Danish (Pastries not People)

I arrived in Copenhagen late Wednesday morning with the girls, and we immediately went to the ATM to get some Danish krones.  The Danes have one of the cutest currencies out there since all their coins are shiny and covered in crowns and hearts.  After checking into the hostel, Lauren, Emily, and I set off to explore some of the city.  Our first adventure was climbing 400 steps to the summit of the Church of Our Savior.  The view was gorgeous, though unfortunately the cloudy sky inhibits my pictures from conveying this beauty.  The church tower is also home to several bells that began ringing during our struggle to reach the top.  I don't know how the hunchback of Notre Dame could ever stand such a volume!  After  getting our feet back on solid ground we walked over to a bakery where we split a delicious dessert made of marzipan, strawberries, and cream.  Needless to say it was heavenly.

 

On our second day in Copenhagen, we made our way to a beautiful park that was home to the famous Little Mermaid statue.  We rounded a harbor full of sailboats to stumble upon an unusually rowdy scene.  Unbeknownst to us simple tourists, there was a big football match (and by football I mean soccer) that weekend in Copenhagen.  Some of the visiting fans were taking the opportunity of drunkenly turning the Little Mermaid into an effigy.  A few men actually scaled the rocks to dress the statue in a t-shirt and scarf supporting their team.  It was humorous to say the least.  After seeing the statue, we walked around the rest of the park.  Part of it is a somewhat active military fort called Kastellet.  I got to see my first old-fashioned windmill there too! 

After the park, we walked down the street and saw the palace where the Danish royal family currently live.  The palace has guards stationed outside the doors and they look a lot like the British ones.  One tourist was posing for a picture next to one guard, but I guess she was standing too close because he promptly stamped the butt of his rifle on the ground and then used it to shift her over a foot.  I think she was surprised and a bit shaken by the suddenness of the whole action.  Walking further down the street, we stumbled upon an jeweler's shop with a small amber museum located just above it.  Copenhagen is known for its amber since in history many residents harvested it along the shores after the waves had torn it from the ocean floor.  It reminded me of Jurassic Park.

We spent the rest of the day struggling to get to Frederiksborg Castle just outside the city but it was unfortunately closed by the time we got there.  However, the outside looked so beautiful that we knew we had to come back the next day and try again. 

Unknowingly, we picked the absolute perfect time to visit Copenhagen, for it just so happened that on our second night the entire city was having a huge celebration!  Early every November, at exactly 8:59 pm, all the bars release Christmas beer!  They only have it for the Christmas season, so everyone goes crazy when they can finally get it!  Lauren, Emily, and I weren't that familiar with the city night life so we ended up stuck in an area filled with posh bars and no idea of where to go for a glass of Christmas beer.  After wandering for a bit, I got fed up and stopped the first young person I saw.  The second he opened his mouth to give us directions, all of our mouths dropped.  There was no mistaking his Irish brogue.  Out of all the people I could have asked for help, I stop the one Irish tourist.  And he wasn't just any Irish tourist!  His name was Shane and he was actually a teacher at a high school that three of my friends from Maynooth graduated from!  (Upon my arrival home, I asked one of my friends about Shane and he told me that he had accidentally punted a gaelic ball at Shane's head and, in turn, Shane punted it into the river haha!)  As corny as it may sound, I have to say it.  Small world!  With Shane's guidance we continued on our quest for Christmas beer and we weren't disappointed!  We entered a bar and were handed free Christmas Beer!  Though I must admit that it actually tasted pretty gross to me.

 We headed back to the hostel to get some sleep, and I think I should take the opportunity to tell you a bit about the building our hostel was neighbors with.  You may have heard of the Bella Hotel because apparently President Obama went there for a conference on climate etc. (we were told that the windmill in front of the hotel was built because of Obama's visit but that it actually doesn't work because it would make too much noise)  The cool part of the building is that it actually leans more than the Leaning Tower of Pisa (it leans 15 degrees while Pisa only leans 3.97).  The top juts out 10 meters farther than the base. 

 

The next morning we went back to Frederiksborg Castle and I am so glad we did because it turned out to be my favorite part of Copenhagen.  Let me tell you, Danish royalty don't mess around.  The castle is huge with several stone spiral staircases, hundreds of rooms, grand halls, a church, and a park for a backyard.  We spent hours just winding our way through the building and grounds.  I especially enjoyed looking at all the paintings of members of the royal family.  I think that the men had a secret competition to see who could groom the most ridiculous moustache, which would be a genius form of torture!  Think about it.  All the Danes would be forbidden from laughing the foolish caterpillar growing on their lord's face.  Absolute torture!

After taking the train back into the city, we wandered around the downtown shopping streets a bit before finally grabbing our bags from the hostel and rushing to catch our train that would take us to the airport.  This train was significantly more uneventful than our last one, although we did get to make friends with some Germans.  Traveling is exhausting and I was extremely happy to finally see Ireland again.  It is quite possible that I kissed the ground in full view of all the taxi drivers lined up and waiting for passengers.  They can judge me I don't care!

...Or Did You Get Lost in Amsterdam?

To continue with my "Study Week" (as they call fall break here) adventures, after a awful day of traveling, I made it safe and sound to beautiful Amsterdam!  I was so exhausted that I ended up just going straight to bed, but that was good because I got to start fresh the next morning.  I met up with four other SMC chicks from the Maynooth program to explore Amsterdam: Lauren, Emily, Katie, and Madison.  We all had different things we wanted to do so it was nice to have a bigger group so we could split up.

In the morning, Lauren, Emily, and I walked to the Rijksmuseum which is home to many of the famous paintings and other works of Dutch artists.  We started upstairs with the paintings and oh my goodness gracious were they beautiful!  My favorite was "River View by Moonlight" painted by Aert van der Neer (here is a link if you want to see it yourself http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/aria/aria_assets/SK-A-3245?page=0&lang=en&context_space=&context_id=). Johannes Vermeer's paintings were also very beautiful.  Downstairs there were all sorts of miscellaneous art pieces.  One room was entirely dedicated to illustrations in children's books and you could sit on couches and read the books that were displayed on the surrounding walls.  In another room there were two giant doll houses.  They put ladders in front of them so that you could peer into the attic and upper rooms.  I know three little girls who would have gone crazy playing with those doll houses!  There was also the figurehead from an old ship hanging above one of the doorways.

After getting our fill of culture in the Rijksmuseum, we stepped outside where what do you think accosted our eyes but the famous "I amstersdam" sign.  Photo op?  I think so!  (The next day we actually found a miniature one as well!) For some reason the "I" in the sign had a mustache, I wish I could tell you why.  


Amsterdam is of course known for its beautiful and numerous canals, but you may not know that it also seems to have just as many trams.  Lauren proved to be an expert at navigating them.  She always got us to the right stop and headed in the right direction on the right tram.  Now you may not be so impressed with this, but trust me, you should be.  Those things are confusing!  After getting off the tram, I would break out the map and maneuver us among the streets, bridges, and canals to our destination.  We made the perfect team!

The trams aren't the only way of getting around Amsterdam.  Biking is a big deal there too!  They actually have a huge, multi-level parking garage just for bikes!  All the streets and bridges are lined with bikes and bike racks too.  I especially enjoyed seeing all the men riding along on their bikes with their girlfriends sitting sidesaddle on the back.  It was so cute that Emily and I had to try it!

One of our many destinations was the Tulip Museum.  Yes, it's just as adorable as it sounds!  There was a little shop with a display on the history of tulips in the basement.  We learned that tulips actually don't have a scent (though some modern hybrids can have one).  Who knew?  I also discovered a white tulip called Maureen!

We also went to Bagijnhof which was a community of homes for single, lay Catholic women called beguines.  Even though between 1578 and 1795 Catholics were not allowed to practice their faith and much of their property was confiscated, the beguines were left in peace.  This is because they were lay women and their homes were considered personal property. Though the last beguine died in 1971, still only women live in the homes of Bagijnhof. 

That night we did two of the most touristy things possible.  First we went on a canal tour boat ride and second, we went to the Ice Bar.  We had to watch a hilariously corny video and get suited up in puffy white coats and gloves.  Then we went into freezing (literally) cold room where everything was carved out of ice.  There were icy chairs and benches and even sculptures of penguins.  After the bar, we passed through the Red Light District on our way home.  It was honestly the most depressing five minutes of my life, and that is really all there is to say about it.

On our last day in Amsterdam we went shopping in a flea market just down the street from our hostel.  Lauren got some hilarious slippers that looked just like wooden Dutch shoes!  Afterwards we headed over to one of the canals where we rented a paddle boat and wound our way among the different streets of water.  Besides a brief run in with a couple of threatening swans, we were able to relax and enjoy the beautiful buildings lining the canals.  I must admit that I am in love with those narrow yet tall houses.

After giving our legs a good work out, we made our way to a tulip market.  It was incredibly colorful!  I even picked up a packet of bulbs from one of the vendors and shipped them back to Mom.  Hopefully they'll pop up in the spring, though I may not be home in time to see them.  Lauren currently has some growing in a tin can in her room!

My final adventure in Amsterdam was a somber one.  I went with Madison and Katie to see the building that Anne Frank hid in for years during WWII.  Having just studied her diary last year at Saint Mary's, I appreciated being able to see first hand what I had only read about.  The house is a little hard to describe, and to be honest, I think Anne does it best in her diary, so please look there if you'd like an accurate picture.  The rooms are now bare because Otto Frank, Anne's father, requested that it remain unfurnished.  However, there are photos in each room of what it would have looked like when Anne lived there.  As I walked through the different rooms there were two things that especially stood out to me.  First, was the bookcase that covered the secret entrance to the attic.  Stepping through that didn't even feel real.  I couldn't believe that I was passing through the entrance to Anne's world.  The second thing that I found eerie was Anne's room.  It contained no furniture, but all her posters and pictures were still glued to the wall.  There were movie stars, the royal family, advertisements, and family photos.  As vivid as my imagination is, reading about it just doesn't compare to actually seeing it first hand.  Throughout the rest of the museum there were video presentations, quotations, and Anne's actual diaries.  It was very moving and even though a huge crowd was passing through each room, there was barely even a whisper.  As sad and spooky as it was, I'm glad that I got to see where Anne lived.

After the Anne Frank house we hurried back to the hostel to gather our things and then hopped on a night train headed for Copenhagen.  For some odd reason I was the only one to get a bed, and all the other girls were stuck in compartments that only had chairs.  I investigated my room and seeing that a suspicious looking man was there, I opted for sticking with the other girls.  Lauren, Emily, and I had bought cheese, apples, and bread for dinner, so we feasted on these while chatting (though we were interrupted several times by police with drug sniffing dogs).  Unfortunately, more and more passengers kept arriving so I was kicked out of my borrowed seat.  I made my way back to my compartment and luckily discovered that the suspicious man had left the train and that there were 3 extra beds!  I grabbed Lauren and Emily and we moved into my compartment.  There were two other men staying there as well, but they were both very nice and we chatted for a bit before finally going to sleep (I got one of the top bunks which was surprisingly comfortable).  In our conversation, however, one of the men told us that the guy who left was afraid of being searched for drugs by all the police, so he hopped off at the nearest stop!  Are my instincts sharp or what?  In the end we arrived safe and sound in Copenhagen, so no harm done.

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things!

I started my Fall Break travels in the one and only Austria!  After flying into Germany and taking a train to Salzburg, I met my high school friend Joe and we spent Friday night and Saturday morning exploring the city!  It was absolutely breathtaking!  There actually weren't that many people around which made me feel like Salzburg was my own little world.  All the cobblestone streets are impeccably clean with bright buildings and storefront windows lining them.  There is a castle in the middle of Salzburg that overlooks the entire city from the top of a high hill and at night it is illuminated so that it seems to share its light with the streets it watches over.  The morning was the exact opposite.  There could not have been a brighter blue sky. The air was crisp as we walked through the streets peering at the different shops and houses.  We even walked through a cute little market.  One of my favorite moments was passing a house and then noticing a huge plaque on the wall with Mozart's name. Standing in front of the plaque was a little girl posing or a picture with her Mozart manga book.  I may have snuck my own picture...  

Of course I can't talk about Salzburg without mentioning The Sound of Music.  While we didn't go on an official tour, Joe and I went to the gardens where they filmed a few of the scenes.  You may remember Fraulein Maria running down a tunnel of green.  Well, I was there.  I was also on the steps they jump up and down and near the fountain they run around.  If you watch the clip on youtube you can see what I mean http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIjobdArtiA (start watching at 3:55 to see the gardens and if you start watching at 2:00 you can see the castle atop the hill in the background).

After seeing the gardens, Joe and I caught a train to Krems where we rented bikes and cycled along the Danube River Valley toward Melk because we wanted to see the monastery there.  There is a highway for all the cars to travel on, but running parallel to that is a road that winds through all the quaint little towns.  The day was a bit overcast, but the ride was absolutely beautiful.  There were tiered vineyards placed precariously on the sides of the hills and castle ruins reigning over them at the very top.  We stopped in the little town of Durnstein for a cup of hot apricot cider (this region is famous for their apricots and apricot wine etc.) which was spicy and delicious!  We continued on and I became an expert at riding my bike and simultaneously taking pictures.  Unfortunately we underestimated both the distance and our cycling speed, so after about 20 kilometers (or 12 miles) we ditched our bikes, caught a ride to Krems (I got to see the monastery lit up at night at least!), and hopped on a train to Gaming where Joe goes to school.

Joe goes to Franciscan University in Steubenville but they have a second campus in Austria.  The Austrian campus is in an old Carthusian monastery built back in the 1300s.  The buildings are gorgeous!  It was a maze to me at first but I quickly learned how to find my way around.  On Sunday we celebrated a very peaceful mass in the ornate church at the monastery.  Afterwards, we got our hiking shoes on and went up Book Mountain.  It was a tough climb at some parts, but well worth the effort!  At the top you get to sign a book that they keep wrapped up in a box.  The students also carve their names into the trees.  There is a cell phone tower at the the top as well, so of course we had to climb that.  The view from the top was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.  The pictures I took can't even begin to show you how magnificent it all was.

We went to bed early that night because I had to get up to catch the 4:30 bus to the train station.  I then spent the next 17 hours on various trains trying to make my way to Amsterdam.  It was a miserable day, but I did appreciate seeing the German countryside.

The mist is enveloping the mountains.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was meeting random fellow travelers.  As we were walking to the hostel, Joe and I met Liz, an American au pair living in Vienna and visiting Salzburg for the weekend.  She heard us speaking English and immediately asked us for help in finding a hostel.  Unfortunately the one we were in was full, so we couldn't help her out.  However, we ran into her again later that night, so we all hung out at a bar chatting.  She is a kindergarten teacher who studied abroad in India and also visited Ecuador before coming to Vienna to take care of a distant relative's kids.  She had the most interesting stories!  I can't even imagine living like she does!  We also got to chat with a Salzburg native when we took the train to Krems.  She would point out churches or towns that we passed and give us little tidbits of information on them.  She was heading to Switzerland to visit her grandchildren, so we helped her practice her English since that's the only language she and her grandkids have in common.  I also got to bond with her over our mutual appreciation of Jane Austen haha!

Austria was better than I could have ever imagined!   When I have more time I'll write about Amsterdam and Copenhagen, but for now tschuss!

Seamus the Seanachie

On Sunday we had our last tour this semester.  We drove around the Maynooth area with an expert on local history named Seamus.  He is an adorable man with a white mustache, and he has a real flair for story telling.  Seamus is a true seanachie!

The first of many stories Seamus told us was about the Barberstown Castle.  Long ago (but not so long ago that dinosaurs roamed the earth), this castle was leased to a family.  The lease stated that the family could live there until the man who signed it and his son had died.  At least, that's what the owners the castle meant when they leased it.  Unfortunately for them, the lease actually stated that the family living there had to leave when the man who signed the lease and his son were put into the ground.  When the son finally died, his family put his body into the walls of the castle so that they would not have to leave.  Loophole!  The owners ended up having to pay a large sum to get their castle back!  Barberstown Castle is now a hotel and rumored to be haunted! 

Our next stop on the tour was the site of the first international sporting match (according to Seamus, though I feel like there have been international jousting tournaments).  It took place in Donnelly's Hollow, a natural amphitheater in the Curragh plain.  A crowd of 20,000 people gathered to watch the Irish champion Dan Donnelly fight the British champion Cooper in the ultimate boxing match.  The match lasted 11 rounds until Donnelly finally broke Cooper's jaw.  The steps Donnelly took away from the ring were marked with lime and are still cut into the earth today because so many people want to walk in his steps.  I got to walk in his steps too!  Unfortunately Donnelly drank excessively in celebration and began to get huge.  His defeated opponent, Cooper, had unexpectedly won against another boxer named Tom Oliver to become the British champ, so Donnelly travelled to England to face Oliver.  The match lasted 34 rounds but Donnelly came out on top.  Donnelly spent the years following this victory drinking himself to death. After his funeral, a surgeon paid some thieves a lot of money to rob Donnelly's grave.  The grave robbers failed to cover their tracks, so all the mourners knew what had happened immediately.  They threatened to kill the surgeon, so he agreed to give back all of the body except for the right arm (Donnelly's arms were rumored to go down to his knees).  The arm was preserved in red lead paint and has been on display in a classroom, a circuses, a pub, and can still be seen in various exhibits (it even came over to America for a couple years!).

After Seamus regaled us with the story of Dan Donnelly, we made our way to the most famous holy well in all of Ireland, St. Brigid's Well.  It used to be a place where the Druids worshiped the water goddess Brigid but St Brigid blessed it and it became a Christian holy site.  People would take water from Saint Brigid's shoes which are two oval shaped stones with holes running through them where the spring water would pour out.  Back by the well is a rag tree that people would tie a piece of clothing to when they took water.  The rag tree was a leftover tradition of the pagan religion.

St. Brigid founded an abbey not far from the well.  Legend has it that a wealthy man offered St. Brigid land to build a church upon, but she could only have as much land as her cloak could cover.  When she spread out her cloak it covered the whole Curragh.  The man could not afford to give her all the Curragh, but he did give her enough land to build her abbey.  The abbey was built on a Druid holy site.  Besides water, the Druids worshiped fire and they had a fire that they always kept burning.  St. Brigid kept this fire burning when she built her abbey next to it.  No man could enter the space the fire was kept or they would go crazy or get a lame limb.  All of us girls walked into the room but Seamus didn't want to risk it haha!  There was also a rock in the corner of one of the walls of the abbey that had a huge hole in it.  You have to stick your arm through the hole and make a wish!

Our last stop was a castle.  It was in complete ruins with trees and vines growing all over it, but this made it by far my favorite.  I felt like I was in a book.  It was a long hike up to the castle through the muddy, wet grass (we also had to avoid pies made by our cow friends) in the pouring rain, but it was well worth it!

Tomorrow I continue my travels with a trip to Salzburg, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen!