Everything happens in April

At least that’s how it’s felt over the past 24 days. How is it not already May? The most important task for the month of April was completing my thesis. I was on track — and some said even ahead of the game — to do so. But I had also planned a rather spontaneous long-weekend trip to Paris to visit Danielle. I tried not to publicize this too much in my grad school circle. My thesis advisor found out about my travel plans the day before I left. He wished me a pleasant trip, as well as the ability to type feverishly over the 8-hour flight.

Paris was exactly what I needed in every way. I loved living with Danielle and Amelia again, even if it was in the smallest (but most adorable) apartment I’ve ever seen. We were roommates senior year of college, and my only regret from that year is that we did not cook together nearly enough. This time, we cooked all but one dinner in Danielle’s apartment, mostly out of frugality but also out of our deprived-American desire for French dinner parties.

wining in the sunshine

April has also had the worst spring weather in my recent memory. I never remember this much rain or this many 45-degree days anywhere that I’ve lived, including Pittsburgh. But France is having a much different story. All five days that my skin had the privilege of being in the Parisian sun, it was 75 degrees and perfect. We literally napped in a park while children chased ducks and rode ponies. Do you see how this could be refreshing for a graduate student who has not had a break like this in literally two years?

paris in bloom

Amelia and I landed in Paris at 8am after a sleepless flight from Pittsburgh. We fought the desire to nap by walking what felt like the entire length of Paris. We saw the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower, but I didn’t take any pictures partly out of exhaustion and partly out of snobbery (we’ve been there before…duh.) I think the majority of our time in Paris was spent in parks and grocery stores. Like I said, we cooked a lot, and we wanted to take advantage of the French bread, wine, and cheese that just doesn’t taste the same back home. We went to one museum, the Musee Rodin, where we only paid the 1 euro fee to walk around the sculpture garden. We also took the catacombs tour, which was super spooky and cool. The catacombs are miles of tunnels under Paris that are full of bones, mostly skulls and femurs, which were buried there because they were spreading too much disease above ground (200 years ago).

who are you? and where are the rest of your bones?

I accomplished everything I wanted to in Paris. I ate crepes au sucre et sandwich avec fromage et jambon, we joined the mobs of people on the metro and I felt like I lived in a giant city again, and we even wandered around Paris’s Chinatown. Most of all, I got to relax with two of my favorite people. And despite the minor jet lag, relaxation was the perfect solution to thesis-writing mania. When I got back from Paris, I spent the next four days at home in my pajamas just WRITING. I literally only left the house to walk Marshall. And in the end, I turned in a 27,000+ word thesis that I am proud of. I turned in into my committee, successfully defended it a few days later, and now all that’s left is the bureaucratic process of publishing it for the university library.

the thesis-writing process is not pretty

And if that wasn’t enough, my summer plans suddenly revealed themselves. For the months of May, June, and July, I’ll be staying in Pittsburgh to work for the Confucius Institute. It’s a great opportunity for me to continue working in Asian studies and get more hands-on experience with international exchange between the U.S. and China. I’m really happy to be staying in Pittsburgh for the summer. I left last year in May, so I didn’t get to experience the sunny days that everyone has been telling me about. It will also give me more time to search for a more permanent job (anyone out there who wants to offer me that?)

This week is graduation madness. All of our family members will be here to celebrate Jon’s graduation on Thursday and mine on Sunday. Also, it’s Marshall’s gotcha day slash birthday, so we are throwing a party for the three of us. I’m still trying to comprehend that graduate school is over, I did it, I don’t have to do this ever again if I don’t want to. It’s pretty liberating. I’m hesitantly reading a book for pleasure right now. Maybe I’ll finally paint that blank canvas that has been sitting on the mantel for two years.

Happy Easter!

10 years ago in France, 17 girls squealed

In June 2001, 17 girls flew from St. Louis to Paris for a 17-day trip around France. Led by a well-traveled high school French teacher and two other women, our group landed in Paris, immediately jumped on a train to Grenoble, and then hopped a bus that took us into the Alps. I will never forget how long the flight seemed, how exhausted I felt, and how much the old men stared at my blond friends. We spent a few days relaxing in the Alps, adjusting to the time change and having a few more language lessons. I remember drinking hot chocolate for breakfast, tasting Nutella for the first time, drinking water straight from the mountain streams, and bringing little Babybel cheeses on hikes. We walked along trails that used to be part of the Roman road, with archways still carved into the rock. We met farmers and cows, sang Disney songs in the rain, and obsessed over the fact that we could see Italy from the top of our mountain. After the Alps, we spent a bit of time in Lyon and Grenoble, stayed with host students at a boarding school near Lyon, and then finished it all up in Paris.

Amy, Rebecca, Claire, Erica, Madame, Moi, et Maggie à l'Arc de Triomphe, Paris, Juin 2001

This trip changed my life, as I’m sure most people’s first trip overseas does. Before that, the French I studied in a classroom seemed too distant to be real. Did people really think and dream in French? Did 16-year old French kids really talk about the things in our textbook dialogues? For some reason my brain couldn’t get around these concepts until I was actually there, living with my roommate Cecile in her boarding school in Bourg-en-Bresse. I marveled over these French teenagers’ use of perfume, their cigarettes, their tendency to wear the same clothes two days in a row. I still remember them taking us to the Parc Des Oiseaux, a big zoo full of birds. I remember their school cafeteria, which smelled like cheese and served much more interesting food than my school. I still remember some of their names, especially the boys that all of us automatically fell in love with. (I wonder where they are now? Too bad there was no Facebook in 2001.)

Paris was everything we had dreamed of. We all spent way too much money on skirts and perfume, back when France was still on the Franc and things seemed cheap compared to the dollar. I’ll always remember the thrill of seeing the Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur, and Giverny for the first time. But one of the most specific stories I remember was a prank we pulled on some American college boys our last night. We were all staying on the third or fourth floor of this hotel, but the boys’ room was across a courtyard, so we only met them by saying “hi” through the window. It was our last night in Paris so we were packing our bags, but the boys had gone out for the night. Since our bags were stuffed from recent purchases and gifts, some things had to be left behind. One of those things was a bag of feminine pads. I’m not sure whose they were, but somehow we all decided that we needed to throw these pads into the open window across the courtyard. We voted, and somehow I ended up nominated to do the throwing. We ran out into the hall, where a window opened up even closer to the boys’ room. I leaned out the window, focused on the boys’ window about eight feet away from me, and gave it a gentle underhand toss. It went right in. We freaked out. We left early the next morning, so we’ll never know their reaction, or if any of them figured out where the mystery pads came from.

Why am I writing about this, ten years later? Because one week from today, I’ll be back on a plane bound for Paris. My good friend has been living there for the majority of the last four years, and I owe her a visit. Three friends and I also visited her when she was studying abroad in Paris in 2005. Pittsburgh currently has a direct flight to Paris that they will be canceling soon, so it’s cheap, easy, and I have no excuse as I wind down my graduate student career.

Danielle and Ameila, oh la la, we will eat chocolate together again!

Going to France ten years ago opened up to me a world of travel, language, and curiosity that has only grown stronger since. As I attempt to shape the past decade of experiences into a career in international education, it seems fitting to go back and visit the place where it all started.

Thanks to Madame and all my classmates who made that trip perfect. Je t’aime toujours!

What kind of sheep are these? Irish.

My mom’s family, along with a good chunk of America, is Irish.  So coming to Ireland on this trip was not only for the tourism, but also for the pilgrimage.  We spent a week in counties Dublin and Galway, but my family is from counties Westmeath and Carlow.  Next time I have to go to my little landlocked counties, where it will be much less touristy.  Ireland was a good last stop on our trip because it is the most like home.  We heard American accents everywhere, and a lot of the architecture and feeling of the cities is similar to the US.  But we did experience the Ireland we were looking for, especially in the countryside of Galway.

me with the freshest Guinness possible, at the Dublin factory

The city of Galway is known for its lively arts and music scene, but it is also nearby to some of the most breathtaking scenery I have ever seen.  We were hoping to go out to some islands in the Atlantic for a bike ride, but it rained the entire week we were in Ireland, so the bike trip would have been miserable.  Instead we took a bus trip through the Connemara, a rugged district famous for its lakes and hills.  We had the choice of a few different bus trips, so I pointed to the one with a picture of sheep on the brochure.  And was I ever glad I did!  Irish sheep turned out to be the cutest thing on earth!  There are sheep with black faces and legs, but white fuzz, just like in the story books.  The sheep are marked with pink and blue dots in different places on their wool to distinguish which farmers they belong to.  Our bus driver, who told many cheesy jokes at which I laughed way too much, would ask us what kind of sheep they were.  As we thought about names of breeds, the bus driver would respond, “pink sheep” or “blue sheep.”  As the rain came down harder, he asked what kind of sheep were in the nearby field.  “Wet sheep,” he said.  Har har har.

Connemara has huge lakes, rolling hills, and Connemara ponies!

huge old friary that we got to wander through before it started raining

Kylemore Abbey, now used as a school but soon to be used only as a tourist spot

Another spectacular part of our Irish visit was the family that we got to spend it with.  Jon’s dad has a cousin who lives in Dublin, Hani.  Hani and his wife, Jean, have a super cute son named Nikolay.  The three of them represent the new Ireland; Hani is from Iraq, Jean from Ireland, and Nikolay from Russia.  The new Ireland, grown from the economic success in the past decade, means more diversity and wealth.  It was so interesting listening to Hani tell us about when he first arrived in Ireland thirty years ago, when it was still a poor country.  He entered into a place where people didn’t know what an Iraqi or a BMW looked like.  Today, Dublin is just like any other major European city, with people from all corners of the earth and signs of wealth everywhere.  But that doesn’t mean it will last; Ireland was hit particularly hard by the economic crisis, so it is yet to be seen what will happen to Ireland next.

at the complex of Dublin Castle

London: the newest budget destination

Jon studied abroad in London four years ago, and this was his first return back to the city since.  Anyone who talks to Jon for more than ten minutes realizes pretty quickly that London is his heaven, so waiting four years to return to the city was torture.  But he made it, and the reunion was beautiful.  We visited his old flat, sandwich shop, grocery store, pub, and piano bar.  Since I did not want to come between Jon and his true love (London), we spent a day apart (something we haven’t done in a long time) for him to wander the city and for me to shop.  Yes, I said shop.  Gone are the days where the dollar is worth half of the pound!!!  Not only could we afford food and lodging in London, but I actually bought shoes AND jeans.  (After wearing the same shoes and jeans for four months, they looked pretty shabby.) 

Jon and the lion at Trafalgar Square

London felt very familiar to me.  I have been to the city three times in less than four years, making it the place in the world where I have been most frequently outside of the states.  That’s kind of surprising to me, actually, because I never had any interest in London; I thought it would be just like America.  But I was totally wrong, and ever since my first visit in 2005 I have been in awe of the place.  It really is the world’s city, the most diverse and comprehensive place I can think of.  And I don’t mean from a touristy point of view, visiting royal palaces and historic monuments.  I mean the feeling of the city is so progressive, so expansive, that you know the next time you come to London there will be something new.  We spent an afternoon at the Transport Museum, learning mostly about the Underground (subway) and how the history of the city can be seen through the expansion of the system. 

Baker Street, one of the oldest tube stations

 We got to meet up with some American friends in London, as well.  Our friend Melissa was visiting friends in England and spent a day in the city with us.  Plus we got to see my friend Inti who goes to LSE for her master’s (and is counting down the days until it is over.)  I got to see Romeo and Juliet performed at Shakespeare’s Globe Theater.  I got to eat tons of Ben’s Cookies.  And while it was sad to leave, I know I will be in London again.

Danish reunion and a Swedish adventure

My arrival in Copenhagen was how I imagined it; I pointed out things to Jon as we landed, I held back tears as we touched down, and I spent the next few hours saying “I remember this! I remember that!” But what happened to me over the 8 days that we were there, I did not expect. I completely and honestly forgot that I was on a trip around the world, and instead I thought I was back in Copenhagen for good. Four years ago, I spent a semester studying in Copenhagen and living north of the city in the village of Humlebæk. I haven’t been back since now.

four years later, Copenhagen has made huge anti-smoking efforts, like this giant cig that tells you facts about smoking when you push a button

My love for Denmark is clearly a result of my living there; I can’t imagine how a tourist could get to know the country the way I did. So a lot of my feelings for the place are about the way of life, like the quiet commute on the train, the dinging of the bicycle bells, the candlelit dinners, and the billboards reminding people to pay their taxes. Because of this, it was a bit challenging for me to bring Jon and my friend Stephen to Copenhagen, since they wouldn’t be able to match my feelings in just a week’s visit. But I did my best, and we saw the city’s attractions by bike, visited my host family in Humlebæk, and took a bike trip in southern Sweden.

me and my Danish family: Helene, Peter, Cecelie, and the doggies Frida and Emma

But first, we needed to figure out what was wrong with Jon. After a week of a fever, we had to get him to a doctor to make sure he didn’t have a new crazy disease from Asia. And what better place to do that than Denmark, where emergency room visits are free! My incredibly generous Danish friend Jonatan (who housed us for a week) brought us to a hospital and stuck around there for 7 hours with us until Jon was released. Our experience with “socialized medicine” was totally awesome. Jon saw about 5 very attentive doctors, had a million different blood tests done, plus got free X-rays. Everyone at the hospital was so nice, and in the end we still didn’t believe that we didn’t have to pay. Anyway, they decided that his fever was not anything serious, and low and behold it went away a couple days later. But they did perform a minor surgery. Jon is now one of the cool people I know who can say they have gone under the knife in another country! When we first started the trip, he developed a cyst on his left shoulder. It didn’t bother him until just recently, when it got red and sore. The Danish doctors said it was infected, so they sliced him open and pushed out the cyst. I could go into more detail if you like gory descriptions, but oh man, it was nasty.

Jon at the hospital, thinking it was very strange that I took photo documentation

One of the highlights of my time abroad four years ago, and the main selling point for Stephen to meet us in Copenhagen, was my bike trip in southern Sweden and the discovery of Nimis. Copenhagen sits on the east coast of the island of Zealand, and the northern point of that island is very close to Sweden. We took a ferry to Sweden and then found a bus that took us a little further north, to the town of Hoganas. We ended up staying at the exact same hostel that I stayed at four years ago with my study abroad kids. I guess I planned it, but it still shocked me when I got there.

windmill outside Hoganas, Sweden, with the yellow fields we saw everywhere

We rented bikes and followed a bike trail along the coast to Molle, another cute old fishing town. From there, we biked into the woods to find Nimis. What is Nimis? It’s a collection of giant sculptures made of drift wood that people can climb on. It was created decades ago by an artist, then partially burned down, and then the subject of many legal disputes since it was built on state land without permission. But eventually a rich American bought the land and now Nimis can stand without trouble. When I was there four years ago it was raining, so my friends and I were the only people there. This time it was a beautiful Friday, so there were families and school groups making the trek. There are no real directions to Nimis, so you have to follow yellow N’s painted on tree trunks. It’s a fantastic place, and it’s now part of it’s own “nation” that you should really check out (and perhaps become a citizen.)

Jonatan at Nimis, our biking destination

Returning to Denmark taught me one thing for sure: that I have to return more often. I have been to many great cities of the world by now, and I can still say that little Copenhagen deserves a spot on that list. There are some things that can charm you immediately, like the walking streets, the canals, and the gobs of bikes. But the really special things take a bit longer, and I feel so grateful that I was given the chance to get to know them. Denmark makes me happier than any other place on earth, and I think that’s mostly due to the concept of hygge. It’s a Danish word that means something like coziness, but it really means the feeling of warmth when you are surrounded by good friends, good food, good wine, and bright candles. It’s a feeling of contentment that I wish everyone had the chance to feel, and a feeling that I try my best to recreate wherever I go. Jeg elsker og savner Danmark.

Jon, Jonatan and Stephen sitting on a fence pointing to Nimis