So Little Time, So Much to Do

It’s so hard to believe that I only have 7 days left in Florence! I’ve been spending a lot of my time trying to see everything I have yet to see in the city, plus do a little Christmas shopping for my family! There are so many restaurants, stores, and sites I have yet to visit—plus four final exams to “study” for.  Last Saturday, Jenny brought me on a two mile walk up to Piazza Michelangelo, a famous square with an amazing panoramic view of Florence. From there, we climbed up even further to the Basilica di San Miniato al Monte. It is one of the highest points in the city and is definitely one of the prettiest churches I’ve visited in Italy. We then hiked back down to our side of the river and went to the market to get some presents at the market, including a couple of yummy nutella cookies for ourselves.

On Sunday, Lindsay, Jenny, and I ventured to watch a Fiorentina vs. Cagliari soccer game! We struggled to stay warm, wearing as many layers as we could fit under our coats. Thank god for my UGGs! We had great seats right on the center field; right in with all the serious Florentine fans. The game was very exciting and in the end, Florence won 2-0!

I’ve been procrastinating studying for finals by watching One Tree Hill (just finished season 1 and let's just say I’m obsessed) and downloading some of our favorite songs they play at all the bars and clubs here. I've been deprived of my country music here, but for all those looking for some new music (cough, John Hoag, cough) check out two of the most popular songs over here:

Stereo Love: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-Z3YrHJ1sU

We No Speak Americano: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wavpWRK6IX8

xx

“So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodnight”

The weekend after Madrid, I was so excited to see my Mom in Austria for Thanksgiving! We met each other bright and early in the Vienna airport, after my mom had an 8 hour overnight flight from New York! After exchanging hugs, we were off to the city center on the CAT train. Our hotel was at a great location on the Kartner Ring, just down the street from the Opera House. After dropping off our bags, we set off for the Hofburg Palace to catch a glimpse of the famous horses prance to baroque music at the Spanish Riding School. I’m not going to lie, it was pretty boring because we caught the tail end of the practice (plus I’m not the biggest fan of horses). By that time we were starving (I had skipped the Austrian meat breakfast sandwich on the plane). We found a café called Demel, well known in Vienna for luscious pastries and coffees. In fact, relaxing at coffee houses is one of the biggest cultural activities in the country. While trying to find our way to the tour bus, we found ourselves walking through the famous Christmas markets. There was everything from sausages to Christmas ornaments and candles.

Hofburg Palace

We then hopped onto the Hop on Hop off tour bus, which included a one hour sightseeing tour of the city. It was definitely the best way to see the city! We got off at the Belvedere Palace, which was an extensive palace broken up into the upper and lower palaces, with beautiful gardens in between. We could only imagine what it looks like in the summer! For dinner my mom tried the wiener schnitzel and loved it! We split an apple strudel and headed to the Kursalon, a majestic palace that had an orchestra playing the works of Mozart. It was quite a site, complete with singers and dancers. We can definitely see why Vienna is called the “City of Music!” It had started to snow while we were at the performance, so we got to walk back to our hotel taking in all of snowy Vienna!

Belvedere Palace

Saturday morning we had an early start at St. Stephen's Church, where we climbed the 343 steps to see the city of Vienna. The view was absolutely breathtaking of the snow topped roofs. We then found Hotel Sacher, which is a hotel known for their pastries. It was right on the Kartnerstrausse, so it was easy to find. We enjoyed a quick breakfast (we definitely earned it after climbing the church!) and then grabbed our bags and headed to the train station! Off to Salzburg!

St. Stephens

The train was really easy to figure out and we hopped onboard for the almost 3 hour ride through the snowy countryside. I was able to catch up on my celebrity gossip from the magazines my mom brought me (AHHH Taylor and Jake!! I'll be stalking them in Nashville this spring!) Our hotel was a taxi ride away on the Salzach River. We fell in love with the city from the moment we got there! It was so charming, but also very VERY cold. We bundled up (one of my best purchases abroad has been earmuffs in Copenhagen) and went to the heart of the old city center where we explored the Christmas markets. After a couple of purchases, we decided to take the vertical tram up to the Fortress Hohensalzburg. The tram took only 30 seconds and the view from the top was absolutely amazing, as the sun was going down over the Alps. We headed back down on the tram and walked to Mozart Place, where there was a big skating rink and outside bar. By that time it was time to de-thaw before dinner, so we headed back across the Mozart Bridge and back to the hotel. Our concierge had tried 10 places to make a dinner reservation for us and he landed a winner! We hopped in a cab to The Schloss Aigen in the Algen section of Salzburg, driving by the original VonTrapp house. The restaurant was very authentic Austrian, including a cute Austrian family celebrating a birthday and another couple who brought their dog!

Treats at the Christmas Market

View from the top of the tram

Sunday was our "Sound of Music" tour! We boarded the bus bright and early, grabbing seats in the very front of the bus. Our tour guide Trudie was dressed the part and sang and danced throughout the tour. We learned a lot about the making of the movie and Von Trapp family on our bus ride around Salzburg and other towns where the movie was filmed. We especially loved the town of Mondsee, where the wedding scene was filmed. The tour concluded at the Mirabell Gardens, where the “Do-Re-Mi” scene was filmed. We say the steps and fountain that the children dance on, took a couple of pictures, and then headed to the markets before I had to head to the airport!

Gazebo from the "16 going on 17" scene

Chruch where they got married

Do-Re-Mi steps

I got to the Salzburg Airport in the height of a huge blizzard…just perfect. Well, it seems that JFK airport needs to get some pointers from the Salzburg Airport with all those delays and de-icing that my family always encounters there. My flight took off right on time into the snow and I said “So Long, Farewell” to the beautiful Austrian winter wonderland!

xx

¡Ay Ay Ay Madrid!

I started speaking Spanish when I was just three years old. My babysitter taught me the numbers and I would walk around the house repeating, “uno, dos, tres…” I then studied Spanish starting in kindergarten in Dallas until my freshman year in college. Needless to say, after all of my years of studying Spanish, I was thrilled to finally visit a Spanish speaking country!

The day before our trip to Madrid, our flight was pushed back two hours for who knows what reasons. This put a slight damper on our sight seeing plans, but we just went with the flow. Upon arriving in Madrid on Friday, Pam and I hopped in a cab to our hotel, dropped off the bags, and met up Noelle to grab some tapas for lunch. This was around 4 o’clock might I add, as everything has a later start in Spain. We were so exhausted that we went back to the hotel to shower and get ready for dinner with the big Furman group. We opted to get drinks in the hotel bar to kill time before meeting everyone for dinner at 9. We tried the signature Spanish drink, tinto de verano, and figured out the metro to get to the restaurant. Pam’s friend from Furman who are studying in Madrid took us to a hole in the wall restaurant that served amazing sangria and tapas, including paella! We were stuffed and could barely move after eating, but Pam’s friend Maret insisted on taking us out on the town to Kapital, one of the best and biggest clubs in Madrid. Upon walking a couple miles in our heels, we finally arrived to the seven story club. There were two disco levels and even a karaoke floor.

The next morning Pam and I got up bright and early for our tour of Madrid at 8:30am. We didn’t have time for breakfast at the hotel and had to opt for hot chocolate from the vending machine to tie us over (never again). The first stop on our tour was the Royal Palace. Built in the 18th century on the site of an ancient alcassar (Arab-fortress) in the classical Italian baroque style, it is one of the most beautiful and best preserved palaces in Europe. Each room revealed rich tapestries, exquisite china pieces, and well crafted clocks. The rest of our tour brought us by sights and squares as Monumento de la Encarnacion, Plaza Mayor, Puerta de la Operal, and Puerta del Sol. We truly got our culture fix this morning!

Gates of the Royal Palace

The Royal Palace

After the tour we were starving and had one thing on our minds: STARBUCKS. In fact, we had a Starbucks conveniently attached to our hotel! It was such a treat to have Starbucks two weekends in a row after not having it for three months! We sat outside under the palm trees (yes, there are palm trees in Madrid) and people watched while deciding what to do for the afternoon. Unfortunately the line for the Prado Museum stretched around the entire building and there was no way we were going to waste our precious time in Madrid waiting lines. So, we opted to go to the Carmen Thyssen Bornemisza Museum instead. There was an “Jardines Impresionistas” (impressionist gardens) exhibit- my favorite! There were garden paintings by everyone from Monet to Pissaro. It was breathtaking to see them all in one place!

A Taste of the Tropics

After the museum we walked back to the hotel and changed before meeting up with Maret at Sol. When Pam and I arrived to meet her, we could have sworn it was New Years Eve in Madrid. There were hundreds of people gathered in the square. When we finally found Maret, she told us a strike was going on. After a quick pit stop at the department store to buy a pair of tights (our legs were absolutely freezing- I guess that having palm trees doesn’t quite make Madrid a tropical location) we went to one of Maret’s favorite tapas restaurants for some sangria. We then met up with everyone again for a group dinner, where I had an interesting potato and sauce dish…not a fan. We then headed to Dubliners, one of the Madrid group’s favorite bars. It was very quaint and reminded me of The Little Pub at home!

The next morning we met up with Jenny and Noelle, grabbed another Starbucks for the road, and jumped in a cab to the airport. Our trip to Madrid was way too quick! One of our favorite memories from the trip; however, was our experience in the Madrid Airport. While Noelle had to check her bag at a completely different area of the airport, Pam, Jenny, and I decided to sit down on the floor and wait for her. We lasted a good 10 minutes before some airport employee came up to us and started speaking in Spanish. Supposedly we weren’t allowed to sit down on the floor, but we hadn’t seen any seats around! We stood and waited for Noelle and got into the security line, where Jenny set off every alarm possible. Walking to the gate we passed by a McDonalds, and Noelle and Pam were so tempted that once we got all the way to the gate, they went back to get their McDonalds fix. While boarding the plane, I heard the attendant say “Ellas tienen hombre. Mira las pappas fritas.” This ultimately translated to, “Those girls are hungry. Look at the french fries.” It was hard to miss the huge McDonalds bags they had in their hands!

¡Hasta luego Espana!

Sweet Scandinavia

Our second weekend in November was spent in beautiful Scandinavia! Guidebook in hand, Pam, Jenny, and I headed off to the airport for our flight to Copenhagen. We were going to spend half the weekend in Malmo, Sweden and the rest in Copenhagen, Denmark (Yes, believe it or not, Denmark is considered part of Scandinavia!). After a minor setback in the Frankfurt Airport, consisting of us running to the gate only to be told the doors closed minutes before, we landed in Copenhagen only a few hours behind schedule. We exchanged our Euros for Swedish Kroner, grabbed some Starbucks (!!!!!!), and boarded the train to Sweden!

Malmo is a quaint town only a half an hour train ride from Copenhagen over the Oresund Bridge. I was absolutely thrilled to go to Sweden due to my Swedish heritage! Upon our arrival, we dropped our bags off at the hotel and set out to explore Malmo. It was freezing cold, so I was grateful that my mom brought me my ski jacket when she visited. We walked around Lilla Torg, the little square, before heading over to the Malmo Museum. It wasn’t even four o’clock before the sun started to set over the little town. We walked over to the edge of the town that sits on the water and got a view of the famous turning torso building and bridge we came over. By that time it was pitch dark, so we decided to head back. We stopped by the ice hockey rink to watch a boys team practice for a couple of minutes and then jumped in a cab back to the hotel. We relaxed in the hotel for a bit and watched Twilight, the first movie in English I had seen in a while. For dinner, we ended up at Mello Yello Bar and Restaurant in Lilla Torg, written up in my handy dandy Scandinavia guidebook. The restaurant was packed, clearly a spot where the locals hang out. Upon telling the waitress that we wanted dinner, she kicked several Swedish men out of a table and sat us. The men said something to us in Swedish as they got up (I can only imagine what they said, but we really had no idea the waitress was going to kick them out!). We ordered a couple of ciders, apple and pear, our new favorite drink on the trip, and some French onion soup! After dinner we headed back to our hotel to get a good night’s rest for the next day!

Sweden at Sunset

Saturday morning we woke up bright and early, grabbed breakfast at the hotel and saw St. Peter’s Church before boarding the train to Copenhagen. Once we arrived in Copenhagen we grabbed lunch in Nyhavn, the colorful 17^th century waterfront canal district. We walked around the Christmas markets and even bought matching earmuffs to keep us warm! (Probably one of my best purchases in Europe thus far). We then jumped aboard a canal tour, which we heard was the best way to see the city. We saw basically all of Copenhagen from the water and decided that Nyhavn was definitely still our favorite area!

Nyhavn

After the tour we went to the Carlsberg Brewery, where we learned the entire process of making their beer. Our tour concluded with two free drinks, where we sampled the regular and Christmas brews, ultimately decided we liked the Christmas one the best! Fun fact: the Carlsberg USA offices are located in New Canaan! Instead of taking a cab back into town, we decided to walk. According to someone on the street, it was supposed to take us 20 minutes to walk from the brewery to Tivoli Gardens, our next stop. Well, 45 minutes later we had found the gardens (thank god we all had our ear muffs with us for that frigid walk). Tivoli Gardens is essentially Christmas Heaven. There were Christmas lights and trees galore. Christmas music was playing, people were wearing Santa’s hats, and the smell of gingerbread was in the air. We grabbed some glogg (hot wine) to keep us warm as we wandered around the Christmas markets.  It was hard to believe it was only the second weekend in November- it wasn’t even Thanksgiving in the United States yet!

Tivoli Gardens

After getting in the Christmas spirit, we were off to the Ice Bar Copenhagen. BRRRRRR…we were outfitted in giant, insulated robes and gloves, but they barely did a thing. It gives me the chills just typing about it now. We lasted maybe 25 minutes inside, dancing to try to keep warm, before deciding we needed to thaw. Just when we thought our evening was coming to an end, we were walking back to our hotel when we met a bunch of Danish boys wearing Santa’s hats. The boys had their Christmas luncheon at school that day, and were still all dressed up, explaining their hats. It was actually very interesting to talk to them, as we learned a lot about the Danish culture (they love almonds, Michael Jackson, and playing the freeze dance even at age 21). Before long it was time for us to go home and get to bed, as we were exhausted from our long day of sightseeing.

Pam, Jenny, I at the Ice Bar

New Danish Friends!

The next morning after breakfast we headed to the gardens behind our hotel and walked around Nyhavn some more. I love how Sunday mornings are so quiet in Europe, as we felt like we had the whole city to ourselves. It was finally time for us to leave, so we hopped on the train to the airport, looking forward to getting a Starbucks (with the signature red holiday cups!) for the plane ride!

xx

Paris: The City of Lights

It’s my first weekend in Florence since the third weekend in October! I’ve been non-stop on the go and thus, I’ve made it my goal to see all of the sites I haven’t seen in Florence, do a little shopping at the markets for Christmas presents, and update you all on my travels!

The weekend after my parents left, I flew to Paris for the weekend! I was so excited to meet up with Carolyn, Mrs. Toll, Courtney, and Molly, Carolyn’s roommate from Wake who is studying in Barcelona! With Mrs. Toll being a native to Paris and French culture, I knew I was in good hands! I went to Paris with only one goal: to stand infront of Manet’s “Le déjeuner sur l'herbe,” like Blair Waldorf, and have a beautiful French royal approach me. (This was a Gossip Girl reference for those non-Gossip Girl followers!). KIDDING. I was absolutely dying to see the Eiffel Tower, eat crepes with nutella, and have croque monsier for every meal. Mission accomplished. Although I was worried about traveling alone to Paris (without any knowledge of French, might I add), it was quite easy to grab a cab to our hotel, Duc de St. Simon, a charming hotel conveniently located in Paris. After meeting up with Mrs. Toll, Carolyn, and Courtney, we enjoyed breakfast at an authentic French café and caught up on our Wilton gossip! It’s always a treat to hear about everything that’s going on at home! We made our way to the metro after breakfast and headed to Rueil Malmaison, a suburb of Paris where Mrs. Toll lived for several years while growing up! We saw the church where Josephine Bonaparte was buried and then headed to Malmaison, Josephine’s summer chateau. After our tour of the chateau, we went on a hunt for Mrs. Toll’s old house! She recognized it right away, accounting memories from her childhood of playing games in the front lawn!

Outside of Malmaison 

Later that afternoon, we headed to the Arc de Triomphe. The sun had already set as we reached the top of the 200 steps (I need to add up how many steps I’ve climbed this semester…it has to be in the thousands). The view from the top was spectacular and I caught my first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower!! After our climb down the steps, we headed to grab dinner on the Champs. We all enjoyed croque monsieur’s (they had nothing on Café Luc!) before heading to Laduree for some macaroons.

Arc de Triomphe

Saturday morning we put on our walking shoes- ready for a full day of sightseeing. Molly had gotten in late on Friday night and Ellen, another one of the girls’ friends from Wake joined us from Dijon for the day! First on our list was the Musee d’Orsay. This museum contains a grand collection of Impressionist paintings, and was by far my favorite museum I’ve seen abroad! We then headed to the Lourve, where we were able to cut the line with our museum pass! The saw everything from the Mona Lisa (overrated) to Venus de Milo. Carolyn and I were thrilled to see the Code of Hammurabi, an artifact we studied extensively in our Western Civ class our freshman year of high school.

C & I at the Lourve

Crowd infront of the Mona Lisa

That evening we had an amazing dinner at L’Entrecote, one of the Toll’s favorite restaurants! The line outside the restaurant serves as justice that they are world renowned for their steak frites. After dinner we headed over to the Eiffel Tower aka my life long dream to see it lit up at night. We had heard that the best time to go was at night in order to avoid lines and we were able to head right up to the top! I am SO proud of Carolyn for making it up to the top! Although it was pretty foggy and misty at the top level, at the second level we were able to catch a glimpse of the entire city all lit up!

We woke up Sunday morning and headed straight to the Notre Dame. I had only seen the Notre Dame in textbooks and seeing it in real life, I was so impressed by the architecture of the building! We walked around while mass was going on, a magical experience to hear all of the singing in French. We then headed to the Orangerie, a museum where Monet’s “Water Lillies” are displayed. These paintings are absolutely breathtaking, taking up the entire walls of the museum. 

Infront of  Notre Dame

Water Lillies

It was time for me to head back to the airport, but not before a final croque monsier! We said our goodbyes (“au revoir”…I picked up a little French that weekend) and I hopped in a cab! Paris was such a wonderful city with so much to see- it is definitely on my list to return to in the future! It was even better spending it with friends from home! Paris, we’ll be back!

xx