The Nicest time

For the second travel week, I signed up for a DIScovery trip to Southern France and it was 100% the best decision I’ve made. Before leaving, I was hitting the point in the semester where I was feeling homesick and getting stressed about classes and travel planning and internship applications (the list goes on). Let me tell you, there is no better (or Nicer) cure to mid-semester blues than a trip to Nice.

The whole trip was planned and it was amazing to take a break and not stress about having to figure out activities and transportation. They booked our week so every day was full of wine tastings, beautiful views, amazing feasts and a ton of hands-on learning about food and wine. I can’t do this post without a huge shoutout and thank you to our trip leader, Russ (the same Russ that leads my wine club). He is actually the best.

Pictures don’t really do it justice but here are some glimpses into the best parts of the trip:

Food

The theme of the trip was “culinary exploration,” so I came in with pretty high expectations for the week. The trip completely exceeded those. I am pretty sure I had a food baby for 5 straight days and I have not one complaint. We had some pretty extravagant dinners, and I tried a lot of foods that I wouldn’t typically order (such as raw seafood). Although I didn’t love every single thing I tried (re: raw seafood), I was excited to get the opportunity to try new things and step out of my comfort zone.

White pizza with black truffles & seafood spaghetti. Both were INCREDIBLE.

Me and my dinner. This was not a family style dish.

Yes, I tried all of these.

Chloe eats a raw oyster and hates it.

Mussels and french fries were served after the raw seafood, thankfully.

Cinnamon and speculoos gelato (not the only cone I ate that day)

60+ gelato flavors to pick from

Wine Tastings

A trip to Southern France would not be complete without wine. The region is known mostly for their rosé wines, but we got to try a good variety of red and whites as well. We visited three vineyards, where we were given tours and tastings. It was great to build on what I had learned in wine club and actually get to see how the wine gets made.

More tastings

In addition to wine tastings, we also got to do a cheese tasting and an olive oil tasting, two things I had no idea even existed before this week. For the cheese tasting, we were given several varieties of cheese and 4 glasses of wine. We tried each cheese with each wine and it was really crazy to see how differently I felt about the cheeses and wines based on the different pairings. For the olive oil tasting, we tried eight different kinds of olive oil. They would come around and put a small drop of each oil on your tasting spoon and tell us a bit about how its made and what recipes you could make with it. I had no idea that olive oil could be so nuanced, but ended up loving the lemon, garlic and truffle varieties.

Cheese tasting in Nice

Picnics with a view

We spent the first part of the trip in Fayence and my favorite part was the picnic. We had a “market challenge” where we broke into groups and each group focused on a different part of the picnic like breads, cheeses, spreads & tapenades, etc. We were given cash to spend on our part of the picnic and we reconvened as a group around lunchtime. Russ picked a spectacular location for a picnic. It involved a lot of walking, but we had incredible views and so much food. Russ also got six different kinds of rosé wine, so we did a tasting of our own.

French cooking class

One of the coolest activities was the French cooking class. We got to help French chefs make a three-course lunch, and every course involved something with flower petals. We had a cold tomato soup with rose petals, violet-stuffed duck breasts and a rose tiramisu.

Nice times with nice people

We also had some time to explore and see Nice, which is a beautiful city. I went on the trip with my friend Kelli, but we left with some nice new friends, too (pun intended).

Quality, not quantity

I keep thinking my semester can’t get any busier, but somehow it does. My schedule has been jam-packed these days with mid-terms, homework, LLC events and internship applications. I’ve started doing freelance graphic design work and illustrations for the DIS marketing department, and that’s been a fun and exciting addition to my schedule. And, I’ve been doing some of my first planning for independent travel — which is a lot harder than I expected.

This upcoming week is travel week #2 at DIS. I had my study tour during the last break, so this time I have my independent week. After class today, I’m headed to Copenhagen Central Station to catch a train to Stockholm. I’ll have a few days there with my friends before I leave for the DIScovery trip to Nice, France for the rest of the week.

This is my first ever time planning a trip on my own and it is more difficult than I expected. We spent a few hours yesterday researching what we want to do, and we came up with some pretty good plans, but it’s definitely tricky to find a balance between seeing the tourist highlights of a city and saving money. Northern Europe definitely has steeper prices, and adding up the prices for the train, AirBNB, food and activities made me slightly anxious.

I’ve heard a lot of advice on how to save money while traveling, but my main tip for anyone planning independent travel while abroad is this: don’t over travel.

My mindset is that I have the rest of my life to travel, but I’m only going to be living in Copenhagen once. I know that after this semester, I’ll have to worry about vacation days and deal with more expensive transatlantic airfare, but the places will be still be there. I’d rather make the most of living in Denmark, meeting Danes and experiencing this culture, instead of paying a lot of money to try to cram a whole city into two short days.

And, at the end of the day, you have to do what works for you. It can be hard not to compare yourself to what everyone else is doing when you check Facebook and see your friends’ adventures all over Europe. But at least for me, I think that when I look back at my semester abroad, I’ll be glad I thought about quality, not quantity of trips.

I’ll report back soon about how my first independent trip goes. While it’s been a little stressful leading up to today, planning has overall been pretty fun. And it makes me really appreciate the hour-by-hour itinerary that we just received for Nice (and not just because most of those hours are going to be spent at wine and cheese tastings).