Traveling is better than a job!
It has been almost a month since I began my three month European trip with Misha, and so far, so good. We are using a sort of ¨plan as we go¨ format for this trip, which is quite exciting and unpredictable. We are staying with Misha´s family members in some places, as well as hostels and wherever looks clean and comfortable.
We began in Copenhagen, Denmark, after a hellish bunch of flights from NY to London to Copenhagen. I had visited Caity Bapstiste there during our semesters abroad and loved the city, so I was happy to return to it with Misha. Danish people are not only extremely stylish, they are genuinely friendly and seemed as happy as the statistics say they are (apparently Denmark boasts the country with the highest levels of happiness--I´d be happy too if I could legally drink on the street like they can!). Everyone spoke to us in Danish, which was great, since it meant we didn´t stick out as tourists! Then we´d just say we didn´t speak Danish, and they´d switch over to English, easy as pie.
From Denmark we went to Amsterdam, kind of on a whim, but we found a flight one day, booked it, and then scooted over to that lovely city. We went to a great photography exhibit of Richard Avedon portraits at the foam museum, saw some Rembrandts at the Rijks musuem, tested out some of Amsterdam´s famous green stuff, lounged at outdoor cafes, and lived it up. One night we got stuck in a hail storm and had to run home, which was also pretty exciting. We spent some money at a great outdoor market, and ate delicous food every day.
Next was Paris, the place of all of my literary excursions! We spent a week there, since we kept having more and more things to do and couldn´t leave. It was funny being there though, because after reading all about it, I had a sort of idea of what types of people and spots I would see. But since I was reading about Paris during the 50s, you can imagine that it was quite differet to be there in 2009. We found some really great cafes to drink in, one of which I wanted to nestle into and just write and read forever. We went to the Louvre, and saw the idiotically small Mona Lisa through the hordes of tourists taking her picture (she´s not THAT pretty). We also had a day at the Pompidou, where we saw an amazing Kandinsky exhibit that traced his entire career. There were also many crepes to be eaten, and glasses of wine to be drunk, as well as a visit to Shakespeare and Co., the famous bookstore of expats such as Fitzgerald and Hemingway. I was in book heaven there, and bought a Collected Poems of Anne Sexton, which is extremely depressing poetry (she struggled with mental illness all her life), but very good. We were staying with French family of Misha´s, which was quite the experience for a girl who speaks 7 words of french (croissant. je sais. au revour! madame. and those are the only ones i can actually spell...). It was a wonderful experience to have a French family to stay and eat and hang around with, and they had a beautiful garden and bikes that we borrowed for a biking tour of the city.
After Paris we hopped over to Spain, where we´ve been for the past few weeks. San Sebastian, Barcelona, Granada, oh my! We went to the Alhambra yesterday, which was almost too amazing for words (and usually I´m pretty keen on words). From the outside it looks like a blocky, brown castle, but inside it´s a heaven of overlapping patterns on tiles, carved into wood, into stone, clay...high star-shaped ceilings, scalloped windows, beautiful gardens with orange trees and sculpted hedges...oh the beauty! Even though it was pouring by the time we walked out of the main buildings, we still walked around the grounds in amazement.
After tonight, we are making our way north in Spain to arrive in Nice, France, on May 2nd to visit the one and only Dasha Lavrennikov (who is studying there). I have no idea in what city or bed I will lay my head tomorrow night, but it´s all part of the adventure I guess! I will write again as soon as possible, since using the computer in an internet cafe never seems as exciting as exploring a new place. I also apologize for any spelling or grammatical errors--I´m on a foreign keyboard. Until next time...
