(This blog post is being posted late- it is actually from the week of March 8-10).
Last time, I updated you on my amazing experience skiing in the Alps. Just three days later I hopped on a plane (alone!) and landed in Copenhagen. Before I tell you about that trip, that morning, on Friday, Sadie, Chris, Joe, and I went to the church of Santa Maria della Grazie to see the Last Supper! Getting tickets to the Last Supper is so difficult. You have to book months and months in advance. Somehow we got lucky and got tickets. Only a small group of people are allowed in at a time, for only 15 minutes total, and no pictures are allowed. Tight rules! I mean all I can say is that it is amazing. The work itself is very faint, but the details are still just exquisite. Sadie and I had just watched the DaVinci Code, which dedicated a decent portion of the movie towards an interpretation of the painting, so it was cool to see the movie and then see this painting in person! I SAW THE LAST SUPPER! Many people don't get to say that. Most people don't know that the Last Supper is located in Milan!
After class on Friday, I hopped on a plane to Copenhagen. It used to be that travel in Europe was done by trains because everything is fairly close to each other and flying was too expensive. Now, there are budget airlines that fly all around Europe for cheap. These are airlines like Ryanair and EasyJet. The flight is cheap but then they really hit you with costs like checking a bag, printing your boarding pass, etc. Also their carry-on regulations are different than standard American regulations, so if your bag doesn't fit in the designated box, you'll end up paying to check your bag. I had heard numerous horror stories about flying with these airlines and I was a bit nervous to fly on one for the first time by myself. I am so thankful- everything went very smoothly!!
After class on Friday, I hopped on a plane to Copenhagen. It used to be that travel in Europe was done by trains because everything is fairly close to each other and flying was too expensive. Now, there are budget airlines that fly all around Europe for cheap. These are airlines like Ryanair and EasyJet. The flight is cheap but then they really hit you with costs like checking a bag, printing your boarding pass, etc. Also their carry-on regulations are different than standard American regulations, so if your bag doesn't fit in the designated box, you'll end up paying to check your bag. I had heard numerous horror stories about flying with these airlines and I was a bit nervous to fly on one for the first time by myself. I am so thankful- everything went very smoothly!!
I landed in Copenhagen and boy was I hit was a surprise. It is as cold as the North Pole up there! I had not packed correctly- I wanted to pack as little and as light as possible to avoid having to check my bag- I didn't bring gloves, a scarf, a hat, warm clothes. I thought the weather would be like Milan's which was cold- but I didn't expect this amount cold!
Kayla, my friend who I was visiting in Copenhagen, wasn't going to return to Copenhagen from her own trip until 11pm, but I arrived in Copenhagen at 5:30pm. Because it was so cold, I ended up passing the 5 five hours getting dinner and then in a cute coffee shop, the Living Room, that Kayla recommended. Coffee shops are your best friend in Copenhagen. It's too cold to ever be outside, so coffee shops are there for you to warm up. Unlike in Milan, where going in and sitting down without ordering anything would be rude, in Copenhagen, it is pretty common for people to hangout in the coffeeshop without having purchased anything. The time went by pretty quickly and I met up with Kayla at Norreport Station.
Let me say that Copenhagen and Danish people look exactly like you would expect Scandinavian people to look like. The people are angelic- bleach blond hair and beautiful pale skin. Everyone is so beautiful.
Copenhagen is a weird mix, having the old regal buildings- tons of palaces- and very modern architecture- silver and platinum mixed with clear glass. Also, my favorite part of Copenhagen were the fabulously colorful buildings. Every building is a new light color- it's so cute! Picturesque!
Copenhagen is one of the most of bike friendly cities. You would expect that having negative degree weather would deter people from biking; nope- the city was designed to be as sustainable as possible, so bike lanes are just as important as the lanes for cars. Everyone bikes everywhere! The downtown city itself is not very big and it was possible to walk everywhere inside the city center. It was only necessary to use the bus system to get to Kayla's apartment outside of the city center.
Copenhagen is a weird mix, having the old regal buildings- tons of palaces- and very modern architecture- silver and platinum mixed with clear glass. Also, my favorite part of Copenhagen were the fabulously colorful buildings. Every building is a new light color- it's so cute! Picturesque!
Copenhagen is one of the most of bike friendly cities. You would expect that having negative degree weather would deter people from biking; nope- the city was designed to be as sustainable as possible, so bike lanes are just as important as the lanes for cars. Everyone bikes everywhere! The downtown city itself is not very big and it was possible to walk everywhere inside the city center. It was only necessary to use the bus system to get to Kayla's apartment outside of the city center.
Copenhagen is a huge study abroad destination, particularly through the program DIS. DIS has a lot of cool elements; mainly that their program organizes trips for them through their classes. Kayla's class about health care had gone to Vienna and Budapest and had learned about the health care system in those cities. I wish that IES would plan more trips for us- while I loved going to Florence and Venice with my friends, I wish that IES had organized it and had given us tours.
Anyway, we woke up on Saturday morning (I don't think that Kayla knew what she was getting into) and I wanted to see EVERYTHING. I only had Saturday to do it since my flight was midday on Sunday. I had a long to do list and Kayla was a great sport, schlepping me all over the city to see it all! When I say I went on a whirlwind tour, I really mean it.
We started at Tivoli gardens. Unfortunately it was closed until April. BOO. Then we stopped by the Copenhagen City Hall. Then the beautiful Christianborg Castle!! CASTLES IN COPENHAGEN ARE CASTLES!! After a warm-up break with lunch eating Samoas, which in the future don't ever let me eat because Samoas= not yummy to Erika. We got to Rosenborg Castle just in time to take photos before it closed! After some hot chocolate, we made it to Nyhavn, the colorful and picturesque harbor. We also walked to see the the Royal Danish Theatre and the Copenhagen opera house. We ended at the Amalienborg Palaces, which is where the actual Queen of Denmark lives! Really cool! Since we braved the cold for so long, we warmed up in a coffeeshop before we met Tom and Therese, two other Skidmore students studying in Copenhagen, for dinner. We went to dinner at this fabulous restaurant- it was having a sale of getting a drink with dinner. The restaurant had a line down the street... it was so popular. Midway through the dinner, the waiter asked us to move to the table next to us, and in return he gave us complementary dessert! So we had a fabulous dinner! It was too cold to go out, so we went back to Kayla's apartment and finished watching Eurotrip :)
Early the next morning, I had a flight back to Milan. Eventhough I was so glad to have spent the weekend visiting Kayla and seeing Copenhagen, boy I could not wait to get back to Italy, where they used the euro, people were speaking Italian (which is a much more beautiful language than the weird Danish), and it was less cold outside!
I am sorry that this blog post was so late, but I think it hit the highlights!
Great trip!
xoxo,
~E
Early the next morning, I had a flight back to Milan. Eventhough I was so glad to have spent the weekend visiting Kayla and seeing Copenhagen, boy I could not wait to get back to Italy, where they used the euro, people were speaking Italian (which is a much more beautiful language than the weird Danish), and it was less cold outside!
I am sorry that this blog post was so late, but I think it hit the highlights!
Great trip!
xoxo,
~E
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