"Sweet! I'm going to Sweden for the weekend!"

... well actually, I already went.  But those were my thoughts as we spontaneously planned out this trip with the frequent flyer miles.  What an AMAZING weekend!  

It was really neat to see a part of the world (Scandinavia) that I’ve never been to before, to test my independence by safely traveling alone, to meet new people, and to experience and learn a bit about a part of my heritage. 

It was neat to spend time in Germany last January with choir and get a little taste of that part of my history, then this weekend I got to see some of the Scandinavian part.  Certainly I am an American with American cultural background and understanding, but the more I’ve traveled and spoken with people from different cultures this semester, the more I realize how much our history does make us who we are today.  I feel like I’ve picked up little things from each culture, which I hope to incorporate into my ideologies and understandings of the world.  

My first afternoon, I arrived happily at the airport and immediately noticed how many blonde people there were haha.  I made my way thought the narrow cobble-stoned streets and then along the water until I found my hostel in Gamla Stan (Old Town).  It was nice seeing the beautiful skyline from various points in the city, the shimmering water at sunset, and to get a little sense of the character of Stockholm. 

I explored the park around the incredibly impressive City Hall, walked around the Royal Palace’s grounds, and heard a man playing beautiful guitar music in from of one of the bridges just as the sun gently set behind the boats on the water.  It was quite magical, really.  

They had a neat exhibit describing the various origins of holiday traditions, where it was fun to see many of the things we do at Anderson family Christmas time!  

Then I went to the Vasa Museet, where they have a huge ship that sunk in the 1600s and was only brought up in the 1960s to be restored.  Quite impressive!  They had great exhibits describing everyday life during the time, information about the shipmates, osteology research, King Gustaf, and the diving and restoration process. 

I had quite the adventure trying to use my 5 maps to find the Nobel Museum.  As I was just about to give up after walking on the same 5 streets for a ½ hour with no success, I heard a little band playing with an elderly gentleman singing “What a Wonderful World” in Swedish.  I decided to stop and listen and halfway through the song realized that the band was set up right in front of the steps of the museum!  When I heard them singing the song in English while I was buying my ticket, I decided I needed to capture that beautiful moment! 

The museum displayed some of the more significant (well of course they’re ALL significant) prizes and reactions to them throughout history.  I never realized how controversial the Nobel Prizes have been at times.  They also had an exhibit on current combinations between medicine and design/art.  Very cool!

I took the train to Uppsala and met Gustaf, the son of Susan’s host family when she stayed there not long ago.  It was absolutely amazing to meet him and his friends for dinner and lots of good conversation.  In the morning, he gave me a nice little walking tour of the city. 

When I got back to Stockholm, I went to the National Museum, which had beautiful classical art, an exhibit on clocks and the interpretation and understanding of time throughout history, and a cool exhibit with tons of work by Toulouse-Lautrec. 

Saturday was definitely an exciting art history day for me, which helped me study a bit for my upcoming exam!  From Watteau, Boucher, Chardin, Degas, etc at the National Museum, I went to Juan Gris, Braque, DuChamp, Miro, and Ernst at the Modern Museet.  It was fantastic! They had a huge extensive exhibit on Andy Warhol at the Modern Museet as well, which was pretty interesting because I didn’t really know much about his life or much of his lesser-known artwork. 

I enjoyed my last afternoon in Sweden walking around during the beautiful sunset and savoring my last few hours.  I just did not want to leave!  What an amazing weekend! 

Sweden!

Saturday in Switzerland!

Saturday, had our last excursion with the whole group :( to Geneva and it was such an amazing day :)  I experienced another really early morning with the beautiful sunrise over the mountains in time to catch the first tram of the day.

We had a great tour guide (who reminded us of “Franc” from Father of the Bride haha) at the United Nations.  It was really cool to actually be there, seeing where the diplomats meet and discuss some of the most important issues affecting our world.  

One thing he said that really struck me was, “It’s better for them to have conflicts today in there [pointing to the conference room] than on a battlefield years tomorrow. 

We saw an amazing peacock in the garden doing a fun little dance for us on our way out! 

Then we went to the Red Cross Museum, which was also neat.  It was, as you could imagine, quite depressing to see all the photographs/movies and read the stories of suffering people throughout history whom to the Red Cross has helped.  

After that, we spent the afternoon lounging around the beautiful parks along the lake, baking in the sun, enjoying our freshly bought Swiss chocolate, and watching all the happy children run and play. 

We walked a bit through the ritzy watch, clothing, and food stores just to see what it’s all about in Geneva, but that’s not really my scene.  Overall it was a fabulous day! 

Geneva

News from Normandy

Hello all!  I have just returned from my whirlwind nine-day tour of Normandy, Brtittany, and the Loire Valley.  It was absolutely fabulous, and I will try to write a bit about each day with pictures. 

Our first morning, I spent three hours between trains wandering around Paris because it was such a beautiful day.  I had a lovely time seeing all the sights, but my body punished me for being over-ambitious and so I spend the whole week with blisters on my feet.  Oh well, it all worked out! 

We traveled around Caen and Mondeville, saw some beautiful churches, and the Chateau of William the Conqueror.  We decided that St. John’s should be called the Leaning Tower of Normandy! 

We took the train to Bayeux in the morning and did a taxi-tour service of the D-Day beaches, which worked out really well. It was kind of depressing driving through some of the little towns and hearing our tour guide talk about how all the small businesses and country way of life are dying out. 

I’m glad I got to see that again because I understood it better and got a chance to see the new museum at the American Cemetery, which was very informative and well put together.  We walked through the cemetery and memorial, drove to see the huge bombed out craters above the cliffs and went to Omaha Beach itself.  Seeing such a destroyed area was pretty tough stuff, it made me realize how very blessed I have been in my life. 

After our tour of the beaches, we went back to Bayeux itself and visited the Cathedral, which was absolutely gorgeous.  It was so filled with beautiful light, which I find much more uplifting than the scary dark old cathedrals.  It was also quite huge and impressive for such a small town. 

We finally saw the Bayeux Tapestry!  It was so awesome to finally see it, after having studied it for years in history, French, psychology (changes in language), and even science (Haley’s Comet!).  They had nice audioguides that explained it all panel by panel, a museum, and a video.  It is so interesting to me to think of how our sense of history can be so influenced by what artifacts and stories we have.  What a great day! 

Nomandy

Un peu plus de Paris

Friday afternoon in Paris we walked through Place Vendome, a very fancy area with elegant buildings, designer shops, expensive jewelry, the Ritz, etc. There is a huge Napoleon statue in the center. We walked through the Tuilerie Gardens a bit and got our first view of the Eiffel Tower for the trip ☺


We saw Place de la Concorde, built between 1757 and 1777 as a monument to Louis X. It served as the lovely slaughtering sight during the Reign of Terror. Termed “Place de la Revolution” during those years, the guillotine there severed 1,343 aristocratic heads. Ewwww! It was later renamed “Concorde,” which means harmony/peace, so as not to have any negative aristocratic, religious, or political ties.


The Obélisque de Luxor was given as a gift to Charles X by the Viceroy of Egypt. It is from the 13th century BC, so it is Paris’ oldest monument.


My friend Dee and I went to the Orangerie, a museum of some of the most beautiful and calming rooms I have ever seen. There are two huge oval shaped rooms with four of Monet's "Nymphéas" (water lilies) surround the walls in each room. I was so awestruck by the beauty of it all, I just loved it. I would love to have those paintings on the walls in my bedroom. What a calming scene to wake up to every morning! I took lots of pictures, but they just cannot do it justice. The basement of the museum had some of my favorite Renoir's, Cezanne's, Picasso's, etc. What a great find! I would highly recommend going to the Orangerie if you ever can.


We all went to the Louvre for the free student night (Fridays) and it was of course fabulous. It's so huge, I could never even begin to see everything in the three hours we were there. I went through the Greek and Roman god/goddess sculptures, which always capture and amaze me. I bumped into my friend Christine and we went through all the French paintings together, studying for our art history class as we went along. We saw paintings by Fragonard, Watteau, Boucher, Chardin, Corot, Corbet, Daumier, etc and it was just really neat seeing them all in person. We of course saw the "Venus de Milo," "Winged Victory," and "Mona Lisa."


Saturday morning, we did a big tour of Montmartre with Miranda, starting at the Moulin Rouge. Then we walked up through the cute little streets, passing by the homes of many artists, writers, philosophers, etc. It was a little cloudy and gray outside, but still quite enjoyable. There were many adorable cafes, parks, and gardens, including the Moulin de la Galette, where the famous Renoir painting took place :) Yay! That made me really happy to see that because it’s one of my favorite paintings.


We saw the café where Edith Piaf sang her last notes, the famous Lapin Agile, and the apartment where Marcel Aymé, author of “Le Passe-Muraille” lived. This is a famous short story about a man who could walk through walls and his adventures with that power. I did an analysis of it at Carthage last spring in my literature class, so that was really fun to see the statue and Aymé’s home.


As the morning went on, the clouds started clearing up and it became a beautiful warm sunny day just as we got to the top of the hill to see the amazing Sacre Coeur. Its white stone was so beautiful in contrast with the bright green spring grass and lovely blue sky. We learned that in WWII, the bombs dropped all over Montmartre, but just missed Sacre Coeur and the church right next to it. It’s only a normal little street between the two churches, so the bombs missed destroying them by just a few feet. The inside was very beautiful and peaceful. Hearing the choir’s voices rise up into the dome was extremely calming and really made me miss singing at Carthage.


We decided to climb up into the dome afterward, which was really fun and a great view. There were obviously a lot of steps, so it was quite a workout, but well worth it.


After lunch, we walked through the scenic Luxembourg Gardens, which houses the Palais de Luxembourg where the Senate meets. There are many beautiful fountains, statues of famous figures, and pools/ponds. There were children playing on playgrounds, basketball courts, ponies, carousels, older men playing petangue, and it was overall quite lovely. Right near some beautiful blooming cherry trees, there is a small version of the Statue of Liberty that was used as the model for the creation of our Lady Liberty. It made me a little nostalgic for America with the combination of the Statue of Liberty and the cherry blossoms, which always remind me of Washington, D.C. in springtime.


We headed over to the Champs Elysée to see the Arc de Triomphe. We paid to go up to the top, which was so great! It was pretty cloudy, but still marvelous to be able to see the whole city like that. The architecture is so amazing in itself and the statues on the sides are really interesting.


We took a boat tour along the Seine for our last night in Paris. It was an absolutely magical and perfect evening for me. It was so fun to be with everyone and see some of the must awe-inspiring views I have ever seen. The Eiffel Tower at night just blows me away every time.


Sunday was quite a rainy dreary day, but still great and filled with the energy of the city. We did a tour of the Latin Quarter, seeing the Sorbonne, several churches, a museum of the Middle Ages, cute cafés and bookstores, and of course Notre Dame. 

Walking into such a calming and remarkable environment during Sunday morning Mass was so peaceful after coming in from the rain outside. With all the music and candles, it felt like a safe haven from the yucky weather outside.



After lunch with the girls, I decided to be independent and enjoy my last few hours of Paris on my own for the afternoon. I got absolutely soaking wet wandering around little streets, but had a goofy smile plastered across my face the whole time. I just really enjoyed my weekend in Paris and did not want to miss one minute of it. I walked past the Hotel de Ville (City Hall), the back of Notre Dame, Saint Chapelle, the Palais de Justice, Hotel Dieu, and Centre Pompidou. I also saw the Pantheon, were Voltaire, Rousseau, Pierre and Marie Curie, Braille, Hugo, Zola, and many more famous French figures are buried. It also houses Foucault’s Pendulem, while proves the rotation of the earth, a very important historical discovery!

It was a lovely afternoon and I was sad to leave. Just as we walked up to the train station, the sun came out and so the train ride home was very beautiful. Paris, je t’aime!


So in case you're still reading this and you actually want to see MORE photos, click below!

Paris

Sunday Afternoon at the Château de Vizille

Sunday morning I had a leisurely breakfast with my host family and then headed off to the Château de Vizille about 30 minutes outside of Grenoble. Miranda gave us a bit of a tour but mostly let us explore the museum, the castle itself, and the beautiful grounds on our own.


The chateau was built between 1600 and 1619 by François de Bonne, Duc de Lesdiguières. This is apparently very quick for a whole castle to be built and so there is some type of legend about the Duke selling his soul to the devil to get it done in time. This wooden sculpture depicts some type of horse race with the devil.


On July 21, 1788, the Assembly from the Dauphiné region (around Grenoble) met in the castle's royal tennis court haha. In defiance of royal authority, they demanded a meeting of the States General, another key event in the build-up to the French Revolution.



It was and official residence for the President of France from 1924-1972.


So now they've turned a large part of the chateau into the Museum of the French Revolution. There are dozens and dozens of paintings depicting various political scenes, family portraits of royal and revolutionary individuals, and of course ornate furniture and decorations from the period. None of the paintings are incredibly famous or anything, so it was actually really interesting to see many of the same scenes from famous paintings by a different angle, with a slightly different perspective.


[This is me being a "Good Anderson Birder" and taking pictures of the ducks because maybe they're special European ducks] :)

After going through the museum, we walked around the gardens for a few hours. It was really beautiful and peaceful.


They have deer, goats, sheep, swans, peackocks, geese, and other animals.



[For those of you Fox Valley readers out there] Parts of it kind of reminded me of 1000 Islands in the springtime!


To view the rest of my photos, click below:

Chateau de Vizille