This past Friday, I flew to the London Gatwick airport to meet one of my Glenwood flowers from TP, Faye!! At the airport, I met up with Morgan, another DIS person who stayed at Faye's house with me. Seeing Faye again was sooo nice, as was her lovely accent! After spending the night at her house, Faye dropped Morgan and I off at Leeds Castle on Saturday morning. It was b-e-a-uuuutiful, and also used to be the home of the Tudors (which if you know me used to be one of my favorite shows therefore this castle was especially awesome). The castle has huge green fields and streams around it, and lots of white and black swans. Check out the pictures for more on how pretty it was!
Then Saturday afternoon Faye and I made the 2 and a half hour drive to Oakham and to Stevie's house. We had an awesome TP reunion there between myself, Stevie, Faye, and Ellis. I also met Stevie's friend Marisa from somewhere else in England. Between the five of us, the house was full of very different accents. I also met Alfie, Stevie's sister's newborn, who was adorrrable, as were Stevie's dogs, Bonnie and Clyde. That night we went out for Stevie's 21st and I got to meet so many of her friends and family it was awesome! I also got minor whiplash from attempting Faye-level dancing, and killed my feet by wearing wedges for 8 hours, but it was SO fun and so worth it. It made me that much more excited for TP13!
Monday, Morgan and I took the train into London, dropped our suitcases off at our hostel in Earls Court, and went off to explore the city! We saw Big Ben and the houses of Parliament, went inside Westminster Abbey (soo worth the 15 euros), saw London Bridge, tried and failed to see the Camden Market (we got there too late). That night we also met up with my friends Ami and Violette, from DIS, for a drink around the same time the Boston bombings news broke. Luckily, our bar had wifi, and I spent most of the time there constantly refreshing my nytimes app and getting info from Katrina. Tuesday morning was a bit of a struggle.. Morgan and I set out to find this massive store on Oxford street, which was also near a Chipotle. If you know anything about me at all you know that I can't be in a city with a Chipotle and NOT get any. So, probably against my better judgement, I waited for chip to open at 11, then tried to hurry back to my hostel. But of course, the tube going to the hostel was delayed, then the tube from the hostel to Victoria station was majorly delayed, causing me to miss the train from Victoria to Gatwick that only runs every half hour.. and with that I knew I had missed my flight. I arrived at the airport by 1 for a 1:20 flight and was beyond frustrated.
However, I easily switched onto a flight two hours later into another Milan airport, reminded myself that I was still getting there on the same day, and calmed down a bit before flying. After much struggle trying to get from Malpensa airport to the city center, and getting a cab from the station to the Marsaglia's house (I forgot English isn't as popular in Italy as it is in Denmark). After going to the wrong apartment, I finally saw Carola, Ginevra, Giovanni and Giacommo (Ginevra was my senior one-on-one from tyler place this summer, and Giovanni is her senior midget brother). I arrived right in the middle of Giovanni's birthday, and so I got to meet lots of family members. It was so nice to see Ginevra again!! :)
Wednesday, Carola took me to one of the schools she teaches at, University of Pavia. There, she had her TA, Camillo, take me around the city of Pavia. After some general sight-seeing, I for some reason mentioned that I go to an Augustinian university, and my guide and I got really excited when he told me St. Augustine was buried in Pavia! Slowly, all the Augustine stuff I learned in ACS and my theology class last semester came back, and it was pretty cool seeing the church and tomb he was buried in. When Carola and I got back into Milan, I had a couple hours to explore by myself while she did work at her other school, University of Milan. I went out the insane fashion district, where all the Italian brands like Gucci, Prada, and Dolce & Gabbana, just to name a few, have their massive stores. I didn't go in any, because the tall guys in suits at each door were kind of intimidating. But just looking in all the windows was really cool. I also explored a three-story Zara where I was actually able to afford something! Later that night, we went back to the apartment, where I ate some delicious pesto pasta with Ginevra and Giovanni, watched some cartoons, and got a good nights sleep plus lots of reading The Da Vinci Code.
Thursday, Carola arranged for Giacommo's cousin Julio (most of their family lives in or near Milan) to take me around the city. We saw a lot of stuff. We went inside the Duomo, as well as climbed up it which was really really cool (check out the picsss). We also went to Milan's Castle, and saw the beautiful park behind it! We also went to the Scala museum, where we got to see inside the theater quickly, and they were rehearsing Giselle, which I was obviously very excited to see. Afterwards, I went back to the park behind the castle and read on my Kindle for an hour or two. It was a beautiful sunny day out, like 70 degrees, and everywhere people were playing soccer or frisbee or reading or napping and it was just so so nice! A lovely way to spend the afternoon :) That night, Carola, Giovanni, Ginevra and I got pizza at a very traditional restaurant that serves Florence style pizza (very deep dish) that was soooo so good.
Friday, I was mostly on my own. Carola set me up with a bus tour of the city, which had several routes and you could get on and off at any stop all day which was really nice. I also took Friday to find somewhere to eat lunch which was outside, with seats in the sunshine, that serves pasta, and had wifi (their apartment's wifi wasn't set up yet, and I desperately needed to catch up with Boston news and also with friends and family). I spent two nice hours with pasta, espresso, and wifi :) Later that afternoon, I picked up Ginevra and she came on the bus tour with me! Then, we met up with Carola and she took us to one of her favorite stores, which is an outlet store for all the really nice Italian designers. She bought me this great button down tank/dress, which i'm really excited to wear when it's finally warm enough!
On Saturday, unfortunately I had to leave right before Ginevra's singing/dancing performance at her school :( The whole visit with their family was so so nice, it was both really exciting and interesting to see Milan but at the same time relaxing to be with them. Ginevra asked me when I would come back, and I told her as soon as possible, so I'll definitely be making another trip to Milan as soon as I can to see her :)
After a long trip with AirBaltic, I finally made it back to Copenhagen! It's funny that as Copenhagen begins to feel more and more like home, I get simultaneously sad to leave it and excited to get home for a few days and then get to TP13. There are definitely things I really miss about home, like Chipotle, Surf Bagel, and most definitely not being there to say goodbye to my beloved Polly :( And visiting with Stevie, Faye, and Ellis this break only made me that much more excited to get to Vermont in less than a month!! But on the other hand, I'll be so sad to leave this lovely country, my host family, and all my new friends here. But i'll deal with that when the time comes!
No more international travel for me until I go home! This week is again, full of work (surprise surprise) but hopefully after I get through this week and next, the majority of my work is done and I'll have the last week or two to really enjoy Copenhagen before I leave!
Go check out the pictures to see everything I just talked about!
xoxo Colleen
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