Nice, Cannes, and Montecarlo

This last weekend was spent in Southern France. This is the third time I have been to France this semester. The first was to Paris in January and then I visited my cousin Julie in France in February. Both times I traveled with my good friend Cierra. This last weekend was with the Gonzaga group, so we all road together in one big Alterini bus.

We left on Thursday around 4:00 PM and had a 6.5 hour bus ride ahead of us to Nice, which is pronounced "Niece". Around 10:30 PM we arrived at our hostel, which turned out to be pretty interesting. It was located away from the city area (as usual haha) and up on a hill. It was actually called a "Villa". At the Villa there was a so called "chapel" that was reconstructed into a hang out area and bar. This was also where we ate Breakfast in the morning. I loved the Breakfasts at the hostel because it was equipped with a plethora of cereals! I miss having variety in my Breakfast diet. I am definitely going to be eating tons of eggs when I come home. Omelets anyone? :)

I went to bed relatively early that night after checking in. The next day I woke up early in the morning and had Breakfast with Leanna and the rest of the group in the Chapel. From here the group went on an optional tour to Nice centre with the staff.Nice (In Itallian they call it Nizza) is France's largest tourist resort and fifth biggest city. One of the first things we did on our tour was visit the daily flower and vegetable market in the Cours Saleya which is a shoppers' paradise. Leanna and I split some delicious raspberries at the market. The fashionable quarter is the Cimiez district, up on the hills overlooking the town, where the old monastery of Notre-Dame lies. After the optional tour, Leanna and I wandered around, took some gorgeous photos, and headed towards Casino Ruhl where we were meeting at noon with the rest of the group. The casino was located on the beach road called "Promendae des Anglais". This casino was very hyped up, but in my opinion it looked pretty trashy... especially since it was right next to a McDonalds- but hey! I had a kids meal there because I was craving chicken nuggets (if you can call them that ha ha). The casino did have a pretty cool looking chandelier though.

Anyways, we met back up around noon and hopped back on the bus for the optional rafting experience. The drive was about an hour to Breil-sur-Roya. Once we got there, we had to change in a sketchy area into these wetsuits and jackets. We all looked ridiculous! I must say though, they did a great job at keeping us warm. After we all got changed, we had another 7 KM ride to the river. We got some instructions from one of the instructors and then almost everyone hopped into their kayak rafts. The staff and about four other students hopped onto a large raft with an instructor because they were out of kayak rafts. I didn't mind though- I wasn't too sure how comfortable I would be at guiding a raft down the river with another non-expert especially since the river was very up high that day so it increased the rapids from a normal 2 to a 3... even 4 in some parts. Needless to say, many people fell in the water but we were trained on how to float down the river and no one really had much of a problem getting back into their rafts. I almost fell in myself because at one point our instructor told us to all lean towards the left and Peter (a staff member) and my friend Leanna (in the front) were quickly pulled off the raft. I was next in line, and at one point I was completely horizontal with half my body dangling in the water. The only thing that was keeping me up was my foot that was lodged in a single foot compartment. Also, I screamed for help and Shelley (who happens to be my finance teacher as well as the student life coordinator) gave me a hand and pulled me back up to normal position. Whew! Peter was lifted up by the instructor, and Peter in turn helped Leanna into the boat. Don't worry... it really was all safe :-D (this note is for my mom :-p )

Around 7:30 we left our hostel for Dinner in Nice at Taverne Massena. We had a tuna salad (gross) and pizza for dinner. I was a bit disappointed because I wanted legit French food, but I guess pizza was fine.

The next day we left for Cannes on our bus, which was about a half hour drive. 150 years ago Cannes was nothing more than an unimportant fishing village. Now it is equipped with tons of beautiful sites such as the Haute Ville, The Vieuz Port, and the rue Meynadier. We had a free day for visit and there was a beach nearby. Leanna, Meredith and I opted to follow Peter, because he always knows "what's up". He took us to a vintage market, and I got a gift for Chris there... and then we walked along the beach line where all the fancy shops and hotels are. We also got some lovely bread and brie and took it up to the top of a Castle that overlooks the city. We sat there on a bench and enjoyed our lunch and took more pictures. The rest of the day we chilled at the beach with a lot of the other GU students. So many people got burnt! I wish it was about 5-10 degrees warmer, because I definitely had goosebumps while I was sporting my swim suit. It was nice to get a bit of sun though... I didn't get burnt thank goodness! :)

That evening I just hung out at the hostel and had a couple drinks. It was pretty relaxing and well needed after a long day. I went to bed fairly early and woke up on Sunday feeling refreshed. We left for Cannes around 10:00 AM, which was another half an hour drive. Monte Carolo or Monaco, is a 371 acre principality with a population of 30,000. The Grimaldi Family acquired the lordship of Monaco in the 1300's and have ruled over the city ever since. The Montecarlo Casinowas created by Charles Garnier, the architect of the opera house in Paris, in 1878. I didn't end up going into the Casino because I wasn't dressed for the occasion (they require suit and tie for men!) and it cost 10 euro to get in. For the few hour I was there, I took an optional Azur Express Tourist Train" that ended up being a joke because it was only half an hour long and our train actually broke down half way through and another one had to come in its place. After the train around the small city, we watched the changing of the guards and half a nice crepe lunch. I had a Monaco beer and a
ham and cheese crepe. Yum! The rest of the time Meredith, Leanna and I just walked around the explored the city and took some cool pictures.

And then we had the long journey back to Florence! This was one of my favorite weekends for sure. :)

Ciao!

PS! I fixed my computer! Go me!

Munich day 2 and 3

Today was another fabulous day in Munich. I signed up for an optional bike tour around the city, which turned out to be really fun!






The day first started out by another Breakfast in my pensione bus for the around 9:20and then we departed from the hostel with our private bus for the bike tour. Our tour guides were very nice and friendly and made the tour pretty interesting. We stopped at several locations on the way, and the weather was gorgeous! Not too cold and it was sunny for a change. We stopped at a famous and quaint beer garden that had a giant Chinese structure with an orchestra playing on the second floor. For lunch I had a large sausage, fries, and a beer with a hint of lemonade. It was all pretty good except I wasn't too fond of my sausage because it had some strange red curry sauce on it. I would've been fine with just ketchup...

At the river we ran into some men that were actually surfing! It looked pretty dangerous but they looked like they had a great time. It was funny when they wiped out though!










After the tour Leanna and I bought some postcards and another yummy treat from the bakery we got the pretzels the day before. This time it was a sweet treat though- I love the food here surprisingly!

Last night at Hofbrahaus was very fun! I had two sausages (roundly shaped- it was odd but very yummy) and a potato salad. We also split a couple of those huge beers and ended up taking the glasses home for a souviner.

Tonight the dinner plans are up in the air- I think Leanna, Meredith and I are going to go to a cheaper place for dinner near our hostel. Apparently it is like Hofbrahaus so I am sure it will be tasty.

Anyways, that pretty much concludes today.

The next day we left the hostel around 8:00 A.M and then we ventured towards the Neuschwanstein Castle. This castle is the also known as "Cinderella's Castle" which is displayed before the start of all Disney movies. From postcards, it looks absoloutely beautiful but unfortunately it was snowing and it was super foggy so most of my pictures came out like the one of your left. The bus was also down because of the weather conditions, so we had to hike up the moutain for like forty minutes and then also back down. At least it was good excercise! On the way down from the Castle, Leanna and I were enticed by a delicious looking Raspberry desert. Definitely worth the extra calories! The rest of the day was pretty much spent on the bus- about an 8 hour drive from the Castle and we also stopped at a couple rest stops on the way. The main rest stops in Italy are called "Auto Grill" - they pretty much have the same things. I am excited for fastfood places like Taco Bell when I get home! I have a feeling I'm going to gain so much weight when I come home. The portions back home are so much bigger as well!

Anyways, at this point I am rambling but overall I had an excellent time in Munich! CIAO!

Munich

Today was the first full day in Munich. Yesterday we arrived around 1:15 AM after a long 8.5 hour bus ride. Its weird how after the first few hours they start to all blend together.








Today around 9:15 I went down to the hostel lobby and had a complimentary Breakfast. It was pretty good! I had some regular yogurt and some oats with stuff in it. I also packed a roll with butter and cheese for the road. We got on the buses at 10:00 AM and we departed for our Tour of Dachau Concentration Camp. It was pretty depressing- reminded me a lot of when I went to Auschwitz on my opening tour.




The hostel we are staying at is the same name as the placed we stayed at in Vienna- its a pretty nice hostel with a decent Breakfast, internet, and the rooms are pretty clean.

According to our handout that we received prior to the trip, Dachau was a Nazi German concentration camp located on the grounds of an abadoned munitions factory near the medieval town of Dachau, about ten miles northwest of Munich in southern Germany. It opened on March 22, 1933 and was the first regular concentration camp that was created by the National Socialist (Nazi) government. We arrived there around 10:30 and left about 2.5 hours later.

After the tour we were dropped off in the city area of Munich and we walked around, took pictures, went souvenir shopping, and had some German snacks. The first thing that caught our eyes was a Haagandas icecream place... we all thought, "well this is a German Icecream, right?" It was so yummy! I had a cookies and cream scoop and a caramel and brownie scoop in a waffle cone. Not the healthiest thing for lunch, but we couldn't resist! Shortly after walking into some souvenir shops we saw these yummy pretzels in the window and we Leanna, Georgina, and I each got a pretzel with cheese on it. It was delicious! We also walked in front of the famous bar/restaurant Hofbrauhaus which is a famous attraction and has many special vistors throughtout the year. We took a few pictures and decided that we are going to get dressed up and go there for dinner and perhaps a couple drinks. Chris told me to make sure to go to it because he had some friends recommended it. According to the handout, on September 27, 1589, Duke WIlhelm V founded a brewery on the site of the Munich royal residence of that time. The first Hofbrauhaus lasted till the year 1808 and was only a few steps away from today's haus


I finally found the perfect gift for Chris! I am pretty sure he knows what he is getting (he asked for it specifically) but it took me away to find the right one. I hope it doesn't break! We were a bit tired from walking around all day so we decided to take the subway/tram back. It was a bit confusing because we had to transfer to the tram and we got a bit turned out, but we are pretty used to asking people for directions by now.




Well right now I am just relaxing in my hostel and then like I said I am going to that bar. I am super stoked! I'll keep in touch

What's new in my life

Today I am going to Vienna with the Gonzaga in Florence group. We are meeting near school around 3:45, and our bus is scheduled to leave at 4:00. The bus is supposed to take eleven hours to get to Vienna- I think I am going to occupy my time by watching movies and T.V shows (O.C and Sex and the City!).

I am very excited for this weekend; the weather should be pretty cold- in the 40's, and rain is predicted. I will bring my big, puffy jacket!






There are a couple optional tours in the morning that I am going to take advantage of; I am not sick this week (thank goodness!) so I am sure I will have enough energy to walk around and look at sights.

Next week is our Spring break. I believe we only have two days of school (Monday and Tuesday) and then I am heading off to Ireland with the Gonzaga group again. We are going to Dublin and we are leaving to go back to Florence before St. Patrick's Day. It would be so crazy to be in Ireland for St. Patty's but I am sure we will have a great time. Soon after that, Georgina, Jessie and I are venturing to Malta. I am so busy!

My mom scheduled my flight to go home on April 26th so that means I will have to pay an extra night to stay in my pensione because we are supposed to leave by noon on April 25th. EVERYONE is going home that day though, so it's just easier to go home a day later, that way I can fly out of Florence and get into Seattle instead of going out of Rome and then to Portland (the fees were ridiculous for the previous day). I originally flew out of Portland with my friends Ashley, David, and Sarah so that's why I was scheduled to fly into Portland.

Anyways, right now I am sitting in Philosophy of Art class awaiting to get my test back. I don't think I did too poorly, but he said no one did really well, and no one did really bad. I am pretty nervous to be honest; I hate the feeling of anticipation before getting a test back. It is so nerve-racking! I just got to keep telling myself that it's just one test and it's not the end of the world. Why do I put so much emphasis on my school work? (especially while abroad?!) This semester is definitely more challenging than last... it's my business classes that are particularly hard.

Well I will stop my rambling but I will try and write a blog post about my Vienna experience when I come back to Florence. I probably won't get internet while in Vienna because we are staying at a hostel and unlike America, free WI-fi is basically non-existent.

CIAO CIAO!

Note: The pictures above are from Athens, Greece. Georgina and I had such a good time! (read my last blog post if you want more information :) ).

A visit to Julie's home in France

This past weekend Cierra and I went to visit my cousin and her family in France. It was definitely my favorite weekend trip so far. It was so nice to be around a family atmosphere, and everyone was so accomodating and friendly.


Cierra and I left for the airport around 3 A.M from our pensione to catch the Terravision bus at 3:30. From there, we arrived at the Pisa airport and checked in. Luckily our flight was on time! We transfered in Munich and had a short layover and then we arrived in Geneva (which is about half an hour away from Julie's house) around 1:00. Julie and two of her boys were waiting for us outside of baggage claim and it was so nice to see them again!

That afternoon, we had some tea and caught up and talked about life. About an hour later, Cierra, Julie, and I went to a small town called Annecy, which was absoloutely adorable. We took some pictures and walked around the little town and walked into some local shops. Cierra treated us to some amazing chocolate caramels at a small chocolate store. For dinner, we had some authentic French Crepes. I had one with cheese on top and on the middle and ham. It was delicious!

The next day, we had a lovely Breakfast at the house and then Cierra, Julie, Benjamin and his friend Piere went skiing/snowboarding in the French Alps. The weather couldn't have been more perfect. It was sunny and clear skies. The snow conditions were great too! I also got to borrow Julie's friends' skiies and boots, which was very nice. After we were done skiing, we had a quick bite to eat at the lodge. I had a ham and cheese sandwich, french fries, and a coke. That afternoon we pretty much relaxed, and then for dinner we had another authentic French meal. For our apertivo, we had some chips and pecans and some lovely Champagne. For dinner, I forget what it is called, but basically you put these cheese slices into a little metal pan and stick it into a machine that melts the cheese and makes it crispy (depending on how long you leave it in there). It was amazing! Once the cheese is melted to your liking, you pour it on sliced potatoes with cold cuts on top.

On Saturday (Valentine's Day), Julie, Cierra and I went to the town of Chamonix, which houses the largest mountain peak in Europe. Once we got there, we looked around at a couple souviner shops. I got Chris a small gift and some postcards. Then we bought our tickets for the two gondolas, which would take us up to the top of the mountain peak. Once we got to the top, I was absoloutely in awe of how gorgeous the views were! It was definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity. After we came back down on the gondola, we had some extra time to walk around the little town and take pictures. Cierra and I split a banana and chocolate crepe... yum!

That evening, the whole family took us snowshooing at nightime with a guide. I had never been snowshooing, and it was quite the experience! I really enjoyed it. Our guide even stopped to pour us some hot grape juice! It was delicious. We were out for about an hour and a half in the snow, and then we rested up at a restaurant and had fondue. It was my first time having cheese fondue, and I was immediately in love.

On Sunday, Cierra and I slept in and then had a late Breakfast with Julie. We hung out for awhile and packed up our stuff and then we had a road tour of Geneva on the way to the airport. Before we left for the flight, Julie treated us to some snacks at a local gas station. We got a baguette and cheese, chips, a candy bar, and Cierra got a pepsi. We were definitely set! Our flight left around 7:00 P.M, and everything was on time so that was good. Once we got to the Munich airport to transfer, I was lucky enough to get a staff member at Lufthansa to run and get my camera at lost and found (I had accidently left it on the plane coming from Pisa to Geneva). I was very lucky to get it back with such short time!

Well that concludes the trip! We had a fun filled weekend, and I will surely never forget it! :)

Paris remarks

Hey everyone!





Sorry its been so long since I lasted posted. Things have been super crazy here between traveling, schoolwork, and Chris visiting last week.

I thought instead of talking about my most recent trip (France to see my cousin!) I would start with where I left off. A recap of Paris...

I went to Paris with my good friend Cierra and we left on Thursday after classes and stayed until late Sunday afternoon. We had a lovely time all together. We had really fun filled days while we were in Paris because we were trying to fit everything in during a short amount of time.

One thing that is super annoying about Ryan air (the budget airline) is that although the fares are relatively cheap, they tend to take you to the most ridiculous airports that are super far from the actual city. Our travel plans consisted of a train to Pisa for an hour, a short flight to Paris, and then a relatively long bus ride into the city center of Paris, and then a subway to our hostel. For these reasons, it was pretty late once we got into Paris so we pretty much grabbed a bite to eat at a local grocery store, and went to bed at our hostel.

The next day I got up and had Breakfast at the hostel while studying for my test that following Monday in Management and Organization. One of my favorite memories of Thursday was going to the Museo d'Orsay which had a lot of artwork including some of Picasso's famous pieces. After the museum, we decided to get a bite to eat at a local cafe and I had a turkey sandwich which would've been amazing had there not have been mustard seeds... it was an intense taste and I hate mustard haha. I also had some apple juice, which is pretty much my favorite juice out there ;).

After our lunch we decided to head over to the Louvre. It was another hugee museum! Because we were a bit "museumed out" after the Museo D'Orsay earlier in the day, we decided to see just a few of the main pieces and call it a day. These include the Mona Lisa of course, and Venus de Milo (the statue with no arms), and Hamarabbi's code (which was significant to me because I wrote an essay about it last year in History class).

Once we saw enough of the museum, we decided to go to the Notre Dame church and look around. This church was beautiful and very unique. I loved it! Before the church we got some Icecream at Haaigen Daas. We hadn't seen that icecream since the states! I think its from Germany though... hmm. After the church extravaganza, we headed back to our hostel and took a small break. After that, we headed towards the Eiffel Tower and unfortunately our directions were pretty far from the tower itself, but we managed to get there by the strobe lights in the sky (we went during the evening). We decided it would be fun to go all the way to the top, why not, right? And it was definitely worth it. My feet were freezing (I was dumb and wore flats) but other than that the sights were spectacular of the city. The rest of the evening we pretty much relaxed... and had a crepe with ham, egg, and cheese.

The next day we took a day trip to Versai... the campus was huge! There was room after room and many buildings to go into. One of my favorite places was Marie Antoinette's house. I definitely took a lot of amazing pictures while I was visiting. You guys should check them out on facebook if you get a chance (I finally caught up on uploading them all). After our day trip, we went to a performance at the Moulin Rouge. Before the show, we got a chocolate and banana crepe for dinner, which was good at the time, but our stomaches were mad at us later because of how rich and unhealthy they were haha. Anyways, the performance was definitely not what I expected, but it was still fun non the less. I was kind of thinking it was going to be like the movie, pretty old fashioned and what not, but there was a large variety of songs and eras. There was even a couple 80s songs thrown in there! We sat next to two couples, one of which were from Belgium and they spoke English so that was nice.

That next day we pretty much saw all the last minute things we didn't get to see from the couple days before. We took a few more pictures at Notre Dame, saw a church on the hill, and explored several subway stops that led to parts of the town with street vendors. I enjoyed a cup of tea, and bought a very cute white hat! We ended up sitting in a little cafe and studying for our tests later in the afternoon before we left for our flight. It was a pretty relaxing day until we almost missed our bus to the airport because we didn't realize we had to be there 2 hours before our flight left. It all goes to show that researching is super important! Luckily a staff member loaded the next scheduled bus at a faster pace, so we ended up making our flight just in the nick of time. The airport was super crowded too, and it was under reconstruction so there was no place to sit... I was definitely feeling pretty clasterphobic. After the bus ride, the flight, and then another bus ride from Pisa to Flo, we finally made it back around 2:30 A.M. AND I had a management and organization test the next day... whew! The busy life I lead....

and that pretty much concludes the recap of Paris! Let me know if you have any comments or questions!

And the Christmas adventure continues...

Again, these past few days have been jam packed full with lots of activities! Yesterday, which I believe was Friday, we went to an Open Air Museum which had tons of stuff to look at- my favorite was the zoo portion which housed a pack of wolves, moose, a beautiful horse (see picture), owls, and other various "Scandinavian animals". Before we took a look at the animals, we stopped inside a small cafe to warm up and have a hot drink before going out into the freezing cold again. Isn't the design on my late adorable? The Open Air Museum also had a furniture gallery which was closed, and a glass blowing section which was pretty cool. After we walked around for awhile, we took the metro bus back to the main section of town and then we mapped out how to get back to our hotel. We only had an hour or so to rest, so we hung out for awhile and met the bus back in front of the hotel to take us to the hockey game.

This was my first "real" hockey game that I have attended. I have been to one at Gonzaga, but not anything like the intense ones I have always heard about. The game ended up being a lot of fun- but what I found interesting was the fans were much more into the fighting and aggression than the actual players. At one point, a huge group of the home fans came over to the opposing team's fan side and were yelling and about to cause a scene and fight. Luckily, just in time an army of security officers patrolled the scene, but the game was momentarily paused until the fuss was over. It was pretty interesting and it was kind of funny because our group was literally in the middle of what was happening between the two sides. The home team ended up winning- which was pretty neat.

I just love the look of bare winter trees! They are pretty mysterious- like this one to your left. Anyways, after the hockey game we were all pretty hungry so we went to a sports bar called O'Leary's across the street from our hotel. Cierra and I split a Chicken Caesar Salad (haven't had one of those since I left the states!) and chicken quesadillas which came with sour cream, guacamole, and salsa. YUM! After dinner we were so pooped from our long day, that Cierra and I just came back to our room and attempted to relax. We had to deal with the situation of changing a flight ticket of mine to a different date though, because as we both clicked "pay now" on an online Lufthansa site, my price went through and her connection timed out and when she refreshed, the price of the ticket practically doubled. For the past few days we have been trying to contact Lufthansa seeing if there is anything they can do to help us out, or cut us a break- but unfortunately it is not under their control if the price changes. (its a supply and demand thing I am assuming...) Anyways, after a lot of calls with a low internet connection, we managed to move my flight to another weekend for an 84 euro additional fee and Cierra was able to book her flight at the same price that I had gotten mine originally. We didn't end up going to bed until around 2 AM last night so needless to say we have been pretty exhausted today!

This morning we got up around 8:30 and then walked downstairs and had a lovely Breakfast at the hotel. I have been impressed with these hotel Breakfasts! In Italy, normally we just get one croissant and maybe a yogurt. After Breakfast, we met the rest of the GU group on the double Decker bus and headed towards the Vaso Museum, which housed a real ship that was built in the 1600's and it sank after just 20 minutes of use. The ship was under water for about 333 years and it was just recently discovered in the Baltic Sea in 1971. They carefully lifted the ship which was preserved by the low levels of salt in the water and it practically looks brand new! Apparently, the water worms did not get to the wood because they tend to thrive in salt water. We had a nice tour guide at the museum, and then we watched a little documentary about the ship and how it was taken to the museum, etc. After the museum visit, we went to a place where we went curling! I had never really heard of curling before this trip, but I heard it was a fun thing to try. The sport takes place on the ice and the point is to shuffle a broom and stone across the ice and have it hit a target on the other side of the room. It is quite tricky- I found it difficult to measure how much force to put on the stone while maintaining balance, direction, curvature, etc. Before actually playing the game, we did some practice drills and just got acquainted with the ice and what not. Overall I thought it was a lot of fun! Even though I did slide and fall a lot... haha.

After curling we went to the old town district of Stockholm and had an hour or so to walk around and get something to eat. We were all pretty hungry, so Cierra, Georgina and Emily and I stumbled upon "Sally's" which had a variety of food- I think primarily Italian, ironically. It was pretty good though! I got a pizza which ham and cheese on it and ate the whole thing! (with some help of course hehe). It was the perfect amount of "fullness" and it instantly gave me some energy that I was lacking... the last thing on our agenda for the day was a ghost tour that met at the huge Christmas tree in the old town center.

The ghost tour was fun, but it was awfully cold out! At one point I thought my toes were going through the beginning stages of frost bite because they were super tingly at first, and then they just went numb and felt kind of puffy- haha not a good feeling for sure. But the tour guide was great- and he had a lot of great ghost stories and tales of the town. We walked around for a little over an hour and a half and at various location sites on the way our tour guide would stop and tell a story about a certain monument, building, or house. The various stories reminded me of my dad's ghost stories, which he was always creatively make up and tell on family camping trips back in the day. Anyways, our tour guide was super funny too- which made the whole tour more entertaining. At the end, we were given the responsibility to find our way back to the hotel so a bunch of us gathered together and headed towards the subway station. It wasn't too confusing but I relied on other people to get us home because for those who know me know I am horrible at directions haha. After we got back, Cierra, Georgina and I went to the local grocery store and got some snacks. I was able to use up the rest of my Kronas so I'm happy about that.

Here is a picture of all the girls on the Christmas tour! :) Tomorrow we are leaving for Finland! I think we are there just for the day and then we head towards St. Petersburg, which is our final destination.

Stay tuned for more information on my trip! Check out the new pictures I uploaded from Copenhagen! (on Facebook)