Thursday, June 30, 2011

Moving

I'm not very good at moving.  I hate re-packing our things up in the huge duffel bags we took to Africa with us, I hate leaving places that were once home that we don't get to visit anymore.
Even though our apartment here in Paris is a little austere, it's been my home for the past five months.  I've sat in it alone for the first few days, cramming for the French exam and turning all the lights on at night so I wouldn't feel so small in a place that fits five people.  I'm sitting in it now, looking out the French doors onto the balcony and the sycamores that line Denfert-Rochereau.  I've cooked in its tiny kitchen and eaten in the dining room with friends and family; I have played the piano that Chopin apparently loved (not our piano, just this type of piano) and listened while people better than me (my brother and father and sister) played.
This little neighborhood, this slice of the fourteenth reaching into the sixth, has become my neighborhood.  I know the bakery girls at Thévenin on Rue Daguerre, I have taken my darling sister unicycling in the Jardin du Luxembourg and the little parks around our house.  I have walked up and down Raspail and Denfert-Rochereau a thousand times, to and from classes and lunches.  I have gone running in the Jardin du Luxembourg, feet splashing in puddles on wet days and kicking up gravel and dust on dry ones.  I know the 4 and 6 Métro lines and the RER.
Now we are moving all the way across town, to Jobic's house, and I have a whole new neighborhood to discover.  I will meet new bakery girls at the new bakery where we get our hot bread in the mornings and new running routes in new parks or along the river.  I will have a new Métro line and a new station, and a new bedroom looking out on a different view.  There are some places I kind-of know in the Marais: my darling brother Caleb adores the Café des Musées which is just down the street from the new house, and I love Le Loir Dans Le Théière on Rue des Rosiers.  I have not seen so many parks, but that just means longer runs to green places and better shape.  I am excited, but at the same time it's sad to leave this high-ceilinged apartment and the people we know.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

How To Travel With Friends

Lonely Planet recently posted an article called "How To Travel With Friends (And Not Kill Them)".  Having recently finished my trip with the excellent Alexandra, I agreed on some things... and not on others.  Alexandra and I have similar personalities, but not the same interests - she did a lot more math and science, while I focused on the humanities, and we were excited about different places - I wanted to see Florence and she wanted to see Copenhagen.  But we travelled well together.  Spending every waking moment for a month with the same person isn't as suffocating as it sounds, I promise; we split up in Oxford a couple of times for a few hours and that was it.  Just getting from London to Paris by myself without a companion seemed suddenly lonely and long.  I wasn't ready to kill her by the time the trip was over - I wasn't even ready for it to be over!
Have you travelled with friends before?  What was your experience like?

Rive Gauche Girl?

I've always considered myself a Rive Gauche Girl.  The crazy writers (Joyce, I'm talking about you), the culture, the hats and students and cafés all seemed like they would become an extension of me when we moved here, a very real part of my life.  The two times I visited Paris before we came here to live, I stayed on the Left Bank in apartments or little hotels, and when by a crazy stroke of luck we snagged this apartment, it was also on the Left Bank - the fourteenth, to be exact.  But in a couple of days we have to move.
My brother's hero/piano teacher and my father's friend Jobic has generously rented his apartment to us for July while he lives elsewhere in the city, so for the last month of our Paris experience, we are living in the Marais.  The third, to be exact, on the other side of the bank.  From July the first until August first when we return to Boston, I will be a Rive Droite Girl.
So here's my question: is there really such a difference between the third and the fourteenth?  I mean, other than the proximity of the Jardin du Luxembourg and the little parks around our apartment, other than the fact that we currently live almost exactly at Place Denfert-Rochereau and the fact that the third is probably way chicer.  When you've been in Paris, which bank have you stayed on?

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

The Europe Trip Overview

Today a package came from the lovely Alexandra, with a USB of photos and music for me and eight presents for Ursula (we can't say what they are yet, as Urs is in Rome).  This means that I can share long-awaited photos from our trip!
Here are the bare-bones of the trip: we started in Budapest and officially ended in Paris, though we escaped for a week in the UK after Paris.  Our tools were a suitcase each, Alexandra's father's iPad (stocked with Season Five of Grey's Anatomy for train rides), and a 21-Day EuRail Global Pass.
I flew from Paris to Budapest on May nineteenth to meet Alexandra and her mother:


And then, on the seventh of June, we arrived in Paris.  This is us on the eighth: 


Not counting the UK, we visited ten countries and twelve cities.  We took four overnight trains and stayed in two hotels, but hostels everywhere else.  We survived on music and medical-drama television and mango gelato.  We talked for hours about ballet and skiing and families and boys.  On one train we stole a pear, and giggled over buying a drink in Amsterdam.  We visited twelve museums (not counting the UK) and climbed seven towers/Cathedral roofs.  We visited nine churches and took five boat rides.  All in all, it was a pretty incredible trip.

(The first photo was taken at the Fisherman's Bastion in Budapest by Alexandra's mother.  The second was taken in front of the fountain in the Jardin du Luxembourg - the Jardin des Explorateurs, technically - by my sister)

Summer

I am not cut out for summer.  I wilt in warm weather, when the humidity is like a blanket and somehow the sun is still beating down on you through the humid haze.  I sunburn easily, and my friends know that the weather I like best is slightly chilly rain and overcast skies that make the trees look greener, or those crisp autumn days when the sky is so blue you can't look up and there's a chill that means snow in a couple months but apples now.
What I like about summertime is plunging into icy saltwater and hiking in shady forests before you reach the summit and the wind howls.  I like barbeques and ice cream and being outside in nature, but I am not a summer-in-the-city person.
Yesterday it hit 95 in Paris and I was unprepared.  For days it had been ever-so-slightly chilly, cold enough to wear stockings under a sundress, cold enough to not suffocate under the covers.  And then the heat hit.  I am ashamed to say that I basically went into lockdown and stayed inside.
How do you deal with the heat?

Monday, June 27, 2011

Growing Up

Today my darling baby sister got on a plane by herself (by herself!) and flew to Rome.  She returns on Thursday, I think; for now she is having the time of her life with an old babysitter of ours in a beautiful and vibrant city that I must admit I've never been to.
I am so proud of her; proud that she is going on a trip without the family at the age of twelve, proud that she is so resourceful and responsible, proud that she wasn't scared to fly all alone to a country where she doesn't speak the language.  I am proud that my baby sister, who was dark-haired and then practically hairless and then dark-haired again, who has learned to play the piano and the violin and to speak French, who got her ears pierced, is experiencing the world for herself.  But at the same time, under that pride is a hint of sadness.
Maybe more than a hint, really.  Because I am used to sleeping next to my little sister whose bear lies tight in her arms.  I am used to brushing my teeth next to her, smiling at her in the bathroom mirror.  I am used to getting into minor squabbles about who left what lying on the floor, and talking about Harry Potter (and Theodosia) at night, and pouring her the last of the mango-passionfruit juice.  She is growing up, and it's hard for me to look back on her twelve incredible years and see that she's been getting older and older, that she's turning into her own vibrant and intelligent person.  And it's not that I don't want her to be that, that I don't want her to come into her own and experience life, but she is growing up.
Sometimes that's scary.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Happy Birthday, Kuzu!

Dearest Kuzujuk,
Today is your birthday!  I'm sorry I can't be there to celebrate with you...
You're one of the smartest and kindest and most talented people I know, and I'm honored to call myself your friend.  I'm so glad that we sat next to each other on that fateful bus trip and hanging out with you - in chorus and outside, but mostly outside - is always incredible.  Thank you for Doctor Who and Invader Zim and everything else that you've shown to me over the years.
I miss you so much, but I'll see you in August.
Happy birthday, again!
Love,
Bronwyn

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Happy Birthday, Alexandra!

Dearest Alexandra,
Today is your birthday!  You are NINETEEN!
Thanks so much for our month-long Europe trip and all the stories and laughs.  Thanks for becoming one of my truly great friends and sharing so much of yourself with me.  Thank you for laughing in Vienna, for climbing on statues in Budapest, for getting lost in Venice and eating gelato in Florence.  Thank you for climbing towers everywhere we went, for picnicking in Prague, for all the overnight trains, for the roller coasters in Copenhagen.
Thank you for Oxford (my God, thank you SO MUCH for Oxford) and thank you for being home when I eventually get there.
I miss you, my twin friend, my sunshine girl!
Love,
Bronwyn

Friday, June 24, 2011

Welcome Back, Family!

Today my lovely aunt, uncle, and cousin came back from their week in the French countryside and are spending the night with us.  My other uncle and aunt are also staying here, and so is the excellent Edwina - the house is full!  Welcome back, David, Gena, and Bryan!  Hello again, Charlie, Linda, and Edwina!  We hope you are having a wonderful stay with us....

A Story About Florence

Say what you will about personal space and privacy in the modern age or whatever, but one thing is true: your bed is obviously yours.  Private, personal, whatever you want to call it: it’s where you lie in the dark, willing your waking self to sleep among the strangers sharing the hostel, it’s where you wake, eyes flying open, from a nightmare, it’s where you roll over to find your alarm in the morning and pull yourself up, limbs heavy with sleep.  A hostel bed isn’t your bed in the same way – you occupy it for a couple of nights at the most, in a room with six other girls, but it’s still your bed, with sheets that hold your imprint and occasionally an eye mask or discarded t-shirt lying in the folds of the comforter.  You are vulnerable and trusting when you sleep.
Alexandra and I were on our second full day in Florence, planning to spend one more night before visiting Milan and then Prague.  Our beds, reserved for three nights, had the appearance of someone living in them.  Sheets crumpled and twisted (but not discarded in a heap on the floor), books next to the pillow that was still damp from the night before when you came in, hair dripping from the shower.  Occupied beds. 
Except that when we returned to the hostel that afternoon for a quick episode of Grey’s Anatomy and to stay out of the stifling Italian summer heat, Alexandra’s bed was no longer her own.  A Red Sox t-shirt, an eye mask, and an extra blanket – all Alexandra’s own and all tucked into the corners of her crumpled bedclothes – were folded on top of the lockers and the bed made up with new sheets, for someone new.  Incensed, we speculated as to who the absent intruders were and proceeded to return her belongings to her bed, declaring that if they were in her bed when we returned from dinner later that night, we would just wake them and ask them to move.
The Australian women in her forties who had become the self-appointed mother of our room in the hostel returned when we were in the middle of watching trauma surgeon Owen Hunt try to keep his feelings for Cristina Yang under wraps as they moved through the same hallways, but she could tell our hearts weren’t really in it.  Finally, we asked her who had moved into the room and taken Alexandra’s bed.  Judith, who had weathered cancer and divorce with an unfailing “buck up” attitude, regarded us with indignation spreading across her tanned face.
“Cheeky buggers!” she exclaimed.  We tried to keep straight faces.  “Well, I’ll watch your beds and if anyone tries to take them, I’ll handle it.”  How would she handle it?  We didn’t want to know, and, uttering quiet and profuse thank-yous, made our way backwards out the door to check our email downstairs. 
Whatever Judith said worked.  When we returned from our afternoon activities to regroup before dinner, we found the two new girls sitting on totally new beds – neither of them ours.  A false smile and apology (from them) later, we escaped to the full streets of Florence and the Manchester-Barcelona Championship game, to our first try at telling someone we were twins, to the heady sunshiny taste of mango gelato and the lemony, muggy Tuscan night.

Menagerie

This morning my darling sister and I visited the menagerie at the Jardin des Plantes.  Honestly, it was the first time that I'd been in a zoo since I was little and we went to the Knoxville Zoo almost every time we visited my grandparents.
The menagerie is pretty amazing.  We visited a five-month-old baby monkey named Columba who might have been the most adorable thing I've ever seen, a snow leopard couple, the red pandas, and the kangaroos.
Have you been to the zoo/menagerie lately?  Or, like me, was the last time you went about ten years ago?  What did you think?

Birthdays Coming Up and Other Things

Yesterday I had a chance to talk to the ever-lovely Alexandra, whose birthday is tomorrow!  It's weird how much I miss her since our trip, but we'll see each other in August (right???)
Anyways, it's not only her birthday tomorrow, but the super-awesome Kuzu's birthday the day after!
They will get their own posts about this, but Happy Birthday, my two best girlfriends!  You two both make everything so much better and have both taught me so much.  I miss you guys!!!

PS Stay tuned for the first Europe story later today!

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Brave


Words cannot describe how much I want to see this movie.
Or go to Scotland.
Maybe my darling little sister will go see it with me next summer, when it comes out?  Come on, Urs!  It's about a princess in Scotland who apparently is pretty awesome.  Who's with me on this?

(picture from here)

Sometimes There Is Magic



Magic little things that you'd forget if they didn't jump in front of you, that you wouldn't notice if they weren't there under your feet.  But there is still magic.
Going back from the Marais today with my father, we switched from Métro 1 to the RER at Chatelet and came across a chamber group playing Handel's "Water Music" in the station.  There were something like five violins, a cello, an upright bass, and a viola, and they were excellent.  A crowd had gathered, and the group - obviously good enough to be playing at way better venues than the subway - made it wound totally captivating.  The way three different violin parts rose and fell, intertwining in harmonies, the cello was sublime, the whole thing together....
Just magic

(violin from here)

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Good Morning, Blog Readers!

Now it is officially summer!  Or is it the second half of summer?  I'm always confused if June 21st is the first day of summer or midsummer, because summer is grouped around the longest day in the year.  Oh, well - it's summer!
Yesterday night my family went out after dinner to explore La Fête de la Musique.  Let me just say - French people singing "Sweet Home Alabama" and "The Wind Cries Mary" aren't things I'm likely to forget anytime soon - combine that with the sweet taste of mango-and-passionfruit gelato (try it!) and it was in some ways the perfect Parisian summer night.
How was your shortest night of the year?

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

I didn't mean to be late

But I got waylaid by a Scottish brass band in the Jardin du Luxembourg.
Ah, Fête de la Musique, how I love you.
Paris streets filled with sunshine and music...
Happy Summer Solstice!

Braids

I have always wanted to know how to French braid.  But it looked hard, and I have a lot of hair, and after about half an hour, annoyed with how tangled my hair got and how tired my arms were balanced over my head, I gave up, just pulling it into its normal bun or braiding it normally.  But French braiding seemed to have the best of both worlds - like a braid, it kept the ends from getting tangled, and like a bun, it kept it up off my face.
So today I started figuring it out.  It's not proper French braiding - just two little ones on the sides of my head and then I pulled the rest into a bun and got lazy - but it's a start.
Sometimes little things just make you happy, you know?

Fête de la Musique

Today is the twenty-first of June (the summer solstice) and in Paris, that means only one thing: the fête de la musique.  Tonight tons of groups play free concerts in public places, all day and into the night.  I'm super excited; some are happening right outside my flat and others are spread across the city.  Here's the website, if you're interested....
Does your city do something like this?

Monday, June 20, 2011

An Idea

The ever-lovely Alexandra recently sent me an email in which she asked me to write down some of our travelling stories - stories of eating dinner with strangers and overnight trains and watching people in love greet each other after a long time.  I said yes, but I was wondering - would you guys like to see some?  I don't have that many, but there are some stories, and this past month has been so incredible for me that I'd really like to have something to remember it by.
Let me know!

French

To say the least, my French has deteriorated in the month that I've been travelling.   True, the lovely Alexandra and I occasionally spoke French to each other and once we carried on an entire conversation with another couple in French (we were very proud), but it's not as good as it once was - a month ago.
To rectify this before I get to college and get put in a French class that's too easy, I'm going to do what Alexandra's friend J did to learn Italian (and now Japanese): get a grammar, read through it, and then start learning lists of words.  If he can read "Harry Potter" and pass his A-levels in Italian by doing that, then I can do the same with French, right?  AND I've got a head start with the French I've already had....
Any tips for learning a language on your own?

Fathers Day, Postponed

Because we don't do things on time (ever), we're postponing our father's day until next Sunday when we've got my father to ourselves and can have quiet brunch with just us five.
In the meantime, Daddy, you mean so much to me.  Thank you for teaching me about music and hiking and being your true self.  I love you.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Backpacking Odyssey

A couple of days ago I got an email from Reed, where I plan to go to college next year, telling me that I had been chosen for a Backpacking Outdoor Odyssey - a kind of a freshman trip the week before Orientation in the Pacific Northwest.  I was ecstatic - this meant that I got to be in an outdoors I didn't know very well, meeting the kids I would be spending the next four years with.  My father loved his freshman trip at Dartmouth, even if he didn't spend that much time with those people he met there afterwards; my mother always regretted not going on one.  The Pacific Northwest is supposed to be beautiful, and I can't wait to go to the Columbia River Gorge and the Cascades.  But my sister wasn't as excited as I was.
"What do you mean, you're leaving us a whole week early?!  You want to go hiking with people you don't even know rather than going on vacation with us, your family?  Do you not love us anymore?"  Paraphrased, but still.  And I understand what she means - I'm leaving my darling family - my family who have been my best friends, my confidants, the people I see and talk to every day, for what?  For a week with other unwashed nervous kids in the mountains, for blistery feet in new hiking boots?  I'm super-excited to go to college and to go on this amazing trip, but I'm also pretty apprehensive about leaving my family.  
Originally I was going to spend half of my gap year at home with my family and half of it away.  But then we ended up going to Paris and one thing led to another and now the longest I've ever been away from my family was this month-long trip with Alexandra, where we were so caught up in a whirlwind of museums and sights and overnight trains that I rarely had time to experience that heartache of missing the people I love.  It helped that I wrote emails to my family every day I could, pulling out our electronic device (Alexandra's father's iPad) in hostels and Starbucks' and cafes with posters in the windows advertising free wifi.  I don't know how college is going to be - I don't know what I will do in the space between classes and studying and sailing and being with my friends when my heart turns over in the absence of the people I love.
This doesn't mean that I don't want to go to school or that I don't want to go backpacking – in fact, I want to go really badly.  But I'm also scared of going off on my own, of missing my family so much that it hurts.  

Saturday, June 18, 2011

My Paris: Rue Daguerre


Just around the corner from where I live with my family in the fourteenth is Rue Daguerre - a market street full of life, and one of the places that I had to visit almost immediately after my incredible trip with the amazing Alexandra to remind myself that I was home.  Cobblestones shining in the rain, the twenty or so shops that line the mainly pedestrian street, the shopgirls who know me - it all hits home the fact that I live in Paris.
Personally, my favourite place to go for fruit and vegetables (there are three or so shops) is Paradis de Fruits, charmingly full of haricots verts and oranges, and where we bought the best strawberries I have ever tasted in my entire life.
My father goes out every morning to Thévenin to buy our morning bread and croissants.  It is without question the best bakery near our house, so good that after school little children line up with their allowance to buy éclairs and macarons and on Sundays a line stretches out every morning.  However, it is closed on Wednesdays, in which case the bakery on the corner isn't bad either.
Rue Daguerre is also home to Café d'Enfer, really one of the best places I have ever eaten but out of an every-day price range, so it is our special-occasions restaurant.  I highly highly suggest the lentil cappuccino in winter as an appetizer, and the p'tit d'enfer as a desert.
I hope you enjoyed this little taste of Paris!

(photo from here)

Friday, June 17, 2011

Van Gogh...



... is one of my favourite painters ever.  When I was with the incredible Alexandra on our trip 'round the world (okay, Europe), we visited the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, and though it was expensive, though the wait was long, though it was crowded, it took my breath away.  We wandered through his earlier works, through lovely Japanese-woodblock-inspired paintings, through his compelling self-portraits and the heady colorful landscapes of his home in Arles.  We saw the painting above, of a blossoming almond branch.



Today we took my cousin, aunt, and uncle to the Musée d'Orsay, where we saw more Van Gogh.  I was excited for multiple reasons - I got to go to the Musée d'Orsay and show my darling family the Paris and the art I love, it was Van Gogh (reason enough), and also, they had a Doctor Who episode in which they met Vincent Van Gogh and went to the Musée d'Orsay.  Don't judge.  But we saw the painting above - Church at Auvers - and an awful lot more.  
Do you like Van Gogh or the Musée d'Orsay?  Let me know!

Pictures from here and here...

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Back in Paris (Also, Family)

I am in Paris once more!  After a fairytale week in the UK with the ever-lovely Alexandra (more on that later, I promise), I have returned to Paris just hours ahead of my extended family!
My uncle, aunt, and cousin from Tennessee have come to see Paris (it's my cousin's second time out of the country) and we are so happy to have them!  Today we've walked through Paris with them, and it's always exciting to see the city from the eyes of someone new - all the buildings, the shining streets, the curving silver spine of the Seine...
Welcome, family, and Alexandra, I miss you already!

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Hello from London!

So the lovely Alexandra and I are continuing our travels here in London and then tomorrow it's off to Oxford, where she studied for a semester.  Yesterday we went into the city and to my favourite museum - the Victoria and Albert, which Lonely Planet describes as sort of like "the nation's attic".  We visited the hilariously odd Tippoo's Tiger, a life-size wind-up toy of a tiger eating a British soldier, and considered visiting the "Cult of Beauty" exhibit on aestheticism, but the queue was too long (we were tired).
Thank you so much, Alexandra and family, for letting me into your lives!  And thank you so much, blog readers, for being patient with my constant travel for the last month and the inconsistency of updates!
Love,
Bronwyn

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Just A Little Bit Of Bragging...

I love my hometown of Cambridge, right next to Boston.  In fact, I often lump them together when talking to out-of-towners: "Oh, yeah, I'm from Boston, in Massachusetts."  Only when they're from around Boston do I say that I'm from Cambridge, usually.  But today I'm super-proud.
The lovely writers at Flavorwire put together a literary tour of the most well-read cities in America, and Cambridge is number one!  Go check out their list here....
Have a great Thursday, everyone!

My Paris: the Catacombs


My apartment in the fourteenth faces directly onto Place Denfert-Rochereau, where the entrance to the Catacombs is.  Most weekend mornings we can see people lining up around the block, and now that tourist season has officially begun, that line begins early weekday mornings, too.  So today my parents and Alexandra and I went and joined the crowds of out-of-town people come to see the ancient bones of ancient Parisians.
Going down into the Catacombs is one of the creepiest things I've ever done in my entire life.  You descend spiral staircases until you're below the Métro and the RER, below the water and sewage systems, deep in what used to be the tunneling quarries below the city and are now macabrely stacked with skulls and shinbones in the shape of crosses and scallop shells.  I must say, while I was fascinated to see what was beneath the city, I'm not sure that the lovely Alexandra fully enjoyed herself - it was a little early in the morning to be exposed to what's below Paris' shining crust....
Have you been to the Catacombs?  What did you think?  Would you go?

Photo from here

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Back to the City of Light

Yesterday evening the lovely Alexandra and I arrived at the Gare de Nord in Paris and met my family at our flat in the fourteenth.  I have to say that it's pretty good to be back.  While the trip isn't over yet - we still have three days in London and then a couple days more in Oxford - it's so lovely to see my incredible family again and do some laundry and sleep in my own bed.
The incredible Alexandra even picked up presents for my siblings - a Dvorak cello CD for Caleb and an Amsterdam snow-globe for Ursula - fully endearing herself to the family forever.  Today for the first time in three and a half weeks I can get around without a map.  I know people here and I know the streets I love, I know where to take my friends...
Hello again, Paris!

Monday, June 6, 2011

Home For Dinner

For the past two days the lovely Alexandra and I have been enjoying ourselves in Amsterdam, visiting museums and taking boats down the canals and experiencing the first rain of our trip. But tomorrow we pack up here, spend the day in Brussels, and be home in Paris for dinner.
That's a weird concept. After almost three weeks away from my family, I can't wait to see them again, to spend time with my incredible parents and my darling siblings, to tell them all about this adventure we've been on. And I know that it isn't actually the end of our trip - we still have London and Oxford to visit. But we're at the end of our new places, our uncharted unknown territory. Our maps of Paris and London and Oxford already exist, so this kind of feels like the end. We've been seeing the world, sleeping in unfamiliar places and meeting new people, having experiences I wasn't sure I would ever have, and tomorrow we will be home for dinner.
I promise you better updates in the next couple of days! Thank you for being so patient!

Friday, June 3, 2011

Hello from Copenhagen!

Where did I last write from?  Prague?  This trip feels more unreal every day, but today was absolutely lovely.
The lovely Alexandra and I are staying in a hotel in Copenhagen, and it was just the thing we needed.  After two weeks of hostels where people barge in at three in the morning and get up at five and uncomfortable crowded overnight trains, sleeping in a real bed and taking a hot shower feel incredible.
Copenhagen reminds me a lot of the Cape, actually.  Denmark thus far has been lovely and crisp and blue - all the things that remind me of New England seashore summers.  While we spent basically all yesterday at the incredible Tivoli gardens (where I went on my first roller-coaster ever), today we dedicated to seeing something other than an amusement park.
We walked through the city to the Rosenborg Castle, which sits in the middle of the city's oldest public park.  There we saw the Danish crown jewels (as well as the wine that they keep in the treasury) and the lovely gilded rooms that the Royal Family once lived in.  We also visited the nearby Staatens Museum for Kunst, or the National Gallery, which is lovely and free and I highly reccomend it if you're visiting Copenhagen!  The city is lovely and it seems that all of the Danes are fit and healthy and well-dressed - a bit intimidating to the weary traveller!
Tomorrow we leave Denmark for Amsterdam and beyond...
Again, I'm sorry for the shoddy posting!
Does anyone have any suggestions for Copenhagen or Amsterdam?
Love,
Bronwyn