Picture of the Day: Berlin

Woooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Goodbye June! Hello, Joo-Lie!!!!

Amber and Audra at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, listening to the awesome audio guides, and very excited that I am taking their picture, of course!

Picture of the Day: Geneva

Geneva, Switzerland -- November, 2011

 As I may have mentioned before, Rasmus really likes documentaries. However, I don't much like watching depressing things, especially when they are true, so he generally invites me to watch only the lighter ones now, and occasionally even seeks out such documentaries just for me.

One of these was Exit through the Gift Shop. It was supposed to be a documentary about Banksy -- the mysterious British street artist, but actually ended up being about the rather crazy guy who was doing all of the filming.

Anyway, in the film, you meet several other street artists, including the Monsieur A, or Andre, who is known for his stick figure smiley face with an x for one of the eyes (and usually a top hat). And we were very excited to see one of his 'masterpieces' on a wall in Geneva!

Picture of the Day: Bergen

Bergen, Norway -- October, 2010

What a charming lamp post! I know!!! Almost feels like you might see Mr. Tumnus strolling around. Except for the big house in the background.....and the total lack of snow.

Interesting fact, in Norway, a very common saying it that it is "always raining in Bergen." And from what I've heard, it is pretty true most of the time. Of course, while we were there first semester, it fluctuated between a light drizzle to the occasional heavy rain, but we were only there for a couple of days.....it could have just been bad luck.

Two of my classmates stayed there for a month last November to complete their internship. It rained the whole month.

And this past week, our program administrator told me she lived there for three years, and when she moved to Oslo, she was pleasantly surprised to find that her feet could stay warm and dry for significant amounts of time. While she lived in Bergen, by the time her feet properly dried, she would have to head out again!

So if you every chance upon Bergen, be sure to bring an umbrella....and waterproof shoes!

Picture of the Day: Oxford

This is the nice little path along the river that I came across in Oxford. I liked the boats :)

Picture of the Day: St. Petersburg

YAY 'Like'-ing our time in St. Petersburg!

Picture of the Day: Tallinn

 

This was outside a hotel between our apartment and school, so we walked by it often. And thought it was cute :p (the Danish and American flags are next to each other! Yay!) I found it very important to always walk between them. 

Picture of the Day: Helsinki

I have no idea what this tower is, but I liked the ominous shadow it was casting on us. And it reminded me of Super Mario (specifically the SNES one with all of the Yoshis).

Picture of the Day: Tallinn

The very messy living room set for the Man About the House episode I participated in. The final for a class at the film school in Tallinn consisted of putting on this one episode production. They built the whole set in like a day. I was very impressed. They were very tired.

Picture of the Day: Copenhagen

Wonderful Whislers in Wonderful Copenhagen!

Picture of the Day: St. Hanshaugen, Oslo

Oslo, Norway -- September, 2010

The view from the thirteenth floor fire escape of my old dorm building, St. Hanshaugen. Where Rasmus and I once huddled under blankets and gazed up at the stars. Where he handed me a small flower and asked if I would go out with him. Where, with the sky brilliant blue and the sun shimmering off the sea, he knelt and asked to marry me.

The most wonderful place in Oslo.

Picture of the Day: Florence

*Sigh* The slow, beautiful sunset over Florence. I would run up to this viewing point in the morning to see the sunrise, which was wonderful because it was quiet and empty. But while at sunset there were always throngs of people, it was also a quite superior sight.

Picture of the Day: Geneva

Isn't that clever and absolutely adorable? It's a clock, made out of flowers!!! I love how the numbers are scattered about. If you look to the left, you can even see part of the poor, lonely number eight hanging out all alone in the grass.

Picture of the Day: Paris

He's there....the Phantom of the Opera!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Picture of the Day: Florence

Happy Father's Day!!!!!!!!!!

Nip and Beaver, enjoying the movies

Rasmus and I have been rather spoiling ourselves with movies this semester. We went to far more movies in Tallinn last year, of course -- but then, we could get tickets for any movie (nights and 3D included) for about $5, so we went to random movies just for the experience (including one memorable day when we went to see Yogi Bear in 3D the afternoon, and followed it with The Rite).

But here in Oslo, movies are far from cheap. More than double what we would pay in Nebraska, plus, we had to buy our own 3D glasses, to boot. However, the experience is just so worth it, especially when it is a movie we really want to see. While paying for our own glasses annoyed me at first, I was very pleasantly surprised at how comfortable they were. It was so easy to forget they were there (the one's in Tallinn tended towards slightly uncomfortable).

There were just sooo many good movies coming out these last few months, how could we resist? From Cabin in the Woods to MIB3 to The Avengers to Prometheus! Definitely movies worth seeing on the big screen, in nice, comfortable seats! They even have two-seater couches in the back. And something really cool about movie theaters in Europe (at least in the countries where I've attended the movies) is that you get to pick out your seats when you buy your tickets. That means there is no worry about arriving extremely early and saving seats -- you know exactly where you will sit, and you can stroll in when the movie starts.

The movies we've gone to had a lot of commercials instead of movie trailers, which was more of a let down than an annoyance -- because I like seeing 5-6 movie trailers instead of 2. But the commercials can be a lot of fun......mostly, I think, because I don't understand most of what they are saying....to me they are just people acting silly :p Or this one, which made me smile :-)



Except, it ended with "Red Bull giver viiiiiinger!" hehe

Anyway, I digressed a bit there. Basically, movie theater = Wooooo!!!!! And while we may be spending more than usual on them, I justify it by reminding myself we went to no movies at all in Italy (we lived right next to a movie theater, but, unfortunately in Italy, they dub their movies into Italian, whereas in norther Europe, everything but some kids' movies just add subtitles -- which is only a problem during the occasional scene when the bad guys start speaking, say, Russian :p).

Picture of the Day: St. Petersburg

We noticed these guys on one of the buildings near the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg......or girls......rather masculine girls? rather feminine guys? we'll never know :p

Picture of the Day: Cinque Terre

Cinque Terre, Italy -- September, 2011

Ooo, the towns of Cinque Terre were incredibly adorable! With their narrow, meandering streets and colorful buildings. But which way to go??

Picture of the Day: Paris

Paris, France -- July, 2011

Picture of the Day: Tallinn

Tallinn, Estonia -- Spring, 2011

:-) The street we lived on in Tallinn. And it almost looks warm.....but it probably wasn't :p

Picture of the Day: Bergen

Bergen, Norway -- October, 2010

Signposts aren't particularly helpful if you don't know what any of the places are.......luckily when we were hiking outside of Bergen, we didn't much care where we went -- wander wander wander!

Picture of the Day: 21

Tallinn, Estonia -- June, 2011

4:30 sunrise over Tallinn's harbor

Picture of the Day: Helsinki

Helsinki, Finland -- May, 2011

Enjoying sunny, warm Helsinki before we go run our half-marathon. :)

Picture of the Day: St. Petersburg

St. Petersburg, Russia -- May, 2011

And you thought Russia was finished! Well, here, again is St. Isaac's -- the largest Russian Orthodox cathedral in St. Petersburg - from our canal trip. It was one of the few really splendid sites we were able to see from the boat.

Picture of the Day: Riga

Riga, Latvia -- May, 2011

So, Rasmus and I spent a grand total of about 40 minutes in Riga. I suppose that's not including the layovers in the airport....but this was on our 'layover' on our bus trip to Russia. So, we didn't really see much more than the train station. But while we were entering the city, we saw this guy. Don't ask me what he is -- a tv tower or something? But he looked like a mini-Eiffel, so I too a picture.

Picture of the Day: Oxford

Oxford, England -- August, 2010

When I arrived in Oxford, I found a nice little trail along the river and ambled down it.

Picture of the Day: Oslo

Oslo, Norway -- Fall, 2010

The view of Oslo harbor from the Aker Fortress -- a fantastic place to sit and watch the sunset over the city.

Picture of the Day: Berlin

Berlin, Germany -- July, 2011

While we were in Berlin, the Pergamon Museum had an exhibit for artifacts from Tell Halaf. These artifacts were excavated in the early 20th century by German Max van Oppenheim, who discovered the Tell Halaf site in Syria. He brought many of them back to Berlin and created a museum. Unfortunately, this museum was in a wooden building, and when Berlin was bombed during WWII, the building burst into intensely hot flames, shattering the statues into tiny pieces.

All of the pieces that could be salvaged were kept for half a century, until, in 2002, they began the process of attempting to piece them together again. In the exhibit, they had a picture of the massive warehouse filled with all of these fragments. And somehow, they managed to reconstruct large portions of many of the statues, like the guy above. I thought it was a really awesome story  -- and a pretty cool exhibit (and yay for audioguides!).

Picture of the Day: Vienna

Vienna, Austria -- October, 2011

On our way back to Parma from my second conference in two weeks (and, incidentally, second conference ever), which was in Vienna. I, of course, was all about taking the night train! Really, is there anything better. Also, my pop addiction was pretty out of control at the time....I think my classmates rarely saw me without a bottle in my hand...hehe.

Coincidentally, I just had my first Coke Zero* of the year this morning. I decided to lift my ban on buying pop, as long as I use the powers of caffeine for the ultimate good: working on my thesis! It's pretty amazing how much more focused and awake I feel after an ice cold Coke Zero. Woo!

Geneva, Switzerland -- Novermber, 2011

I really loved  this gazebo. Doesn't just look awesome?? When I saw it, I realized I needed to have one in my future backyard. I was slightly disappointed to discover, however, that those aren't actual trees, it's just sculpted to look like trees. It's still pretty cool, I guess, but my future gazebo will be the real thing :p

Picture of the Day: Munich

Munich, Germany -- July, 2011

Yay! The Whisler Sisters in Munich. And you can see my arm in Amber's sunglasses. Awesome story: I didn't bring any sunglasses myself, so I bought mine for 1 euro at H&M in Munich, because it started getting way to bright to live without them. I also had to get a new purse because the strap on my Estonian one broke. RUDE!

Picture of the Day: Tallinn

Tallinn, Estonia -- spring, 2011

Isn't this an awesome building? It went up very close to our apartment while we were living in Tallinn last spring. Tallinn was a Cultural Capital of Europe for the year, so there were all kinds of events and such going on all year, and I think that is why this was built -- for plays, etc.