a famous restaurant (The Geband) and back to the hostel for an early night.
Friday, April 10th
First, we had to deal with some train issues, the train reservation we had booked to Prague went through Slovakia which our Eurail Passes didn’t cover, so we had to change out plans to go from Budapest to Vienna and Vienna to Prague. After getting this sorted out, we went to the largest synagogue in Europe and then we walked over to the Buda side of Budapest, which is the older, more medieval part of the city. We walked around the Pest side more after that got lunch at an Indian restaurant and then went back to the hostel to freshen up before our train to Vienna and then Prague.
Thoughts on Budapest
1. The city itself was very different than I expected, Pest was like an old, grand imperial capital that hasn’t been important or rich in a long time (this makes sense considering its history…the Hapsburgs built Budapest up in its current grand style and then Hungary fell to Communism and is still working on coming out of it.)
2. People and the things in the buildings don’t match the grand buildings.
3. Buildings are dirtier and not in very good repair.
4. Definitely part of Eastern Europe, people looked and dressed like one would expect from Eastern Europe (more 80s/early 90s inspired).
5. Buda and Pest were very different from each other (Budapest used to be two different cities which the Hapsburgs combined in the late 1800s).
6. The Metro was very good (it was the first built in Continental Europe) but people were very strict about checking tickets.
7. The pastry shops don’t look very appealing; they didn’t have the overflowing effect of the ones in Switzerland.
8. Not many newer buildings.
9. St. Stephens was one of the few major buildings in Europe that didn’t have scaffolding – but this is probably because it was reconstructed after WWII.
10. The Hapsburg buildings have a lot of movement, depth and a lot of people as columns holding up the buildings. This is kind of an interesting phenomenon as it promotes the idea of hierarchy and servant/slave class). Also, does anyone really want a human holding a building up?
11. Budapest was cheap, but not that cheap.
12. The money was strange to get used to because $1=200 HUF, so we had lots of BIG bills, like 10,000, and it was easy to get a 10,000 bill mixed up with a 1,000 bill because each has so many 0s.
13. Our hostel was very good and very accommodating.
14. Not great service at restaurant.
14. A lot more people spoke English than I thought would, everyone I interact with spoke English.
15. The Pest side didn’t look at all what I expected Eastern Europe to look like and in all of Budapest; I didn’t really see the Soviet influence I saw in Berlin.
Prague
Arrive Sat April 11th
Depart Monday April 13th
We arrived at 3:40 am on Saturday April 11th so we went to the hostel and slept in the lounge for a couple of hours until a room was ready for us. Then we both took showers and went out to explore Prague. First, we went to the castle and cathedral (where I saw two people from Haverford!). Then we got lunch at a traditional Czech restaurant (beef goulash and beer). We then walked around the old town, to two of the Easter markets and down to the Frank Ghery house that is supposed to look like Fred and Ginger dancing. Lexi then went back to the hostel to take a nap and I did some shopping since I figured it would be much cheaper to do it in Prague than in Copenhagen. I then went back to the hostel, and Lexi and I went out for a light dinner.
Sunday, April 12th (Easter)
Today was Lexi’s 21st Birthday, so we slept in and got a later start which was fine since we had pretty much seen everything we needed to see on Saturday (there really aren’t that many sights that you have to see in Prague). We walked around the Jewish quarter, got lunch, explored the markets some more and basically walked from café to café getting beer, wine, tea, ice cream etc. until dinner time and then back to the hostel.
Monday, April 13th
Back to Copenhagen!
Thoughts on Prague
1. Not a ton of tourist stuff that I felt I had to do which was kind of nice after traveling for 3 weeks.
2. Much less Eastern European seeming than Hungary and much wealthier.
3. Prices are comparable to the US, which is cheap for Europe.
4. Not that many looking restaurants, but a lot of Czech places.
5. Even though I am as much Czech as Danish, I felt/feel a much stronger connection to Denmark than to the Czech Republic.
6. Prague was very pretty, there were a lot more classical buildings than I expected and the cathedrals and spires looked like they were straight out of a fairy tale/Disney movie.
7. Restaurants don’t have ice for coffee.
8. The air was very hazy (also like this in Switzerland and Budapest). Why?
9. Much cleaner and better kept up than Budapest.
10. Not many bakeries.
11. Money/prices were kind of throwing me off, some of the meal prices were similar numerically to the prices in Copenhagen, except there are 20 Czech Koruna to $1 instead of 6 DKK to the dollar!
12. People didn’t seem that friendly.
13. Service at restaurants was not very good.
14. Prague very picturesque.
15. Very cheap and easy to use the Metro and getting to the Prague airport was very easy and cheap.
16. Beer very cheap! (Kozel dark was really good!)
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Amsterdam, Brussels, Barcelona and London!
Here is what I did/thought about Amsterdam, Brussels, Barcelona and London. I will add info about the rest of my trip soon.
Amsterdam
Arrived Friday March 27th Departed Saturday March 28th
What I Did:
I went to the Rembrandt House, the Van Gogh Museum and besides that I just walked around the city.
Thoughts/Impressions:
1. People are much more friendly and outgoing, they will approach you and help you out and interact with people that they don’t know much more than in Denmark
2. The Netherlands/Amsterdam is very flat, even compared to Denmark
3. There are a lot more bikes and while the bike lanes are separated from the cars, they are not separated from pedestrians like in Copenhagen where the sidewalk is raised 6 inches from the bike lane. This makes it harder to walk around and you have to watch out for bikes even more.
4. Bikers ring their bell when someone gets in their way, which they don’t do in Copenhagen, kind of like how they don’t say ‘excuse me’ in Copenhagen.
5. Amsterdam feels much bigger that I thought it would.
6. Tram is the main public transportation, but the lines in the air give the city a busier/dirtier and not as appealing look. The lines also make it hard to get good pictures of buildings without the lines in the picture.
7. There is lots of construction everywhere, especially around the Central Station, which really ruins the cityscape.
8. There are lots of cheap restaurants and ethnic food. While there are lots of places to eat, there aren’t that many coffee shops that actually serve coffee (instead of marijuana).
9. The main grocery store chain (Albert Hech) was very nice and more of an “American style” grocery.
10. Amsterdam was much dirtier than Copenhagen, lots more litter on the street.
11. The canals are very cute and looked exactly like what I expected.
12. There were tons of Scotsman wearing kilts everywhere because there was a big football game in Amsterdam the Saturday that I was there. This made it very crowded with lots of big drunk people in the street.
13. It was extremely hard to find my way around because the canals are in a ring except for the ones in the oldest part of the city, which are straight and so sometimes run parallel to the ring canals and sometimes perpendicular. Also, they don’t have the names of the canals listed and the maps don’t name the streets running parallel to the canals. As a result, I often walked in the wrong direction and had a hard time getting my bearings.
14. The sidewalks are very narrow with posts on the side to keep the cars off of them but it made it very hard to walk on the narrow sidewalk.
15. The Van Gogh Museum was one of the best museums I’ve been to in Europe, the exhibits and the explanations were really good. The Starry Night Exhibit was interesting, especially the way the paintings worked up to the Starry Night.
16. Pancakes!! (Very good)
17. I head a lot more English around. There were a lot more tourists and so people automatically spoke English to you. Also, Dutch sounds a lot like English, so sometimes it was hard to tell if someone was speaking Dutch or English.
18. There weren’t a ton of things that I wanted to see or do in Amsterdam. If you’re not going to go to the Coffeshops (Marijuana bars) there isn’t a tone to do after being there for 2 days. However, there were a lot of places I wanted to eat at, and so I wouldn’t have minded being there for longer.
19. The bakeries were great!
20. Utrecht was a very cute, smaller version of Amsterdam.
21. I have really started to realize how easy it is to travel around Europe knowing English and that I/all English speakers are lucky that a lot of people speak English is non-English speaking countries.
22. Some things in Amsterdam made me realize what I wish Copenhagen had more of, these are: more cheap restaurants, better grocery stores, and a food/street market.
Brussels
Arrived Sunday March 29 at 2 am and left Monday March 30 at 1 pm.
What I did:
Sunday, March 29th – Walked to the Grand Place, the central square in Brussels, went to the Cocoa Museum, went on a Art Nouveau quest where I walked up to the Autrique house, passed through the Botanical gardens. I then went to the Palais des Beaux Arts, the main art museum and then walked down to Horta’s House, a major Art Nouveau building and then I walked around and meandered back to the Grand Place. On the way I stopped at the Mannekin Pis, a statue of a little boy that looks like he is peeing. I got dinner of waffle and fries (both of which were delicious) and back to the hostel early to get good nights sleep.
Monday, March 30th – Got up and walked over to the Royal Park and back over to the Grand Place, which is one of the prettiest squares, I have seen yet. I got breakfast and a real Belgian waffle. I spent the rest of the time wandering around and bought some good Belgian chocolate before heading to the airport.
Thoughts/Impressions:
1. Grand Place was verrrry pretty!
2. The buildings (Cathedrals) were very lacy looking and ornate on the outside and also very white.
3. The residential houses were flatter and had more decorated than Paris, but it still felt similar to Paris.
4. Because of the ornamentation on the buildings and the more Gothic feel, it made sense that Brussels was the center of the Art Nouveau movement.
5. The Metro/Tram system was confusing and I ended up never needing to take it.
6. Not a lot of restaurants.
7. There was both French and Dutch being spoken and all street signs had their names in both languages. You could also see both countries’ influences in the buildings, some looked like they came directly from Paris and some like they came directly from Amsterdam.
8. Very definitely getting farther south, a lot more PDA.
9. Lots of chocolate places.
10. Great weather, which was really needed after a week of off and on raining.
11. I really like Brussels, was very pretty and had a good feel.
Barcelona
Arrived Monday March 30th, Departed Thursday April 2nd
What I Did:
Tuesday March 31st - (It rained most of the day) – I walked to La Sagrada Familia (5 blocks from my hostel), and went in and up to the top of the tower where I got a great view of Barcelona. I walked around to Pasiege de Gracias and Las Ramblas. I met my friend Lexi, who lived in Barcelona and who I was traveling with later for lunch at a good vegetarian restaurant. I walked around the old part of Barcelona and then over to some more Gaudi buildings. I went in Casa Batllo (which was very cool) and Casa Mila. I then went to the main Cathedral, got dinner and then went back to the hostel.
Wednesday April 1st – It wasn’t raining, so I went to Parc Guell, then down to the other side of town to the beach and the Mediterranean, then I walked down Las Ramblas where I got fruit at the main market, the Mercado de la Boqueria. I then walked around the Barri gotic and La Riberia and went back to the Cathedral. Then I met up with Lexi and we went to dinner early (at 8 pm!), got gelato and had Cava (Spanish sparkling white wine), which was very good.
Thursday, April 2nd – I went over to the Montjuic area where I saw the Olympic Stadium and the famous Barcelona Pavilion by Mies van der Rohe, back to the Mercado, walked around and then went out for tapas with Lexi before heading to the airport for London.
Thoughts/Impressions:
1. Very pretty and buildings are very Spanish, very different from Northern Europe and France.
2. Lots of balconies and plants hanging off of them (it reminded me of a real version of New Orleans square in Disneyland)
3. I really liked how the Eixample (the new part of Barcelona built in the mid 1800s) and the old medieval city fit together and how each had their own feel but still fit together well.
4. The people (especially the women) were much smaller than in Denmark and all of Northern Europe.
5. There was lots of good food like tapas, paella, market food (fruit), chocolate, churros, gelato, crepes, tortilla (the Spanish Tortilla is kind of like a quiche).
6. There are lots of restaurants and they open really late, 8 or 8:30, and most people eat at 10, which in my opinion is waaay to late.
7. Cava and Sangria are great!
8. Really good Metro system and cheap (1 euro per trip)
9. Las Ramblas (the main tourist street) was really pretty but there was really nothing on the street except tourists.
10. There are lots more homeless people and beggars missing limbs which is sad to see and is very different from Copenhagen.
11. LOTS more PDA.
12. Not any food stands on the street.
13. Lots of Tapas places, which are really fun.
14. Very pretty with the mountains on one side and the Mediterranean on the other.
15. Plumbing and building interiors are much older and haven’t been brought up to modern standards.
16. Reminded me of home with the Spanish style buildings, the palm trees and the more relaxed attitudes.
London
Arrived Friday April 2nd at 1 am, Departed Monday April 6th
What I did:
Friday, April 3rd – Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Harrods, walked around Hyde Park, dinner with Lexi’s cousin (who we were staying with) at a really good vegetarian restaurant.
Saturday, April 4th – St. Paul’s, Westminster Abbey, Fish and Chips for lunch, walked around Bayswater and Kensington and though Hyde Park. Then I went to the Tate Modern, walked around and then to dinner at a modern Mexican restaurant that was really good (I also tried cactus!).
Sunday, April 5th – Walked around Regent Park and then down Regent Street to Parliament. Lexi’s cousin took us to several markets, which were cool, and we got lunch at one that had a huge selection of ethnic food. Lexi and I then went to tea at Kensington Gardens Orangery, which was really good, then we walked around a bit and went to the second best Indian food in England!
Impressions/Thoughts on London:
1. The most similar to America
2. Not a particular attractive city overall (come nice classical buildings but the city is not that coherent architecturally)
3. Classical buildings not very ornamental and very static.
4. Most of the modern buildings were kind of ugly
5. English accents can be really annoying when you are surrounded by them.
6. People dress much more like Americans here and a lot of people dress really preppy and look like they are from a rich East Coast family. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who dress really trashy.
7. There are a lot more overweight people.
8. Very diverse city with lots happening everywhere and tons of eating and ethnic food options.
9. London is very large but it is really easy to find your way around and to get your bearings.
10. I rally like the Underground and it was very easy to use, I really liked how the stations had the direction (north/south) that the lines went because it helped give you a sense of where you were going in the city.
11. London has GREAT parks, Regent Park was gorgeous with all of the flowers in bloom and the gardens are easily the most beautiful parts of the city.
12. There are lots of different areas in London each with their own character and there are lots of main shopping streets.
13. Not really clear if there is one major center of town, seems like there are lots of centers.
14. I really liked being able to understand everything.
15. There are lots of good shops that aren’t too expensive.
16. People definitely more outgoing to strangers
17. London was pretty cheap because the pound was really low, it was worth a little more than a Euro but all of the prices were still set as if the pound was worth 1.5 Euros.
18. It was nice to be able to stay with Lexi’s cousin because he was able to show us the markets and take us to cool restaurants we wouldn’t have been able to find by ourselves.
Amsterdam
Arrived Friday March 27th Departed Saturday March 28th
What I Did:
I went to the Rembrandt House, the Van Gogh Museum and besides that I just walked around the city.
Thoughts/Impressions:
1. People are much more friendly and outgoing, they will approach you and help you out and interact with people that they don’t know much more than in Denmark
2. The Netherlands/Amsterdam is very flat, even compared to Denmark
3. There are a lot more bikes and while the bike lanes are separated from the cars, they are not separated from pedestrians like in Copenhagen where the sidewalk is raised 6 inches from the bike lane. This makes it harder to walk around and you have to watch out for bikes even more.
4. Bikers ring their bell when someone gets in their way, which they don’t do in Copenhagen, kind of like how they don’t say ‘excuse me’ in Copenhagen.
5. Amsterdam feels much bigger that I thought it would.
6. Tram is the main public transportation, but the lines in the air give the city a busier/dirtier and not as appealing look. The lines also make it hard to get good pictures of buildings without the lines in the picture.
7. There is lots of construction everywhere, especially around the Central Station, which really ruins the cityscape.
8. There are lots of cheap restaurants and ethnic food. While there are lots of places to eat, there aren’t that many coffee shops that actually serve coffee (instead of marijuana).
9. The main grocery store chain (Albert Hech) was very nice and more of an “American style” grocery.
10. Amsterdam was much dirtier than Copenhagen, lots more litter on the street.
11. The canals are very cute and looked exactly like what I expected.
12. There were tons of Scotsman wearing kilts everywhere because there was a big football game in Amsterdam the Saturday that I was there. This made it very crowded with lots of big drunk people in the street.
13. It was extremely hard to find my way around because the canals are in a ring except for the ones in the oldest part of the city, which are straight and so sometimes run parallel to the ring canals and sometimes perpendicular. Also, they don’t have the names of the canals listed and the maps don’t name the streets running parallel to the canals. As a result, I often walked in the wrong direction and had a hard time getting my bearings.
14. The sidewalks are very narrow with posts on the side to keep the cars off of them but it made it very hard to walk on the narrow sidewalk.
15. The Van Gogh Museum was one of the best museums I’ve been to in Europe, the exhibits and the explanations were really good. The Starry Night Exhibit was interesting, especially the way the paintings worked up to the Starry Night.
16. Pancakes!! (Very good)
17. I head a lot more English around. There were a lot more tourists and so people automatically spoke English to you. Also, Dutch sounds a lot like English, so sometimes it was hard to tell if someone was speaking Dutch or English.
18. There weren’t a ton of things that I wanted to see or do in Amsterdam. If you’re not going to go to the Coffeshops (Marijuana bars) there isn’t a tone to do after being there for 2 days. However, there were a lot of places I wanted to eat at, and so I wouldn’t have minded being there for longer.
19. The bakeries were great!
20. Utrecht was a very cute, smaller version of Amsterdam.
21. I have really started to realize how easy it is to travel around Europe knowing English and that I/all English speakers are lucky that a lot of people speak English is non-English speaking countries.
22. Some things in Amsterdam made me realize what I wish Copenhagen had more of, these are: more cheap restaurants, better grocery stores, and a food/street market.
Brussels
Arrived Sunday March 29 at 2 am and left Monday March 30 at 1 pm.
What I did:
Sunday, March 29th – Walked to the Grand Place, the central square in Brussels, went to the Cocoa Museum, went on a Art Nouveau quest where I walked up to the Autrique house, passed through the Botanical gardens. I then went to the Palais des Beaux Arts, the main art museum and then walked down to Horta’s House, a major Art Nouveau building and then I walked around and meandered back to the Grand Place. On the way I stopped at the Mannekin Pis, a statue of a little boy that looks like he is peeing. I got dinner of waffle and fries (both of which were delicious) and back to the hostel early to get good nights sleep.
Monday, March 30th – Got up and walked over to the Royal Park and back over to the Grand Place, which is one of the prettiest squares, I have seen yet. I got breakfast and a real Belgian waffle. I spent the rest of the time wandering around and bought some good Belgian chocolate before heading to the airport.
Thoughts/Impressions:
1. Grand Place was verrrry pretty!
2. The buildings (Cathedrals) were very lacy looking and ornate on the outside and also very white.
3. The residential houses were flatter and had more decorated than Paris, but it still felt similar to Paris.
4. Because of the ornamentation on the buildings and the more Gothic feel, it made sense that Brussels was the center of the Art Nouveau movement.
5. The Metro/Tram system was confusing and I ended up never needing to take it.
6. Not a lot of restaurants.
7. There was both French and Dutch being spoken and all street signs had their names in both languages. You could also see both countries’ influences in the buildings, some looked like they came directly from Paris and some like they came directly from Amsterdam.
8. Very definitely getting farther south, a lot more PDA.
9. Lots of chocolate places.
10. Great weather, which was really needed after a week of off and on raining.
11. I really like Brussels, was very pretty and had a good feel.
Barcelona
Arrived Monday March 30th, Departed Thursday April 2nd
What I Did:
Tuesday March 31st - (It rained most of the day) – I walked to La Sagrada Familia (5 blocks from my hostel), and went in and up to the top of the tower where I got a great view of Barcelona. I walked around to Pasiege de Gracias and Las Ramblas. I met my friend Lexi, who lived in Barcelona and who I was traveling with later for lunch at a good vegetarian restaurant. I walked around the old part of Barcelona and then over to some more Gaudi buildings. I went in Casa Batllo (which was very cool) and Casa Mila. I then went to the main Cathedral, got dinner and then went back to the hostel.
Wednesday April 1st – It wasn’t raining, so I went to Parc Guell, then down to the other side of town to the beach and the Mediterranean, then I walked down Las Ramblas where I got fruit at the main market, the Mercado de la Boqueria. I then walked around the Barri gotic and La Riberia and went back to the Cathedral. Then I met up with Lexi and we went to dinner early (at 8 pm!), got gelato and had Cava (Spanish sparkling white wine), which was very good.
Thursday, April 2nd – I went over to the Montjuic area where I saw the Olympic Stadium and the famous Barcelona Pavilion by Mies van der Rohe, back to the Mercado, walked around and then went out for tapas with Lexi before heading to the airport for London.
Thoughts/Impressions:
1. Very pretty and buildings are very Spanish, very different from Northern Europe and France.
2. Lots of balconies and plants hanging off of them (it reminded me of a real version of New Orleans square in Disneyland)
3. I really liked how the Eixample (the new part of Barcelona built in the mid 1800s) and the old medieval city fit together and how each had their own feel but still fit together well.
4. The people (especially the women) were much smaller than in Denmark and all of Northern Europe.
5. There was lots of good food like tapas, paella, market food (fruit), chocolate, churros, gelato, crepes, tortilla (the Spanish Tortilla is kind of like a quiche).
6. There are lots of restaurants and they open really late, 8 or 8:30, and most people eat at 10, which in my opinion is waaay to late.
7. Cava and Sangria are great!
8. Really good Metro system and cheap (1 euro per trip)
9. Las Ramblas (the main tourist street) was really pretty but there was really nothing on the street except tourists.
10. There are lots more homeless people and beggars missing limbs which is sad to see and is very different from Copenhagen.
11. LOTS more PDA.
12. Not any food stands on the street.
13. Lots of Tapas places, which are really fun.
14. Very pretty with the mountains on one side and the Mediterranean on the other.
15. Plumbing and building interiors are much older and haven’t been brought up to modern standards.
16. Reminded me of home with the Spanish style buildings, the palm trees and the more relaxed attitudes.
London
Arrived Friday April 2nd at 1 am, Departed Monday April 6th
What I did:
Friday, April 3rd – Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Harrods, walked around Hyde Park, dinner with Lexi’s cousin (who we were staying with) at a really good vegetarian restaurant.
Saturday, April 4th – St. Paul’s, Westminster Abbey, Fish and Chips for lunch, walked around Bayswater and Kensington and though Hyde Park. Then I went to the Tate Modern, walked around and then to dinner at a modern Mexican restaurant that was really good (I also tried cactus!).
Sunday, April 5th – Walked around Regent Park and then down Regent Street to Parliament. Lexi’s cousin took us to several markets, which were cool, and we got lunch at one that had a huge selection of ethnic food. Lexi and I then went to tea at Kensington Gardens Orangery, which was really good, then we walked around a bit and went to the second best Indian food in England!
Impressions/Thoughts on London:
1. The most similar to America
2. Not a particular attractive city overall (come nice classical buildings but the city is not that coherent architecturally)
3. Classical buildings not very ornamental and very static.
4. Most of the modern buildings were kind of ugly
5. English accents can be really annoying when you are surrounded by them.
6. People dress much more like Americans here and a lot of people dress really preppy and look like they are from a rich East Coast family. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who dress really trashy.
7. There are a lot more overweight people.
8. Very diverse city with lots happening everywhere and tons of eating and ethnic food options.
9. London is very large but it is really easy to find your way around and to get your bearings.
10. I rally like the Underground and it was very easy to use, I really liked how the stations had the direction (north/south) that the lines went because it helped give you a sense of where you were going in the city.
11. London has GREAT parks, Regent Park was gorgeous with all of the flowers in bloom and the gardens are easily the most beautiful parts of the city.
12. There are lots of different areas in London each with their own character and there are lots of main shopping streets.
13. Not really clear if there is one major center of town, seems like there are lots of centers.
14. I really liked being able to understand everything.
15. There are lots of good shops that aren’t too expensive.
16. People definitely more outgoing to strangers
17. London was pretty cheap because the pound was really low, it was worth a little more than a Euro but all of the prices were still set as if the pound was worth 1.5 Euros.
18. It was nice to be able to stay with Lexi’s cousin because he was able to show us the markets and take us to cool restaurants we wouldn’t have been able to find by ourselves.
First Week of Break - Study Tour with DIS
The first week of the three week travel break was a DIS-led study tour to Germany and the Netherlands. It was similar to the tour I took earlier this semester to Western Denmark, just longer. We left Sunday March 21st in the morning, drove to Hamburg, Germany where we spent a couple of hours walking around the city and then continued driving the rest of the day to Dusseldorf, where we stayed for 2 nights. We spent our time in Germany around Dusseldorf and Cologne which two major cities in the Rhine-Rhur valley area which is one of the largest population centers in Europe. Notable buildings/places we saw were the convereted Zollverine Mines which used to be a huge coal mining factory and is now being converted into a cultural spaces, Museum Insel Hombrich, which is a large park/garden with 16 art pavilions in it that are supposed to blend in with the landscaping. We also saw the Kolumba Museum in Cologne and the Cologne Cathedral. Unfortunately the study tours are very busy so we don’t really get any free time except late at night by which time I was pretty tired and ready to go to bed so I didn’t really get to see that much of Germany.
From Germany we drove to the Netherlands and we stayed in a really nice hotel right outside of Utrecht (which is a 30 min train ride outside of Amsterdam). In the Netherlands we saw a famous city hall in Hilversum and then walked around the new town of Almere (near Amsterdam). We also got to spend an entire day in Amsterdam, partly with DIS and partly on our own and then we spent a day in Utrecht and saw several buildings at the University of Utrecht and the Schroeder House, which is one of the most famous houses in architecture and one of the only examples of the De Stijl movement. The Schroeder House was my favorite thing we saw on the tour and I really recommend that anyone who goes to Amsterdam take a trip out to Utrecht to see it if you have time.
Overall, the study tour was okay but I’ve really started to realize that I don’t like being on large tours and being herded from place to place with 40 other students. However, it was a really good experience to see buildings that I otherwise wouldn’t have traveled to see and it was nice not to have to worry about logistics for the first week of traveling.
On my own
The DIS-led study tour ended Friday March 27th after dinner in Utrecht so I went to Amsterdam that night and planned to spend Saturday in Amsterdam before heading off to Brussels for a day and a half.
From Germany we drove to the Netherlands and we stayed in a really nice hotel right outside of Utrecht (which is a 30 min train ride outside of Amsterdam). In the Netherlands we saw a famous city hall in Hilversum and then walked around the new town of Almere (near Amsterdam). We also got to spend an entire day in Amsterdam, partly with DIS and partly on our own and then we spent a day in Utrecht and saw several buildings at the University of Utrecht and the Schroeder House, which is one of the most famous houses in architecture and one of the only examples of the De Stijl movement. The Schroeder House was my favorite thing we saw on the tour and I really recommend that anyone who goes to Amsterdam take a trip out to Utrecht to see it if you have time.
Overall, the study tour was okay but I’ve really started to realize that I don’t like being on large tours and being herded from place to place with 40 other students. However, it was a really good experience to see buildings that I otherwise wouldn’t have traveled to see and it was nice not to have to worry about logistics for the first week of traveling.
On my own
The DIS-led study tour ended Friday March 27th after dinner in Utrecht so I went to Amsterdam that night and planned to spend Saturday in Amsterdam before heading off to Brussels for a day and a half.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Angela comes to visit!
After I got back from Stockholm, I had a busy couple of days trying to get ahead on work because my friend from high school, Angela (I visited her while she was studying in Paris last year) was coming to Copenhagen on Friday and was going to be here for a week. It was really nice having a friend visit and getting to show someone else Copenhagen since a lot of people kind of forget about Copenhagen even though it is a really neat city. Angela arrived early in the morning on Friday but I had class all day so she just walked around Copenhagen by herself for most of the day. On Saturday we woke up early and took the train to Malmö, Sweden (a 30 min train ride). Copenhagen and Malmö are part of the Oresund region which includes Zealand (the island that Copenhagen is on) and Southern Sweden and in the last decade I think there has been a large move to tie the Oresund region closer together. A major part of this was the construction of the Oresund Bridge which crosses the Oresund strait between Copenhagen and Malmo, I think it is the second longest bridge in the world and it spans over 4 miles!
The first thing we did in Malmo was to walk over to the Turning Torso, the tallest building in Scandinavia (at 54 stories) and very neat looking, the entire building rotates 90 degrees as it goes up. The Turning Torso was on the edge of Malmo, in an newer developed area which was fun to walk around in. It was all residential but the homes and apt buidlings were very modern and it was right next to the sea with a good view of the bridge. I really liked the feel of this part of town and both Angela and I agreed that it felt a lot like parts of Oakland and Emeryville.
From the Turning Torso we walked down to the older, main part of Malmo to find some lunch. Both Angela and I are very indecisive when it comes to food because we always think there might be something better if we keep looking, so it always takes us forever to decide on a place. We finally ended up going to a little Italian restaurant on the main square and split a pizza. I was kind of shocked by the price, we each ended up only paying $6 total for pizza and a drink! (Malmo was even cheaper than Stockholm!).
From lunch we walked over the the old Renaissance Castle in Malmo and went to two of the museums there (total entrance price $2). The first museum was about the city history and it was very strange. First of all, there are many fewer things in English in Sweden than in Denmark (this was also the case in Stockholm). Also, the museum was very kitsch and had a lot of random and strange, but sometimes funny things. We ended up being confused most of the time and I'm not even sure all of the exhibits would have been clear if we knew Swedish. But is was still fun to see the museum becasue it was very different and much less academic than the museums in larger cities.
We spend most of the rest of the day walking around Malmo. It is not all that different from Copenahgen, which is to be expected because this part of Sweden used to be part of Denmark. However, the buildings still were taller and a bit more grandiose than anything in Copenhagen. Around 5 we stopped at a cute looking teahouse and each got a drink (I got a very rich hot chocolate) and a pastry and then walked around again until dinner. For dinner we ended up eating in the main part of Malmo again, but outside. There were a two restaurants that had set up a lot of tables outside with lots of heat lamps and warm blankets. We had a bit of a hard time figureing the menu out since it was in Swedish, but finally we pretty much managed to figure out all of the different meat types from what I knew of Danish and were about to order when the waitress told us that there were English menus! So we took a look at those which were much easier and it ended up that we had figured out pretty much everything except for the word for elk! We had a pretty late dinner so afterwards we just decided to head back to Copenhagen, especially since it was starting to rain so we walked back to the train station and were back in Copenahagen 40 mins after we left the restaurant!
On Sunday I had to do some work because my final studio project was due on Wednesday so Angela did some more exploring on her own and then we met up in the afternoon and went to the Carlsberg Brewery where we took a tour which went over the history of beer, of the Carlsberg brand and how they make their beer. Afterwards, your musuem tickets get you two free tastes of beer in their beer room. I really enjoyed the tasting because before you went up to order your beers they had 20 or so different aromas that you could smell to determine what you liked and what you didn't like and then they had a list of their beers with the flavors that one could taste. Angela and I each got two different beers so we could try eachother's. My favorite was a stout beer that had chocolate, coffee and oak as the listed aromas while one the Angela got had a very strong apple flavor.
On Monday Angela and I went to a famous cake/bakery near my school and each got a pastry and a drink before I headed off to do work and she went sightseeing. That night we cooked chili (something I've been meaning to do but have never gotten around to do). It was pretty good but more solid than usual since we added more mushrooms and more vegetables than the recipe called for because we figured we wouldn't use them up otherwise.
Tuesday was a loooooong day. I had class all day and since my project was due at 10pm on Wednesday I knew I had a lot of work to do. I ended up pulling an all-nighter in the studio, along with a lot of other people because I just wanted to get my project done with. And of course, everything took a lot longer than anticipated. I ended up working pretty much straight from 2 pm on Tuesday afternoon to 7 pm Wednesday evening with only a few short breaks. Needless to say, by the end i was exhausted and had no idea how the other people who had pulled all nighters were still able to keep working since I had to concentrate really hard to do anything. however, my project turned out really good so I was pleased about that and I hadn't really made any big stupid mistakes. I was so tired Wednesday that I came back with Angela, ate dinner, took a shower and was in bed and asleep by 8:30! The next morning though I had to wake up early because I had my presentation for my project at 9 which was kind of annoying but it ended up being good to get out of the way. My presentation went very well and I think my teacher and the two guest critcs liked my idea and by presentation board so that was good.
Thursday afternoon Angela and I just walked around for a bit and the weather has finally started to be more springlike in the week Angela was here and we had 3 or 4 sunny days in a row! Also, as the weather is getting warmer ice cream stands are starting to pop up on the streets which is really nice and there are even more people out. I'm really looking forward to coming back to Copenhagen after my 3 week travel break becasue it will really be spring then!
Angela left early Friday morning and I've pretty much been spending my time getting ready for my break as I leave tomorrow (Sunday) at 8 am. I am really excited to go but I am been getting sick/have been kind of sick, for about a week now. A lot of people in my studio were sick and the rooms don't really have good ventilation so it isn't that surprising that I got sick. however, I also don't think my body let me fully get sick since I had so much work to do and I don't feel all that bad, just mostly feverish at night. So I'm hoping that I'll get better by tomorrow or at least during the first week of traveling.
Since I'll be traveling for the next 3 weeks, I probably won't be updating the blog unless I find time and a free internet connection, but here's a list of where I'll be going:
Week 1: I'll be traveling with the DIS Architecture program to Germany (Hamburg and the area around Dusseldorf) and to the Netherlands (Amsterdam and Utrecht).
Week 2-3: The DIS tour ends in Utrecht so I'll take the train to Amsterdam, spend 1 day there and then take a train to Brussels and spend 1.5 days there before I head to Barcelona where I'll meet up with another friend from high school, Lexi who is studying abroad in barcelona. I'll spend 3 days in Barcelona and then both Lexi and I will fly to London, spend 3 days there, then fly to Zurich and spend a couple of days in Switzeland, take a night train to Budapest, spend 1.5 days there and then take a night train to Prague where we'll spend out last two days before heading back to Copenhagen/Barcelona, respectively.
The first thing we did in Malmo was to walk over to the Turning Torso, the tallest building in Scandinavia (at 54 stories) and very neat looking, the entire building rotates 90 degrees as it goes up. The Turning Torso was on the edge of Malmo, in an newer developed area which was fun to walk around in. It was all residential but the homes and apt buidlings were very modern and it was right next to the sea with a good view of the bridge. I really liked the feel of this part of town and both Angela and I agreed that it felt a lot like parts of Oakland and Emeryville.
From the Turning Torso we walked down to the older, main part of Malmo to find some lunch. Both Angela and I are very indecisive when it comes to food because we always think there might be something better if we keep looking, so it always takes us forever to decide on a place. We finally ended up going to a little Italian restaurant on the main square and split a pizza. I was kind of shocked by the price, we each ended up only paying $6 total for pizza and a drink! (Malmo was even cheaper than Stockholm!).
From lunch we walked over the the old Renaissance Castle in Malmo and went to two of the museums there (total entrance price $2). The first museum was about the city history and it was very strange. First of all, there are many fewer things in English in Sweden than in Denmark (this was also the case in Stockholm). Also, the museum was very kitsch and had a lot of random and strange, but sometimes funny things. We ended up being confused most of the time and I'm not even sure all of the exhibits would have been clear if we knew Swedish. But is was still fun to see the museum becasue it was very different and much less academic than the museums in larger cities.
We spend most of the rest of the day walking around Malmo. It is not all that different from Copenahgen, which is to be expected because this part of Sweden used to be part of Denmark. However, the buildings still were taller and a bit more grandiose than anything in Copenhagen. Around 5 we stopped at a cute looking teahouse and each got a drink (I got a very rich hot chocolate) and a pastry and then walked around again until dinner. For dinner we ended up eating in the main part of Malmo again, but outside. There were a two restaurants that had set up a lot of tables outside with lots of heat lamps and warm blankets. We had a bit of a hard time figureing the menu out since it was in Swedish, but finally we pretty much managed to figure out all of the different meat types from what I knew of Danish and were about to order when the waitress told us that there were English menus! So we took a look at those which were much easier and it ended up that we had figured out pretty much everything except for the word for elk! We had a pretty late dinner so afterwards we just decided to head back to Copenhagen, especially since it was starting to rain so we walked back to the train station and were back in Copenahagen 40 mins after we left the restaurant!
On Sunday I had to do some work because my final studio project was due on Wednesday so Angela did some more exploring on her own and then we met up in the afternoon and went to the Carlsberg Brewery where we took a tour which went over the history of beer, of the Carlsberg brand and how they make their beer. Afterwards, your musuem tickets get you two free tastes of beer in their beer room. I really enjoyed the tasting because before you went up to order your beers they had 20 or so different aromas that you could smell to determine what you liked and what you didn't like and then they had a list of their beers with the flavors that one could taste. Angela and I each got two different beers so we could try eachother's. My favorite was a stout beer that had chocolate, coffee and oak as the listed aromas while one the Angela got had a very strong apple flavor.
On Monday Angela and I went to a famous cake/bakery near my school and each got a pastry and a drink before I headed off to do work and she went sightseeing. That night we cooked chili (something I've been meaning to do but have never gotten around to do). It was pretty good but more solid than usual since we added more mushrooms and more vegetables than the recipe called for because we figured we wouldn't use them up otherwise.
Tuesday was a loooooong day. I had class all day and since my project was due at 10pm on Wednesday I knew I had a lot of work to do. I ended up pulling an all-nighter in the studio, along with a lot of other people because I just wanted to get my project done with. And of course, everything took a lot longer than anticipated. I ended up working pretty much straight from 2 pm on Tuesday afternoon to 7 pm Wednesday evening with only a few short breaks. Needless to say, by the end i was exhausted and had no idea how the other people who had pulled all nighters were still able to keep working since I had to concentrate really hard to do anything. however, my project turned out really good so I was pleased about that and I hadn't really made any big stupid mistakes. I was so tired Wednesday that I came back with Angela, ate dinner, took a shower and was in bed and asleep by 8:30! The next morning though I had to wake up early because I had my presentation for my project at 9 which was kind of annoying but it ended up being good to get out of the way. My presentation went very well and I think my teacher and the two guest critcs liked my idea and by presentation board so that was good.
Thursday afternoon Angela and I just walked around for a bit and the weather has finally started to be more springlike in the week Angela was here and we had 3 or 4 sunny days in a row! Also, as the weather is getting warmer ice cream stands are starting to pop up on the streets which is really nice and there are even more people out. I'm really looking forward to coming back to Copenhagen after my 3 week travel break becasue it will really be spring then!
Angela left early Friday morning and I've pretty much been spending my time getting ready for my break as I leave tomorrow (Sunday) at 8 am. I am really excited to go but I am been getting sick/have been kind of sick, for about a week now. A lot of people in my studio were sick and the rooms don't really have good ventilation so it isn't that surprising that I got sick. however, I also don't think my body let me fully get sick since I had so much work to do and I don't feel all that bad, just mostly feverish at night. So I'm hoping that I'll get better by tomorrow or at least during the first week of traveling.
Since I'll be traveling for the next 3 weeks, I probably won't be updating the blog unless I find time and a free internet connection, but here's a list of where I'll be going:
Week 1: I'll be traveling with the DIS Architecture program to Germany (Hamburg and the area around Dusseldorf) and to the Netherlands (Amsterdam and Utrecht).
Week 2-3: The DIS tour ends in Utrecht so I'll take the train to Amsterdam, spend 1 day there and then take a train to Brussels and spend 1.5 days there before I head to Barcelona where I'll meet up with another friend from high school, Lexi who is studying abroad in barcelona. I'll spend 3 days in Barcelona and then both Lexi and I will fly to London, spend 3 days there, then fly to Zurich and spend a couple of days in Switzeland, take a night train to Budapest, spend 1.5 days there and then take a night train to Prague where we'll spend out last two days before heading back to Copenhagen/Barcelona, respectively.
Stockholm!
I visited Stockholm (by myself) from Saturday March 6 to Sunday March 7, so I had a pretty short trip but I got a really good deal on the airfare. I ended up flying to Stockholm (1 hr 15 min flight) so this was the first time I flew out of the Copenhagen airport. It is really so much nicer to fly in Europe, and the Copenhagen airport was really pretty and neat and the whole thing was lined with teak wood floors! And they had some of the famous Arne Jacobsen Egg Chairs for people to sit in.
First, a list of what I did in Stockholm:
Saturday March 6th
My flight arrived in Stockholm at 12 on Saturday so I really only had half of Saturday to do stuff.
I took the Arlanda Express (nonstop train from the airport to Stockholm that was very convenient) and checked into my hostel on Gammla Stan, the old medieval part of Stockholm.
Went to Ostermalm Saulhall, a large food/market hall which was very cool with all of the different kinds of food
Went to the Modern Museum/Arkitekturmuseum (they are connected) which I left at 6 so everything else was closed
Walked around A LOT, I kind of ended up just wandering around so I could see a bit of Stockholm and I ended up walking for 3 straight hours with a break for a frankfurter dinner before I headed back to the hostel, planned Sunday and went to bed early.
Sunday March 7th
It gets even lighter earlier in Stockholm than in Copenhagen since it is farther north so I got up at 7 so I could use as much light as possible, packed my stuff, checked out of the hostel and dropped my stuff off at the central station. Then I walked around again, mostly exploring Gammla Stan, which was a very cute and quaint island that I had seen some of in the dark, but wanted to see it in daylight. I was basically waiting for cafes to open for breakfast (it was Sunday and most places didn’t even open up until 10) but I found a place that I had read about that opened at 9 so I got a hot chocolate and a cinnamon roll for breakfast! Both were very good and the hot chocolate came in an enormous bowl! One of the best things was the price…Sweden is much cheaper than Denmark because their Kroner is much weaker (10 SKK per $ instead of 6 DKK) and the nominal prices in Sweden were about the same as in Denmark! After breakfast, I walked over to the Stockholm City Hall, which is one of their most famous buildings and one I had really enjoyed learning about in class. I took a guided tour since that was the only way to see inside and really enjoyed it. The City Hall holds the Nobel Banquet and I think is where they announce the Nobel Prize winners every year. However, the main room is called the Gold Room, and is adeptly named because this enormous room is totally covered with gold mosaics! It is very cool but a little odd because it is done in a very byzantine style even though the room in Sweden. After the tour, I walked all the way up to another building I had learned about in class, the Stockholm Public Library by Gunnar Asplund. It was not really in the main part of Stockholm and it took about an hr to walk there from City Hall, but I got to see more of Copenhagen. The library was very cool; it is a very stark building, basically a cylinder on top of a cube and painted bright orange! From the library I took the metro down to the other end of the city to go look at a church I had read about that had good views of the city and I got lunch (another frankfurter) from the same place I had gotten dinner. Then I took the Metro to the Woodland Cemetery, which is about a 12 min train ride from the center of Stockholm. This Cemetery has a lot of famous people buried there and has some interesting chapels and landscaping, so I though I would check it out. Unfortunately, since it was still winter, there was snow and ice on the ground outside of Stockholm and so it was a little hard to walk around the cemetery. Also, the two buildings I went to see were closed so I couldn’t go in. But the cemetery was very beautiful and part of it was in a forest of very tall pine trees, which was neat to see. From the Woodland Cemetery I took the Metro back to Stockholm, made a quick trip to the National Museum where I really enjoyed the temporary exhibit on the Pre-Raphaelites since I’ve always heard references to them but have never really understood what they were all about. From there I walked back to the main shopping area (I wanted to stop in an H&M to try to find a purse I saw in Copenhagen but figured would be cheaper in Stockholm). I managed to find the purse and in looking for it I went into 3 H&Ms within 2 blocks and saw a couple more that I didn’t go into. On the main shopping street, there were literally 3 H&Ms less than 50 yds from each other, it seemed a bit much! By this time it was 5 so everything expect for restaurants was closed so I walked around a bit more since my flight didn’t leave until 9 pm. However, it started to rain, so I ran into a café and had some more hot chocolate and a pastry! I waited there for a while and then went to the Central Train station and took the Arlanda Express to the airport and came back to Copenhagen.
Some things I noticed while I was in Stockholm/comparisons to Copenhagen:
1. It was really nice to be somewhere that had hills again. Copenhagen and Denmark are very flat but Stockholm had a fair amount of hills and they really help to make the streetscape more interesting and give you cool views.
2. Stockholm was a lot more different from Copenhagen than I expected. The buildings were less colorful and on average were 1 to 2 stories taller (even the older buildings). Also, the buildings had a more serious look to them and some of the residential areas had very ornate, baroque buildings that reminded me a lot of Paris. In comparison, the buildings in Copenhagen are much simpler and there are very few that are really ornate.
3. There were hardly any bikers…of course this makes sense since Stockholm is hilly, and also, their Metro system is much more extensive than Copenhagen’s.
4. People crossed the street whenever…they didn’t wait for the light as they do in Copenhagen.
5. The main shopping area was in a very modern district that was rebuilt in the 60s so the buildings are nothing that special to look at but there are still lots of people out so that makes it nicer. Also, the medieval part of town (Gammla Stan) was pretty much given over to tourist shops, a few restaurants and some arts and crafts stores. This is very different from Copenhagen where the old part is where the main shopping area is which I prefer because they everyone, both tourists and locals get to interact with the old architecture.
6. Stockholm is located on a harbor and it made up of 14 different islands so this gives you lots of really pretty views of the water and of the different islands. It was a very beautiful and picturesque city.
7. As I mentioned earlier, Stockholm was CHEAP! My big cups of hot chocolate only cost the equivalent of $2.50, which even in America would be cheap!
8. The Metro was really confusing…not figuring out which trains to take but figuring out how to buy your ticket since apparently you can’t buy single tickets from a machine and am supposed to buy them from a convenience store located in the train stations and then to get into the trains, you have to go to a special line where you show a station agent your ticket and then he lets you through. Their Metro was also really expensive.
9. I saw a lot more emphasis and advertising “traditional” Swedish costumes. There was a picture of the royal family dressed up as “traditional” Swedish peasants, which was kind of funny.
10. Apparently Swedes don’t all use the enormous prams they use in Copenhagen but normal size strollers. I also don’t think I saw as many babies as I do in Copenhagen.
So all in all I really enjoyed Stockholm and didn’t really mind traveling by myself since it meant I could be more spontaneous and could just do what I wanted to do. I was able to see everything I really wanted to see in 1.5 days but there was a lot of other interesting looking museums and shops that I didn’t get to go to so hopefully I’ll go back someday and I highly recommend visiting Stockholm (although it would probably be better to go once it is a bit warmer).
First, a list of what I did in Stockholm:
Saturday March 6th
My flight arrived in Stockholm at 12 on Saturday so I really only had half of Saturday to do stuff.
I took the Arlanda Express (nonstop train from the airport to Stockholm that was very convenient) and checked into my hostel on Gammla Stan, the old medieval part of Stockholm.
Went to Ostermalm Saulhall, a large food/market hall which was very cool with all of the different kinds of food
Went to the Modern Museum/Arkitekturmuseum (they are connected) which I left at 6 so everything else was closed
Walked around A LOT, I kind of ended up just wandering around so I could see a bit of Stockholm and I ended up walking for 3 straight hours with a break for a frankfurter dinner before I headed back to the hostel, planned Sunday and went to bed early.
Sunday March 7th
It gets even lighter earlier in Stockholm than in Copenhagen since it is farther north so I got up at 7 so I could use as much light as possible, packed my stuff, checked out of the hostel and dropped my stuff off at the central station. Then I walked around again, mostly exploring Gammla Stan, which was a very cute and quaint island that I had seen some of in the dark, but wanted to see it in daylight. I was basically waiting for cafes to open for breakfast (it was Sunday and most places didn’t even open up until 10) but I found a place that I had read about that opened at 9 so I got a hot chocolate and a cinnamon roll for breakfast! Both were very good and the hot chocolate came in an enormous bowl! One of the best things was the price…Sweden is much cheaper than Denmark because their Kroner is much weaker (10 SKK per $ instead of 6 DKK) and the nominal prices in Sweden were about the same as in Denmark! After breakfast, I walked over to the Stockholm City Hall, which is one of their most famous buildings and one I had really enjoyed learning about in class. I took a guided tour since that was the only way to see inside and really enjoyed it. The City Hall holds the Nobel Banquet and I think is where they announce the Nobel Prize winners every year. However, the main room is called the Gold Room, and is adeptly named because this enormous room is totally covered with gold mosaics! It is very cool but a little odd because it is done in a very byzantine style even though the room in Sweden. After the tour, I walked all the way up to another building I had learned about in class, the Stockholm Public Library by Gunnar Asplund. It was not really in the main part of Stockholm and it took about an hr to walk there from City Hall, but I got to see more of Copenhagen. The library was very cool; it is a very stark building, basically a cylinder on top of a cube and painted bright orange! From the library I took the metro down to the other end of the city to go look at a church I had read about that had good views of the city and I got lunch (another frankfurter) from the same place I had gotten dinner. Then I took the Metro to the Woodland Cemetery, which is about a 12 min train ride from the center of Stockholm. This Cemetery has a lot of famous people buried there and has some interesting chapels and landscaping, so I though I would check it out. Unfortunately, since it was still winter, there was snow and ice on the ground outside of Stockholm and so it was a little hard to walk around the cemetery. Also, the two buildings I went to see were closed so I couldn’t go in. But the cemetery was very beautiful and part of it was in a forest of very tall pine trees, which was neat to see. From the Woodland Cemetery I took the Metro back to Stockholm, made a quick trip to the National Museum where I really enjoyed the temporary exhibit on the Pre-Raphaelites since I’ve always heard references to them but have never really understood what they were all about. From there I walked back to the main shopping area (I wanted to stop in an H&M to try to find a purse I saw in Copenhagen but figured would be cheaper in Stockholm). I managed to find the purse and in looking for it I went into 3 H&Ms within 2 blocks and saw a couple more that I didn’t go into. On the main shopping street, there were literally 3 H&Ms less than 50 yds from each other, it seemed a bit much! By this time it was 5 so everything expect for restaurants was closed so I walked around a bit more since my flight didn’t leave until 9 pm. However, it started to rain, so I ran into a café and had some more hot chocolate and a pastry! I waited there for a while and then went to the Central Train station and took the Arlanda Express to the airport and came back to Copenhagen.
Some things I noticed while I was in Stockholm/comparisons to Copenhagen:
1. It was really nice to be somewhere that had hills again. Copenhagen and Denmark are very flat but Stockholm had a fair amount of hills and they really help to make the streetscape more interesting and give you cool views.
2. Stockholm was a lot more different from Copenhagen than I expected. The buildings were less colorful and on average were 1 to 2 stories taller (even the older buildings). Also, the buildings had a more serious look to them and some of the residential areas had very ornate, baroque buildings that reminded me a lot of Paris. In comparison, the buildings in Copenhagen are much simpler and there are very few that are really ornate.
3. There were hardly any bikers…of course this makes sense since Stockholm is hilly, and also, their Metro system is much more extensive than Copenhagen’s.
4. People crossed the street whenever…they didn’t wait for the light as they do in Copenhagen.
5. The main shopping area was in a very modern district that was rebuilt in the 60s so the buildings are nothing that special to look at but there are still lots of people out so that makes it nicer. Also, the medieval part of town (Gammla Stan) was pretty much given over to tourist shops, a few restaurants and some arts and crafts stores. This is very different from Copenhagen where the old part is where the main shopping area is which I prefer because they everyone, both tourists and locals get to interact with the old architecture.
6. Stockholm is located on a harbor and it made up of 14 different islands so this gives you lots of really pretty views of the water and of the different islands. It was a very beautiful and picturesque city.
7. As I mentioned earlier, Stockholm was CHEAP! My big cups of hot chocolate only cost the equivalent of $2.50, which even in America would be cheap!
8. The Metro was really confusing…not figuring out which trains to take but figuring out how to buy your ticket since apparently you can’t buy single tickets from a machine and am supposed to buy them from a convenience store located in the train stations and then to get into the trains, you have to go to a special line where you show a station agent your ticket and then he lets you through. Their Metro was also really expensive.
9. I saw a lot more emphasis and advertising “traditional” Swedish costumes. There was a picture of the royal family dressed up as “traditional” Swedish peasants, which was kind of funny.
10. Apparently Swedes don’t all use the enormous prams they use in Copenhagen but normal size strollers. I also don’t think I saw as many babies as I do in Copenhagen.
So all in all I really enjoyed Stockholm and didn’t really mind traveling by myself since it meant I could be more spontaneous and could just do what I wanted to do. I was able to see everything I really wanted to see in 1.5 days but there was a lot of other interesting looking museums and shops that I didn’t get to go to so hopefully I’ll go back someday and I highly recommend visiting Stockholm (although it would probably be better to go once it is a bit warmer).
Two More Museums and hints of Spring
(this is regarding Feb 25- March 5)
Wow, I was just looking back on my blog and I realized that I hadn’t posted anything since the end of February! So I’ll be filling everyone in on what I’ve been doing since then but I’ll make a couple separate posts for organization sake.
The last bit of February and the first week of March I again took it easy and didn’t try to cram a lot of things in. I did go to two museums (trying to see them all before the weather gets really nice), the Kunstindustrimuseet (Museum of Art and Design) and to the Thorvaldsen Museum. I had been to the Kunstindustrimuseet very briefly a couple of weeks earlier just to look at a specific piece for a class, but I didn’t really spend enough time looking at all of the objects. This is definitely one of my favorite museums in Copenhagen and it is broken into two parts, one shows notable Danish design furniture and goods (mostly chairs but there are lots of other things) from the 20th century to now so it has example of all of the famous Danish chairs by the big names such as Kaare Klint, Arne Jacobsen, Borge Møgensen and Poul Henningson. It is really fun to look at all of the different ways chairs can be made but just having all of those supposedly comfortable chairs there really makes me want to sit in them! The other part of the museum is given over to more historical international furniture and objects d’art from Europe (mostly France, England and the Netherlands) and from China and Japan (Modern Danish Design is greatly influenced by the Japanese). I also really liked this part, especially the Asian furniture. Finally, I could really tell I was in a design museum in a country known for its design when I went to the bathroom. The interiors were very sleek and modern, with copper stall doors and mahogany toilet seats! (I also really like how most of the public bathrooms here have actual walls for the stalls and door that go the full height of the room.
Later that week I went to the Thorvaldsen Museum, which I think was the first building created specifically to be a museum in Copenhagen and is I think the only museum in Denmark devoted to a specific artist. Thorvaldsen was a famous sculpture in the mid 19th century and he pretty much only worked in the Greek/Roman style, so the statues are pretty much what you would expect to see if you were in Italy. The thing I enjoyed the most about this museum was the architecture and the interior decorations. The building was built in a Greco-Egyptian style and the interiors used very rich yellows, eggplants, greens and red which really offset the white marble statues well. Also, it was arranged so you could see down an entire wing which created a very neat effect.
Although it definatley wasn’t spring yet, the weather was getting to be a little bit more spring like and there was a little something extra in the air. There were also starting to be more sunny or only partly cloudy days, which really so far has been the main clue that spring is coming.
Wow, I was just looking back on my blog and I realized that I hadn’t posted anything since the end of February! So I’ll be filling everyone in on what I’ve been doing since then but I’ll make a couple separate posts for organization sake.
The last bit of February and the first week of March I again took it easy and didn’t try to cram a lot of things in. I did go to two museums (trying to see them all before the weather gets really nice), the Kunstindustrimuseet (Museum of Art and Design) and to the Thorvaldsen Museum. I had been to the Kunstindustrimuseet very briefly a couple of weeks earlier just to look at a specific piece for a class, but I didn’t really spend enough time looking at all of the objects. This is definitely one of my favorite museums in Copenhagen and it is broken into two parts, one shows notable Danish design furniture and goods (mostly chairs but there are lots of other things) from the 20th century to now so it has example of all of the famous Danish chairs by the big names such as Kaare Klint, Arne Jacobsen, Borge Møgensen and Poul Henningson. It is really fun to look at all of the different ways chairs can be made but just having all of those supposedly comfortable chairs there really makes me want to sit in them! The other part of the museum is given over to more historical international furniture and objects d’art from Europe (mostly France, England and the Netherlands) and from China and Japan (Modern Danish Design is greatly influenced by the Japanese). I also really liked this part, especially the Asian furniture. Finally, I could really tell I was in a design museum in a country known for its design when I went to the bathroom. The interiors were very sleek and modern, with copper stall doors and mahogany toilet seats! (I also really like how most of the public bathrooms here have actual walls for the stalls and door that go the full height of the room.
Later that week I went to the Thorvaldsen Museum, which I think was the first building created specifically to be a museum in Copenhagen and is I think the only museum in Denmark devoted to a specific artist. Thorvaldsen was a famous sculpture in the mid 19th century and he pretty much only worked in the Greek/Roman style, so the statues are pretty much what you would expect to see if you were in Italy. The thing I enjoyed the most about this museum was the architecture and the interior decorations. The building was built in a Greco-Egyptian style and the interiors used very rich yellows, eggplants, greens and red which really offset the white marble statues well. Also, it was arranged so you could see down an entire wing which created a very neat effect.
Although it definatley wasn’t spring yet, the weather was getting to be a little bit more spring like and there was a little something extra in the air. There were also starting to be more sunny or only partly cloudy days, which really so far has been the main clue that spring is coming.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Taking it Easy
The past week I've pretty much been taking it easy, I needed a bit of a break after two hectic weekends of travel. However, over the weekend I did go to two museums, The Danish National Museum and the NY Carlsberg Glyptothek. The Danish National Museum is a large natural history museum which has exhibits on Danish history from pre-history through the middle ages, the Reformation and to the modern day. It also has the obligatory exhibitions on different "People's of the World" and of course Greek and Egyptian artifacts. I've discovered that I'm not a huge fan of natural history museums (I prefer art museums) but I really enjoyed the exhibitions on modern Denmark (1800s to present). Also, in the "People's of the World" exhibit there were a couple of rooms dedicated to Greenland (which is part of Denmark) that i thought were interesting, especially since I don't think you could find that info in another country. I think the Danish pre-history portion is the most popular and it has recently been redone by a famous Danish architecture firm, so I would definately recommend it.
The Glypothek was established by Carl Jacobsen, the founder of Carlsberg Beer and it contains mostly sculptures (Egyptian, Greek, Roman and more modern French and Danish), as well as some impressionist paintings and some ancient Mediterannean artifacts. The building is also really neat and is heavily influence by Greek architecture. It also has a large "winter garden" in the center that is kind of like a large greenhouse inside the musuem and has large palm trees and ferns etc. It was really beautiful and lush, which was, of course, very different from the outside.
Now, a bit about my classes:
I'm enjoying all of my classes so far and I think I am really getting a good sense of Danish culture and society through them. In Danish Politics and Society we went on a field study tour to the Danish Human Rights Institute where several people talked to us about what they did. We learned a bit about immigration and asylum, including the asylum centers and also a bit about Greenland, especially how their crime and punishment. Several interesting things: Denmark is really strict about giving immigrants asylum, you can only get asylum if you, specifically are being targeted, therefore, very few people actually get asylum in Denmark. Greenland, which is part of Denmark but has some degree of autonomy basically doesn't have prisons. If someone commits a crime their philosophy is to reeducate that perpetrator while keeping him/her part of society (if someone does something really bad, like murder, they get sent to Denmark to serve their sentence). While it does seem strange to keep the criminals in the society, this practice apparently arose out of the small Greenland villages that needed everyone participating in society in order to survive. Needless to say, this stragtegy is very different than in America.
Some other interesting things about Danes I've learned: historically, Danish people have not tended towards revolutions, they got rid of an absolute monarchy, established the current constitution and resolved the conflicts between labor unions and the companies without any revolution. Also, as opposed to many countries where the labor unions and companies are engaged in a struggle against each other for the upper hand, a main goal for both the labor unions and the companies in Denmark is to increase production in order to increase profit and therefore pay. Finally, way back in 1899, the labor unions and the companies made negotiations that gave the labor unions the right to exist and established a precedent for negotiations before strikes. Therefore, my teacher said strikes weren't very common in Denmark, and if they were, they didn't last for long. However, shortly after he said that, the bus drivers went on strike (causing my bus line and many other to be canceled, so I have to walk to school), so I'm not really sure how common strikes are.
The large bulk of the schoolwork i do is for my architectural studio class. Right now, we have been working on a project for a couple of weeks that will be due the middle of March. Our project is urban infill and we have to design a gallery space to display four pieces of art/music pieces. The four pieces are a jukebox designed to play famous music, speeches and soundclips, a famous piano designed by Poul Henningsen, a famous danish designer, the Golden Horns of Gallehus, goldern horns from the viking age that were discovered in the 17th century and which are an important part of Danish history and finally a muscial symphony by danish composer Per Nogaard. Our project is confined to the footprint of an existing building (5 m x 9 m) and two stories. One of the main things we are supposed to consider is light. This is a major concern in Nordic architecture, which makes sense since it is so far north and there is almost no direct light in the winter and the sun never comes very high in the sky. Although the project sounds simple, the space is really small and everything can get complicated the more you think about it. But i feel like I'm learning a lot and I really like my studio professor, she is very knowledgeable and gives you lots of feedback and sources to look at.
The Glypothek was established by Carl Jacobsen, the founder of Carlsberg Beer and it contains mostly sculptures (Egyptian, Greek, Roman and more modern French and Danish), as well as some impressionist paintings and some ancient Mediterannean artifacts. The building is also really neat and is heavily influence by Greek architecture. It also has a large "winter garden" in the center that is kind of like a large greenhouse inside the musuem and has large palm trees and ferns etc. It was really beautiful and lush, which was, of course, very different from the outside.
Now, a bit about my classes:
I'm enjoying all of my classes so far and I think I am really getting a good sense of Danish culture and society through them. In Danish Politics and Society we went on a field study tour to the Danish Human Rights Institute where several people talked to us about what they did. We learned a bit about immigration and asylum, including the asylum centers and also a bit about Greenland, especially how their crime and punishment. Several interesting things: Denmark is really strict about giving immigrants asylum, you can only get asylum if you, specifically are being targeted, therefore, very few people actually get asylum in Denmark. Greenland, which is part of Denmark but has some degree of autonomy basically doesn't have prisons. If someone commits a crime their philosophy is to reeducate that perpetrator while keeping him/her part of society (if someone does something really bad, like murder, they get sent to Denmark to serve their sentence). While it does seem strange to keep the criminals in the society, this practice apparently arose out of the small Greenland villages that needed everyone participating in society in order to survive. Needless to say, this stragtegy is very different than in America.
Some other interesting things about Danes I've learned: historically, Danish people have not tended towards revolutions, they got rid of an absolute monarchy, established the current constitution and resolved the conflicts between labor unions and the companies without any revolution. Also, as opposed to many countries where the labor unions and companies are engaged in a struggle against each other for the upper hand, a main goal for both the labor unions and the companies in Denmark is to increase production in order to increase profit and therefore pay. Finally, way back in 1899, the labor unions and the companies made negotiations that gave the labor unions the right to exist and established a precedent for negotiations before strikes. Therefore, my teacher said strikes weren't very common in Denmark, and if they were, they didn't last for long. However, shortly after he said that, the bus drivers went on strike (causing my bus line and many other to be canceled, so I have to walk to school), so I'm not really sure how common strikes are.
The large bulk of the schoolwork i do is for my architectural studio class. Right now, we have been working on a project for a couple of weeks that will be due the middle of March. Our project is urban infill and we have to design a gallery space to display four pieces of art/music pieces. The four pieces are a jukebox designed to play famous music, speeches and soundclips, a famous piano designed by Poul Henningsen, a famous danish designer, the Golden Horns of Gallehus, goldern horns from the viking age that were discovered in the 17th century and which are an important part of Danish history and finally a muscial symphony by danish composer Per Nogaard. Our project is confined to the footprint of an existing building (5 m x 9 m) and two stories. One of the main things we are supposed to consider is light. This is a major concern in Nordic architecture, which makes sense since it is so far north and there is almost no direct light in the winter and the sun never comes very high in the sky. Although the project sounds simple, the space is really small and everything can get complicated the more you think about it. But i feel like I'm learning a lot and I really like my studio professor, she is very knowledgeable and gives you lots of feedback and sources to look at.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Berlin!
Last weekend I made a weekend trip to Berlin with Lauren, a friend from Bryn Mawr who is also interested in architecture. We took a night bus from Copenhagen to Berlin (about a 7 hr drive including a ferry ride) on Friday night and then a bus back from Berlin Monday morning. We stayed at a hostel that was right next to Museum Island and most of the main historical sites.
First, here's a brief list of what we did:
Saturday:
1. Walked from our hostel to Unter den Linden (the main street with lots of historical sites) to the Reichstag. The line to go up to the top of the dome was an hour long so we left.
2. We walked around the Friedrich Strasse U-bahn stop and got hot chocolate and pastries at a cafe and planned the rest of the day.
3. Walked down to Potsdamer Platz, on the way we saw the Holocaust Memorial
4. Walked from Potsdamer Platz to Checkpoint Charlie.
5. Walked from Checkpoint Charlie to the Jewish Museum and went in.
6. Walked up to Gendarmarkt.
7. Walked over to NikolaiVertil and Alexander Platz on the way back to the hostel.
8. Dinner at a cute little cafe on the Gendarmarkt.
9. Back to the hostel, shower and bed at 10.
Sunday:
1. Walked from the hostel to the Reichstag (we left at 7:30 so that we could arrive at 8 and avoid the long lines). Went up the Reichstag dome which was very cool and we got a great view of the city.
2. Breakfast at Cafe Einstein, a pretty nice cafe on the Unter den Linden.
3. Walked over to Museum Island to look at the Altes Musuem, the Berliner Dom and the Pergamon (we didn't go in any due to time restraints).
4. Went to a neat flea market by Museum Island where I bought a pair of leather gloves that were much warmer than the gloves I had earlier.
5. Took the U-Bahn over to Charlottenberg Schloss and went inside and walked around the gardens. It was starting to snow so we didn't walk around too long.
6. Walked down to Kurferstendamm (the main shopping street in West Berlin) which was a pretty long walk and we stopped at a Döner Kebap place for lunch on the way which is a kind of Turkish sandwich (they have something almost the same in Copenhagen, called Schwarma).
7. Walked up the Kurferstendamm to the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche, a partly bombed out church in West Berlin.
8. Then we walked over to the Bauhaus Museum of Art and Design (designed by Walter Gropius) which we were too late to go in but looked at the outside and then over to the Neue Nationalgaleri (designed by Mies van der Rohe) which was temporarily closed.
9. Walked over to an area around the Nollendorfplatz. On the way we stopped at a neat Turkish restaurant to get some food for the bus ride back to Copenhagen.
10. Dinner at a good Indian restaurant and a bit of a rest after a long day.
11. Took the U-Bahn back to Unter den Linden and the Reichstag and went up to the top of the dome again at night. It was neat to see everything lit up and the Brandenberg Gate was really pretty all lit up.
As you can see from these lists, we had very busy days and were walking almost the entire time. I calculated and on Saturday we were probably walking for 9-10 hrs and on Sunday for around 11 hrs. Needless to say, we were very tired each night but we pretty much saw everything we wanted to which was good.
Second, here's things I noticed/thought about Berlin:
1.We spent all of Saturday and the first part of Sunday in East Berlin since that is where most of the historical and tourist attractions are and I could really feel the Soviet influence on that part of the city. There were no trees on the side of the streets, there were many more buildings that were basically concrete blocks and the area just had a harsher, less warm feeling than West Berlin. Also, there were still several empty area that I assumed had never been rebuilt from WWII or had been destroyed during the cold war. Also, even though we walked around East Berlin quite a bit, we never saw any major shopping area but maybe we just weren't in the right places. We spent most of Sunday in West Berlin and really felt the different character of the city. The atmosphere seemed a bit warmer and there were many more trees on the streets, more cobblestone on the streets and sidewalks and older buildings.
2. The most interesting thing about Berlin was thinking that only 20 years ago, it was split into two cities separated by a wall. It must have been very strange to live in Berlin back when it was divided and the division is still apparent today.
3. One thing that was especially interesting/funny was the use of the old Soviet walk/don't walk signals in East Berlin and the fact that the symbols have been turned into tons of different souvernier products. It's kind of ironic that a symbol of communism has been adopted by the very capitalistic tourist industry, which was very successful, especially for me (I bought a bag with the symbols on it).
4. I ate pretty well in Berlin since it wasn't too expensive. Notable meals include dinner at a small cafe on the Gendarmarkt. I had a Currywurst (bratwurst with ketchup and curry) which was REALLY good, potato salad (the first time I've ever had it...it was okay), a beer and an apple cake. Also, breakfast on Sunday at Cafe Einstein. I had hot chocoloate, the really rich European kind and scrambled eggs and bread. Lunch ...Döner Kebap, which was very good and finally dinner again at an Indian restuarant recommended to me by a friend who studied abroad in Berlin last semester.
Berlin and Copenhagen:
1. Berlin is a huge city, especially in comparison with Copenhagen. We could ride the U-Bahn for 20 minutes easily and still be within the city limits whereas in Copenhagen, that would take you well into the suburbs.
2. Berlin is CHEAP! Maybe its just because I'm living in Copenhagen now which is a very expensive city but I was really suprised by how affordable things were in Berlin. Restaurants weren't very expensive and one night I got a pretty good dinner, beer and dessert for only 11 euros and most restaurants seemed to have dinner entrees from between 8-12 euros. In Copenhagen, its really hard to go out to dinner for less than 100 DKK ($17) and most places are more around 120 DKK ($20). It was also nice to be in a country in which the currency was roughly on the same scale at the US. I still find myself converting Danish currency for some things because the scale is so different from the US (roughly 6 DKK per 1 USD).
3. Germans are much less fashionable than the Danish. I also saw a lot of dyed hair, mostly females dying their hair red or pink...not many people dye their hair in Denmark.
4. There are a lot more modern buildings in Berlin than Copenhagen, which makes since considering it was heavily bombed during WWII and Copenhagen hasn't been burnt or bombed since 1807. I really like a lot of the new buildings in Berlin and I liked how they built modern buildings that were just a modern take on the older archtecture. It also helped that a lot of the newer building's were built out of stone, which is a much warmer material than concrete.
5. The modern German buildings were a lot different from those that I have seen in Denmark and Copenhagen. I'm not really sure exactly what is different, but the German buildings seem a bit harsher and not as soft. But it was interesting that we could both definatley tell the difference.
All in all I really enjoyed going to Berlin and even though I was only there for a short time I think I got a pretty good sense of the city, although I definatly want to go back sometime and explore the city at a more leisurely pace.
First, here's a brief list of what we did:
Saturday:
1. Walked from our hostel to Unter den Linden (the main street with lots of historical sites) to the Reichstag. The line to go up to the top of the dome was an hour long so we left.
2. We walked around the Friedrich Strasse U-bahn stop and got hot chocolate and pastries at a cafe and planned the rest of the day.
3. Walked down to Potsdamer Platz, on the way we saw the Holocaust Memorial
4. Walked from Potsdamer Platz to Checkpoint Charlie.
5. Walked from Checkpoint Charlie to the Jewish Museum and went in.
6. Walked up to Gendarmarkt.
7. Walked over to NikolaiVertil and Alexander Platz on the way back to the hostel.
8. Dinner at a cute little cafe on the Gendarmarkt.
9. Back to the hostel, shower and bed at 10.
Sunday:
1. Walked from the hostel to the Reichstag (we left at 7:30 so that we could arrive at 8 and avoid the long lines). Went up the Reichstag dome which was very cool and we got a great view of the city.
2. Breakfast at Cafe Einstein, a pretty nice cafe on the Unter den Linden.
3. Walked over to Museum Island to look at the Altes Musuem, the Berliner Dom and the Pergamon (we didn't go in any due to time restraints).
4. Went to a neat flea market by Museum Island where I bought a pair of leather gloves that were much warmer than the gloves I had earlier.
5. Took the U-Bahn over to Charlottenberg Schloss and went inside and walked around the gardens. It was starting to snow so we didn't walk around too long.
6. Walked down to Kurferstendamm (the main shopping street in West Berlin) which was a pretty long walk and we stopped at a Döner Kebap place for lunch on the way which is a kind of Turkish sandwich (they have something almost the same in Copenhagen, called Schwarma).
7. Walked up the Kurferstendamm to the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche, a partly bombed out church in West Berlin.
8. Then we walked over to the Bauhaus Museum of Art and Design (designed by Walter Gropius) which we were too late to go in but looked at the outside and then over to the Neue Nationalgaleri (designed by Mies van der Rohe) which was temporarily closed.
9. Walked over to an area around the Nollendorfplatz. On the way we stopped at a neat Turkish restaurant to get some food for the bus ride back to Copenhagen.
10. Dinner at a good Indian restaurant and a bit of a rest after a long day.
11. Took the U-Bahn back to Unter den Linden and the Reichstag and went up to the top of the dome again at night. It was neat to see everything lit up and the Brandenberg Gate was really pretty all lit up.
As you can see from these lists, we had very busy days and were walking almost the entire time. I calculated and on Saturday we were probably walking for 9-10 hrs and on Sunday for around 11 hrs. Needless to say, we were very tired each night but we pretty much saw everything we wanted to which was good.
Second, here's things I noticed/thought about Berlin:
1.We spent all of Saturday and the first part of Sunday in East Berlin since that is where most of the historical and tourist attractions are and I could really feel the Soviet influence on that part of the city. There were no trees on the side of the streets, there were many more buildings that were basically concrete blocks and the area just had a harsher, less warm feeling than West Berlin. Also, there were still several empty area that I assumed had never been rebuilt from WWII or had been destroyed during the cold war. Also, even though we walked around East Berlin quite a bit, we never saw any major shopping area but maybe we just weren't in the right places. We spent most of Sunday in West Berlin and really felt the different character of the city. The atmosphere seemed a bit warmer and there were many more trees on the streets, more cobblestone on the streets and sidewalks and older buildings.
2. The most interesting thing about Berlin was thinking that only 20 years ago, it was split into two cities separated by a wall. It must have been very strange to live in Berlin back when it was divided and the division is still apparent today.
3. One thing that was especially interesting/funny was the use of the old Soviet walk/don't walk signals in East Berlin and the fact that the symbols have been turned into tons of different souvernier products. It's kind of ironic that a symbol of communism has been adopted by the very capitalistic tourist industry, which was very successful, especially for me (I bought a bag with the symbols on it).
4. I ate pretty well in Berlin since it wasn't too expensive. Notable meals include dinner at a small cafe on the Gendarmarkt. I had a Currywurst (bratwurst with ketchup and curry) which was REALLY good, potato salad (the first time I've ever had it...it was okay), a beer and an apple cake. Also, breakfast on Sunday at Cafe Einstein. I had hot chocoloate, the really rich European kind and scrambled eggs and bread. Lunch ...Döner Kebap, which was very good and finally dinner again at an Indian restuarant recommended to me by a friend who studied abroad in Berlin last semester.
Berlin and Copenhagen:
1. Berlin is a huge city, especially in comparison with Copenhagen. We could ride the U-Bahn for 20 minutes easily and still be within the city limits whereas in Copenhagen, that would take you well into the suburbs.
2. Berlin is CHEAP! Maybe its just because I'm living in Copenhagen now which is a very expensive city but I was really suprised by how affordable things were in Berlin. Restaurants weren't very expensive and one night I got a pretty good dinner, beer and dessert for only 11 euros and most restaurants seemed to have dinner entrees from between 8-12 euros. In Copenhagen, its really hard to go out to dinner for less than 100 DKK ($17) and most places are more around 120 DKK ($20). It was also nice to be in a country in which the currency was roughly on the same scale at the US. I still find myself converting Danish currency for some things because the scale is so different from the US (roughly 6 DKK per 1 USD).
3. Germans are much less fashionable than the Danish. I also saw a lot of dyed hair, mostly females dying their hair red or pink...not many people dye their hair in Denmark.
4. There are a lot more modern buildings in Berlin than Copenhagen, which makes since considering it was heavily bombed during WWII and Copenhagen hasn't been burnt or bombed since 1807. I really like a lot of the new buildings in Berlin and I liked how they built modern buildings that were just a modern take on the older archtecture. It also helped that a lot of the newer building's were built out of stone, which is a much warmer material than concrete.
5. The modern German buildings were a lot different from those that I have seen in Denmark and Copenhagen. I'm not really sure exactly what is different, but the German buildings seem a bit harsher and not as soft. But it was interesting that we could both definatley tell the difference.
All in all I really enjoyed going to Berlin and even though I was only there for a short time I think I got a pretty good sense of the city, although I definatly want to go back sometime and explore the city at a more leisurely pace.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Travel Plans and Western Denmark
For the past week or so I've mostly been preoccupied with making travel plans for my spring travel break (3 weeks long with a DIS organized trip the first week) and a couple of weekend trips. Making these plans has taken a lot more energy and has been a lot more stressful that I originally thought and I've realized that I really need to prioritize where I want to go because I don't have time to do everything. I decided to travel with a good friend from home who is studying in Barcelona for the second week and a half of the break and we spent several hours talking on skype and figuring out what we wanted to do and making plane tickets. The DIS lead trip that I am going on goes through Germany and the Netherlands and ends in Utrecht. So from Utrecht I will take a train to Amsterdam, spend a day and a half in Amsterdam, then take a train to Brussels where I will stay for a day and then fly to Barcelona. I'll stay in Barcelona for several days with my friend before we both fly to London for several days, then we'll fly to Zurich and see some of the Swiss countryside. Finally, we'll take a night train from Zurich to Budapest, spend a day and a half in Budapest and then go on to our final destination in Prague. So the break will definately be full and will involve lots of traveling but I'm really excited to see everything. However, it is a little unfortunate that we managed to pick every country that is not on the Euro!
This next weekend (the 13th thru the 16th) I am going to Berlin with a friend. Since we decided kind of late to go, plane tickets were expensive so we're going to take a night bus there and an early morning bus back (there are no night buses from Berlin to Copenhagen which is kind of annoying).
I am planning on taking two other weekend trips, one to Stockholm and one to Vienna. Planes are by far the easiest and cheapest way to travel and to make reservations but there aren't any really cheap flights out of Copenhagen. Probably the most difficult thing about making travel arrangements is finding information about trains online and it seems to be impossible to book any train tickets online, and to get a reservation you have to go to a central train station.
I spent most of the early part of the week working on travel arrangements and I found it kind of addicitive and I just wanted to keep trying different travel sites and different date combinations. However, fortunately i was forced to take a break because I had a short DIS study tour from Thursday Feb. 5 to Saturday Feb.7.
The tour consisted of half of the architecture students (around 40 students,the other half went on a different bus) and we went to three cities on the Jutland Peninsula in Western Denmark. For those of you unfamiliar with the geography of Denmark, Copenhagen is located on the eastern most part of the island of Sealand. Directly west of Sealand is another island, Funen and west of that is the Jutland Peninsula, which connects to northern Germany.
On Thursday, we first stopped at a recently completed church, Hellig Kors Kirke in Jylling, about 45 minutes west of Denmark. It had snowed the night before so it was really pretty to see all of the unspoilt snow and I think we got a different perspective on the church because of it. This church was one of the coolest buildings that we saw on the entire trip and it had a really interesting shape and a lot of attention was paid to natural light and the building's realtionship with the landscape, which seems to be a very important part in Danish and nordic architecture. Unfortunately, we only got to stay at the church for 15 minutes because we had to make sure that we caught the ferry to Aarhus, the second largest city in Denmark, with a population of around 250,000.
The ferry to Aarhus was pretty cool. We drove into the ferry on the bus and then left the bus and walked up to the sitting area where they also had a restaurant and a little store where you could buy food. The trip on the ferry wasn't that interesting because it was so foggy that you couldn't see anything except the water. Also, the Danish coast isn't that interesting to look at from far away because everything is so flat.
In Aarhus, we saw the Aarhus Radhus (the City Hall), designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1938 who seems to be the most famous Danish architect. The building was very clearly influenced by the Bauhaus but what was amazing was that they managed to build it during WWII and the German occupation of Denmark. The city hall also had a tower (which I thought was kind of ugly and didn't really fit the rest of the building) but we got a great view of Aarhus. I also saw the ARoS art musuem, which was just a neat modern art museum with a staircase that was similar to the Guggenheim. Also, there was a statue of a giant little boy in a crouching position that was 15' high. I also walked around Aarhus a little bit and it wasn't that different from Copenhagen, just smaller and a little more industrial seeming. Later Thursday night we drove 1.5 hrs up to Aalborg, on the northern end of Jutland.
In Aalborg the notable buildings we saw was the recently completed Utzon Center and the Nordjyllands KunstMusuem, a modern art museum designed by the famous Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. The Utzon Center was built to honor Jørn Utzon, the architect who designed the Sydney Opera House and who grew up in Aalborg. The Center used Utzon's inspiration of ships and sails for the design and included information on Utzon's work. It also had a really cool light display that is really hard to describe but was very neat. The Aalto musuem was also pretty cool and again there was a lot of attention paid to capturing natural light. Friday night we drove two hours to Kolding, a smaller town in southern Jutland.
Friday night I walked around downtown Kolding with a couple of people and it was a much smaller town than either Aarhus or Aalborg and was very cute, although there was not much going on. We did find an English bar (recommended to us by a friend on the other architecture tour, which had stayed in Kolding the previous night) and when we went in, we were by far the youngest people there. We had also been told to try the strawberry beer, which we did and found that it was really good. It tasted basically like a liquidy strawberry smoothie with a faint beer taste. The pub did get to be pretty crowded and there was an interesting mix of older people, younger people and then all of the students from DIS. Saturday we saw another modern art museum, a library, a traditional Danish church and a restored castle which was also really neat.
Both Thursday and Friday nights we stayed in hostels. Although I didn't have any hostel experience, they seemed to be pretty good and clean. They were both DanHostels, which I think must be some kind of organization kind of like Best Western. Also, I think a lot of Danish families stay in hostels when they travel so the hostels have to be a bit nicer.
All in all the trip was pretty good and it was nice to see a part of Denmark that I wouldn't otherwise have seen. Also, since the trip was an architectural study tour we were told to keep sketchbooks where we were supposed to sketch the buildings and to make notes on their important features. I have never done this before so it was a bit intimidating because there were other people who obviously had done this a lot, but i think i got better and more comfortable with sketching as the trip went on.
This next weekend (the 13th thru the 16th) I am going to Berlin with a friend. Since we decided kind of late to go, plane tickets were expensive so we're going to take a night bus there and an early morning bus back (there are no night buses from Berlin to Copenhagen which is kind of annoying).
I am planning on taking two other weekend trips, one to Stockholm and one to Vienna. Planes are by far the easiest and cheapest way to travel and to make reservations but there aren't any really cheap flights out of Copenhagen. Probably the most difficult thing about making travel arrangements is finding information about trains online and it seems to be impossible to book any train tickets online, and to get a reservation you have to go to a central train station.
I spent most of the early part of the week working on travel arrangements and I found it kind of addicitive and I just wanted to keep trying different travel sites and different date combinations. However, fortunately i was forced to take a break because I had a short DIS study tour from Thursday Feb. 5 to Saturday Feb.7.
The tour consisted of half of the architecture students (around 40 students,the other half went on a different bus) and we went to three cities on the Jutland Peninsula in Western Denmark. For those of you unfamiliar with the geography of Denmark, Copenhagen is located on the eastern most part of the island of Sealand. Directly west of Sealand is another island, Funen and west of that is the Jutland Peninsula, which connects to northern Germany.
On Thursday, we first stopped at a recently completed church, Hellig Kors Kirke in Jylling, about 45 minutes west of Denmark. It had snowed the night before so it was really pretty to see all of the unspoilt snow and I think we got a different perspective on the church because of it. This church was one of the coolest buildings that we saw on the entire trip and it had a really interesting shape and a lot of attention was paid to natural light and the building's realtionship with the landscape, which seems to be a very important part in Danish and nordic architecture. Unfortunately, we only got to stay at the church for 15 minutes because we had to make sure that we caught the ferry to Aarhus, the second largest city in Denmark, with a population of around 250,000.
The ferry to Aarhus was pretty cool. We drove into the ferry on the bus and then left the bus and walked up to the sitting area where they also had a restaurant and a little store where you could buy food. The trip on the ferry wasn't that interesting because it was so foggy that you couldn't see anything except the water. Also, the Danish coast isn't that interesting to look at from far away because everything is so flat.
In Aarhus, we saw the Aarhus Radhus (the City Hall), designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1938 who seems to be the most famous Danish architect. The building was very clearly influenced by the Bauhaus but what was amazing was that they managed to build it during WWII and the German occupation of Denmark. The city hall also had a tower (which I thought was kind of ugly and didn't really fit the rest of the building) but we got a great view of Aarhus. I also saw the ARoS art musuem, which was just a neat modern art museum with a staircase that was similar to the Guggenheim. Also, there was a statue of a giant little boy in a crouching position that was 15' high. I also walked around Aarhus a little bit and it wasn't that different from Copenhagen, just smaller and a little more industrial seeming. Later Thursday night we drove 1.5 hrs up to Aalborg, on the northern end of Jutland.
In Aalborg the notable buildings we saw was the recently completed Utzon Center and the Nordjyllands KunstMusuem, a modern art museum designed by the famous Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. The Utzon Center was built to honor Jørn Utzon, the architect who designed the Sydney Opera House and who grew up in Aalborg. The Center used Utzon's inspiration of ships and sails for the design and included information on Utzon's work. It also had a really cool light display that is really hard to describe but was very neat. The Aalto musuem was also pretty cool and again there was a lot of attention paid to capturing natural light. Friday night we drove two hours to Kolding, a smaller town in southern Jutland.
Friday night I walked around downtown Kolding with a couple of people and it was a much smaller town than either Aarhus or Aalborg and was very cute, although there was not much going on. We did find an English bar (recommended to us by a friend on the other architecture tour, which had stayed in Kolding the previous night) and when we went in, we were by far the youngest people there. We had also been told to try the strawberry beer, which we did and found that it was really good. It tasted basically like a liquidy strawberry smoothie with a faint beer taste. The pub did get to be pretty crowded and there was an interesting mix of older people, younger people and then all of the students from DIS. Saturday we saw another modern art museum, a library, a traditional Danish church and a restored castle which was also really neat.
Both Thursday and Friday nights we stayed in hostels. Although I didn't have any hostel experience, they seemed to be pretty good and clean. They were both DanHostels, which I think must be some kind of organization kind of like Best Western. Also, I think a lot of Danish families stay in hostels when they travel so the hostels have to be a bit nicer.
All in all the trip was pretty good and it was nice to see a part of Denmark that I wouldn't otherwise have seen. Also, since the trip was an architectural study tour we were told to keep sketchbooks where we were supposed to sketch the buildings and to make notes on their important features. I have never done this before so it was a bit intimidating because there were other people who obviously had done this a lot, but i think i got better and more comfortable with sketching as the trip went on.
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