Wednesday, August 22, 2012




I arrived in Copenhagen to begin my Fulbright grant one year ago today.  I may physically be in the U.S., but mentally, I am far, far away. I am sitting on a blanket in Kongens Have, a ginger lemon Somersby in hand, surrounded by my friends and flatmates, enjoying the way Copenhagen comes alive in the sunlight. 

Here's to hoping that what comes next has its own special magic.









Saturday, August 18, 2012

Formerly MIA Blog Post #1


Fulbright Arrival, written early September 2011?

The first time I landed in Copenhagen, the weather was amazing. As the plane came into Kastrup airport, the music being piped over the loudspeaker was that "Perfect Day" song from Legally Blonde. Windmills, sparkling blue water, tiny rustic cottages, and not a cloud in the sky are the images that come to mind when I think of my first day. I remember getting a sunburn the first week because hey, what were the changes I'd need sunscreen in Scandinavia?  Well, touché Copenhagen, you sneaky little city, you and your weather have fooled me again! I can now say I have worn a scarf in August.  According to records at the University of Copenhagen, this summer has been the wettest on record in over 100 years. In retrospect, I would have been much better off leaving my sundresses at home - bringing some rainboots would have been a MUCH better idea.

I was lucky enough to have the entire row to myself on my flight over this time; however, I was sitting in the very back of the plane, located directly by the bathroom. This resulted in two scenarios happening multiple times during the 7.5 hour flight: a) I was woken up repeatedly by loud flushing noises, or b) made awkward physical contact with someone waiting for the bathroom in the aisle. Why was this awkward? I'm not really an attractive sleeper, and this is especially true when traveling (anyone sitting next to me in the van during Randy's Colorado class can testify to this!). My mouth falls open, my head tends to flop around, and I can violently jerk awake at random moments. The Danes seated around me were much too polite to crack a joke at my expense, but I could feel their stares of judgment.

I arrived in Copenhagen at 7:20 AM on August 22, exactly two years to the day that  I first came to Copenhagen when I was studying abroad. Amazingly, I think I may have actually brought less stuff with me! Watching my host family try to fit my XL suitcase into their tiny Volkswagen Jetta the first time around made quite an impression. However, this did not make wrestling my three suitcases onto a luggage cart any easier – enter host dad Thomas to the rescue! Thomas, who works for SAS, was thankfully on duty that morning. After a nice big hug, we went outside to meet my host mother Tina, who was enthusiastically waving a Danish flag.  Tina gave me a ride to my apartment, located on Store Kongensgade, between Kastellet and Kongens Nytorv.  

I’m going to be honest – my first thought upon opening my apartment door was that I’d made a huge mistake in choosing to live here. The radiator was leaking, the "man in the oven" was making weird banging noises, and our bathrooms resemble a set from the movie Hostel. In my jetlagged state I decided it would be more healthy to laugh about my situation. I wasn’t laughing so hard half an hour later, when I ended up holding up the shower curtain  with one hand and standing in five inches of water. It made my old bathroom in Corkran 209 look like a palace. Then I collaped onto my bed and slept until 1 PM the next day, when I opened my door and literally collided with my new flatmate Caroline, who is from California. She’s also incredibly tall, and I look completely ridiculous standing next to her. Caroline had been staying in the apartment alone since the beginning of August, and was overjoyed to not be alone anymore. 

View from my room.

Looking down Store Kongensgade toward Kongens Nytorv.

My Fulbright Orientation began on August 25th, giving me three days to unpack, settle in, and become completely confused when grocery shopping. Last time, I was lucky enough to not have to do shopping as I lived with a host family. This time, I brought home what I thought was milk – imagine my shock when I ended up pouring peach yogurt onto my cornflakes the next morning. Even more shocking? It actually didn't taste too bad...

The day of orientation ended with dinner aboard the Saga Queen, this swanky dinner boat docked at Havnegade. And guess what, Courtney and C Hoy! Carsten was doing the Danish history tutorial! Of course, I already knew ALL about the British bombardment of Copenhagen and the five-finger system of building. Carsten remembered me, and later that night we had a happy little reunion where we discussed the wonders of dentil molding and pilasters.  After the dinner was over, a bunch of us went to a bar and proceeded to celebrate the Fulbright, meeting new people, and it generally being such a great night. I hadn’t really celebrated the grant yet, so it was nice to finally do so – in Copenhagen, too! However, all of that celebrating took its toll – it ended up taking me an hour to walk home, as I went in completely the wrong direction and found myself in Radhuspladsen instead of Kongens Nytorv. Undskyld!

 The next morning, I opened the kitchen door to reveal our third flatmate, Stefano from Milan, Italy. He asked if I had been to Milano, to which I replied that I had not, but I was a huge fan of the Pepperidge Farm cookie. This was the first of many references to be lost in translation during my first week living in Copenhagen. 


First Semester in SKG 97, written November 2011?


Despite its flaws, our apartment is located in a great area, right between Osterport Station and Kastellet, a short walk from Den Lille Havfrue and Magasin. Store Kongensgade 97 is an  six-floor apartment building located on one of the main streets off of Kongens Nytorv, with the first floor housing a closed pub. All flats in this building are student-leased, although the surrounding buildings in our block contain mostly families.  There’s a great inner courtyard with grass, trees, and a couple of picnic tables – of course, surrounded by many, many bikes. Our apartment houses seven people in two double rooms and three single rooms, plus two bathrooms, a kitchen, and the world’s smallest common room. Annerieke and I are in the first double, while Ola and Ala, aka “the Polish girls,” are in the second. Stefano, Julien (France), and Caroline all have singles. 
How to describe daily life…Stefano likes to sing. A lot. So chances that I will hear Nirvana lyrics, songs from the musical Hair (his favorite), or random verses from an Italian opera each  day are quite high. Ola and Ala are super sweet, and make tea about ten times a day. Julien usually stays in his room, except when he emerges to make the same thing for dinner he has eaten every day since he arrived – pasta with bread and either fish or chicken. I am convinced he will come down with scurvy before the end of the semester. Annerieke is typically on Skype, or being super blunt or sarcastic in Dutch fashion toward me, her crazy American roommate. Caroline can be found reading, at the gym, or fighting with Steffie. 
Our adorable courtyard.

My first CPH adventure with Steffie at Vor Frelsers Kirke..."Okay, we go down now?"

Oh Care Care...

It was like living with a French Abercrombie greeter.

Anneriekie & Clementine at Tivoli Christmas
SKG 97 love!






Saturday, August 11, 2012

Motivation to become a light packer?


The Cinque Terre, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, consists of five villages nestled along the cliffs of northwestern Italy. Due to the steep topography of the region, the easiest way to access CT is either by boat or by train, resulting in a distinct lack of the kind of corporate development I think you would typically find in a coastal vacation destination. Martina and I decided to stay in Monterosso al Mare, which translates to ‘Monterosso by the sea,’ for the first week of our “honeymoon” vacation, as we came to call it after discovering that 80 percent of the other tourists there were on romantic getaways. We managed to snag the last room in Albergo al Carugio, a quaint family-owned hotel located in the old town of Monterosso. With a gorgeous outdoor patio surrounded by lemon trees, a fabulous staff, and our own bathroom, what more could we want for 65 euros a night?! (the private bathroom was seriously key) Andrea, the owner and manager ,went above and beyond in helping us with anything we needed…such as carrying our luggage up the huge flight of stairs to our room. “You have a lot of luggage! You said you had a lot of luggage, and most people say that, but WHOA, you actually do!” We were obviously his favorite guests that week.

When I say that it is truly a miracle that Martina and I made it to Monterosso in one piece with all of our luggage, I am also not exaggerating. In fact, probably the most eventful part of our trip occurred while traveling to and from Milan. For this reason, I am going to spend most of this post describing the events of that day. I could not physically carry my two suitcases and duffel bag altogether, so Martina very generously offered (okay, I may have swayed her with my puppy dog eyes) to take one in addition to her massive orange monstrosity. You can’t take luggage carts past the ticket stand for the train to Milano Centrale – here’s a picture of the slowly dawning horror on my face as I realize that we are going to have to carry everything on our own.

Oy.

But the worst part was yet to come, as we entered Milano Centrale all the way across the station from where our train was departing – twenty platforms away, to be exact. Milano Centrale is pretty darn big, and we were definitely a sight to behold as we stumbled up and over, moving at pace of roughly twenty steps every five minutes. We had a routine worked out where I would sling the duffel over my shoulder,  and drag my suitcase behind me, gritting my teeth  and speed walking as fast as possible. Step step step step step drag drag drop stop, repeat. Martina preferred a slower approach, where she would half lean on her suitcase, dragging it forward while pulling mine in her other hand. It was like watching the Olympics, if making extremely ugly grimaces, sweating profusely, and walking appalingly slowly was an event. 

Twenty minutes later, we came to platform 20. Half an hour later, we realized that our platform had been changed to #16, and had to move everything over.  Our train consisted of six- person passenger cars with luggage racks, but let’s be real, there was no way in hell we were actually going to be able to lift our bags above our heads! We instead stuck them in the hallway. This turned out to be a problem, because said hallway was designed to be just wide enough for the snack cart to fit.  If looks could kill, the snack cart guy would be rolling over my dead body, not just my suitcases. So about twice every hour, the snack guy would ring his little bell, and I would walk out to move my things until he had gone by – it could have been the beginning of a beautiful friendship, if only he had just smiled…instead, he would ding his bell at me harder if I wasn’t moving quickly enough.

Now, one of the reasons we picked CT is because we wanted a locale a bit less touristy than a regular beach resort. In this case, less touristy translated to no elevators or escalators to be found; one of the least handicapped accessible places I have ever visited, including national parks. To top off our seemingly never-ending saga, after successfully making it down stairs and calling a taxi, the first two drivers we called barely spoke English, and I had stupidly packed our Italian vocab book for beach reading.  This is how my conversations with the drivers went: “We’re at the main station and we need a taxi to the square or Via Roma in Monterosso, please.” “…scusi, no English.” “Ummm Statione! To Via Roma!” Then we would both stop, listen to each other breathe for a second, and start the conversation all over again.

In October 2011, floods and landslides devastated CT. Monterosso and Vernazza were hit especially hard, and after looking at pictures of the damage, it was truly amazing ready that they were open for tourist season. Part of the preparation process involved the instillation of drainage grates across the road leading up from the main square in Monterosso, where the taxi dropped us off.  I couldn’t push my wheels over the grate, but I also couldn’t pull my suitcase up the hill.  I had to stop, turn the suitcase, pull it over the grate, turn it again, and then push it up the hill with my stomach. There were at least ten grates on this stupid hill. Since it was close to dinnertime, the street was full of tourists and locals staring at us, trying to figure out why on earth we would bring so much luggage on vacation. Eventually, a nice lady from the wine shop came over to help us, but not before chastising me for overpacking. “I’ve been abroad for a year! This is for a year!  A year!”                                     The best part? It turns out that Martina’s suitcase had two broken wheels.



After we semi-pulled ourselves together and changed out of our sweat drenched clothing, we grabbed some pizza, a bottle of wine, and sat down to watch the final Euro Cup match between Italy and Spain. This was the only part of the trip where I wished we’d chosen Spain as a destination, because we saw A LOT of sad Italians that night.  Martina and I tried to distract ourselves from this by debating which football team was more attractive. 

I was trying to get rid of books I’d collected in CPH left and right, so I may have forced Martina into reading The Hunger Games (but don’t worry, she was totally Team Peeta).  Italy dubs their TV programming, which I found surprisingly enthralling. Ohhh Martina! What shall we watch tonight?! City of Angels, or an old Italian beach movie where a hairy man is smearing and  licking Nutella off of a supermodel?! Magical. Another plus was catching a documentary on the singer Rino Gaetano, whose songs Stefano would sometimes play for us to hear in our apartment.

Milano – like the cookie! – was a very different experience after CT, but still very enjoyable. Because Milan has such an emphasis on industry, such as banking and fashion, when compared to other famous Italian cities, I think it was the right decision to only spend four days there and a week in CT. In fact, maybe even two days would have been enough to see all of the major tourist sites, unless we had somehow found the money for a side trip to Lake Como. The upside of staying four days was that Martina and I became even more relaxed in our approach to this trip – I mostly blame our hostel, which enabled us by serving breakfast until 12 PM.  We strolled through beautiful streets, sat at neat little cafes, and saw some very beautiful architecture, ruins, and paintings. Of course, there was some shopping too, but Mango and the kitschy little shops on Corso di Porta Ticinese were more our speed than Dolce & Gabbana.  I am no Carrie Bradshaw, but the shoe stores in Milan were a little piece of heaven, especially Mauro Leone, where all of the colors brought to mind a candy shop, except that you can wear the candy! Too bad my feet were too fat for all of the sizes that were left.

As for the rest of our trip, I think that showing you some pictures is necessary. Here are some snapshots of a blissful twelve days spent hiking, swimming, sweating, sleeping,  and stuffing our faces with delicious food.

Just picture us "strolling" through here with our luggage.


Our amazing view on the night of July 4th!

Really excited about the BEST tiramisu. Ever.
See? 
Take away all the people, and it could be a shot from National Geographic!
When the tide went out, there was the most amazing sound. The ocean that day looked & felt like swimming in seltzer water.

Luckily, we got most of our bikini-wearing over with before...

eating multiple servings of pesto gnocchi!
and pesto focaccia for breakfast every day...
and fresh bruschetta...
and big heaping plates of risotto!
Martina then had some issues with her cone.
I'm pretty hopeless at not tripping down the stairs...
but pretty good at getting stuck on top of boulders.

We're both pretty good at sweating! This was taken after about 15 minutes of hiking.
This photographer had a beautiful exhibition to benefit the recovery efforts. Wish my pictures turned out half as good as this one!

Duomo.
Wall-E at the Duomo!

Peace out.


Monday, August 6, 2012

Beautiful Copenhagen

Almost done with the next post! In the meantime, check out this gorgeous video of my second home. 20 DKK if you can find Store Kongensgade!



Friday, August 3, 2012

Oh, Far


Okay, my Italia adventures will be coming in the next post. I’ve been too busy being forced volunteering to clean out the house with my Dad, and catching up with some old high school friends. I had a weird dream about eating kanelstang last night; imagine how disappointed I was to awaken and discover that not only was I not at Holm’s Bageri, but my Dad had also eaten all of my greek yogurt and muesli.  His response? “I had to see if this European stuff was any good. Needs some sugar. Maybe a lot of sugar. Why don’t you like Cheerios? Cheerios are much better for you; they have…grains.”

Speaking of my father, now that’s he’s officially retired, he is officially around the house 24-7, except for when he’s golfing. However, he only golfs from 7 AM – 11 AM, and I usually don’t wake up until at least 9:30 AM, so that’s a great big hunk of togetherness time. I have always thought that my Dad was one of my more sane family members, but I’m starting to see the cracks.

Here are his best moments from the past week:

*Dad playing with his new iPad*
Dad: “What’s YouTube?”
Me: “Hahahah, you’re funny. Have you been living under a rock since the early 2000s?!”
Dad: “Well, I have heard the name, but what does it do?”


Me: “Dad, I’m going to make some banana bread this afternoon, after you clean the kitchen.”
Dad: “ Great idea.”
                                           *4 hours later*
Me: “What happened to the bananas in the kitchen?”
Dad: “ Oh, I threw them away. They were almost about to go bad. Why?”
Me: “WHAT THE…why would you do that?! I told you that I was going to make banana bread!”
Dad: “You need bananas to do that?”
Me; “Please tell me you’re kidding.”
Dad: “Well, I don’t bake, jeez.”


 Dad: “Sara, what would you do without me?”
Me: “Probably not be so annoyed all the time.”
                                     *Dad looks sad*
Me: “I’M KIDDING! Don’t be sad.”
Dad: “Got you! …I would definitely golf more if you weren’t around.”


Dad: "…do ATM’s in Copenhagen give out dollar bills?”
Me: “That’s a nej.”