Leaving on a Jet Plane

"All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go... I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again, oh babe I hate to go..."

I have not stopped humming the Peter, Paul, and Mary tune today. This song reminds me of my six summers at sleepaway camp - it always brings up sad emotions of leaving friends and moving on from an amazing experience. It is fitting then that this song has been running through my mind all day. I woke up, finished packing and stuffing everything into nooks and crannies of my bags today and just had dinner at Kaffesalonen with my friend Katie. Taking the 5A bus back from dinner for the very last time until I don't know when really made me sad that I'm leaving. I don't think I truly processed it until just now. I walked into my empty room, bags everywhere, bare walls, memories running rampant through my mind.

I know I'm behind on writing posts but I was busy "studying" for my finals and trying to soak up the last few ounces of Copenhagen that I missed. I still have things on my to-do list, but as my mom always says, I have to leave something to do for next time. I returned my dongle, the internet connector booster, and of course the wifi has been shitty so I just want to get this last post in before I actually leave (and before the wifi drops on me again).

Tomorrow a cab is coming at 9:15 to take me and a friend from my dorm to the airport. One bag weighs in at 64.4 pounds, another at 68.6, and my carry on is 21 pounds. I'm scared to weigh my backpack - it's where everything that couldn't fit in any of those other 3 bags found a home. I still want to buy gummies and snacks in duty free - I wonder if I can grow two more hands before tomorrow...

A brief reflection on the semester. Well first things, I'm a little disappointed in myself. I usually write in my journal major things that have happened (cheesy) and I was expecting to write about everything new and exciting in Copenhagen. I even bought a new moleskin journal. I only wrote in it like 5 times, if even that much, and I thought that I would blog more. I guess I just realized I forgot so much that has happened already and I can't imagine how quickly my memories will fade without even realizing it. Anyway enough self-deprecation. This semester has truly worked wonders for me. I was able to exercise my navigation skills in a metropolitan European city, I made some truly life-lasting friendships, I explored new cultures, I travelled all over Europe and even hopped over to the Middle East, I developed opinions on human rights issues (I wrote a paper on child marriages in Yemen), fashion (I started reading fashion blogs and appreciating the Scandinavian styles), and universal health care (I compared Germany, Poland, and Copenhagen's health care systems in a paper for my core course). I regained my independence, and I am coming back a more cultured, humbled girl.

Katie asked me at dinner if I could study abroad for another semester where would I want to go. I said Australia, because Sydney is originally where I wanted to study but got anxious about the distance from home and wound up choosing something a little closer (Cope).  But honestly, Copenhagen is a truly amazing and complex city that I can't imagine myself studying anywhere. Before I came here, I had no clue where Denmark was on the world map, or even what Danish sounded like. It was such a random choice for me, but the DIS program had so much to offer that I simply couldn't resist.

It's weird to know that by this time tomorrow I will be in New York, in my house, with my parents, with English, dollars, pizza places and starbucks and duane reades on every corner, and constant wifi/3G. It will be difficult for me to adjust to living at home again, and it will be even stranger that I won't be able to legally drink until after I graduate college (baby genius, remember?). I think the strangest thing of all will be not hearing Danish every other turn and seeing people wearing sweatpants in the streets of NYC. The loudness and filthiness of New York City are something that I have always grown up with, but I have been spoiled in that Copenhagen is not only clean, but the buildings are low, there is limited pollution, rarely homeless people, and everyone actually cares what they look like when they walk out the door (read: a lot of black because that's the easiest). Summer in the city is always fun and hot and sticky and I'm ready to get my tan on because Cope has been anything but warm and sunny. (except now the sun doesn't set until like 10:30 and it rises well before 5)

I guess I'm rambling now but these are just all my thoughts culminating into one final post while still physically in Copenhagen. I do still need to write about my weekend in Paris and about my cooking class that I took all semester, but that can wait until I'm sure of my internet connection.

I think I've gone on for too long now. Too scared to upload any pics for fear of dropping the internet. so this is the final goodbye. Thanks to everyone for reading my blog and putting up with the ramblings about my European adventures.

Hej hej Copenhagen,
Vi ses!

copenhappenings

Below are a smattering of assorted things that have been happening around town.
Katie and I went to a James Taylor concert at Tivoli and we sat 8th row directly in front of the legend himself. It was amazing and we were definitely the youngest people in the room. But I must say, going to a concert in Denmark was certainly an experience. Danes are known for being reserved and not excessively expressive so it was surprising to us Americans that there was no standing ovation when James came out, just a polite round of applause. We also were happy to realize that everyone sat during the entire concert, increasing the intimacy of the whole affair. Only by the last few songs, when James did three encores, did the old hippies start grooving and clapping and singing along. It was a hilarious and very memorable night.

katie and me

sir James

aquarium in tivoli

The following Tuesday was the Danish Labor Day, a day when all Danes take a day off from work to day-drink in Faelledparken and can enjoy the company of their friends, different music and food stands, and just take time to enjoy the day. Unfortunately, DIS still had classes (didn't make sense) but we went to the park after class and sat out and had a few ciders to contribute to the holiday. My core class actually got a tour of Rigshospital by one of the other section's teachers and one of the students even had an EEG (electroencephalogram) performed on him to measure his brain wavelengths - it was awesome.

Danish port-a-potty

The next day it was high 60s (tropical) and so I spent the day sitting out in the sun in the park right near my kollegium, reading the Hunger Games and enjoying the scenery. The scenery I was seeing included swans and ducks and geese and some families barbequing out in the sun. It was really enjoyable and I definitely got a lot of color and gave me hope for this summer of being really really tan. (I originally wanted to study abroad in Sydney, Australia and had been dreaming for years about how tan I would be after two summers, the reversed seasons in the southern hemisphere being my advantage)

Thursday, I ventured over to the Little Mermaid by myself in order to snap a picture with the statue and to continue working on my tan and spending as much time outside as I could. I got lost in Kastellet, the star-shaped fortress right near there so I definitely increased my vitamin D intake that day. I wandered back towards DIS, had a class, and then headed to the Panum Institute for a really cool afternoon. Every friday, Danish medical students go to a fredagsbar, a friday's bar, and just drink with each other and with faculty into the night. There are bigger events scheduled during the semester that are basically fredagsbars on larger scale. So for this specific day, thousands of people were expected, and we were warned by our med student TA that we would be waiting on line for a while so bring beers to pass the time. After class, like 10 of us went to netto and picked up ciders, beers, and snacks and headed to Panum. We only waited like 45 minutes but we had a lot of fun talking to Danes and anticipating the elusive Panum. Basically the student lounge had been converted into a bar, and there was a whole outdoor section with djs, bartenders, and hot dog stands. I stayed for a few hours talking to friends and admiring the casualness of the drinking culture in Denmark, before I headed back to the dorm with my friend Christina to pick up shawarma and so I could pack for my weekend trip to Paris.

ducks in kastellet

emily, christina, me, andrea at panum

den lille havfrue og mig

I'll write about Paris in the next post but I want to include some more stuff I've been doing here in Copenhagen. This past thursday I made sure to go to the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, the museum where the opening ceremony was held back in January, just to say I've been there. I also stumbled upon the Lego store and actually it was awesome. There were a bunch of mini models and there was even a huge representation of Nyhavn. See below for the really cool nerdiness of it all.

tropics

the thinker

classic cope

sushi!

farming culture

sometimes swim

bah bah black sheep

nyhavn

up close

ok yum

Classes ended Friday and I've been trying to muster up the energy to concentrate and study. I have two cumulative finals that are back to back on Tuesday yet I haven't been able to focus on anything except sitting in bed and watching tv shows and relaxing. To prove this point, I am currently sitting in bed, watching Friends, and snacking. I did get a free bottle of champagne out at a club last night!

skål!

forældrene i kobenhavn

The parents came to Copenhagen! I left my friends in Rome on Friday the 13th and flew straight into my parents' arms in Cope (not literally). This was my parent's first time in a country where I knew more than them, and I loved being tour guide and showing them around in the city I've been calling home for the past three months. Sidenote: this is a really late post, and it has now been 3.5 months since being in cope.

My parents rented an apartment on Strøget for the week, so I spent the week there with them and enjoyed the proximity of everything to the apartment. I settled in, exchanged some gifts with the parents, and then took them out to my favorite student cafe, Paludan, for some chili con carne and red wine. I led my parents on a brief tour of the city and then called it a night. 

the parents!

The next day, we had to wait for a lost piece of luggage before we could do anything so we wound up heading to Roskilde to see the viking museum. After a brief stint in Roskilde, we returned to Cope and got some sweet treats at Israel Plads and sat in the sun for a little. While my dad napped, I took my mom up to see my room and to send the first bag of clothes back with her to the apartment so we could start packing up a bag of stuff for them to take home. We relaxed with some wine and cheese before dinner and then went out for Thai food and came back and relaxed in the apartment. Crazy saturday night indeed.

Sunday, while the parents went to the national gallery I worked on a paper and had a lazy day. We finished off the day with burgers and ciders at Kaffesalonen, an adorable cafe in Norrebro situated right on the lakes.


Monday, while I had classes, the parents went up to Frederiksborg castle and explored around up in Hillerod. We met at the round tower and climbed up and climbed down and then got lattes at Studenterhuset before I headed off back to class. We went to Frankie's Kokken (kitchen) for dinner and my parents hammed it up with the waitress and we learned that a new Danish restaurant is opening in NYC this summer and that she'll be working there. So whenever I have a craving for smorrebrod (never) or pickled herring (never), I'll be sure to head on down there.

the tippy top of the round tower

Tuesday, my parents slept in while I was in my first two classes and then we met for lunch at Skilpadden and they met one of my friends, Katie. It was a quick lunch as I had to head out to the hospital for my core class so they did the canal tours while I was out. Then Nicki came to dinner at Peder Oxe. We spent the day eating in Grabodre Torv, a 2 minute walk from the apartment. Really convenient.


Wednesday morning, I had a vintage store tour with my fashion class so once I was done being led around, I led my mom around the clothing stores in Cope and we did a little retail therapy. We got pizza sandwiches for lunch and pastries from St. Peder's. We met my dad and then went to the Jewish museum for 15 minutes (that's how tiny it is), then to Paludan for a quick dinner, then to the Synagogue for a Holocaust Remembrance service. Very interesting going to services in Denmark. Didn't understand a blessed thing. (see what I did there? Blessed?)


Thursday we trekked up to the Louisiana museum and enjoyed really cool modern art. My mom went nuts at the book store, buying posters, a new bag for herself, a book, jewelry.. it was funny because we don't usually buy out the book stores at art museums. While my dad napped, my mom and I went window shopping again before class. We dined at Madklubben in Tivoli and then were too full to go on any rides so we just walked around and explored the pretty lights and surroundings.

louisiana

bumper cars!

nimb, the hotel in tivoli

concert hall where i saw James Taylor!

Friday, after my parents watched the changing of the guards ceremony in Amalienborg, I met them for lunch at Nyhavn at FIAT for a classic Italian lunch. We relaxed and napped in the apartment then dined on ribs and beers at Bryggeriet near Tivoli before heading to the Ice Bar. Since it was late April, the ice hotels were already closed, and the Northern lights tours hadn't started yet (both things my mom really wanted to do) so we settled on wearing big arctic parkas at the ice bar in Cope.

Saturday, the parents last day here, I finished packing up an entirely full suitcase of my stuff the parents needed to take home, we got lunch at the Bagel Company, and then dropped my bags off up in my room. My dad decided at the last minute that he wanted a touristy sweatshirt from Copenhagen, so while he got a non-embarrassing classic navy crew neck sweater, I got the I bike CPH sweatshirt and haven't been able to stop wearing it since. We had our last supper at Cafe G (and had a horrible waitress which put a damper on the whole meal) and said our goodbyes. 


That was a very brief and comprehensive review of the week my parents spent in Copenhagen, but it was long overdue and needed to be written.


At this point in time there is 13 days until I will see them again. SCARY.

kisses to mom and dad!

Ciao Bella

ROME. I LOVE ROME. I went for 4 days on my post high school graduation eurotrip with my 8 best friends and I instantly fell in love with the city then and knew I needed to return. We flew from Prague on Tuesday morning and settled into our apartment near the Termini station before we headed out to Piazza Navona (one of my favorite piazzas) for dinner. We happily wined and dined ourselves into food comas and neglected our original plan of going out after and instead walked around towards Campo Di'Fiori and stumbled upon a hookah bar. You can take the girl out of the mediterranean, but you can't take the mediterranean out of the girl (a reference to my Israeli roots). After filling our hookah needs, we got our first gelato of the season and headed on home.

whining and wining

first gelato bliss

i mean..

The next morning we made breakfast in our apartment - Dan cooked us bullets or toad in a pond or what are they called it's an egg cracked into a piece of bread and then fried in a pan. It was delicious. And not Italian at all. We took the tram from our apartment to the Termini station and then the metro from there to the Colosseum. We were able to take a few pictures before it started to downpour so we decided to seek out gelato to kill the time. And that we did.

Elyssa, Carly, Dan and me at the Colosseum!

We were getting overwhelmed by the amount of tourists at the Colosseum so we hopped on the metro and went to another equally touristy location: the Spanish Steps. It was on and off raining so we quickly walked up one side and then quickly walked down the other side to get the full experience.

spick and spanish

We then headed over to the Trevi Fountain and quickly threw our coins into the fountain before we actually got downpoured on. Like pouring rain downpour.

We ran out of the rain as fast as our little legs could carry us and we dried off and ate pasta and wine and then set out in the newfound sun for an afternoon of more gelato and shopping. We spent a long time in a leather goods store getting presents for people and just touching all the soft bags. Then I had gelato number two of the day from San Crispino - happiness expressed below.

great pistachio and chocolate combo

We walked with our gelato and picked up some more touristy souvenirs to bring back home with us and wound up at a shoe store near Via Del Corso and each of us got a pair of shoes that we wore out that night. We headed to the Pantheon and sat on the fountain just taking in the scene. I somehow managed to capture this very scenic picture of a bride and groom on my iphone and here it is in color and black and white I couldn't decide which one I liked better:

i should charge for these pics

not a bad view

We relaxed on the steps and then walked back to the apartment (mostly because we didn't know where to pick up the tram going away from the Termini station) and had our own bruschetta and mozzarella and wine of course. We were a little slow in getting ourselves ready so by the time we headed out to dinner it was already 10 pm. But the food at Dar Poeta in Trastevere was phenomenal. We shared pizzas and got pitchers of the house red wine and made sure to save room for the nutella ricotta calzone (name drop: Claudia) for dessert. I think I had died and gone to heaven. It was so delicious and there was no chance we were going out drinking after eating all that food. So we decided to walk off a little bit of dinner and I brought everyone to the apartment I had stayed in on my high school eurotrip and got really nostalgic. And I obviously got another gelato before we headed home.

Carly, Allie, Elyssa, and me with my gelato

the view from where we were sitting in the above picture

The next day we cooked breakfast again and set out to the Roman Forum, where we mistakenly waited on line for nearly an hour - didn't realize we were on the line for people waiting to buy tickets and we had already paid when we bought the tickets the day before for the Colosseum. Anyway we worked on our tans so it was fine and we watched a boy get pooped on by a pigeon - really entertaining. We explored the forum and then headed to the Vittorio Emanuelle monument (another favorite landmark of mine) before continuing up to Piazza Navona for lunch at Cul De Sac.

it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood 

this is the memorial for any and all dead soldiers

more moscato please

caprese and charcuterie

Since we were full from lunch we walked around Piazza Navona before heading to Frigidarium for gelato, a place where they are smart enough to dip your gelato in hard chocolate shell (white or dark). I realized I had been to this gelato place when I came after high school and it made me really happy for some reason. I mean I could live in Piazza Navona and be eternally happy.

I own Navona

me and Carly

Dan the man

We then headed up towards the Villa Borghese and the gardens and while Carly, Elyssa, and Dan got cappuccino I wandered the streets up towards the Spanish Steps again, bought a couple scarves for myself and actually stumbled upon a celebrity sighting. I saw a crowd of Italians with their cameras ready and pointing at a pharmacy so I stopped and thought even if I don't know who it is I want to see who everyone is waiting for. So I hear someone say "Alan BALDWIN??" and I thought "ALEC BALDWIN!?!" So I stayed and snapped some up close pics of the celeb. I am a huge fan of 30 Rock and love his character on the show so I was actually really excited that I happened to run into him (well ya know, not really run into him. ok)

the Italians swooned when he kissed his fiance

Here are some more pics from my hour of wandering:

the pup that perches

a lil limoncello 

spanish steps in their prime

sup pinocchio

lady liberty does piazza del popolo

We all met up in Piazza Del Popolo and headed back to the apartment to prepare for our final dinner at Ditirambo. Ok amazing food. I apologize that this post in particular has turned into a food blog but that's what the trip mainly focused on. And I don't regret any of it. We finished up our four days of touring with complementary limoncello at dinner, a perfectly sweet way to end my spring break. I had a wonderful two weeks with my friends traveling around and exploring different countries and cultures that I only dreamed of visiting. Before I left for Copenhagen I jotted down a tentative spring break plan and it was so enjoyable seeing this idea come to its fruition. [side note Nicki thinks I should be an english major because I have a good vocabulary so that word was just for you weirdo]. I had promised a friend I would have 8 gelatos a day.. well I only had 5 over the course of 3 days but I think I did enough damage for one short trip. I decided on this trip that I need to not only explore the entirety of Italy but I also really want to live in Rome at some point. And that is all for spring break. I kind of stopped re-reading these posts and I also didn't upload a lot of pictures that I had taken and edited from my iphone on other ones but we'll see if I feel ambitious enough to go back in and edit what's already been posted.
Ok rambling ends now. Next post is about my PARENTS' visit to Copenhagen!

ciao roma