Okay, it's taken until the absolute last day of the year, but I've finally forced myself to sit down and write this concluding post. Please ignore the fact that I ignored this blog for my last three weeks in Copenhagen, as well as nearly three weeks home.
I'll start off this final post with a brief recap of my last weeks in Copenhagen. After my siblings made my host family and me a Thanksgiving dinner, they flew back the day before Thanksgiving to be home for the holiday. I began my final week of class, which became more of an excursion into Hell for me - thanks to every final project, presentation, paper, and exam being scheduled for that week, and then getting tonsillitis. I made it through, bruised and scarred, but also with all As. #ballin
My last week in Copenhagen, which should have been filled with finals (if my teachers hadn't scheduled them for the week before), became kind of a goodbye week. Throughout the week, I had to say goodbye to each member of my host family, my teachers, and my friends. It was tough, and ridiculously weird for me.
After packing my final bags, having a good this-is-the-end cry, and sleeping for a short few hours, I left my apartment at 6 am to head to the airport for the last time. Oh, and then I had an eight-hour layover in Oslo, only made bearable by my friends who shared my connection in Oslo.
And that's it - I arrived in JFK to my dad smiling in the same Toyota Corolla I learned how to drive in. My four months of jet-setting and go-getting had come to an end.
Now that it's been a few weeks, I've had a bit of time to reflect on my experience and I can honestly say that I've grown exponentially. Not only do I feel that I have a greater appreciation of other cultures, but also do I have a more diverse perspective of my own. It's really difficult to explain, but my limited perspective has expanded a thousandfold.
I'd like to say thank you to everyone who made this semester possible - my parents, my host family, my professors, my friends, and, weirdly enough, myself. Thanks, Timmy, for throwing me out of my comfort zone and into a culture and environment that I could never have imagined.
I get upset sometimes thinking about how I'll never have an experience like this again, but at the end of it all, at least I experienced this. It was amazing and I loved every minute of it. It was hard at times and there were days when the things I was afraid to confront back in the U.S. found their way into my life, but taking myself out of everything I've come to know in the U.S. gave me more clarity than I could have asked for otherwise and I feel more confident to face the things I couldn't before.
Anyway, I think that's all. I'm not very good at goodbyes, but I'm fantastic at hellos. And luckily, those are actually the same thing in Danish. So thanks for a great semester, Europe, and hej hej!
But seriously, I'll be back.
#TimmyTakesDenmark2k15
#TimmyTakesDenmark2k??
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Sunday, November 22, 2015
One Man, Four Weeks, 975 Words
If you guys don't mind, I'm gonna skip the part where I usually make excuses for why I haven't written for the past four weeks. Instead, I'm gonna go ahead and recap a whole lot of stuff in as short as possible. Lots of stuff = no times for games. Or maybe just less games. There will probably still be games. Yeah, definitely expect games.
I've opened up my handy dandy calendar in order to go back and see what I have to recap because - let's be honest - I don't even remember the last time I blogged. Whoops.
Looking at my calendar, I realize I've travelled a lot in the past four weeks. In order to expedite this recap, I'm gonna break up this post into the cities I travelled to and mostly skip discussion on class and what my in-betweens have been filled with.
Amsterdam
WOW WHAT AN AWESOME PLACE. This city is beautiful, the canals were unbelievable, and the weather happened to be amazing the weekend I was there. It was also Halloween, which meant a swarm of American students, as well as students from all over Europe. My cousin Steve (hi Steve!) has lived in Amsterdam for quite a few years, so I got the chance to visit him and go around the city the first night, even with his broken leg. Other highlights of this trip included the Anne Frank House, the Rijksmuseum, the "I Amsterdam" sign, and of course, Van Stapele Koekmakerij, home of the world's best cookies. They were, in fact, the best cookies I've ever eaten in my life. Wow. Just wow.
Barcelona
After a week more of class, I took my last 10-day excursion with some friends, beginning with Barcelona. Within 10 minutes of getting off the plane, Barcelona became my favorite European city (but mostly because of the 75-degree weather). Barcelona is truly a city that never sleeps (which meant neither did we) and it has this unbelievable energy to it. Highlights of this trip included Park Güell, Sagrada Família, and Camp Nou for an FC Barcelona game. At the game, we sat sixth row behind the goal by the corner. It was amazing, and we got to witness one of the greatest goals of the year by Neymar, only about 100 feet away. Absolute craziness.
Florence
We technically spent the longest amount of time in Florence (four nights), but we had one full day trip to Rome. Florence was also breathtaking, and the weather was great while we were there. Highlights included Il Duomo di Firenze, Museo Galileo, nearly everly gelato shop we passed, and accidentally watching Pope Francis drive by in the pope mobile. Most Italians didn't seem to be that enthused by the pope's visit, mostly because it was just a normal Tuesday afternoon and I guess Rome is a little too close to Florence for a visit to warrant a large freakout. Georgetown has a villa right outside Florence in Fiesole and although we didn't get a chance to visit, we did get to hang out with maybe 30 fellow Hoyas in Italy. 'Twas a great time.
Rome
Although this was only a day trip (and we accidentally misread the time of our 5:50 am train, causing us to miss the train and forcing us to rebook it for 8:30 am), we stuffed in as much as we possibly could. Highlights here included the Sistine Chapel, the Courtyard of St. Peter's Basilica (because the line to enter was maybe 1,000 to 2,000 people long), the Colosseum, and the Pantheon. I visited Italy about 10 years ago with my family, but it was a bit disorienting visiting again as an "adult." Regardless, I loved Rome the second time around just as much.
Geneva
When originally planning trips, I had pushed for either Geneva or Zurich because of how beautiful I had heard Switzerland is. However, I also completely spaced on the "most expensive cities in the world" thing. Our trip became a combination of lots of walking and attempting to save money. Let me say though, Geneva is actually one of the cleanest, nicest, most racially/ethnically diverse cities I've ever been to. Highlights included Jet d'Eau, the United Nations, and the Red Cross Museum. I essentially only spent money on food, but still somehow spent the same amount as I had in every other city I've visited. Expensive was an understatement here.
So, that's my travel recap and those will be my last cities of this European whirlwind (save for an 8-hour layover in Oslo on my way back to New York for the end of the semester)! I would like to take a brief moment to pay homage to all those lost in the attacks in Paris, Beirut, Nigeria, Mali, Egypt, and more. Being in Europe while this crisis has been going on is definitely a frightening thing, but the solidarity expressed by citizens both around me and globally has been tremendous. I was planning on traveling to both Paris and Brussels, but I've cancelled both of those trips and I'll be remaining in Copenhagen for the remainder of my time abroad.
In brighter news, two of my siblings (Anna and Tony) have been visiting me in Copenhagen this past week and I've been their tour guide while they stay with me. I've gotten to revisit a lot of tourist spots around Copenhagen with them, as well as some spots I haven't yet visited, like Tivoli and a castle in Helsingør (about 45 minutes north of the city). It's been fun and I'm happy to have family around me!
Today officially marks three weeks until I return home to the states. I'll try to keep you all updated on my last few weeks in Copenhagen in the meantime, but I can't promise anything. I'll be home before you know it!
I've opened up my handy dandy calendar in order to go back and see what I have to recap because - let's be honest - I don't even remember the last time I blogged. Whoops.
Looking at my calendar, I realize I've travelled a lot in the past four weeks. In order to expedite this recap, I'm gonna break up this post into the cities I travelled to and mostly skip discussion on class and what my in-betweens have been filled with.
Amsterdam
WOW WHAT AN AWESOME PLACE. This city is beautiful, the canals were unbelievable, and the weather happened to be amazing the weekend I was there. It was also Halloween, which meant a swarm of American students, as well as students from all over Europe. My cousin Steve (hi Steve!) has lived in Amsterdam for quite a few years, so I got the chance to visit him and go around the city the first night, even with his broken leg. Other highlights of this trip included the Anne Frank House, the Rijksmuseum, the "I Amsterdam" sign, and of course, Van Stapele Koekmakerij, home of the world's best cookies. They were, in fact, the best cookies I've ever eaten in my life. Wow. Just wow.
Barcelona
After a week more of class, I took my last 10-day excursion with some friends, beginning with Barcelona. Within 10 minutes of getting off the plane, Barcelona became my favorite European city (but mostly because of the 75-degree weather). Barcelona is truly a city that never sleeps (which meant neither did we) and it has this unbelievable energy to it. Highlights of this trip included Park Güell, Sagrada Família, and Camp Nou for an FC Barcelona game. At the game, we sat sixth row behind the goal by the corner. It was amazing, and we got to witness one of the greatest goals of the year by Neymar, only about 100 feet away. Absolute craziness.
Florence
We technically spent the longest amount of time in Florence (four nights), but we had one full day trip to Rome. Florence was also breathtaking, and the weather was great while we were there. Highlights included Il Duomo di Firenze, Museo Galileo, nearly everly gelato shop we passed, and accidentally watching Pope Francis drive by in the pope mobile. Most Italians didn't seem to be that enthused by the pope's visit, mostly because it was just a normal Tuesday afternoon and I guess Rome is a little too close to Florence for a visit to warrant a large freakout. Georgetown has a villa right outside Florence in Fiesole and although we didn't get a chance to visit, we did get to hang out with maybe 30 fellow Hoyas in Italy. 'Twas a great time.
Rome
Although this was only a day trip (and we accidentally misread the time of our 5:50 am train, causing us to miss the train and forcing us to rebook it for 8:30 am), we stuffed in as much as we possibly could. Highlights here included the Sistine Chapel, the Courtyard of St. Peter's Basilica (because the line to enter was maybe 1,000 to 2,000 people long), the Colosseum, and the Pantheon. I visited Italy about 10 years ago with my family, but it was a bit disorienting visiting again as an "adult." Regardless, I loved Rome the second time around just as much.
Geneva
When originally planning trips, I had pushed for either Geneva or Zurich because of how beautiful I had heard Switzerland is. However, I also completely spaced on the "most expensive cities in the world" thing. Our trip became a combination of lots of walking and attempting to save money. Let me say though, Geneva is actually one of the cleanest, nicest, most racially/ethnically diverse cities I've ever been to. Highlights included Jet d'Eau, the United Nations, and the Red Cross Museum. I essentially only spent money on food, but still somehow spent the same amount as I had in every other city I've visited. Expensive was an understatement here.
So, that's my travel recap and those will be my last cities of this European whirlwind (save for an 8-hour layover in Oslo on my way back to New York for the end of the semester)! I would like to take a brief moment to pay homage to all those lost in the attacks in Paris, Beirut, Nigeria, Mali, Egypt, and more. Being in Europe while this crisis has been going on is definitely a frightening thing, but the solidarity expressed by citizens both around me and globally has been tremendous. I was planning on traveling to both Paris and Brussels, but I've cancelled both of those trips and I'll be remaining in Copenhagen for the remainder of my time abroad.
In brighter news, two of my siblings (Anna and Tony) have been visiting me in Copenhagen this past week and I've been their tour guide while they stay with me. I've gotten to revisit a lot of tourist spots around Copenhagen with them, as well as some spots I haven't yet visited, like Tivoli and a castle in Helsingør (about 45 minutes north of the city). It's been fun and I'm happy to have family around me!
Today officially marks three weeks until I return home to the states. I'll try to keep you all updated on my last few weeks in Copenhagen in the meantime, but I can't promise anything. I'll be home before you know it!
Monday, October 26, 2015
So About What I Said Last Time...
I lied. Like definitely lied. Sorry guys. I'm a liar.
In case you don't remember my lie, it went something like this: "let's pretend this month will be the one I post every Sunday." Fun fact - there are no more Sundays left in October. Whoops!
In all fairness, two Sundays ago I was amidst midterms and couldn't muster up enough lying power to pretend I was enjoying midterms. Last Sunday, I was in Germany. This past Sunday, I really wanted to watch TV.
Rewind!
Seriously, nothing exciting happened that first week I missed. I went to class, aced some midterms, and returned home to do work. I did make my first trip over to Sweden that Saturday though, which is surprising because Sweden is only a 30-minute train ride away. We visited Malmö and Lund, which aren't huge cities, but they have really cool architecture and urban design.
Malmö is split between an industrial half (which is completely devoid of people on weekends) and a more cultural half (which had a really cool fountain and a fake Chipotle). Lund is a younger, more lively city because of the university it houses, but because of the overcast weather, we gave up on trekking around and ended up in a nice cafe for some cake to top off the fake Chipotle.
The following week contained even more midterms and I think the only notable thing I did was check out the Rosenberg Castle in Copenhagen, which houses the crown jewels. Before you ask, no - I did not create a master plot to steal them. But thank you for asking; I appreciate it.
Alright, now we move into my awesome week in Germany. As I've mentioned before, this trip was to Berlin and Frankfurt with my core class, Video Game Development. There's 18 people in my class, plus our professor and academic director to round out the group to an even 20. We were gone early Sunday morning to late Friday night and we had a ~*blast*~. Seriously though, it was awesome.
We visited both gaming companies and cultural stops. I don't want to bore my interested readers with talk of nerd stuff, but some of these companies were unreal. Some produce video games (which is what I've been doing this semester), some create video game engines (which are then used to produce games), and some do 3D graphics and only do minimal gaming work. It was really cool to meet artists, animators, programmers, and everyone involved in making this industry worth billions of dollars.
As for cultural visits, Berlin held way more in store for us than Frankfurt did. Berlin visits included a city-wide bike tour, the Berlin Wall (multiple parts of it, including the amazing one with all the murals), the Berlin Philharmonic, and the Reichstag dome. A lot of people talked Frankfurt down because it's "boring," but my whole class thought Frankfurt was beautiful and well-designed. However, we didn't do many cultural visits so there's not much to talk about on that front.
Now let me just spend one paragraph talking about how unreal this food was. I cannot emphasize how luxurious this food was. Like wow. Who made this. Our study abroad institute paid for one group meal a day and they spent about as much money as it would take to feed me for a whole year. And I am not complaining. Pork this, duck that, lobster something. Tearing up just talking about this because I'll never eat that great again.
After we returned to Copenhagen, a few of my friends studying abroad in Dublin contacted me to let me know that they were visiting for the weekend, so I spent the past few days being a tour guide and food critic. I may just have a knack for one of those things. Scratch that, I may just have a knack for walking around and eating food.
Okay, I've thoroughly depressed myself with all this talk of deliciousness. I'll be headed to Amsterdam this weekend for Halloween, but I'll be back next week to start off your November right. Only seven weeks until I return home.
I'll be back soon. Mark your calendars - and mark my words!
In case you don't remember my lie, it went something like this: "let's pretend this month will be the one I post every Sunday." Fun fact - there are no more Sundays left in October. Whoops!
In all fairness, two Sundays ago I was amidst midterms and couldn't muster up enough lying power to pretend I was enjoying midterms. Last Sunday, I was in Germany. This past Sunday, I really wanted to watch TV.
Rewind!
Seriously, nothing exciting happened that first week I missed. I went to class, aced some midterms, and returned home to do work. I did make my first trip over to Sweden that Saturday though, which is surprising because Sweden is only a 30-minute train ride away. We visited Malmö and Lund, which aren't huge cities, but they have really cool architecture and urban design.
Malmö is split between an industrial half (which is completely devoid of people on weekends) and a more cultural half (which had a really cool fountain and a fake Chipotle). Lund is a younger, more lively city because of the university it houses, but because of the overcast weather, we gave up on trekking around and ended up in a nice cafe for some cake to top off the fake Chipotle.
The following week contained even more midterms and I think the only notable thing I did was check out the Rosenberg Castle in Copenhagen, which houses the crown jewels. Before you ask, no - I did not create a master plot to steal them. But thank you for asking; I appreciate it.
Alright, now we move into my awesome week in Germany. As I've mentioned before, this trip was to Berlin and Frankfurt with my core class, Video Game Development. There's 18 people in my class, plus our professor and academic director to round out the group to an even 20. We were gone early Sunday morning to late Friday night and we had a ~*blast*~. Seriously though, it was awesome.
We visited both gaming companies and cultural stops. I don't want to bore my interested readers with talk of nerd stuff, but some of these companies were unreal. Some produce video games (which is what I've been doing this semester), some create video game engines (which are then used to produce games), and some do 3D graphics and only do minimal gaming work. It was really cool to meet artists, animators, programmers, and everyone involved in making this industry worth billions of dollars.
As for cultural visits, Berlin held way more in store for us than Frankfurt did. Berlin visits included a city-wide bike tour, the Berlin Wall (multiple parts of it, including the amazing one with all the murals), the Berlin Philharmonic, and the Reichstag dome. A lot of people talked Frankfurt down because it's "boring," but my whole class thought Frankfurt was beautiful and well-designed. However, we didn't do many cultural visits so there's not much to talk about on that front.
Now let me just spend one paragraph talking about how unreal this food was. I cannot emphasize how luxurious this food was. Like wow. Who made this. Our study abroad institute paid for one group meal a day and they spent about as much money as it would take to feed me for a whole year. And I am not complaining. Pork this, duck that, lobster something. Tearing up just talking about this because I'll never eat that great again.
After we returned to Copenhagen, a few of my friends studying abroad in Dublin contacted me to let me know that they were visiting for the weekend, so I spent the past few days being a tour guide and food critic. I may just have a knack for one of those things. Scratch that, I may just have a knack for walking around and eating food.
Okay, I've thoroughly depressed myself with all this talk of deliciousness. I'll be headed to Amsterdam this weekend for Halloween, but I'll be back next week to start off your November right. Only seven weeks until I return home.
I'll be back soon. Mark your calendars - and mark my words!