Once we got back from the travel break, things at school really started to pick up, but also the weather got to be BEAUTIFUL (finally!) The last couple days have been rainy and windy (major problems in the biking department. I'm pretty sure at one point yesterday it was sooo windy and I was biking against it that I actually wasn't moving anywhere. Nooo fun at all). Before that though, it's been sunny and in the 60s. Again, with school picking up I'll had all sorts of papers and stuff due, so instead of sitting at the little library in our school building, a few of us have been going to the Royal Library, AKA The Black Diamond, because it looks like that. It's right on one of the many canals in the city so it's really pretty and they even have deck-like chairs to sit outside. It's quite a luxurious library experience to say the least!
So, there's really only a couple things that have happened since I last wrote. I've been busy analyzing coffee advertisements, so if you have any questions about that topic, you know who to ask. May 1st (May Day) is a huge deal here. It's actually a national holiday. Kind of absurd because based on the amount of working-age people who sit in cafes all day long, it seems to me that EVERY day is a national holiday. Anyway we heard all about this phenomenon that is May Day so we checked it out. We headed over to this huge park in Copenhagen. Kind of like Central Park, but not nearly as nice. I would say it was more like a state fairground in the middle of the city. But there were people everywhere. Like....I actually didn't like it becuase it was just way to many people. It was kind of like the Phillies parade but really gross--even the Phillies phans that day were respectful since we were all in the same boat and basically all one big family that day. No, here there was yelling if you encroached on another person's space--people had blankets marking spaces and chairs and everything. It was a good experience but something that I would probably never do again. Oh and we kept being warned about pickpockets and Iiiiii don't like pickpockets so I was also on major alert the whole time. Linda-style alert with me clutching my purse on the front of me. Yes if there is one thing I have realized this semester it is: I am actually Linda. She's really proud.
Okay, so after we went there we headed over to Tivoli---wayyy more my style! It's this giant amusement park, literally in the center of Copenhagen. I think I explained it once before, but there's no explaining until you witness it. I was definitely expecting Wonderland Pier but it was more Disney World than the OC rides. Food in the park is really expensive (kinda like Disney) so Helle said we would have a picnic in there. It was me, Helle, Sofie (16-yr-old), Louise (24-yr-old), Claire and Jesse. Helle packed us egg salad sandwiches, frickadeller, and my new favorite dessert ever: kalt skolt (that's spelled phonetically, based on my limited knowledge of Danish, there's probably a few silent q's and 3's in there too...) Basically it's kind of like vanilla yogurt (but homemade) and you mix in frosted flakes and strawberrys. Delicious. Laekert (I think that's delicious in Danish) and we had ourselves a great little picnic and then hit the rides. The rides were the rides but I was feeling extra rebelious that night and actually went on several roller coasters--and one was even upside down!!! If you don't know, I don't like roller coasters. They scare me. So this was a huge step. We also did the swings. Luckily the view was pretty because if it wasn't, I don't think I would have made it. The swings were actually the most terrifying ride that night. They went REALLLY high and because it was so windy up there, we were rocking and swaying back and forth. But the view was great...we could see over all over Copenhagen. The only thing I didn't like about Tivoli was that they didn't have a big ferris wheel. They have several high up rides that gets you a view over the city, but you can't bring a camera up on them . But anyway, it was a great night--lots of fun to be had by all.
Thenn my friend from HS, Vic, came for a couple days! She's studying in Ireland right now and has a couple weeks off. She had been traveling in Italy for a week and then swung by Denmark on her way back. I was able to do all of the touristy stuff when she was here...all the stuff I said I would do when the weather got nicer. We took a canal tour in Copenhagen, saw Nyhavn again in the good weather and saw the Little Mermaid statue. Not the Disney version, the HC Anderson one. Then we also went back over to Malmo, Sweden for a day as well. We found a beach though! So we just relaxed and spent some time dipping our toes in the water. Not too many shells there. I got three very little ones, and some sand to take home..but it was mostly rocks. But the sand did remind me of Jersey.
That's pretty much it. I have two exams next week...so I'm heading out now to the Black Diamond to get my study on. Hard to believe in only 10 days I'll be home again! I really excited to be home again and can't wait to see all of you soon!
Love,
Olivia
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Frolicking around Germany and Austria for a couple weeks
When we were done in London with the communications study tour, we had the option of flying back to Copenhagen or we could just stay in London since our spring break began the following day. Out of all of the study abroad programs I know, we have the absolute longest break. Most people just get a week, though they usually get three day weekends throughout the semester. My friend, Jacci, in Bath has Thursday and Friday off every single week. The thing is then all her classes are something like 2.5 hours. I'm glad we get the chunk of two weeks now.
I was one of only about 10 or 15 students (out of 41) in my program that took the flight back to CPH. Pretty uneventful, but we didn't get into CPH until like 9:30pm. We were all exhausted because we had been in Oxford in the morning having a lecture and tours, had a three hour bus ride to the airport and then had to wait at the airport and have the flight. Luckily I had arranged with my host family before that I wouldn't go all the way back to Borup. If I hit the trains perfectly (which probably wouldn't have happened) I would have had a 25 minute Metro ride to the Central Station and then the hour long train out to Borup. I have two host sisters that live at home, and then two that live by themselves in the city. So I stayed with Stine, who's 21, for the night. It was only about 15 minutes away from the airport, which helped the night I came in, but also in the morning when I had to get back for my flight to Munich.
Most of my friends are going to several countries or cities during the break. A couple friends took trips organized through DIS (the study abroad program): one to Rome and one to the Czech Republic. Two of my friends, Claire and Kaitlin (shout outs!!) are taking the backpacking route. They actually went three weeks (one week in London, two on break) in just a backpack and a small duffel bag. And I know a kid who went to 12 cities in 15 days. That's just crazy! But I took the route of visiting my relatives in Austria and Germany. It's been something like 10 or 11 years since I've seen them....but I was SOO glad to be back here! Frank, Annette, Theresa and Phillip picked me up at the airport and I spent the first night with them in Wasserburg, Germany and then spent 4 days with Barbara, Harold and Simon in Vandans, Austria. It's been very nice to just relax and the weather has been terrific! The first couple days it rained, and Barbara said I brought it from CPH and that I needed to go back so that they could have nice weather!
Everyday I was at Barbara's house we would take a little trek to a new place: Schruns, Bludenz, and one day I went to the top of Golm mountain for the day by myself. It's WAYYYY high up to get to the top--but an amazing view. Barbara practically lives at the foot of the mountain so it was quick and easy to get there. I just sat at the little restaurant and read my book and had some coffee. There was an outdoor cafe part that I was sitting at...it was about 60 or 65 degrees and sunny AKA Perfect! Beautiful weather, beautiful snowy mountains surrounding me! And tons of skiiers!
Then Theresa (she's 16 these days) and I went on a little road trip while everyone else went skiing. We went to Nuremburg for three days and Munich for two. I think we saw every church in both cities. Okay, maybe not alllll of them....but a lot. Mostly we just spent the days walking around and wandering and bumping into all sorts of things like lots and lots of markets and more churches and other fun places. We also went to a modern art museum: Neues Museum. There was typical modern art happening there, which is more what both Theresa and I liked. It's interesting especially looking at all of the pieces called "Ohne Titel" translation: "Without a title". Love those pieces. Another hilarious encounter occured with the guards at the art museum. There were three floors altogether: 2 of the regular museum, and 1 of a special exhibit. The one now is of artist Marcello Morandini's work. It was basically like those strange geometric shapes in black and white that when you look at them make you dizzy and give you a headache. You know what I'm talking about. Like weird diamonds and stuff...anyway it was a whole large room filled with this stuff. I was popping Aleve's left and right!!
But so Theresa and I were walking through and kind of separated at one point. We were pretty much the only ones in the museum so the guards, needing to feel important, felt the urgent need to follow about 12 paces behind us as we walked around. Always a terrific feeling knowing there's some dude I could probably beat the crap out of lurking behind me. So I was at the end of this corridor of art...and Theresa was walking towards me. We were making the eye contact as if to say "okay, I'm ready let's peace out." So she starts walking and there is a carpet on the floor. This carpet (with those bizarre geometric designs) is taking up approximately 80% of the floor. So she starts to walk and she stepped on it. It's a carpet. In the middle of the damn floor. Of course she would. So the following interaction ensued:
Guard: EHHH Eh eh eh eh!!!!!
Theresa: (look of confusion)
Guard: (pointing to the carpet) Es...ist....Kunst. (translation: it...is...art. there were dramatic pauses in between each word of course)
We decided he just waits around all day giddy at the possibility of someone walking on that carpet.
We also saw every movie that is out. Again, not completely true. We saw Slumdog Millionaire, which I thoroughly enjoyed....and then we saw Gran Torino....at Germany's largest movie theatre! How cool is that?! It had like 25 screens or something....and the strangest thing was that all of the theatres were underground. Both were very good and I would suggest them....Gran Torino is very sad though FYI.
In Munich we did most of the same...walk around and go shopping and go into the tourist sites as we came upon them. But since Munich was a bigger city and there was no way we would just stumble upon allllll of the touristy places, we decided to take one of those sightseeing buses. Double decker, open-air top...it was a lot of fun. They had headphones with 8 different languages. So basically I now know a little bit about Munich in English, German, Chinese, Russian, French, Spanish, Norwigian, and some other language that I can't think of at the moment. It was pretty funny especially because the English one was pretty much just a direct translation from German, so at times it didn't really make sense. But it was fun!
We got back on Thursday night, so then I just had a few last days in Germany. We spent them very relaxed. Pretty much we'd wake up around 9:30 or 10, get showered and ready for the day, have a delicious breakfast around 10:30, hang out on the patio drinking lots and lots of coffee and napping on lawn chairs in the sun. It was sooooo good just to relax!
Now we're heading into the homestretch here! Less than five weeks left....but in those five weeks I'll be very busy with school (first and foremost, of course!) with all sorts of presentations, papers, portfolios and exams. I also want to make sure I get to see everything and really take advantage of the great weather. I want to head back to Nyhavn (the pretty canals), Tivoli (which is this crazy huge giant amusement park in the center of Copenhagen...literally a stones throw from City Hall!), and hopefully a day trip to the Cliffs of Moen (these really picturesque white cliffs about 1.5 hours south of Borup).
Some pictures are below, and of course, Webshots has also been updated. Hope all is well and I'll talk to you soon!
Love,
Olivia
This is right behind Frank and Annette's house...above is zoomed in.
In the foreground of the picture are strawberry fields, and up towards the top and on the right side are the apple trees. There are apple trees EVERYWHERE out there!
The view of Nurnburg from the top of the Imperial Castle
Spent a few hours in Lindau, Germany. It's a pretty town right on the water!
A view from Golm!
Same. I think this was near the 2nd stopping point. There are 4 different spots on the mountain you can get off at (well including the bottom), and you can park at the bottom and one up...so this is just one stop up on the ski lift thing
This is Hotel Taube, where Ernest Hemingway once partied at. In Schruns, Austria
The town of Schruns
This is right out front of Barbara and Harold's house in Vandans, Austria
I was one of only about 10 or 15 students (out of 41) in my program that took the flight back to CPH. Pretty uneventful, but we didn't get into CPH until like 9:30pm. We were all exhausted because we had been in Oxford in the morning having a lecture and tours, had a three hour bus ride to the airport and then had to wait at the airport and have the flight. Luckily I had arranged with my host family before that I wouldn't go all the way back to Borup. If I hit the trains perfectly (which probably wouldn't have happened) I would have had a 25 minute Metro ride to the Central Station and then the hour long train out to Borup. I have two host sisters that live at home, and then two that live by themselves in the city. So I stayed with Stine, who's 21, for the night. It was only about 15 minutes away from the airport, which helped the night I came in, but also in the morning when I had to get back for my flight to Munich.
Most of my friends are going to several countries or cities during the break. A couple friends took trips organized through DIS (the study abroad program): one to Rome and one to the Czech Republic. Two of my friends, Claire and Kaitlin (shout outs!!) are taking the backpacking route. They actually went three weeks (one week in London, two on break) in just a backpack and a small duffel bag. And I know a kid who went to 12 cities in 15 days. That's just crazy! But I took the route of visiting my relatives in Austria and Germany. It's been something like 10 or 11 years since I've seen them....but I was SOO glad to be back here! Frank, Annette, Theresa and Phillip picked me up at the airport and I spent the first night with them in Wasserburg, Germany and then spent 4 days with Barbara, Harold and Simon in Vandans, Austria. It's been very nice to just relax and the weather has been terrific! The first couple days it rained, and Barbara said I brought it from CPH and that I needed to go back so that they could have nice weather!
Everyday I was at Barbara's house we would take a little trek to a new place: Schruns, Bludenz, and one day I went to the top of Golm mountain for the day by myself. It's WAYYYY high up to get to the top--but an amazing view. Barbara practically lives at the foot of the mountain so it was quick and easy to get there. I just sat at the little restaurant and read my book and had some coffee. There was an outdoor cafe part that I was sitting at...it was about 60 or 65 degrees and sunny AKA Perfect! Beautiful weather, beautiful snowy mountains surrounding me! And tons of skiiers!
Then Theresa (she's 16 these days) and I went on a little road trip while everyone else went skiing. We went to Nuremburg for three days and Munich for two. I think we saw every church in both cities. Okay, maybe not alllll of them....but a lot. Mostly we just spent the days walking around and wandering and bumping into all sorts of things like lots and lots of markets and more churches and other fun places. We also went to a modern art museum: Neues Museum. There was typical modern art happening there, which is more what both Theresa and I liked. It's interesting especially looking at all of the pieces called "Ohne Titel" translation: "Without a title". Love those pieces. Another hilarious encounter occured with the guards at the art museum. There were three floors altogether: 2 of the regular museum, and 1 of a special exhibit. The one now is of artist Marcello Morandini's work. It was basically like those strange geometric shapes in black and white that when you look at them make you dizzy and give you a headache. You know what I'm talking about. Like weird diamonds and stuff...anyway it was a whole large room filled with this stuff. I was popping Aleve's left and right!!
But so Theresa and I were walking through and kind of separated at one point. We were pretty much the only ones in the museum so the guards, needing to feel important, felt the urgent need to follow about 12 paces behind us as we walked around. Always a terrific feeling knowing there's some dude I could probably beat the crap out of lurking behind me. So I was at the end of this corridor of art...and Theresa was walking towards me. We were making the eye contact as if to say "okay, I'm ready let's peace out." So she starts walking and there is a carpet on the floor. This carpet (with those bizarre geometric designs) is taking up approximately 80% of the floor. So she starts to walk and she stepped on it. It's a carpet. In the middle of the damn floor. Of course she would. So the following interaction ensued:
Guard: EHHH Eh eh eh eh!!!!!
Theresa: (look of confusion)
Guard: (pointing to the carpet) Es...ist....Kunst. (translation: it...is...art. there were dramatic pauses in between each word of course)
We decided he just waits around all day giddy at the possibility of someone walking on that carpet.
We also saw every movie that is out. Again, not completely true. We saw Slumdog Millionaire, which I thoroughly enjoyed....and then we saw Gran Torino....at Germany's largest movie theatre! How cool is that?! It had like 25 screens or something....and the strangest thing was that all of the theatres were underground. Both were very good and I would suggest them....Gran Torino is very sad though FYI.
In Munich we did most of the same...walk around and go shopping and go into the tourist sites as we came upon them. But since Munich was a bigger city and there was no way we would just stumble upon allllll of the touristy places, we decided to take one of those sightseeing buses. Double decker, open-air top...it was a lot of fun. They had headphones with 8 different languages. So basically I now know a little bit about Munich in English, German, Chinese, Russian, French, Spanish, Norwigian, and some other language that I can't think of at the moment. It was pretty funny especially because the English one was pretty much just a direct translation from German, so at times it didn't really make sense. But it was fun!
We got back on Thursday night, so then I just had a few last days in Germany. We spent them very relaxed. Pretty much we'd wake up around 9:30 or 10, get showered and ready for the day, have a delicious breakfast around 10:30, hang out on the patio drinking lots and lots of coffee and napping on lawn chairs in the sun. It was sooooo good just to relax!
Now we're heading into the homestretch here! Less than five weeks left....but in those five weeks I'll be very busy with school (first and foremost, of course!) with all sorts of presentations, papers, portfolios and exams. I also want to make sure I get to see everything and really take advantage of the great weather. I want to head back to Nyhavn (the pretty canals), Tivoli (which is this crazy huge giant amusement park in the center of Copenhagen...literally a stones throw from City Hall!), and hopefully a day trip to the Cliffs of Moen (these really picturesque white cliffs about 1.5 hours south of Borup).
Some pictures are below, and of course, Webshots has also been updated. Hope all is well and I'll talk to you soon!
Love,
Olivia
This is right behind Frank and Annette's house...above is zoomed in. 
In the foreground of the picture are strawberry fields, and up towards the top and on the right side are the apple trees. There are apple trees EVERYWHERE out there!
The view of Nurnburg from the top of the Imperial Castle
Spent a few hours in Lindau, Germany. It's a pretty town right on the water!
A view from Golm!
Same. I think this was near the 2nd stopping point. There are 4 different spots on the mountain you can get off at (well including the bottom), and you can park at the bottom and one up...so this is just one stop up on the ski lift thing
This is Hotel Taube, where Ernest Hemingway once partied at. In Schruns, Austria
The town of Schruns
This is right out front of Barbara and Harold's house in Vandans, AustriaSunday, March 29, 2009
It’s so crazy to me that the travel break/study tour is already here. In the beginning of the semester these three weeks just seemed like something far off in the distance. The last week of school before our trip to London was a bit hectic with a presentation in my News Media class and a midterm exam in International Advertising, but I had a Saturday to pack and get ready before we left on Sunday March 22.
Sometimes Helle (my host mom) helps out a friend who is a caterer by being a waitress. So she had a dinner party that she was waitressing at the night before. She got home at around 5am and we left at 11:45am to get to the airport on time. In between that she slept for a few hours and was able to make me a bonanza of food to take with me on the plane. In my lunch sack was: two HUGE egg salad sandwiches (and she puts little pieces of apple in...mmmmm!), four frickadeller (Danish meatballs), and half a cucumber. There was also a water bottle and a can of Coke. Needless to say it was an unnecessary amount of food so I was able to feed just about half my class with it.
The plane ride was just okay--it was very shaky on the takeoff, but luckily I had my trusty friend, Dramamine, with me! We made it to London Gatwick Airport (there are 4 airports in London...it's crazy!) around 4:30pm London time. We had a bit of a drive to get to the hotel in Canary Wharf, about a 20 minute Tube ride outside of the center of the city. We basically had time enough to figure out room assignments (which got quite complicated as they had assigned us rooms based on alphabetical order but we all wanted to be with our friends), drop our stuff in our rooms and run back downstairs to the lobby to leave for dinner. Dinner was at this amazing Indian restaurant about a 15 minute walk from the hotel. We were all starving and didn't want to walk to get there but it was well worth it! The waiters kept bringing out more and more and more plates of food! All kinds of chicken and lamb and mmmm delicious food.
By the time our feast was finished and we got back to the hotel it was around 11pm or so. Some folks decided to go out, but my room (Claire, Kaitlin and I) decided to call it a night and just relax for a little bit and watch some TV. Great decision, it turned out, because Keeping the Faith (aka one of my favorite movies) was on. Pretty much all week we had early wakeup calls. We were usually leaving the hotel to head out for the day by 8am, breakfast was served from 7-8 so we were awake generally around 6:30 or so. There were 44 people alltogether on the trip: 41 students and 3 teachers. We were broken up into two different groups to make traveling and our academic visits easier to handle. My section (The A-Team, as our teacher, Marie was calling us) first went to The Telegraph, one of the daily newspapers in England. We heard all about their advertising strategies and whatnot. It was very exciting...what made it better was the one guy who was talking to us. He met us at the security desk and took us upstairs to the conference room for our talk. I thought he was with security....but then he sat in for our talk. A couple times he would chime in and give info about the paper and our main presenter would look to him for specific details about info like circulation size. So after our talk we broke up so the presenter took half of us on a tour, and this guy George took my group on a tour. We were waiting around for the other group to finish up and I was talking to George.
Here is how the conversation went: George: So where are you from in the States?
Olivia: Philadelphia
George: If I could re-do my life I would be American.
a little later...
Olivia: How long have you been working at The Telegraph? George: 44 years.
Olivia: And so what is your title exactly?
George: Well I don't really have one. Basically I just answer questions for people...visitors, writers, editors. I'm the only one who has been here for most of the editors and owners. I've been here the longest out of anyone.
Pretty much George is the mayor of The Telegraph. Picture Harry Chaykun. But British.
We also toured at another newspaper: The Guardian, whose main readership is actually outside of England on the internet. And then we went to Edelman PR. It's an international brand that started in Chicago, I think. It has a lot of the most well-known companies. That Dove Real Beauty campaign was theirs, some Wal-Mart stuff....I can't really remember the others, but some major campaigns are the works of Edelman.
That's all I feel like talking about the academic visits. We also took a ride on the London Eye. It's basically like a ferris wheel. Unfortunately it started to rain right before we went on, so it's a bit cloudy but well worth it. Some pictures are below, and if you're feeling really bored you can look at my webshots page where I have all of my pictures uploaded. On Tuesday we had lots of free time during the afternoon/evening so we were walking around the Covent Garden neighborhood of the city and stumbled upon a street with discounted theatre tickets. So short story, long: Lindsay, Kaitlin and I decided to go see Wicked that night spur of the moment....it was AWESOME. So much better than I ever could have expected! Our seats were in the 5th row of the first balcony right in the center. They were perfect! It was a great night all around! Since we got to London I knew I wanted to check out Wimbledon if I could so on Wednesday Lindsay and I made the trek out there. Unfortunately the Centre Court was closed, but we were able to go to the museum and look at the practice courts. On Thursday and Friday we headed to Oxford. I was really glad to go because two of my friends were there! Jacci is my friend from Gettysburg. She is actually studying in Bath, England for the semester, but she was coincidentally in Oxford the same week for classes. We had arranged ahead of time to meet. Catherine, who I know from Archmere, is actually studying at Oxford University to get her Master's degree. So I got to have lunch with her both days as well. It was so great to see home faces!! Anyway, that's enough about my trip. Here are some pictures and as I said before you can get some more on facebook or webshots. Hope all is well back in the States! Let me know how you're all doing...it's only a few more weeks till I'm back home! Love,
Olivia
I think these pictures are in reverse...anyway, Catherine and I in Oxford
Claire, Kaitlin, Lindsay and I at dinner
Me at Wimbledon. Those are the practice courts behind me
The token tourist picture with Big Ben and a telephone box
It was actually spring in London! This was in Hyde Park
Me in front of Buckingham Palace. We thought there was going to be a changing of the guards, turns out that only occurs every other day.
The capsule looking thing that we took on the London Eye
Claire, Kaitlin and I on the London Eye
Buckingham Palace drive-by from our bus tour
The London Eye
Sometimes Helle (my host mom) helps out a friend who is a caterer by being a waitress. So she had a dinner party that she was waitressing at the night before. She got home at around 5am and we left at 11:45am to get to the airport on time. In between that she slept for a few hours and was able to make me a bonanza of food to take with me on the plane. In my lunch sack was: two HUGE egg salad sandwiches (and she puts little pieces of apple in...mmmmm!), four frickadeller (Danish meatballs), and half a cucumber. There was also a water bottle and a can of Coke. Needless to say it was an unnecessary amount of food so I was able to feed just about half my class with it.
The plane ride was just okay--it was very shaky on the takeoff, but luckily I had my trusty friend, Dramamine, with me! We made it to London Gatwick Airport (there are 4 airports in London...it's crazy!) around 4:30pm London time. We had a bit of a drive to get to the hotel in Canary Wharf, about a 20 minute Tube ride outside of the center of the city. We basically had time enough to figure out room assignments (which got quite complicated as they had assigned us rooms based on alphabetical order but we all wanted to be with our friends), drop our stuff in our rooms and run back downstairs to the lobby to leave for dinner. Dinner was at this amazing Indian restaurant about a 15 minute walk from the hotel. We were all starving and didn't want to walk to get there but it was well worth it! The waiters kept bringing out more and more and more plates of food! All kinds of chicken and lamb and mmmm delicious food.
By the time our feast was finished and we got back to the hotel it was around 11pm or so. Some folks decided to go out, but my room (Claire, Kaitlin and I) decided to call it a night and just relax for a little bit and watch some TV. Great decision, it turned out, because Keeping the Faith (aka one of my favorite movies) was on. Pretty much all week we had early wakeup calls. We were usually leaving the hotel to head out for the day by 8am, breakfast was served from 7-8 so we were awake generally around 6:30 or so. There were 44 people alltogether on the trip: 41 students and 3 teachers. We were broken up into two different groups to make traveling and our academic visits easier to handle. My section (The A-Team, as our teacher, Marie was calling us) first went to The Telegraph, one of the daily newspapers in England. We heard all about their advertising strategies and whatnot. It was very exciting...what made it better was the one guy who was talking to us. He met us at the security desk and took us upstairs to the conference room for our talk. I thought he was with security....but then he sat in for our talk. A couple times he would chime in and give info about the paper and our main presenter would look to him for specific details about info like circulation size. So after our talk we broke up so the presenter took half of us on a tour, and this guy George took my group on a tour. We were waiting around for the other group to finish up and I was talking to George.
Here is how the conversation went: George: So where are you from in the States?
Olivia: Philadelphia
George: If I could re-do my life I would be American.
a little later...
Olivia: How long have you been working at The Telegraph? George: 44 years.
Olivia: And so what is your title exactly?
George: Well I don't really have one. Basically I just answer questions for people...visitors, writers, editors. I'm the only one who has been here for most of the editors and owners. I've been here the longest out of anyone.
Pretty much George is the mayor of The Telegraph. Picture Harry Chaykun. But British.
We also toured at another newspaper: The Guardian, whose main readership is actually outside of England on the internet. And then we went to Edelman PR. It's an international brand that started in Chicago, I think. It has a lot of the most well-known companies. That Dove Real Beauty campaign was theirs, some Wal-Mart stuff....I can't really remember the others, but some major campaigns are the works of Edelman.
That's all I feel like talking about the academic visits. We also took a ride on the London Eye. It's basically like a ferris wheel. Unfortunately it started to rain right before we went on, so it's a bit cloudy but well worth it. Some pictures are below, and if you're feeling really bored you can look at my webshots page where I have all of my pictures uploaded. On Tuesday we had lots of free time during the afternoon/evening so we were walking around the Covent Garden neighborhood of the city and stumbled upon a street with discounted theatre tickets. So short story, long: Lindsay, Kaitlin and I decided to go see Wicked that night spur of the moment....it was AWESOME. So much better than I ever could have expected! Our seats were in the 5th row of the first balcony right in the center. They were perfect! It was a great night all around! Since we got to London I knew I wanted to check out Wimbledon if I could so on Wednesday Lindsay and I made the trek out there. Unfortunately the Centre Court was closed, but we were able to go to the museum and look at the practice courts. On Thursday and Friday we headed to Oxford. I was really glad to go because two of my friends were there! Jacci is my friend from Gettysburg. She is actually studying in Bath, England for the semester, but she was coincidentally in Oxford the same week for classes. We had arranged ahead of time to meet. Catherine, who I know from Archmere, is actually studying at Oxford University to get her Master's degree. So I got to have lunch with her both days as well. It was so great to see home faces!! Anyway, that's enough about my trip. Here are some pictures and as I said before you can get some more on facebook or webshots. Hope all is well back in the States! Let me know how you're all doing...it's only a few more weeks till I'm back home! Love,
Olivia
I think these pictures are in reverse...anyway, Catherine and I in Oxford
Claire, Kaitlin, Lindsay and I at dinner
Me at Wimbledon. Those are the practice courts behind me
The token tourist picture with Big Ben and a telephone box
It was actually spring in London! This was in Hyde Park
Me in front of Buckingham Palace. We thought there was going to be a changing of the guards, turns out that only occurs every other day.
The capsule looking thing that we took on the London Eye
Claire, Kaitlin and I on the London Eye
Buckingham Palace drive-by from our bus tour
The London EyeMonday, March 16, 2009
Top O' the Mornin'! Happy St. Patrick's Day!
I forgot to put my webshots account info up in the last post. It takes forrr-evvvv-errrr...forrrr-evvv-errrr (reference to The Sandlot) to upload pictures on to their website. And a couple times it would just freeze on me and I would get impatient (shocker, I know) and wouldn't go back for a couple days. But here is the info...let me know if there are any problems with it!
http://community.webshots.com/user/greenolive06
Tomorrow night I'm attempting to make my first dinner here. It's been in the planning process for quite some time....I'll be making breaded chicken cutlet and macaroni and cheese. Generally Helle just makes all the food...and then my host sisters and I are in charge of setting the table and doing the dishes (even though it usually ends up being Helle and I doing the dishes..hmmmm?) so it'll be a different experience for Helle, I think! A few days ago I asked if I could help her and she said that I could turn the potatos that were frying on the stove. So I stood there and was doing my job and somehow managed to knock over the vegetable oil with my arm. First Helle just laughed at me. Then she said "you had to knock over the most difficult thing to clean up" and then she said "the first time you help with dinner and you made a mess...you are never helping again!!" and then under her breath I heard her say "dumb American!" no actually she said that outloud...only kidding!! It was pretty funny. Oh and I used some sort of magical cloth wipe to clean up my mess and then put it next to the sink. Well later after dinner she was trying to wring it out....and realized that it was the oily wipe. Oops! We had a good laugh. The next night I asked if I could dump oil all around the house. She told me that wouldn't be nice. The point of that story is that I hope tomorrow goes better than that! I'm also going to make Irish potatos and chocolate peanut butter bars this week so I can leave half here and take half for my friends for our London trip.
If anything goes catestrophically wrong I'll let you know :)
http://community.webshots.com/user/greenolive06
Tomorrow night I'm attempting to make my first dinner here. It's been in the planning process for quite some time....I'll be making breaded chicken cutlet and macaroni and cheese. Generally Helle just makes all the food...and then my host sisters and I are in charge of setting the table and doing the dishes (even though it usually ends up being Helle and I doing the dishes..hmmmm?) so it'll be a different experience for Helle, I think! A few days ago I asked if I could help her and she said that I could turn the potatos that were frying on the stove. So I stood there and was doing my job and somehow managed to knock over the vegetable oil with my arm. First Helle just laughed at me. Then she said "you had to knock over the most difficult thing to clean up" and then she said "the first time you help with dinner and you made a mess...you are never helping again!!" and then under her breath I heard her say "dumb American!" no actually she said that outloud...only kidding!! It was pretty funny. Oh and I used some sort of magical cloth wipe to clean up my mess and then put it next to the sink. Well later after dinner she was trying to wring it out....and realized that it was the oily wipe. Oops! We had a good laugh. The next night I asked if I could dump oil all around the house. She told me that wouldn't be nice. The point of that story is that I hope tomorrow goes better than that! I'm also going to make Irish potatos and chocolate peanut butter bars this week so I can leave half here and take half for my friends for our London trip.
If anything goes catestrophically wrong I'll let you know :)
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Berlin chapter 2
So this is a little more delayed than it was supposed to be. Oops. School got busy late last week (apparently that's why I'm here...) and then I had a busy/fun night going out in Copenhagen with my friends and an alllll day/alllll evening long birthday party for my host sister, Stine, who turns 21 next week.
On Saturday we got out of the hostel by 11am, I think and decided to walk around and see some of the places we saw on the tour and catch some new parts of the city. Claire really wanted to see a German art museum so she had asked her art history professor here for some suggestions.
Somehow nearly all of the museums were either closed or had some other problem. We think they were all getting ready for the high season of tourists, which starts in April/May. One museum had only one exhibition open (and it was the sort of lame one), one museum was having it's grand re-opening that weekend so the lines were out of control and a couple were closed. The Berliner Galerie, however, was open for business so we packed it up and headed to the museum. There are a couple pictures below of some of the artwork.
By the time we were finished there it was about 3pm, starting to rain again and we were beginning to get hungry so obviously a trip to Dunkin' was in store!! Some bagels, muffins and coffee was consumed and we continued on to go to the Berlin Holocaust Museum. It's actually located underneath of the memorial I talked about yesterday--the one with the huge concrete slabs. It's a self guided tour but we also used the audio tour, which was extremely interesting. We spent almost two hours in the museum just because all of the pictures, videos and stories were supplemented so much by the audio tour.
By the time we were finished it was dinner time so we walked around trying to find an authentic German meal. We had stopped in a souvenir shop and asked the people working there and they directed us to an area closeby with options. We ended up at a small restaurant/bar that was great. Jesse and I both had German sausage with potatos and cabbage (I tried it....but didn't finish it....it was kinda gross), Mary got some sort of beefsteak and Claire got something like cabbage stuffed with meatloaf (hey guys correct me if I'm wrong...?) then we split desserts. It was delicious and it was nice to have a real meal. In an attempt to cut down on costs/time, we decided to bring food from home that we could share. We had lots and lots and lots of PB+J sandwiches, crackers, and chocolately biscuit type things all weekend. It was easy to just throw it in our backpacks and eat it as we were walking. That way we didn't waste time having to wait at a restaurant. We also got to see the Brandenburg Gate at night, which is beautiful, and we also went up to the top of the Reichstag (Parliament building) to look out over the city.
Our train on Monday left at 3:15pm so we had a good chunk of time to walk around a little more. It was a beautiful day...blue skys and no rain! We went back up to the top of the Reichstag since it was such a nice day out and also headed back to Checkpoint Charlie.
On our tour, the tour guide mentioned that you can get your Passport stamped pretending like you're actually going through Checkpoint Charlie. We were waiting to cross the street when we happened to be standing next to one of the stands. At this intersection, there wasn't really a crosswalk, you just sort of looked both ways and waited till there were no cars crossing and went. I am always the last one to cross...because I am paranoid I'm going to get hit by a car. So as we were waiting, Claire, Jesse and Mary bolted across the street as I looked both ways for the 1000th time. At this point, the guy acting as Checkpoint Charlie saw fresh meat and attacked. He asked me if I wanted a stamp and I told him I didn't trust that it would be okay. We went through the usual "where are you from?" ... "The States" nonsense and he told me everyone from America gets their passport stamped. I still didn't really trust him and he continued to pressure me. Meanwhile my friends finally realize I'm not with them, so we're screaming back and forth across the street and I finally give in and get the stamp. He was really funny....we got a picture (on Claire's camera...hopefully she'll upload sooooon so I can get it!) and we were on our way.
That was pretty much the end of our trip, but of course we needed a little excitement...so as we were trying to get back to the bus station (which involved like 3 different trains) Claire and I were worried we were going to be late so we were rushing, Mary and Jesse were being lame and telling us to relax so we decided to make it The Amazing Race. Obviously my team won. We made it to the bus but this time it was a completely full double decked luxury bus. We were assigned the back row again and as we were getting in there about 15 minutes before it was scheduled to leave, Claire thought she lost her Passport. Luckily for everyone involved it was in a different pocket or bag or something.....but we made it back okay....we got into Copenhagen around midnight or so. It was a really fun trip and it was nice to have a break from Denmark. We leave for London/Oxford this Sunday. We get back on the 27th, and I'll be here for a night before I go visit the family in Austria. I'll try and post about London during my night here, otherwise I'll do it during my first few days of vacation in Austria. Here are some more pics from Berlin:
Claire eating the chocolate Brandenburg Gate
Reichstag during the day
outside of the Reichstag on a beautiful day!
samesies
View of Brandenburg Gate from the top of the Reichstag
Claire and I in front of the Reichstag
Reichstag at night
Brandenburg Gate at night
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
This post brought to you by Dunkin' Donuts.
WARNING! This is part one of my Berlin trip and it is epically long (oops!). This includes Friday and Saturday stories, links and some pictures. I'll get stuff from Sunday and Monday up soon.
There were four of us on the trip: me, Claire, Mary and Jesse. On Friday we all had classes in the morning. I was done by 1pm and figured it might be a good idea to see where exactly the bus was going to pick us up in Copenhagen. I had the address and a little google map, but I'm definitely glad I checked it out ahead of time so we weren't scrambling at 4:10 for the 4:15 bus. We made it to the stop just fine, the luxury bus was there with a red carpet laid out...actually there was just a large German guy who was the bus driver. I had ordered the tickets, so everything was in my name. I went into the bus to say that I had four people and we wanted to put some luggage underneath the bus but I was quickly stopped: the bus company hired the only under 40 year old German who spoke absolutely NO English whatsoever.
It's been about a year since I last took German classes, Claire took German in high school but was unsure because she knew she'd confuse German with her Danish classes here, Jesse and Mary took Spanish so they were of little help, except later that night when Mary overheard some Spanish being spoken on the subway...but that's a different story. So I was expecting that I would have to whip out some phrases but not so soon into the trip. I somehow mumbled through and we got on the bus. Luckily there weren't many people taking the bus...on a regular sized luxury bus I think there may have been 20 people or so. Mary and I split the backseat (the kind that have 5 seats going across) so that we could lay down and Jesse and Claire each had their own row right in front of us. It was nice to have the room so that we could sleep and just be relaxed and comfortable. I brought a stash of magazines (thanks Mom!) plus we had all sorts of munchies to make it through the weekend. We were all set.
I mentioned before that there was a ferry that needed to be taken. It wasn't so bad actually. I think my friends were way more concerned about what was going to happen to me with the medicine...I took it as we pulled into the dock and I was knocked out for about 45 minutes or so of the trip. We got back on the bus and I slept pretty much the rest of the time. We got into Berlin around 11:45pm or so. I knew that the trains ran all the time, so there wasn't going to be an issue of getting one...the issue was going to be which train to take. We tried to figure it out and we found a nice father and son duo who helped us out. By the time we made it to the hostel it was probably around 12:45am and we were probably in the room by 1am and ready for sleep. There were bunk beds and I called major shottie on a bottom bunk, and I happened to choose the one closest to the door.
My position close to the door is important: in the morning I was half-awake when I heard a knock. I couldn't really tell if it was our door or someone else on the hall. No one else was moving in the room....I didn't really expect Mary or Claire to hop down off of the top bunk but one would think that Jesse might stir being on the other bottom bunk. But no. So I start to get up out of bed...I have one foot on the floor and I'm lifting my head when our door opens. A guy just looks at me and then just closes the door. Apparently it was some sort of a maintainance man who had the wrong room.....so he shuts the door and I BOLT up and look at Claire and Mary because it's obvious that Jesse is no help. Claire and I had a moment of "wait, did that just happen?!". No worries though, because Claire's cool cousin gave her a door alarm for Christmas so we had some protection after that.
We knew we wanted to take the New Berlin Tour aka the free one! that left from the Brandenburg Gate at 11am. We really had no concept for timing but we decided if we left by 10am we should be okay, and in the worst case I knew there was another tour that left at 1pm. Thankfully we made it by 10:45 PLENTY of time to stop and get a little Dunkin' Donuts coffee. Mmmmmmm soooo goood! Our delightful tour guide, Colin, was from Scotland and he was quite animated to say the least. He reminded me (not only because of the name) of the character Colin in the movie Love Actually. Claire also noticed that he was strikingly similar story telling abilities to Robin Leach of The Fabulous Life of... you know that TV show on VH1? Right next to the Brandenberg Gate is the Hotel Adlon. (((Here is where you picture the voice of Robin Leach, there's a link at the bottom of this post if you want an example)))
Colin: "Berrrrrlinnnn. Right next to the historic Branderburg Gate, one of the most famous hotels in allllll of Germany: The Hotel Adlon. Where rooms go for an estimateddd $1200 a night. The ultra luxurious Presidential Suite goes for a whoppppping $12,000 a night including 3 king sized beds, 17 Jacuzziiiisss, someone to wipe your butt for you but astonishingly doesn't include breakfast. The Hotel Adlon is also the site of the infamoussss baby dangling incident by Michael Jacksonnnnn" Okay so I made all of those stats up (except Colin did say the breakfast not included thing) but you get the picture. Yeah we saw that too. Awesomeeeee!
It was about a 3.5 hour tour, that included at 30 minute break. We saw all of the big sites: Branderburg Gate, the Reichstag (Parliament building), Checkpoint Charlie, parts of the Wall in both East and West Berlin, the Jewish Memorial and also the bunker where Hitler killed himself. Well we just stood on top of it....it gave us a really good idea of the big sites and then we were able to decide where we wanted to go back to. After the tour we continued to walk around a little but eventually went back to our hostel. We got pizza from a place around the corner and just ate in our room.
Saturday night we planned on going on a pub crawl with the same company that gave us the tour. Unfortunately Claire wasn't feeling too well so she stayed back in the room and slept but Jesse, Mary and I made the trek. We had to meet on the steps of the one of the S-Bahn stations at 8:15. It cost 12 Euros for unlimited beer for the first hour, then there were drink specials at the bars. So the three of us are standing waiting to pay when all of the sudden this kid in front of us looks at us and goes "noooooooooooo!!!!!!" and I am confused. And so then Jesse goes "noooo wayyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and Mary and I are doubly confused. TURNS OUT it's a kid Jesse went to high school with! He is a senior at the University of St. Louis in Madrid and he was in Berlin for the weekend too with two of his friends. Both Jesse and Eddie knew each other was going to be in Berlin, but never thought they would see each other considering it's a pretty big city. It was cool for Jesse to chill with someone and it was fun to have a little group to go around with.
We went to three different bars and one club at the end (my fave part of the night) Plus (and I think this may have made the night) in between the different bars we would stop in like an underpass for vodka and orange shots. Interesting to say the least! There were about 30 people or so on the crawl, some Americans but there was a group of about 10 absolutely crazy Scottish guys in kilts. The three bars were okay...but the most fun was at the club. It was sooo crowded but we just danced till about 3am and then went home. It was easily the most fun I've had since I've been here......now we're trying to plan a Copenhagen pub crawl with a few other friends.
Linkity Link and Pickity Pics:
An example of the Fabulous Life Of...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6192002654905175683&ei=NuO2Sb7eMcHD-AbBuP2BBA&q=the+fabulous+life+of&hl=en
This is the Jewish memorial right in the center of Berlin. It's practically an entire city block of these cement blocks. They are all the same length and width but are different heights. Underneath of this memorial is actually the museum in memory of Holocaust victims.
We. Love. Dunkin. Donuts. End of story. That's Mary on the left and Claire on the right.
The ferry terminal in Rostock, Germany. (taken before the Dramamine)
The Berliner Dom--Berlin Cathedral
Checkpoint Charlie. Those two people standing there with the American and French flags are actually actors that you can go take your picture with.
There is the outline in the middle of the street of where the Berlin Wall used to stand
THE Hotel Adlon!
Brandenburg Tor
There were four of us on the trip: me, Claire, Mary and Jesse. On Friday we all had classes in the morning. I was done by 1pm and figured it might be a good idea to see where exactly the bus was going to pick us up in Copenhagen. I had the address and a little google map, but I'm definitely glad I checked it out ahead of time so we weren't scrambling at 4:10 for the 4:15 bus. We made it to the stop just fine, the luxury bus was there with a red carpet laid out...actually there was just a large German guy who was the bus driver. I had ordered the tickets, so everything was in my name. I went into the bus to say that I had four people and we wanted to put some luggage underneath the bus but I was quickly stopped: the bus company hired the only under 40 year old German who spoke absolutely NO English whatsoever.
It's been about a year since I last took German classes, Claire took German in high school but was unsure because she knew she'd confuse German with her Danish classes here, Jesse and Mary took Spanish so they were of little help, except later that night when Mary overheard some Spanish being spoken on the subway...but that's a different story. So I was expecting that I would have to whip out some phrases but not so soon into the trip. I somehow mumbled through and we got on the bus. Luckily there weren't many people taking the bus...on a regular sized luxury bus I think there may have been 20 people or so. Mary and I split the backseat (the kind that have 5 seats going across) so that we could lay down and Jesse and Claire each had their own row right in front of us. It was nice to have the room so that we could sleep and just be relaxed and comfortable. I brought a stash of magazines (thanks Mom!) plus we had all sorts of munchies to make it through the weekend. We were all set.
I mentioned before that there was a ferry that needed to be taken. It wasn't so bad actually. I think my friends were way more concerned about what was going to happen to me with the medicine...I took it as we pulled into the dock and I was knocked out for about 45 minutes or so of the trip. We got back on the bus and I slept pretty much the rest of the time. We got into Berlin around 11:45pm or so. I knew that the trains ran all the time, so there wasn't going to be an issue of getting one...the issue was going to be which train to take. We tried to figure it out and we found a nice father and son duo who helped us out. By the time we made it to the hostel it was probably around 12:45am and we were probably in the room by 1am and ready for sleep. There were bunk beds and I called major shottie on a bottom bunk, and I happened to choose the one closest to the door.
My position close to the door is important: in the morning I was half-awake when I heard a knock. I couldn't really tell if it was our door or someone else on the hall. No one else was moving in the room....I didn't really expect Mary or Claire to hop down off of the top bunk but one would think that Jesse might stir being on the other bottom bunk. But no. So I start to get up out of bed...I have one foot on the floor and I'm lifting my head when our door opens. A guy just looks at me and then just closes the door. Apparently it was some sort of a maintainance man who had the wrong room.....so he shuts the door and I BOLT up and look at Claire and Mary because it's obvious that Jesse is no help. Claire and I had a moment of "wait, did that just happen?!". No worries though, because Claire's cool cousin gave her a door alarm for Christmas so we had some protection after that.
We knew we wanted to take the New Berlin Tour aka the free one! that left from the Brandenburg Gate at 11am. We really had no concept for timing but we decided if we left by 10am we should be okay, and in the worst case I knew there was another tour that left at 1pm. Thankfully we made it by 10:45 PLENTY of time to stop and get a little Dunkin' Donuts coffee. Mmmmmmm soooo goood! Our delightful tour guide, Colin, was from Scotland and he was quite animated to say the least. He reminded me (not only because of the name) of the character Colin in the movie Love Actually. Claire also noticed that he was strikingly similar story telling abilities to Robin Leach of The Fabulous Life of... you know that TV show on VH1? Right next to the Brandenberg Gate is the Hotel Adlon. (((Here is where you picture the voice of Robin Leach, there's a link at the bottom of this post if you want an example)))
Colin: "Berrrrrlinnnn. Right next to the historic Branderburg Gate, one of the most famous hotels in allllll of Germany: The Hotel Adlon. Where rooms go for an estimateddd $1200 a night. The ultra luxurious Presidential Suite goes for a whoppppping $12,000 a night including 3 king sized beds, 17 Jacuzziiiisss, someone to wipe your butt for you but astonishingly doesn't include breakfast. The Hotel Adlon is also the site of the infamoussss baby dangling incident by Michael Jacksonnnnn" Okay so I made all of those stats up (except Colin did say the breakfast not included thing) but you get the picture. Yeah we saw that too. Awesomeeeee!
It was about a 3.5 hour tour, that included at 30 minute break. We saw all of the big sites: Branderburg Gate, the Reichstag (Parliament building), Checkpoint Charlie, parts of the Wall in both East and West Berlin, the Jewish Memorial and also the bunker where Hitler killed himself. Well we just stood on top of it....it gave us a really good idea of the big sites and then we were able to decide where we wanted to go back to. After the tour we continued to walk around a little but eventually went back to our hostel. We got pizza from a place around the corner and just ate in our room.
Saturday night we planned on going on a pub crawl with the same company that gave us the tour. Unfortunately Claire wasn't feeling too well so she stayed back in the room and slept but Jesse, Mary and I made the trek. We had to meet on the steps of the one of the S-Bahn stations at 8:15. It cost 12 Euros for unlimited beer for the first hour, then there were drink specials at the bars. So the three of us are standing waiting to pay when all of the sudden this kid in front of us looks at us and goes "noooooooooooo!!!!!!" and I am confused. And so then Jesse goes "noooo wayyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and Mary and I are doubly confused. TURNS OUT it's a kid Jesse went to high school with! He is a senior at the University of St. Louis in Madrid and he was in Berlin for the weekend too with two of his friends. Both Jesse and Eddie knew each other was going to be in Berlin, but never thought they would see each other considering it's a pretty big city. It was cool for Jesse to chill with someone and it was fun to have a little group to go around with.
We went to three different bars and one club at the end (my fave part of the night) Plus (and I think this may have made the night) in between the different bars we would stop in like an underpass for vodka and orange shots. Interesting to say the least! There were about 30 people or so on the crawl, some Americans but there was a group of about 10 absolutely crazy Scottish guys in kilts. The three bars were okay...but the most fun was at the club. It was sooo crowded but we just danced till about 3am and then went home. It was easily the most fun I've had since I've been here......now we're trying to plan a Copenhagen pub crawl with a few other friends.
Linkity Link and Pickity Pics:
An example of the Fabulous Life Of...
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6192002654905175683&ei=NuO2Sb7eMcHD-AbBuP2BBA&q=the+fabulous+life+of&hl=en
This is the Jewish memorial right in the center of Berlin. It's practically an entire city block of these cement blocks. They are all the same length and width but are different heights. Underneath of this memorial is actually the museum in memory of Holocaust victims.
We. Love. Dunkin. Donuts. End of story. That's Mary on the left and Claire on the right.
The ferry terminal in Rostock, Germany. (taken before the Dramamine)
The Berliner Dom--Berlin Cathedral
Checkpoint Charlie. Those two people standing there with the American and French flags are actually actors that you can go take your picture with.
There is the outline in the middle of the street of where the Berlin Wall used to stand
THE Hotel Adlon!
Brandenburg TorSo now I'm stealing this next thing from Claire....
Things I miss:
1. Normal, cheap coffee. It's why I was SO excited for the Dunkin Donuts in Berlin. In Copenhagen we don't even have Starbucks. There are the Danish version, Baresso, but it's just not the same!
2. Normal currency. It was so nice to be in Germany where a cup of coffee costs a regular-sounding amount of money: 2 euros. In Copenhagen, the Kroner is so absurd that a cup of coffee at the Baresso costs something like 20 Kroners. What?! Yeah it's kind of annoying.
3. Capriotti's. Somehow I think it came up ohhh about 25-30 times this weekend. Claire is from King of Prussia so she understands the need for a quality hoagie. We tried explaining it to Mary (from Pittsburgh) and Jesse (from Connecticut) but I think we settled that you just need to eat one to understand
Things I don't miss:
1. American TV channels. I thought it was going to be a hard adjustment but I've rediscovered lots of great TV shows that are shown over here like Spin City and Frazier plus some new ones like Army Wives. And with surfthechannel.com I can basically see anything I want!
2. Bitterly cold weather. So it's still cold. weather.com usually says something like "40 degrees, feels like 32" so while it may still be around freezing, it's balmy compared to the beginning of the semester when it would be "30 degrees feels like 18"
As I said at the beginning, I'll try and get another post for the rest of the trip up tomorrow!
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
My lucky day
So as I've said before I have quite a lengthy train commute going on. It's about 50 minutes---never less than that but occasionally more when there are delays and whatnot. Instead of being like any other train system I've ever been on, a conducter comes through and you can't actually purchase your ticket on board. It's not even like Amtrak where it's more expensive. You don't have a ticket, you get slapped with a 600KR fine (aka $100). So a dude (or chick but not usually...and usually those chicks are pretty dude-looking if you know what I mean...but I digress) they'll open up the door to the car, say something important-sounding in Danish that involves the word "reise" which I think means ticket and then they look at everyone's ticket.
During the first week of orientation way back when we had survival Danish courses where we learned the phrases every new-to-a-language student learns like "My name is Olivia" "I am 21 years old" "I come from the USA" etc etc. What they really should have taught us was words that are used on public transportation.
There are about a million different ways to get around. There are S-togs (like a subway), Metro (because you know, one subway system just wasn't enough), regional trains (holleration the only way to get to Borup) and buses. Now within those, are separate lines--like there are 6 S-tog lines, I think and the regional trains run all over the place. For people that take things like S-tog and metro (IE all of my friends) generally speaking something comes every 10 minutes or so to pick them up, it's pretty reliable and the longest I've seen anyone have to wait was like 20 minutes.
Now here are some words I should have been taught during week one and then what DSB (the Septa of over here, and yes it's that inefficient and annoying) would want to tell you if they felt like employing helpful people :
aflyst=cancelled.
togskift Kobenhavn H=you gotta switch trains at Central Station which is basically like DC's Union Station but we're not going to tell you which of the 10 tracks you're going to have to run to in order to catch that train. SO run like hell up the escalators to the big board up in the main floor, navigate through crowds of people especially the ones with large quantities of luggage and figure out where you gotta be and get there ASAP because chances are that train is going to leave within 2 minutes
Re-Tog af Osterport hen til Kobenhavn H vil ikke opstille indtil 18:00=here's the deal, Olivia, regional trains arn't going to run between Osterport and Central Station until 6pm so you're going to have to get to Central Station and catch the train. Hopefully you make it on time, otherwise you're going to have to wait another hour.
This last one was my day today. I planned on taking the 5:02pm train out of Norreport to get home. I got there at about 4:55 to find that little gem waiting for me, so I hopped on an S-tog and got to Central Station in time to catch the train towards Slagelse with an anticipated stop in Borup. The early mornings are really beginning to catch up with me now, and so I basically get tired at like 3:30/4pm like clockwork. I got on the train and decided to take a little snooze like usual. I cozied up with my scarf-turned-pillow and fell asleep. I woke at one point when the conducter said the next station would be Hoje Taastrup and that's like 5 stops away. GOLDEN I thought. Wrong.
The next time I woke up was when the conducter announced over the PA system that the next stop was Ringsted. Ringsted is actually one stop past Borup. And Borup is actually the last stop that I can use my handy-dandy all-zones train pass. This zone situation makes absolutely no sense as they've just expected me to know that I can't go any further than Borup on my pass but that's for another story.
SO I get off at Ringsted and I'm ready to head back to Borup. I see that there's a train that will stop that leaves at 6:15, so I had to wait like 20 minutes. NBD: no big deal. Except there's that little problem of the train pass not working for the one stop. I had two options at this point: a) purchase a ticket to go the two zones from Ringsted to Borup or b) rock it like a rebel and head back to Borup sans extra ticket.
Natuarlly I opted for the latter. I mean, a girl's gotta live a little, RIGHT?! So I waited to get onto the train until I saw where the conducter was standing that way I could go in the exact opposite direction from him. I couldn't see him so I just jumped on. Of course I get on and BAM he's standing right there...so I bolt in the opposite direction. I go like 5 cars down thinking I'll be okay there. It's only like a 10 minute ride but it was just about the longest 10 minute ride ever. As I'm sitting there, like 2 minutes into my trek, I see the conducter walking down through the cars towards me. First word that comes into my head: "Rats!" At this point I'm thinking I've been caught, but I can't go down without a fight so I bank some tears up in case he tries to give me a ticket and prepare for the worst. Somehow the conducters are really good at remembering whose ticket they've already looked at if they walk through multiple times on the same train. So I decide to look busy and maybe he'll forget that he hasn't seen me yet. I see him coming and he walks into my car and he just keeps walking by me. WHAT!?!?!!!! YES. I didn't get carded. I still don't know how this happened. Someone was watching over me today. It would have been a hefty fine, probably, and one that most likely I wouldn't be able to get out of even with the Academy Award winning performance I was ready to provide.
Moral of the story, the next time I fall asleep on the train I'm going to set an alarm on my phone. Well I think that's probably all of the updates before my weekend trip to Berlin. We're leaving Friday afternoon at 4:15p and have a 7 hour bus ride to get there...and that includes a close to 2 hour ferry ride (the Dramamine is ready) and we plan on taking free tours, going to museums, hitting up a department store and we're planning on a pub crawl in there too. I don't get back till very late Monday night so I'll hopefully update and throw some pictures up by Wednesday. Hope all is well back in the states!
Love, Olivia
During the first week of orientation way back when we had survival Danish courses where we learned the phrases every new-to-a-language student learns like "My name is Olivia" "I am 21 years old" "I come from the USA" etc etc. What they really should have taught us was words that are used on public transportation.
There are about a million different ways to get around. There are S-togs (like a subway), Metro (because you know, one subway system just wasn't enough), regional trains (holleration the only way to get to Borup) and buses. Now within those, are separate lines--like there are 6 S-tog lines, I think and the regional trains run all over the place. For people that take things like S-tog and metro (IE all of my friends) generally speaking something comes every 10 minutes or so to pick them up, it's pretty reliable and the longest I've seen anyone have to wait was like 20 minutes.
Now here are some words I should have been taught during week one and then what DSB (the Septa of over here, and yes it's that inefficient and annoying) would want to tell you if they felt like employing helpful people :
aflyst=cancelled.
togskift Kobenhavn H=you gotta switch trains at Central Station which is basically like DC's Union Station but we're not going to tell you which of the 10 tracks you're going to have to run to in order to catch that train. SO run like hell up the escalators to the big board up in the main floor, navigate through crowds of people especially the ones with large quantities of luggage and figure out where you gotta be and get there ASAP because chances are that train is going to leave within 2 minutes
Re-Tog af Osterport hen til Kobenhavn H vil ikke opstille indtil 18:00=here's the deal, Olivia, regional trains arn't going to run between Osterport and Central Station until 6pm so you're going to have to get to Central Station and catch the train. Hopefully you make it on time, otherwise you're going to have to wait another hour.
This last one was my day today. I planned on taking the 5:02pm train out of Norreport to get home. I got there at about 4:55 to find that little gem waiting for me, so I hopped on an S-tog and got to Central Station in time to catch the train towards Slagelse with an anticipated stop in Borup. The early mornings are really beginning to catch up with me now, and so I basically get tired at like 3:30/4pm like clockwork. I got on the train and decided to take a little snooze like usual. I cozied up with my scarf-turned-pillow and fell asleep. I woke at one point when the conducter said the next station would be Hoje Taastrup and that's like 5 stops away. GOLDEN I thought. Wrong.
The next time I woke up was when the conducter announced over the PA system that the next stop was Ringsted. Ringsted is actually one stop past Borup. And Borup is actually the last stop that I can use my handy-dandy all-zones train pass. This zone situation makes absolutely no sense as they've just expected me to know that I can't go any further than Borup on my pass but that's for another story.
SO I get off at Ringsted and I'm ready to head back to Borup. I see that there's a train that will stop that leaves at 6:15, so I had to wait like 20 minutes. NBD: no big deal. Except there's that little problem of the train pass not working for the one stop. I had two options at this point: a) purchase a ticket to go the two zones from Ringsted to Borup or b) rock it like a rebel and head back to Borup sans extra ticket.
Natuarlly I opted for the latter. I mean, a girl's gotta live a little, RIGHT?! So I waited to get onto the train until I saw where the conducter was standing that way I could go in the exact opposite direction from him. I couldn't see him so I just jumped on. Of course I get on and BAM he's standing right there...so I bolt in the opposite direction. I go like 5 cars down thinking I'll be okay there. It's only like a 10 minute ride but it was just about the longest 10 minute ride ever. As I'm sitting there, like 2 minutes into my trek, I see the conducter walking down through the cars towards me. First word that comes into my head: "Rats!" At this point I'm thinking I've been caught, but I can't go down without a fight so I bank some tears up in case he tries to give me a ticket and prepare for the worst. Somehow the conducters are really good at remembering whose ticket they've already looked at if they walk through multiple times on the same train. So I decide to look busy and maybe he'll forget that he hasn't seen me yet. I see him coming and he walks into my car and he just keeps walking by me. WHAT!?!?!!!! YES. I didn't get carded. I still don't know how this happened. Someone was watching over me today. It would have been a hefty fine, probably, and one that most likely I wouldn't be able to get out of even with the Academy Award winning performance I was ready to provide.
Moral of the story, the next time I fall asleep on the train I'm going to set an alarm on my phone. Well I think that's probably all of the updates before my weekend trip to Berlin. We're leaving Friday afternoon at 4:15p and have a 7 hour bus ride to get there...and that includes a close to 2 hour ferry ride (the Dramamine is ready) and we plan on taking free tours, going to museums, hitting up a department store and we're planning on a pub crawl in there too. I don't get back till very late Monday night so I'll hopefully update and throw some pictures up by Wednesday. Hope all is well back in the states!
Love, Olivia
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