Au Revoir, Paris

On Sunday, I began the day with morning mass at Notre Dame.  

For the afternoon, we completed a scavenger hunt through Le Marais, the area of Paris untouched by Haussmann’s 19^th century restructuring. It encompasses the Jewish quarter and the world’s best falafel.

But in true DIS style, our final event was a dessert tasting at Le Pub Saint Germain.

Au revoir, Paris. We’ll meet again.

Paris: Saturday

Saturday morning was museum morning. We began with the Musee de l’Orangerie which was designed to house Monet’s water lilies. While it is really just two rooms and eight paintings, I could have spent hours with them. Because the rooms are lit naturally, the paintings change depending on the weather. It amazes me how they can look so abstract but evoke such concrete feelings. I’ve seen pictures and studied them in class, but nothing compares to being so close that for a few minutes I was actually inside, surrounded by water and light and the magic of a carefree summer day…

To complete the impressionism tour, we went to Musee d’Orsay which boasts the largest collection of impressionist works in the world. After a while in there, I was pretty well on my way to an art overdose, so it was time for me to experience Paris as the Impressionists did: flaneuring wherever my senses took me.

To complete the evening, we went on a dinner cruise down the Seine. DIS treated us to a three course French meal:

But the night was still young! So I went to the top of the Eifel Tower!

 Every hour on the hour, the tower lights up in a paparazzi of flashes. Seeing it the night before from the ground, I thought it was dazzling, but seeing it at the stroke of midnight from the top: absolutely magical.

Bonjour Paris!

On a whim a few months ago, I signed up for a one credit DIS course entitled “Impressionism in Paris.” After six classes learning about the origins of the impressionist movement, distinguishing between Manet and Monet, and how social factors of the late 1800s influenced art, we finally made our way to Paris for the weekend.

We began our trip Friday with a bus tour of Paris that ended with a tour of Versailles, the palace built for King Louis XIV as a display of absolute power. You have to put yourself in a 17^th century mindset to really appreciate the scale of the structure and intricacy of design.

 The Hall of Mirrors

 Marie Antoinette's Bedroom

Can’t you just imagine a group of corseted women in wigs wondering through the garden as a group of men in tights and heals look on?

Future Resident?

After the tour, we were set free to explore Paris. The city is charming. There are gardens every few blocks and trees line the boulevards of uniform “Haussmannized” building complexes. The street cafes are positioned with outdoor seating for optimum people watching and the food they serve is simply delicious! Of course, there are a lot of tourists, but it is easy to find a quiet park bench in a secret courtyard for some peace. 

 Luxemburg Gardens

And an hour before it closed, we made it to the Louvre (Going places at night/just before closing is actually very efficient because most tourists have gone to bed and the lines are much shorter). Yes, I saw the Mona Lisa. But I think I was most impressed by the infrastructure. The palace turned museum is huge! It would take days to see all the art! Because it used to be a palace, the ceilings house frescos and the walls are marble. These baroque features are juxtaposed most interestingly with the modern glass pyramid in the courtyard.

And then I stumbled upon a castle...

And other greats from the week in pictures:

 Blossoms in the back yard

 Black Diamond Library, Copenhagen

Roskilde Cathedral, resting place of the royal families. Here is King Christian IV:

 Lunch in the King's Garden (above)

 I went to visit a friend in Helsingør, got on the bus headed in the wrong direction, and ended up at Kronborg Castle, the set of Shakespeare's Hamlet (Though I don't know how he came up with the line, "There's something rotten in the state of Denmark." False advertising.):

 FCK (Kobenhaven) vs. AAB (Aalborg):

 And finally, the May 1 celebration/protest/festival at Fælledparken. It was originally the day for worker's protests in the park but has evolved into a sort of labor day filled with music, picnics, markets, and fair rides with only a hint of political undertones:

I can't believe how time has flown! After this weekend, I only have two weeks left in Denmark. That is, for this trip anyway...

Samsø

If you tell a Dane you are going to Samsø, they will inevitably ask you to bring back some potatoes. While the Danes may associate the island with Denmark’s first crop of potatoes (which can bring in up to $80 a pound), to the international community it is known simply as “energy island.” In 1997, it won a competition to become the first carbon neutral area in Denmark. During the 10 years that followed, an infrastructure of windmills and district heating plants was constructed making Samsø an island that actually produces more energy than it uses! What makes it really unique is that many of the windmills are owned on share by the islanders themselves. In the small, conservative towns of Samsø, it took some convincing seeing as most were not interested in ideals of saving the environment or stopping global warming. They were convinced when they found out how much money they could save. One farmer we visited, Jørgen Tranberg, actually makes more money selling energy from his windmill back to the grid than he does from his dairy farm.  He let us climb to the top of his wind turbine. Some may say they are a noisy eyesore, but I think there is nothing quite as majestic in the manmade sense as a row of windmills spinning in synchronization…  

We also visited a district heating plant that burns biomass (woodchips, straw, etc.) to heat water which is then pumped to the nearby towns and directly into people’s homes. The water returns cold to begin the process again. The oxygen the straw releases as it grows equals the amount of carbon dioxide emitted during the burning process. This particular one also had solar panels that directly heated the water.

 And at the end of the day, to give ourselves some extra energy, we built a campfire and made snobrød. Basically, you wrap dough around a stick, toast it over the fire, spoon in some jam, ketchup, or add a hotdog, and enjoy!

Samsø’s next goal is to become fossil fuel free by 2020!

You can read more here.

Tillykke med fødselsdagen, Queen Margrethe!

On Monday, Queen Margrethe celebrated her 72nd birthday! To celebrate, she, along with the rest of the royal family, came to the balcony of her palace at Amalienborg to wave and cheer with her people.

To celebrate, I went to Agnes Cupcakes for a yummy treat.

In other news, Copenhagen has blossomed beautifully while I was away. It’s good to be home.

Preikestolen

The highlight of my Norway adventure was Thursday’s hike to Preikestolen, Pulpit Rock. On this one day, we encountered practically every weather possible: rain, snow, ice, sleet, fog, hail, cloud, sun, rainbow. But the sheer magnificence of the mountain was SO worth it (pictures do not begin to do it justice).

The view from 1806 feet: