Cinque Terre

While in Italy, we took a day trip to Cinque Terre, the famous little villages on the northwest coast. Just as beautiful as I anticipated. We were lucky to get a clear day and even spent an hour tanning on a beach. We also ate (more) gelato and hiked around a bit to get the best view possible in each little town. Once again, tourists consumed the place, but we expected that. 

A few of my favorite pictures:

♡ Maddie

Florence, Italy

Florence! Hi, Florence. The city was, as you can see above, beautiful as expected. A lot of history there. A lot of American tourists there, too. I actually heard more American accents than Italian, it was bizarre. But I suppose that's because we went at the beginning of tourist season, and we did very touristy things. We saw the David (wow), the Florence Cathedral, some Botticelli and some Michelangelo, and stayed the hotel-ridden part of town. And I was secretly comforted by all the Americans because I was a tad homesick.

The gelato gods totally smiled upon us in Florence. AKA we caught the gelato festival while it was still in town. For ten euro, we got five BIG individual scoops of gourmet gelato, a bag, a balloon, and free admission to gelato cooking shows. And we somehow convinced many festival employees to give us tastes of, like, every gelato before we decided, so we definitely got our money's worth. Some flavors were weird yet yummy (i.e. algae, orange and chocolate gelato, and marzipan gelato), others were just weird, and some were just incredible. We had a Guatemalan coffee gelato that was killer. Still thinking about that.

And of course, we had gelato outside of the festival too. Can I please go on a tangent about the deliciousness of rice gelato for a minute? It tasted like rice pudding. I don't know why no one in the states has thought to make rice pudding ice cream. It's now my favorite flavor and I'm just gonna have to make it myself, I guess. (Good thing mom just bought an ice cream maker!)

Enough about gelato. Photos:


^I lied. This blog post is all about gelato and you readers are just going to have to come to terms with that.


^Me and gelato at the gelato festival.


^Me and my beloved rice gelato.


^Some gelato cones.

Yeah, okay, I took pictures of the city too:


^Houses on the river.


^View from Piazzala Michelangelo.

^Enjoying a bottle of wine at sunset with the ladies up at the Piazzala.

^View from our hostel (!).

^Marika and me. Love this girl.

^Prosciutto crudo panino at La Prosciutteria; I highly recommend going there.


^It was an hour-long wait to see the David, but we kept ourselves occupied with the street vendor stands...




^Simple mushrooms on fried polenta. Best meal I had in Italy.

I'll post photos of Cinque Terre soon!

♡ Maddie

Venice, Italy

I really liked Venice. I came in with no expectations (sort of on purpose), and was kinda blown away by the city. There are no cars allowed, only boats. Venice is not exactly a living city; there are  residents, but the overwhelming majority of the city is dedicated to tourism. I.e. Venetian mask shops every ten feet (seriously) and more people walking with cameras than not. Lucky for you guys, I was one of them! I loved taking pictures there, and I kept doing that thing where I take a dozen pictures of the same view - which always tells me that I really like that view. And I took a LOT of photos.

We (Marika, Anna, Marika's friend Krystle and I) stayed in Mestre, a suburban town northwest of Venice, where apparently a lot of people that work in Venice live. We bussed into Venice each morning and spent the full day in the city, wandering through the narrow streets (thats kinda the only thing to do) and eating gelato (an average of two a day, obviously) and trying on masks (dozens) and taking photos every three minutes and eating Italian everything. I think Venice is my favorite city I've visited in Europe, after Copenhagen. SO beautiful, and especially pleasant if you come to terms with the swarms of tourists around every corner.

Some photos, taken with the DSLR and my iPod:


^Hi, wonderful canals everywhere.


^The Grand Canal, I believe.


^The girls taking pictures of the Grand Canal, as we do.


^Old and pretty buildings everywhere!


^Venetian masks. I didn't particularly like masks before Venice... by the time we left I was dying to buy one. And I did. One of those crucial accessories, you know.


^Marika bought one too.


^All the water in Venice was this milky turquoise. Do they dye it?! I swear they dye it...


^Had to get a nice, cliché photo of a gondolier and a gondola.


^Chocolate gelato. I'm pretty sure this one was bought at 10:45am... I love vacation.


^More canal shots. Truly couldn't get enough.

And these photos of me below were taken by Marika. I like them so much that I stole a few to show to y'all. I just feel so Italian in them. Or I mean, I feel like I'm doing all the things I should be doing as a tourist in Italy. Which is definitely not the same thing as being Italian, so nevermind.

For example:


^Ate a crostini with prosciutto crudo and sun-dried tomatoes.


^Ate an unhealthy amount of gelato. (Wait till I tell you about Florence's gelato festival...) And yeah, I might have just been holding Marika's gelato as well as mine so she could take a picture, but I did eat a lot of gelato myself, I promise.


^Took a jumping picture in Piazza San Marco with Anna. A tourist must, really.


^Looked at old old old serious serious serious and beautiful catholic churches.

^Tried to take a picture with a gondolier without him noticing. Failed, he noticed. 

^Ate tiramisu at sunset on the water. That's some genuine sugar-induced joy on my face. 

I'll say it again, I really loved Venice. Seeing as how we went to Italy two weeks before finals, I was expecting to be stressed, anxious and distracted for most of the trip. But somehow, I had a wonderful, stress-free time in Italy. I kinda thank Venice for that; it was our first stop and it was just so fun that I didn't even have time to think about school. I also thank Marika and Anna - such good travel buddies and friends.

Stay tuned; gonna post photos of Florence and Cinque Terre today, too (hopefully). 

Going home SATURDAY! Crazy. 

♡ Maddie

Summertime in CPH

I know I promised you posts about Italy, but I think Copenhagen is feeling a little neglected over here on the blog. I've been so busy bragging about elsewhere that I've forgotten to let you in on my daily life and surroundings.

This is really the most wonderful little city. And man, does it bloom in the summertime. Physically bloom, like plants and stuff, yeah, but also in other ways. Copenhagen feels so, so alive when the weather gets good. The minute that big stories-tall thermometer on H.C. Anderson hit 15°C, the Danes just, like, erupted onto the scene. They find any excuse to lap up the sun, too (which lasts until 10:30pm!). The past month has seen dozens of street festivals, like Blågårdsfest, May Day festivities and the 5-day-long-city-wide-free-festival Distortion (which was SO COOL). And each park I bike past is always packed with Danes tanning and barbecuing. Danes are good at summertime.

I, meanwhile, have been a little too stressed to fully enjoy the weather. Its finals time, and my two 15-page essays have kinda-really been giving me mental hell. I don't love University of Copenhagen's school structure, with the final exam counting as 100 percent of my grade. Yuck. Major stress. But I've survived one essay so far and the next is due Monday. And the minute I turn in that last essay, I know I'll get better at appreciating Copenhagen.

Which is a good thing, because I leave in two weeks! So bittersweet. I've already had to say goodbye to some exchange friends, and reality is setting in. The past six months have been dreamlike. But I'm also really ready to get back home. I miss Greg, I miss my family, I miss the Bay Area. Its hard to be fully here when so much that I care about is over there. 

Goals for the next two weeks: Really be here. Bike around the city aimlessly, be outside as often as possible, speak Danish a little more than I want to, and check off those final tourist destinations that I've yet to visit. I'm going to miss this city, this flat, these housemates, these friends. 

A few photos:


^9:22 pm view from my little balcony. So hard to wrap my head around.


^Discovered a beautiful park right next to my flat. (Of course I just discovered it, its only been six months...)


^The last "hygge" night of Distortion, in the same park pictured above.

Ok, Italy soon, I promise. Just one more essay to finish. 

♡ Maddie

P.S. I think I'll keep posting on the blog after I get home. It's such a good outlet for me, and it makes me take post-worthy photos. Thanks for reading.

P.P.S. Homesickness has manifested itself in weird ways for me: I'm really enjoying American country music (for the first time like, ever) and in those especially lonesome moments I listen to NPR CarTalk podcasts. How silly is that?

P.P.P.S. Dad's here in a week, too! We're gonna explore CPH (and maybe a little bit of Sweden) before he heads back with me on the same flight. Yay family!

Tulips in Holland (!)

There is no doubt about it - the tulip fields in Lisse, Holland, was the most incredible thing I've witnessed in Europe thus far. Really, really extraordinary. 

Only open two months of the year (usually April and May, I believe), Keukenhof Gardens right outside Amsterdam has seven million bulbs planted in it (!). It is unreal. I took nine hundred photos between my DSLR and iPod, no joke. Which means I have a lifetime's worth of new desktop backgrounds now too. 

So this post is just about the flowers and the photos. If you are ever in Europe in the spring, just go - you won't regret it. 

First, DSLR:

 

 

 

Naturally, my camera died, so I switched over to my iPod camera:

Can't stop thinking about those tulips. I'm truly blessed to get the chance to see such a wonderful thing.

Next up on the blog: Italia! :)

♡♡♡ Maddie