Sunday, December 22, 2013

A look back at 2013

I can't believe how fast this year has gone by. It seems like just yesterday I was graduating from University of Maryland and driving down to Florida to spend Christmas with my family. But here I am, living in the Netherlands, and spending Christmas with my new Dutch family. This time last year being an au pair wasn't even in my plans but I'm so happy I decided to do it. These past 4 months have just been amazing; I've seen so many incredible sites and I think I'm so lucky to have this chance.

My map of the countries I've visited while I've been here

My favorite memories from 2013:

My graduation! Technically this was 2012 but it was so close to 2013 that it deserves to be included. This was such a huge milestone in my life and I'm so thankful for the support of my family that enabled me to get to that point.


Easter with just me and Tara home aka that time she brought brown eggs for us to paint and I ran out of eggs for baking twice. It was just so typical "us" and I miss spending time with her now that I'm here. 



Our hike in Great Falls Park. It was such beautiful scenery and great company! The image that sticks in my head is me and Mrs. Eppinger walking up ahead while my mom was cajoling Tara and Jackie to keep walking. But they both made it to the end!


Camping and hiking with Susan in Shenandoah was so much fun and the area was gorgeous. Even though we were scared to death when a bear cub came less than 20 feet from us and I got a bit scared going up the mountain it was still an awesome time. P.S. Thanks for the hand up a difficult part of the mountain, Sue!


Graduation "photo shoot" with two of my best friends. We've known each other since elementary school and now we're college graduates...I don't know where the time has gone! Miss you both so much!


Went to a few D.C. United games, USA v. Germany game and a Washington Nationals game!
Charlotte all decked out in USA/DC United gear...yes those
are USA sunglasses. Miss you!

Washington Nationals games exactly
a year apart...what a coincidence!

Getting to see my grandparents in Antwerp! I'm so happy I was able to meet them on one of their cruise stops. We had a delicious lunch and, of course, played a card game. 


Spending a weekend in Amsterdam with Susan! Here we are dressed up as Dutch cheese farmers...



Visiting Berlin and especially going to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. After studying the Holocaust and reading so many books and memoirs about it, I'm so thankful I got to see a concentration camp. It just makes everything you read much more real and vivid (I hope that made sense). 


Everything about Paris! My three days there were so much fun and way too short. I definitely want to go back!


And of course all the time I've spent with my host family here. My host parents couldn't have been more welcoming or warm towards me and I'm so happy I'll be with them for another eight months. The boys are so sweet (well most of the time haha) and I have so much fun when I'm taking care of them. 

That's it for my look back...looking forward to what 2014 has in store! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!



Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Milan

I'm finally caught up on my blog writing...yay!!! A couple months ago there were really cheap tickets from Amsterdam to Milan so I just decided to book them and go for a weekend. One of my favorite things was definitely the food. I ate so much on Saturday and none of it good for you haha. Unfortunately I wasn't feeling well on Sunday and didn't have much of an appetite but Saturday more than made up for it. I had a delicious thing that I can't remember the name of but it was like a fat cannoli but crispier and I also, of course, had a cannoli. For lunch I went to a place called Panzerotti Luini which is a really popular lunch place (the line stretched down half the block!) and they have things called panzerottis which is like a fried calzone. I had the classic tomato and mozzarella and it was so so good. From the same place I also got a pastry filled with chocolate and pears. If you're in Italy it's a give in that you have to get gelato, even if the temperature is only slightly above freezing. But even with the cold, the gelato was delicious. To end the night I had pizza with grilled vegetables which, as you guessed, was delicious. So now that I've made myself hungry to go back I'll move on to the sites I saw...
The Cathedral (Duomo) was absolutely stunning. Construction started at the end of the 14th century and never really finished until the 20th century. In addition to going inside the cathedral, I went up to the roof.

View from the top


I went to see The Last Supper which is at Santa Maria della Grazie. During WWII much of the church was damaged from bombs but the wall the painting is on luckily wasn't damaged. The painting had started to deteriorate only decades after da Vinci  painted it, so it's gone through many restorations. It was really neat to see it in person and see it's actual size (which is really big!).
I walked down Via Monte Napoleone which is where all the expensive designer shops are located. They all have interesting window displays and most of them are decorated for Christmas. That was fun to see!


I went to the museum at La Scala Opera which had a lot of props and mementos from performances there and a large exhibit on Verdi. Many of his operas premiered there. It does not look that impressive from the outside but the inside of the theater was gorgeous. You can't take pictures in there so here's a picture of it. 
Castello Sforzesco is a castle that was built in the 15th century and a few centuries later was enlarged and became one of the largest citadels in Europe. Here is an aerial picture of the castle so you can get an idea of how big it actually is. It now houses 14 different museums, archives, and libraries. I went into a few of the museums and really liked the musical instrument museum. It has a large collection of antique instruments including a harp guitar which I had never heard of before. It's basically a guitar with a miniature harp attached. There's a large park behind the castle and at the end of it is the Porta Sempione which is an old city gate. 
Part of the castle

Porta Sempione




Paris!

My three days in Paris were so much fun! There's so much to do there and as soon as I left I wanted to go back. It was also so much fun to spend the weekend with Rocio and Ana...looking forward to when I can visit them in Spain :) 


Notre Dame at night. So pretty inside! 
Sacre Coeur Basilica. You can't take pictures inside
 but here's a picture of the beautiful altar.

Arc de Triomphe

Moulin Rouge! We had to go see the iconic red windmill,
especially since we love the movie

Versailles was absolutely stunning. It was so gorgeous inside and definitely lives up to the hype. 

The 3 of us in the Hall of Mirrors
One of the many rooms
The gardens of the castle


We went to the Eiffel Tower twice so that we could see it lit up at night and climb it in the day. It was really pretty lit up at night and the view from the Eiffel Tower was awesome, even if it was a lot of steps to go up!





We went to the Army Museum which was really big and had so much information. The chapel at the museum is where Napoleon's tomb is so that was cool to see.

Napoleon's tomb
Army Museum
A trip to Paris would not be complete without a visit to the Louvre. It's enormous and I'm pretty sure you could spend an entire year in there and still not see everything... We just went to the things we really wanted to see which of course included the Mona Lisa. It was smaller than I thought it would be and really crowded in the room. But it was still so neat to see it in person!

At the Louvre

The last stop of my trip was to the Pantheon. It was really pretty inside and is where many well-known Frenchman are buried including Victor Huge, Marie and Pierre Curie, Rousseau, and Voltaire.
 


Sunday, December 1, 2013

Berlin

I'm a bit behind on my blog writing so I'm playing a bit of catch-up. I went to Berlin 2 weeks ago with my friend Melissa and it was so fun! We packed in so much into just two days. We started off our trip with a 3 hour free tour of Berlin which was excellent. Sandemans has free tours in a bunch of cities in Europe so if you're in one of them you should definitely check it out. On the tour we saw the Brandenburg Gate, the French and German Cathedrals, where Hitler's bunker was, a book burning memorial, Checkpoint Charlie, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and some other places. We also learned about "ampleman." It's the name of the cross walk signal that was used in East Berlin which looks different than the normal crosswalk signal used in West Berlin. So you can use the cross signals to figur out which part of Berlin you're in.
The Memorial to the Murdered Jew is a
collection of concrete slabs of various sizes.
It doesn't really have a single "meaning" so
some people don't like it because it's
rather abstract. 
These cars were prevalent in East Berlin and now
you can rent them to drive around the city
and they have some displayed throughout the city.


Ampleman is on the right and the West Berlin
signal on the left. 
These bears are all around the city decorated
with a different theme. This one is inside
 the American embassy.

Then we went into the Berlin Cathedral which was gorgeous inside. We went to the top as well and had a pretty good view of the city. But there are so many cranes in the city!
See what I mean about all the cranes?!?


At the top of the cathedral


We went back to the Brandenburg Gate to see it lit up at night which was really pretty.


Then we went back to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and went into the museum they have. They have one room where they play a short biography of a murdered Jew (about one minute audio in German and then in English). It will be almost 7 years before they have to repeat a person. We went to the museum by Checkpoint Charlie which had so much information. They had a lot of displays on how people got from East Berlin to West. They hid in gas tanks in cars, suitcases, used a flying machine, and other innovative tactics. Then we went to the East Side Gallery. It's a 1.3 kilometer section of the Berlin Wall that was turned into an outdoor mural shortly after reunification. There's over 100 paintings on it but sadly many of them have been defaced by graffiti.

From the East Side Gallery


On Sunday we went to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp which is about 1 hour away from Berlin. It was mainly used to imprison political prisoners but was also used to keep Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, prisoners of war, Roma, and homosexuals. The camp was also the site of a mass counterfeiting operation as part of a plan to ruin the American and British economies. Over one billion fake British pounds were recovered from the operation. Most of the buildings from the camp are no longer standing but they have them marked out on the ground with stones so you get an idea of the layout. One of the barracks they still have is the Jewish prisoners barracks. After reading so many books with descriptions of the cramped quarters and unsanitary living conditions it was hard to actually see it in person. The bunks that looked like they should be enough space for one person, actually had 2-3 people sleeping on them. The latrines were too small for that number of people and no real showers. Even though it was a sad experience, I feel like it was something I had to see after studying the Holocaust so much. If you want to read more about the concentration camp you can go here.
Memorial to the Death March

Entrance to the camp


Then it was off to someplace a bit cheerier: Charlottenburg Palace. It was built in the end of the 17th century for Sophie Charlotte, the wife of the first King of Prussia. Although the palace sustained damages in WWI from bombs so much of it has had to be reconstructed. All of the rooms were very impressive. One room, called the Porcelain Cabinet, was built to hold Sophie Charlotte's large collection of porcelain (although it wasn't completed until after her death). We couldn't take pictures inside but you can see pictures from the interior here. The gardens out back were huge and also very impressive.
Front of the palace
Back of the palace. Postcard-worthy photo courtesy of Melissa :)

Part of the gardens


About half of these photos are from Melissa so thanks for letting me use them! It was so much fun to go to Berlin with you!