Turkey Day, French-style

I have to say I'm pretty proud of myself for pulling together this holiday! I'm the only person that had a big enough apartment, so I offered to have it at my place. I invited all the Americans plus a few others. It ended up being 2 frenchies, a spanish dude, a british dude, a jamaican, and 4 americans. Oh and did I mention that all I have is an electric toaster oven?? I had some help from everyone else, and we ended up having everything necessary to make a real Thanksgiving! Oh, except the turkey, but chickens the same, right? You'd be surprised how much stuff you can't find in France, for example: stuffing, cranberries, gravy, etc. We had to get really creative. It ended up being a perfect day! Thibaut even surprised me from Paris as we were sitting down to dinner! He said he had to work and fooled me all day and then showed up at the door right on time for dinner. So sneaky :) We of course went around the table and said what we were all thankful for, and everyone stayed after dinner to play games. We had a little French touch too, with some champagne and French cheeses. I missed my family, but I am lucky to have a lot of friends here to keep me company!

CPH

The last weekend in November, Thibaut and I headed for Copenhagen. We had planned the trip a long time ago, we usually don't plan ahead that well but we had to fly so we didn't have much of a choice! It just so happened that we booked the weekend the same weekend as our year anniversary, even though we didn't realize it at the time! So we'll just pretend we knew, and call it our "anniversary trip. "

We had to fly because Copenhagen is wayy further North than I ever realized. I think the only trains that go there are overnight, and I'd much rather spend an hour in a plane than an entire night in a claustrophobic bunk bed.

Copenhagen's somewhere I've wanted to go for so long, I always heard stories about it from my uncle, my grandpa, and the whole family. Tivoli Gardens is the amusement park that's in the middle of the city, and it always seemed like this magical fairy tale land when everyone used to describe it! Tivoli is usually closed in the winter, but they opened up for the Christmas markets, so I decided to take the opportunity to visit, since I've been trying to get up there for the past 2 years! I'm lucky that I live so close to the Paris airport now, it's easier to travel by plane.

The first day that we arrived, we just walked around, and got our bearings on the city. We were so shocked at how perfect and clean it was! Everything was just so nice and clean. It's pretty amazing for a big city. Even the trains, subways and buses are perfectly clean. My favorite place that I was the whole time I was there was the port area, called Nyhavn. All of the houses are different colors, and it's just a really unique looking port. There were Christmas markets and lots of restaurants there, so we had dinner there the first night. We went back everyday just to walk around. After dinner we tried to go to Tivoli, since I was talking about it for the past like 2 months I think Thibaut wanted to get me to be quiet about it! We headed over that way but were sooo disappointed when we saw how overcrowded the park was! There were so many people in there we wouldn't have been able to enjoy it, so we had to postpone our visit until Monday.

We noticed that Copenhagen's really close to Sweden, and I found out that they recently built a huge bridge connecting Denmark to Sweden. The closest town was called Malmö, so we figured we'd see what there was to do there. We got a train on Sunday morning, and when we arrived, realized there was nothing to do there! Our choices to eat were literally TGI Fridays or an extremely overpriced café. I think I whined the whole day. Oh and it was freezing and raining! Didn't help the situation at all. We ended up eating lunch in a grocery store and going back to Copenhagen in the early afternoon. BUT at least I can say I've been to Sweden!

Monday was our big "tourist" day. We actually got to see some sunshine which was really exciting! We started the day off with a canal boat cruise and saw more of the city. The guide was really informative, and as all Scandinavians do, he spoke perfect English. After that we made a long hike out to see the famous "little mermaid" statue that's facing the sea. I think it was inspired by Denmark-born Hans Christian Andersen, who was the guy that wrote the story of the Little Mermaid. After that, we were walking back to the city, and randomly came across the changing of the guards at the palace. It was the coolest thing! They march all around the square outside the palace, and you can follow them around and get as close to them as you want. Way better than in London, when they're like 200 meters away from you behind gates!

After that, we spent some time in the church near the Palace, where there was someone practicing the organ. It was like a free concert! We also climbed up the "round tower" to get a view of the city, did some shopping, etc. I think this day was my favorite.

That night we finally got to go to Tivoli! It of course was pouring rain :( not quite as magical as I expected it to be! It's really just like a small amusement park, but if I remember correctly, it was one of the first amusement parks in the world, where the idea was created. I can see how magical it could have been, but I think I'll have to go back in the summer or spring sometime! We couldn't go on the rides or anything because it was raining so hard. We even went back the next day for try #2 but it was still raining and freezing, so we didn't spend too much time there! We did get to eat some amazing sweets though, ice cream, waffles, everything! We also spent a lot of time playing games, they don't just have your typical carnival games there, they're much cooler. I'll look forward to the day I get to go back and see some sunshine!

Overall we had a really great trip, it was very cool to discover a new country and culture! All the people there were so nice! My favorite part of course was that there were 7/11's on every street corner, and it's legal to drink beer in the streets. That helped keep us warm on the coldest days. That's all for now, enjoy the pics!

The Little Mermaid

Climbing up the Round Tower to get a view of the city

The changing of the guards

Nyhavn, my favorite place

Sweden

Games in Tivoli

Thibaut's fave nickname!

inside Tivoli

The famous entrance

Rennes+Mont Saint Michel

The Mont Saint Michel abbey was on my "bucket list" here for the past 5 years or so. Ever since I saw a picture of it I knew I needed to go there! I've been trying to go forever, but I lived too far away, and it's very difficult to get there since there aren't any train stations close-by. You can see on this map that's it's actually located on a small island in the middle of the English channel, surrounded by quicksand, and you used to be able to access it only when the tide was down. Since then they've built a causeway so that cars and buses have access to it, even when the tide is up.After some research and some help from Rick Steves, I figured out that there were buses to go there from a town called Rennes, about an hour and a half south of the abbey. I knew nothing about Rennes, but it's easy to get to from Paris and we got a great hotel deal through Thibaut's company.

When we got to Rennes, we were very pleasantly surprised. We weren't planning on spending much time there, but we ended up really loving the town! Lots of cool restaurants, bars, and young people, and since most of the houses are half-timbered (like in Alsace!), I fell in love with the place. We also found these huge gardens in the middle of the city, with thousands of flowers everywhere! It was a Sunday afternoon with nothing to do, so it was a perfect day to hang out in a beautiful park.

Rennes

Local specialties: Buckwheat crêpes and Cider

my favorite street

quick beer stop during the brief rainstorm

Parc Thabor

On Monday we got up early to catch the bus, and headed for Mont-Saint-Michel. The weather was perfect, not one cloud in the sky and not too cold. We really lucked out! When we got to the island, we spent some time walking around the town that's at the bottom of the island (population of 30 people!) and then headed up to the abbey. We did a tour in French, and unfortunately the lady was Spanish so I could barely understand her! Even the French people were saying they really had to concentrate to understand what she was saying. Luckily I looked up the history later on when I got home. The place was first built as pilgrimage center in the 6th century. They built it high on the island to be as close to heaven as possible. It was occupied by monks for almost the entire time up until 2001, except for a short period during the Resistance in the 18th century, when they used it as a prison for over 300 priests who refused to renounce Catholicism. The inside isn't all that exciting, unless you think about the history of it. So here are some pics, and if you get a chance, it's definitely worth a short visit!

Mont-Saint-Michel!

cute little town walking up to the abbey

The area where the monks walked and meditated

Footprints in the quick sand

Chez Moi!

I've been meaning to get some pictures up of my new place, and here they are. It only took me a month and a half, it's fine. Check it out!

My courtyard, shared with one other college student. My house is the one straight ahead

my rose bush!

Entrance from the street... note the spikes on top of the door. for birds or humans?? I hope birds

Church at the end of my street

kitchen

kitchen and bathroom on the left

"living room" is not very livable, I'm still working on it!

entrance when you come down the stairs, with my favorite lamp fixture (kitchen's on the right, living room on the left)

these floors need to go.

but these can stay

les W.C. upstairs

my bedroom upstairs

Alright there's the grand tour, hope you enjoyed it!