Thanksgiving in Firenze

  Ciao! I got back yesterday from my Thanksgiving vacation to Florence, Italy, where my best friend Anita is studying art for the semester at SACI. I left on Wednesday morning, arriving at her apartment shortly after 5 pm after a layover in Munich. All my flights went smoothly and it was so fantastic to see her! We haven't seen each other since I left in the beginning of August, and I dont think I realized how much I'd missed her until I was in her (very nice) apartment about a 5 minute walk from the Duomo- Florence's famous cathedral and the center of the old city.

View from Anita's apartment!

Il Duomo!

Anita and I   :)

  We spent the evening catching up while she got things ready for a dinner at her apartment. Some of her friends from the program and her parents Ana & Jack, who were visiting for the week, came over around 7 and we had a fantastic dinner with bruschetta and caprese salad, pasta with a tomato & sausage sauce, and desserts from a nearby pastry shop. After Anita's parents left we all went down to a nearby bar a block away and hung out together for the evening.

  The next day, we got up to meet her parents and spend the morning at the Medici Chapels, built by the famous and extremely powerful Medici family of Renaissance Florence. The building is gorgeous, with a side chapel designed and decorated by Michelangelo and a main chapel that was truly stunning in both its size and opulence (and its collection of more-than-slightly creepy relics). Anita is also taking an art history class this semester, so she was able to explain so much about the Chapel I wouldn't have noticed otherwise.

  After the Chapel, we headed back a few blocks to the Galleria degli Uffizi, one of the greatest collections of Renaissance art in the world. We saw works by Botticelli, Raphaello, Bellini, Michelangelo, Titian, Leonardo da Vinci, Filippo Lippi, Piero, and Rembrandt, among many others. Anita joked that she was going to "slap me in the face with culture" that day, and she really wasn't kidding. I saw an overwhelming number of true masterpieces, and it was only made more incredible by being with somebody who actually knew about them. I enjoy art and I like to think I have a very basic knowledge of some painters and styles, but being with Anita was an education in itself. Her dad is also incredibly involved in art, being the curator of American University's Katzen Arts Center. Being around them this long weekend made me feel both very lucky to be learning so much and hearing about famous paintings from people who truly appreciate them, and at the same time very, very uncultured and ignorant...

  After the Uffizi, we had a little time to recover before our 3rd museum of the day. So Anita and I set off to The Diner, an American cafe around the corner from her apartment. I had a bacon cheeseburger, french fries, and a vanilla milkshake, which may sound like a heart attack waiting to happen, but since I couldn't remember the last time I had eaten any of those, it was heavenly. Those are definitely topping the list of foods to eat once I'm home...

Burger, milkshake, and fries yum!

Me in front of the Ponte Vecchio

A daytime view from Anita's apartment

  When we'd finally finished eating our body weight in American greasiness, we headed across town to the Accademia, another incredible art museum in Florence. We saw many works by more incredible Renaissance painters, a small exhibit on musical instruments, and... an entire hallway of Michelangelo's sculptures, with the stunning and indescribable David at the hallway's end. I think we spent about 45 minutes just wandering around the David and looking at it from different angles. It was truly amazing.

Michelangelo's David!

  That evening, Anita and I went out to dinner with her parents, before coming back to her apartment for some relaxing tv and heading to bed early. I woke up the next morning and head breakfast by the Duomo, before walking inside the cathedral for a few minutes. It has the third longest nave in Christendom, and is as beautiful on the inside as the outside. I then met Anita's parents at their hotel, and the three of us went across the Arno River to the Palazzo Pitti, the predecessor to Versailles and the grandest palace of its time. We didn't have much time ourselves, so we decided just to go to the Palace's Boboli Gardens, offering gorgeous views of Florence and charming hidden fountains, sculptures, and even grottoes!

inside the Duomo

the Duomo's dome!

Boboli Garden's Neptune Fountain

Pitti Palace from the top of the Gardens

Florence from the Boboli Gardens

  After the Boboli Gardens, we picked Anita up and headed out of town, to the city of Assisi. Jack and Ana had artist friends (Lani Irwin and Alan Feltus) living a few minutes outside Assisi, and we drove to their house to spend the night. The conversation largely revolved around artists and paintings (wayyyy over my head!) but was fascinating nonetheless. We had arrived at their house in the dark, so waking up Saturday morning Anita and I found ourselves faced with an unbelievable view of Assisi's surrounding valley.

  After a delicious breakfast, Anita, her parents and I headed to Assisi, where we saw the incredible Basilica de San Francesco, where St. Francis is buried. The basilica actually consists of a lower and upper basilica built simultaneously on top of each other, and both are incredible. The upper basilica is covered with frescoes by the Renaissance master painter Giotto, one of the main reasons we went to the Basilica. After an hour there, we wandered around Assisi a little bit (stopping for paninis) before heading out again to Sansepolcro, a small town between Assisi and Florence.

Assisi!

Approaching the Basilica

Valley around Assisi

Basilica de San Francesco

  Sansepolcro is home to a museum containing the iconic works of one of Jack's favorite painters (Piero della Francesca), and it was great to see them and hear from him what he appreciated about the artists' work. We didn't spend long in Sansepolcro (small was a bit of an understatement) before heading back into Florence. We all had dinner together and then Anita and I settled in for an evening of tv and relaxing, much like we do at home.

  Sunday morning we woke up and headed around the corner, back to The Diner, where I had real american pancakes, something else I have sorely missed. And they were truly fantastic. Again, something that's topping my list of foods to eat when I'm home... I then had to head to the airport and get back to Copenhagen, where I found over 6 inches of snow awaiting me! I was a little shocked but it's beautiful and I'm warm now. It was a wonderful mini-vacation and I'm happy to be back with the host fam too :)

Sansepolcro

American Pancakes!!

A Very Danish Thanksgiving

  Before I head to Florence tomorrow morning to see my best friend Anita, I figured I needed to properly document my efforts to bring Thanksgiving to Denmark. Yesterday I spent the afternoon (and most of the morning) preparing a genuine Thanksgiving dinner for my host family. They've had to listen to me talk about how delicious all the food was and how much I loved Thanksgiving (a fact which I dont think I ever appreciated until I actually began preparing Thanksgiving here). So last Wednesday, I found myself in 3 grocery stores looking for a full turkey, which is surprisingly difficult to find in Denmark. Luckily, my host dad Jess texted me the next afternoon that he had found a 4kg frozen turkey, despite my pleas to just let us cook a turkey breast since i have NEVER cooked a turkey before and was slightly intimidated by the idea of attempting it in a foreign country.
  Thursday found me in the only British food store in Copenhagen, Abigail's. After lots of questions and requests, I walked away with Cream of Mushroom Soup (for the green bean casserole) and Pumpkin Pie filling! Also things you can't find in Denmark... My dad had already emailed me his recipes so I was pretty set. After some minor confusion and hunting in 3 different grocery stores, I had all my ingredients (or the closest I was going to get) and could set to work on Monday.
  Since I'm gone for actual Thanksgiving, it was decided that I would make dinner last night as a close-to-Thanksgiving. So Monday morning, I set to work making the green bean casserole and cooking the potatoes (AND putting the turkey in the oven!) before heading to class. When I returned, the turkey was cooking (no burns!) and I made my dad's yam bake recipe. It had been my intention to make cornbread stuffing, one of our favorite staples of Thanksgiving, until I found to my shock that there was a) no cornbread to be found and b) no cornbread mix. For some reason, I couldn't let the idea go, so when I saw cornmeal in one of the nicer grocery stores, I pounced at the opportunity and decided I would make my own cornbread. However, since the turkey was occupying all of the small oven, I had to improvise once again and make cornbread pancakes. Not to be defeated, the cornbread stuffing was completed! And although it was not quite as delicious as my dad's, it was pretty tasty.

My cornbread pancakes!

Preparing the turkey!

In the oven :) a 4kg turkey takes up a lot of space...

  Finally, after about 4 straight hours in the kitchen, the turkey was done and all the side dishes- mashed potatoes, yam bake, green bean casserole, and cornbread stuffing (along with about 40 leftover cornbread pancakes). My host family had set the table beautifully, with candles and flowers. It was a very hyggelig evening and they said they loved all of the food! While we were eating, I put my pumpkin pie (in the form of about 20 little tartlets because apparently they dont do full-scale pie crust in Denmark. We had them for dessert and they were also superlaekker (super-delicious in danish!). I was exhausted after dinner but it was all worth it, and my host family had a real thanksgiving dinner!

Side dishes!

Pumpkin Pie tartlets :)

  Tonight I went to my friend Aaron's house for Thanksgiving Round 2, where I helped them cook and made my dad's fantastic macaroni and cheese recipe- they loved it so much that his host mom asked me for the recipe before I left! It was also a very hyggelig evening, I had a great time and am so excited to continue the Thanksgiving festivities in Florence! Funny how I seem to have more Thanksgivings in Europe than at home...

A Greek in Denmark with a Mexican Restaurant?

  Well it's the end of a very busy weekend in Copenhagen, and although I've tried not to think about it, it's time to face up to the fact that I only have one more weekend in the city (3 more weekends total, but I'm traveling next weekend and the 2nd weekend of december). Which also brings up the shocking realization that my 4 1/2 months here are almost at an end. Maybe not almost, but 4 weeks seems reeeeeaally close right now. Not that I'm not excited to go home, because I definitely am. But at the same time, I love Copenhagen, my host family, most of my classes, my friends here, and all the experiences that you barely even have to try for. I promise there was a purpose to this ramble other than me preemptively reflecting back on this semester. With my second-to-last weekend in Copenhagen ending as I type this, I'm actually pretty impressed with the amount I've accomplished in the last 48 hours. It was incredibly busy, but when I think about all the things I still wanted to do in Copenhagen that are now 'checked off' my list, it's pretty satisfying. And hey, there's always one more weekend...
  I probably should have known it was going to be an interesting weekend, solely based on my Medical Practice & Policy class Friday afternoon. Almost every class we deal with a different system of the body and various diseases specific to that system, and Friday was Gynecology day. Because we're taught at Frederiksberg Hospital, and are largely treated like medical students, this class involved 'delivery' of a model baby from a model woman, a very graphic lecture on STDs, learning how to do a gynecological exam on a dummy, and a session on contraceptives that was way more informative than anything I had heard in any health class before. Interesting, awkward, disturbing, and hilarious are all pretty reasonable ways to describe our Friday afternoon.
  When I got home that evening, my Birkerod friends Ashley and Christine came over for dinner, cider, and christmas beer (overrated, sadly). We had a very hyggelig time- candles, good food, good drinks, good friends, lots of laughs and catching up on travel break. They eventually left and I finished up a paper to leave time for everything else I had planned to do this weekend.

Ashley, Christine and I's hyggelig dinner- spaghetti!

Tuborg Christmas beer!

  Saturday morning I got up early and met my friend Taylor at the central train station to go to Roskilde for the day. Roskilde is a small town southwest of Copenhagen that is a) adorable and b) home to the ancient Roskilde Cathedral, where all of Denmark's kings and queens are buried, as well as the Viking Ship museum. It's been on my list of things to see but I still hadn't been there until Saturday. We got there with snow still on the ground, and spent the rest of the morning wandering around the very cute town. We walked down to the Roskilde Fjord, home of the Viking Ship Museum, but upon learning that it cost 60 kr (about 12 dollars!) to get in, we decided we could live without seeing Viking ships and instead wandered around the shipyard and the piers. It was cold but beautiful and we had a great time just walking around. Eventually we climbed back up to the Roskilde Cathedral and went inside, which was definitely worth the 15 kr admission. It was gorgeous!! And enormous, and full of kings and queens I've been learning about all semester. We even got to see my favorite, Christian IV! It was pretty surreal. Also there's been a cathedral there since around the 900s, with this one dating back (for the most part) to around 1100. It always amazes me to see how historical places and buildings in Europe compare to the US- we think Williamsburg and Jamestown are historic, but those came over 500 years later.

Roskilde Fjord

Roskilde Fjord again

Christian IV's tomb... so sad

Roskilde Cathedral!

  After Roskilde Cathedral we were going to visit the market and shops, but found to our surprise that everything was closing by 3 pm! God I miss US store hours.... so instead we walked back to the train station, only to be stopped by the realization we were passing Gringo's, a Mexican restaurant (of which there are precious few in Copenhagen). So naturally, because I love Mexican and Taylor, being from South Carolina, also has a great appreciation for it, we decided to spend the 60 kr we saved by not seeing Viking ships on a taco bar instead. And trust me, it was worth it. I dont think I've had Mexican since July, and wow did it taste good. We were also convinced by the man who worked there (a Greek man named Sharif) to try the Mexican coffee- coffee with tequila and kahlua. Delicious, but strong. After about 2 hours in Gringo's we finally headed back to Copenhagen, and wandered around Radhuspladsen (City Hall square) and Stroget (the main shopping street) which are all decked out for Christmas and so beautiful in the evening. We finally met up with my friend Aaron, whose parents are visiting this weekend, and went to dinner with them at Norrebro Bryghus, a great microbrewery in the northern neighborhood of Copenhagen. Dinner was delicious, as were the beers we tried. When Aaron's parents went back to their hotel, we all went out for the evening in Copenhagen.

Taylor and I at Gringo's!

Lego Santa

Carlsberg: Probably the Best Beer in Town

  The next day I once again woke up early to meet my friend Monica at the Copenhagen Zoo. We got free tickets from Culture Night to certain sights and museums, so wanted to use ours at the otherwise $20 zoo. Unfortunately, when we got there the ticket woman informed us it was only free for children! After recovering from the shock, the two of us wandered into the nearby Frederiksberg Have (Have=garden), home of Frederiksberg Palace, a summer residence of the King in what used to be outside Copenhagen but is now a beautiful park mid-city. We then wound up, after an hour of indecisive wandering and cafe brainstorming, going to the Copenhagen City Museum, which was pretty cool. We then went to Parken, F.C. Kobenhavn's football stadium, with a bunch of other DIS students for a game against F.C. Nordsjaelland. FCK won (of course) and we had a great time! We got our polse (hot dogs) and Carlsbergs, enjoyed an entertaining game full of yellow cards, and I even met a really nice man who was a journalist in Copenhagen and knew a ton about football, both what we call soccer and even American football! I was thrilled.
  All in all it was a busy but great weekend. I got to see so much that I hadn't before, and had a great time. Today, its off to class followed by an afternoon of attempting to make Thanksgiving dinner for my host family tonight. I'm gone for actual Thanksgiving, visiting my best friend Anita in Florence, so my attempt at Thanksgiving is tonight. I'll be documenting my hopefully not-too-disastrous attempts to make a fully fledged Thanksgiving dinner on my own. Including a full turkey. Wish me luck!

To Russia, With Love

St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow!

  Last night I returned home around 10 pm from an amazing week in Russia and an equally exhausting trip back to Copenhagen. It might sound trite, but I learned so much from this trip I can't even begin to cover it all. I think everybody in the States has some idea of what Russia should be, whether from growing up during the Cold War or learning about the old Soviet government and the new, 'democratic' yet profoundly corrupt government in History classes. And I have to say, the week we spent completely challenged those notions, at the same time as it supported them. It's true, there's a lot of corruption- my professor & guide Jon said more than once that, if necessary, he would handle bribes for us. The traffic in St. Petersburg was horrible, and even worse in Moscow (Jon likens it to a ring surrounding Dante's Hell). Poverty is an enormous problem throughout the country, as are the frighteningly low life expectancy values (58 for men, 71 for women) and the rapidly-increasing rates of HIV and TB. But, as always, there's a flip side. The three cities we saw were beautiful and immensely historic, and while not friendly to strangers, the Russians we were able to actually talk to were incredibly nice and welcoming. The aspects of Russian culture we were able to learn about were absolutely fascinating, and while it is not a country I would want to live in, for various reasons, I would have loved to stay longer. That being said, I'm focusing on this past incredible week.
  Our trip began at 6:30 am last Sunday, when 34 of us met with our two tour leaders, Jon and Mette, at Copenhagen Airport. We flew to St. Petersburg (2 hours ahead of Copenhagen) and settled into our rooms at the Hotel Mockba by 2. I was put with two girls named Colleen and Katie who were very sweet. We had a few hours to settle in, and then took the Metro (which has absolutely beautiful stations) to Nevsky Prospekt, the main street of St. Petersburg. When we got out of the metro, the sun was setting and it began snowing, and we found beautiful buildings facing us in each direction- on one side was the enormous, semi-circular Kazan Cathedral, while in the opposite direction was the onion-domed Cathedral of Our Saviour on Spilled Blood. We walked along Nevsky Prospekt until we reached our restaurant for a welcome dinner, during which Jon taught us how to take vodka shots like a true Russian- chase with food, interspersed with long long speeches/toasts, and always downed in one try. Oy.

Our first Russian vodka shot

Snow at Kazan Cathedral

   The next day began with a bus tour of St. Petersburg, seeing the massive St. Isaac's Cathedral, the famous Bronze Horseman statue of Peter the Great (built by Catherine the Great), and a gorgeous outlook of the Neva River, before heading to Peter and Paul fortress, the original citadel (and prison) of St. Petersburg. We also saw the Peter and Paul Cathedral, inside the fortress, where all of the tsars from Peter the Great onwards are buried. There's also a special room for the last of the Romanovs, the famous Anastasia included. After lunch (Russian food is actually really good, btw) we had a walking tour of Dostoevsky's St. Petersburg, where we saw buildings Dostoevsky had lived in, as well as what historians believe are the 'homes' of his Crime and Punishment characters Raskolnikov, Sonia, and the Pawnbroker. When the tour finished we went to a nearby cafe for some meat pies (yum!). After dinner we all headed to the Mariinsky Theatre, home of the Russian Ballet and in its 228th season, where we saw the ballet Romeo & Juliet. It was truly astounding. I have never seen anything quite like it, and definitely understand the reputation of Mariinsky as housing the best ballet company in the world. It was an amazing way to end an already fantastic day!

the Bronze Horseman

Peter and Paul fortress and Cathedral

in front of the Neva River/Hermitage

Peter and Paul Cathedral

Mariinsky Theatre at night

  The next morning, our second full day in St. Petersburg, began with a 'Behind the Facade' tour, in which we were split up into groups of 10 and sent on a tour with 3 young Russians, who were supposed to take us to see the parts of St. Petersburg that tourists wouldn't normally see. Our guide Zoia took us to two communal apartments, where people have a room for themselves (or occasionally a room for a family) and share a kitchen and bathroom with residents of 3-9 other rooms. The conditions are pretty predictably/stereotypically lousy, although ours were comparatively nice- one group saw one with cockroaches covering every surface of the kitchen. When the tour was done we all met up for lunch at a cafe before walking to the Winter Palace for an afternoon tour of the Palace as well as the Hermitage Art Museum, one of the greatest art collections in the world. It was truly amazing- we spent about 6 hours looking at royal chambers, Picassos, Monet, Van Gogh, Matisse, etc. We stayed until closing, and then my friends and I wandered down one of the many canals in the snowy evening, seeing several churches and enjoying the evening.

St. Petersburg's first homeless shelter

and then the Ambassador's Staircase in the Winter Palace

Cathedral of Our Saviour on Spilled Blood

Canal at night

  Wednesday morning we left St. Petersburg and had a three hour bus ride to Novgorod, the ancient Northern capital of Russia. We toured Novgorod's Kremlin, which has the St. Sofia Cathedral (oldest church in Russia), and crossed the Volga River to see a little park that was covered with ancient churches, each for a certain class/occupation of Novgorod. After that, we took a bus ride to a nearby monastery, where we had a tour from one of Jon's friends, a Russian Orthodox priest who lives at the monastery. Following the tour we went to a cafe for dinner before getting on an overnight train from Novgorod to Moscow.

Novgorod Kremlin

St. Sofia's Cathedral

Love Locks on the bridge

The Monastery we went to in Novgorod

  We got into Moscow the next morning at 5:15 am, took the bus to our hotel, and waited a little bit until breakfast opened. It was definitely worth the wait- the buffet included pancakes, a chocolate fountain, innumerable pastries, and a pianist. After breakfast, we got on our bus and went to Moscow's Red Square which was gorgeous. Apparently its named Red Square because the old russian 'rodya' means beautiful. It's home to St. Basil's Cathedral (the iconic russian image of the onion domed cathedral), the Kremlin (home of the Russian gov't), Lenin's Mausoleum (awesome), GYM (a major department store), and the Russian Historical Museum. A lot of military parades and other events are held there. We had a little tour of the major sights in the square, and got to go into Lenin's Mausoleum. It was very creepy but cool at the same time. We also walked across a bridge over the Moskba River for a better view of the walled-in Kremlin. After that, we took the bus to the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, built to commemorate the War with Napoleon (or the Patriotic War as its called in Russia), destroyed by Stalin, and rebuilt by Yeltsin in the 1990s. After looking around the church we went to Moscow State University, in the southeast with a great overlook of the city (including the 1980 Olympic Stadium). Finally, we were able to return to our hotel and check in, nap for an hour and get ready for our evening.
  We went down to the hotel lobby at 5 to meet with our 'forced Russian friends' as Jon called them- Russian students from Moscow State University who are interested in meeting Americans. We were set up with them in groups and sent off to have dinner/spend the evening with them. My friends Vicki, Monica and I were matched up with three russians- a couple named Masha & Andrey, and their friend Eldar. They were super nice and we had a great time. We went to a cafe named My My for dinner because everybody was pretty tired and didnt feel like cooking. After the cafe, we all returned to Masha's dorm, where her roommate and two other friends joined us with tea, cookies, honeycomb, oranges, and chocolates. We had a great night and loved making some new friends!

In front of St. Basil's Cathedral!

Lenin's Mausoleum

Kremlin Walls

Cathedral of Christ the Saviour

  The next day was our last day in Moscow, and we started it with a guided tour of the Kremlin, which has the worlds largest cannon and bell, as well as about 6 cathedrals. After the Kremlin we had free time on our own, so Vicki, Monica and I went to a huge market by our hotel and stocked up on Russian souvenirs. Afterwards, we went to a Soviet Exhibition Area in the northern part of the city, with a carnival-like display (including a ferris wheel that we went on at night- and by night I mean about 4:30 in the afternoon). We also saw a famous and enormous statue of a Factory Worker with a hammer and Land Girl with a sickle, made for the Soviet Union's contribution to the Paris Exhibition of 1937. After seeing that we went back to the Red Square for our farewell dinner, which included unlimited wine and vodka, but no water. Not a great idea, but I think everyone had a pretty great time... and our Russian friends came, so it was great to see them again! We were all pretty sad that we would probably never see each other again though... but all in all it was a great farewell to a fantastic trip!

Exhibition Hall

Moscow from the Ferris Wheel

Factory Worker and Land Girl

Partizanskaya Metro Station (all the moscow metro stations are gorgeous)

  Except it wasn't completely a farewell, because we had all morning to see Moscow- so some of us went to the Tretyakov Gallery with Jon, a gallery of 20th century Russian art that was really great. After an hour at the museum we returned to the hotel, where we packed onto the bus and drove 3 hours (because of the traffic which Jon compares to a ring of Dante's hell) to Moscow airport, where we had less than an hour to get through check-in, passport control, and security. Slightly frightening (since if we missed the flight we would have been stuck in Russia due to our visas expiring that day) but it all worked out in the end! Except now I have to actually go to class tomorrow... oh well, the past two weeks have been absolutely incredible and I have loved every new place and experience. Россия, я люблю тебя!