Weekend in Copenhagen

I just got back from Copenhagen with Amy. I'll admit I was having second thoughts about traveling again last week. As horrible as it sounds, I am tired from all this traveling! I love being able to see different cities, but I still don't like the actual transportation part. Possible solution: Teleporting myself. If only...I did, however ,make friends at the airport. While I was ordering a coffee, the man behind the counter and I started talking in very basic Czech. I was so proud, until he through like a real Czech sentence into this conversation. It was then that he realized I was American. We got to talking and his English was fabulous. He ended up giving me his favorite Czech author and novel to me.

Once in Copenhagen, it was absolutely gorgous outside. I'd say about 70 degrees and sunny. Beautiful day for just being outside. So, that's just what we did. We walked from our hostel (Absalon Annex--great hostel) to the center of the city where we met up with Christina from Hamilton and also randomly bumped into Tipper as well. So weird. Christina led us to the Round Tower (picture)


and we also strolled down Stroget Street which is one of the famous shopping streets in the city. Near Stroget there was a gorgeous park right near the Royal Castle. There were tons of people laying on blankets, playing frisbee and just enjoying the weather. It's really funny how much a city can change as soon as the weather does. Without a doubt Prague is a completely different place! All Czechs really want to do is rollerblade in beer gardens - no wonder no one is happy in the winter!

(This is a picture of the park)

Our hostel provided us with a guide book to "April in Copenhagen" and Amy and I saw that there was a big soccer game on Thursday night. Coincidentally, when we ran into Tipper randomly on the street, he mentioned that he and his friends were going to the game. But it gets better: Amy, Christina and I were trying to buy tickets when three separate people handed us free tickets! And they just happened to be excellent seats as well! Team FCK (pronounced F C Kah) couldn't quite capitalize on all their shooting opportunities but at least they tied.

On Friday we woke up and decided to do some of the main tourist attractions. Inevitably that led us directly to the statue of the Little Mermaid. We proceeded to navigate our way through Kastellet Park over the river and through Charlottenburg into Christiania. Christiania is considered to be the "Freetown" of Copenhagen. It is technically self-governed and has only 1000 inhabitants. It was this little oasis amidst the hustle bustle of a city. The entrance part was very touristy but as you got further in towards the river and some of the homes, it was just beautiful and incredible to see. You are not supposed to take any pictures in Christian so this is just a picture of the entrance. But as you can see it is completely covered in graffiti, as most of the 'town'. I think my favorite sign which happened to be graffiited everywhere said, "Imagine a world without wheels, forced labor and high heels". In Christiania we stopped and ate some lunch at basically someone's house. Essentially you walked into this house and there were a few vegetarian salad options. We sat outside as people were planting and gardening.

Friday night we met up with one of Amy's sister's friends who she met while studying abroad in Denmark! How crazy! We met her at a hip bar called Bang & Jenson and then went to a late dinner. I feel like I say this after every trip when I get to speak to people from the country, but I just love speaking to people my age from around the world. She was telling us how so many of her friends are planning trips to America right now since the dollar is so bad...After dinner she took us to this new bar/club called Karriere Bar which is in what used to be the meat packing district of Copenhagen. As we were walking through the area it was completely vacated until all of sudden you heard loud music and then out of nowhere came this bar.

Saturday morning we decided to go on a canal tour. Copenhagen is very similar to Amsterdam in the sense that they both have canals running through the city, bikes everywhere and beautiful, little side streets. It was nice to be on the water, but like on most boat tours, it is very hard to understand what the guides are actually saying. This is one of the many pictures we got from the boat.

Amy and I decided that we wanted to try some traditional Danish food. Little did we know that Danish's are not really from Denmark. In fact, Danes actually call what we call Danishes, "pastries from Vienna". Weird. So instead, we decided to try Smorebrod for lunch which is basically just slices of bread with different kinds of toppings. We decided to share two different kinds: salmon and herbed goat cheese. It was delicious and much less intense than Gulash. This is a picture of the place we ate in. They were so nice there and were so concerned with making sure that we enjoyed our first Danish meal.

After our lovely lunch we walked to the Carlsburg Brewery which was much farther away than we had anticipated. We ended up missing the last tour so we ended up just heading up to the bar for some taste testing, since we had walked all the way there.


Our last stop of the trip was Saturday night when we went into Tivoli Gardens. From the outside, Tivoli just looks like another amusement park, yet when we walked inside it was huge and beautiful! I couldn't believe all of the flowers and how much they had bloomed already. It was like a fantasy land in a fairytale. I felt like a little kid in Willa Wonka's factory. We walked around and took a lot of touristy photos.


On Sunday, as we were landing in Prague I realized how bittersweet leaving Praha is going to be. With less than two weeks left, Sunday was the last time I would be flying into Prague. I am full of a mixed sense of emotions: a sense of accomplishment, excitement to go home and start the summer, but also sadness to leave Prague when I finally feel really comfortable here. I was running outside today and was thinking back to the beginning of the trip when I ran outside for the first time. I remember being so nervous of not knowing where I was going, of something happening. But today, I was running like I actually did know where I was going and it actually felt like I was running in my neighborhood.

Am - star- dam

What a great city. Honestly, Amsterdam feels and looks like its right out of a fairy tale. Between the beautiful canals and bridges to all the different colored buildings covered in ivy, Amsterdam is like a doll house and I felt like a Polly Pocket. In addition to ivy growing on the buildings, ivy even grows out of some of the bikes. I've never seen anything like the bike culture in Amsterdam. They are everywhere! And will run over anything! You have to be more careful about not getting hit by a bike than you do of a car. It seems relatively energy efficient, though...The streets are absolutely crazy though. Not only are there sidewalks, tram tracks and roads for traffic, however, there are also separate lanes for bikes, making crossing the street as a pedestrian quite the obstacle. Regardless, everyone who lives in Amsterdam are the nicest people. While it's such a small city, you can stop and ask anyone on the street directions, something that was refreshing to see.

While we mainly just enjoyed the spring weather and walked around the city, we did make it to the Anne Frank House and the Van Gogh Museum. When I went into the Anne Frank House I was expecting to see a replica of what her house actually looked like, but instead it was set up more like a museum. I actually had the chills though when we walked through the secret door behind the books case which led to the secret annex where anne frank and her family hid from the Nazis. I enjoyed the Van Gogh museum because I was able to see some of his paintings that I had never seen before in addition to some of the artists' works who inspired him.

Our hostel, the Flying Pig Uptown" is actually right next to Vondel Park, which is pretty much like the central park of Amsterdam. It was so beautiful there and when it was really nice there were a ton of people just lying in it. It was quite resemblant of minor field during the spring, if I might say so myself.

Here are some pictures from the weekend:

Amsterdam

i forgot to post this a while ago

It's been a while since I sat down and wrote an entry. I actually have had some necessary school work and some great visitors. Two days after Meryl and Diana left, my parents came to visit Praha! It was so great to show them around and let them see where I have been living, what I have been doing, what I have been drinking, and who I have been spending my time with. As soon as my parents arrive in Prague we started walking...and walking and walking and walking. I didn't want them to get jetlagged so I immediately took them on Jamie's Walking Tour of Prague. And that was only the beginning. I felt like their visit was a true test of how much I have learned (and consequently retained) about the city. I'm no history guru, but living in Prague has definitely increased my interest in the history of the Czech Republic.

While my parents were here, I refused to do certain things and take them to certain spots. For instance, those places where 'all-the-american-students-who-are-abroad' hang out- aka Bohemian Bagel. I don't even like Bohemian Bagel, but it's just so convenient. I wanted to my parents to try and get the gtrue Praha experience, however much that is possible. So in addition to showing off the main sites of Prague (Charles Bridge, Prague Castle, Petrin Hill, Jewish Quarters etc...), the beautiful weather permitted us to go to a Slavia soccer game. With popcorn and kielbasa's (spelling?)we enjoyed the sunset and a win.





We also decided to take a day trip to Terezin. I am really glad that I didn't go to Terezin before my parents got here. The fact that Terezin is currently still a town (population of around 2,000 people) is beyond me. It is so desolate and resemblant of a ghost town. Everywhere you look there is something there to remind of the horrors that occured at Terezin. Small rooms in which 80 people were locked into until they suffocated, bathrooms which never had any plumbing--they were merely set up as a facade for the Red Cross. It was just absolutely unbelievable to see. Luckily, our tour guide offered us the chance to go and see a secret synagogue that had recently been found in someones house. I had no idea what to expect--but what we ended up seeing was a tiny concrete room. I couldn't imagine having this room be my "get away" place, my place to relax.



Alas, another check point has come and gone! I bought a three month metro pass at the beginning of this trip and never really thought that it would ever expire. At the time, April just seemed too distant. Now that I had to buy a one month metro pass, I can't believe that three months have gone by already. The times I thought would never come are now flying by without me even realizing it!

Now...next stop: Amsterdam!

some things just never change

We're in the home stretch of this whole "abroad thing" right now and I honestly can't believe it. I've been creating checkpoints for myself along the way ;little events that I am looking forward to, but that also act as significant markers of time passing. This past weekend marked my second to last major checkpoint: Meryl and Diana's visit to Praha!

After a great Wednesday night of listening to Jo's uncle Bruce playing at Retro, I woke up early to pick Meryl up at the airport. It was actually a pretty nice day, despite threatening weather reports and so I decided to create my own walking tour for Meryl, of which I plan on repeating step-for-step with my parents in 2 days! The tour covered Vinohrady, Wenceslas Square, Old Town, Lesser Town, Bridge and various stops on the way at some favorite places [including the PEACOCK garden] It's really incredible how you can see most of this city in one day. In an attempt to show Meryl the more creative side of Praha, I got us some tickets to go and see a show at the Alfred vedvore Theatre where Jo and I saw the Movement Theatre show a couple of weeks ago. We were supposed to see a improvisation pantomine show, but I'm pretty sure we ended up walking into the wrong theatre and instead we saw a show called Trains. It was interesting and visually stimulating, but most of it definitely was over my head. The show capitalized on the sounds train makes and image of never ending train tracks.

On Saturday, we woke up and went to the new Gregory Crewdson exhibit at the Galerie Rudolfinum. I had never seen any of his photographs before and could not believe how incredible they were. Each photograph was basically a single film clip. With such vibrant colors, huge formats, and bizare scenes, his photographs seemed very realistic, in a creepy kind of way. Afterwards, the 'museum fatigue' began to set in and so I took Meryl to the lovely Shakespeare and Sons to relax, take pictures and have some delicious coffee.

Diana came into Prague from London on Friday, and it was just like good 'ole times at Hamilton. What a treat... I never would have guessed that Diana, Meryl and I would meet up in Prague together. I really liked being able to show Meryl and Diana all my favorite places in Prague so far. And as Jo says, Prague is just full of so many little hidden spaces. At this point, I had started thinking that I was definitely ready to go home, but after walking around and doing some of the touristy things again this weekend, I realize how much this city has to offer and just how beautiful it really is. I guess when you remain within your daily routine, only going from home to school, things become mundane. Nevertheless, I'm glad I still have one more month left...