Tartine Manufactory

As my lovely foodie friend Serena drove an extra hour than she needed to to come spend some time with me (*cry* I know my friends are all so sweet), she encouraged me to bring my camera (that I hadn't touch for a while due to pharmacy school finals wah) out with us as we went to grab some food and catch up at Tartine Manufactory in San Francisco. Serena is one of those friends that literally fills you with life and genuine encouragement just with her stories and thoughtful sentences. One of those that you laugh with something stupid about one second and then dive into something crazy deep the next. Good food, amazing company, and a super aesthetic environment. Couldn't have made for a better day. (: 

Let's start with the food! We walked and we both were happily greeted multiple  servers who were extremely helpful in making out food choices. As I searched through the menu, I was slightly embarrassed to not have known what half those listed ingredients were. Thank goodness I had my walking food dictionary (aka Serena) next to me translating for me and teaching me how to pronounce things accurately. With Serena's help, we picked a few amazing dishes:

1)  Cauliflower tartine, ricotta, green apple, treviso

2) Nantes carrots, persimmon, yogurt, fenugreek, sesame, dill

3) Opera cake

4) Blood orange sorbet & cardamom ice cream swirl (you can order them separately, but the mix was highly recommended by the server so we trusted him and boy were we glad we did)

5) Iced oolong tea

These foods were PACKED with flavor and the textures and colors just balanced so beautifully. I would highly recommend all the above dishes. I even told her I wasn't hungry and that I would only take a small bite to try the taste of it, but oh man it was so tasty I couldn't stop myself hahaha. The tea was so delicious, it was strongly truly oolong, just the way I like it. If you don't want to come for a full meal, it is totally okay to just come for coffee or pastries during the day time as well!

Shot on iPhone 7s - Just had to show you all the amazing blood orange sorbet & cardamom ice cream swirl

hello strangers happily munching away lol

Serena and I stayed there and talked until the beautiful sunlight floating in gradually faded as the sun set behind us. We used to meet up every week to just chat about life but now we are further apart (sad face) and don't get the weekly time anymore, we can chat for hours! Don't you love talks like those? Chatting about pharmacy school made me realize I wanted to be more proactive with making more time for taking photos and blogging and traveling! I decided I wanted to continue with learning and practicing with illustrator/photoshop, blog more, travel more, and explore my own city (I live in San Francisco goodness sakes) more! I want to take advantage of my surroundings and live more in the moment. No more sitting at home studying (jk of course I have to study), but I need to be intentional about making time to visit all the places I want to visit and spend more time taking advantage of the amazingly diverse city that I live in! I would love to hear any suggestions on places and recommendations on places to go in SF (comment or feel free to email me)!  

Thanks for letting me share my day with you! Make sure to enter your email in on the side to receive email updates for when I post!

Copenhagen

In all honesty, we initially thought to buy tickets into Copenhagen because they one of the the cheapest deals flying into Europe at the time, but we ended up falling in love with the city far more than we ever expected. Copenhagen became the favorite city of our Europe trip. Who knew! We giggled as the train conductor's voice played over us in Danish and found that we had a weird fascination with the beauty of the language. We were also extremely sleep deprived and tired so maybe that's why we were giggling at everything (sleepy-drunk I call it). We took a good long much-needed nap after we landed. The public transportation, to my surprise, was extremely clean and the people were all so friendly and easy to talk to (a majority of people we ran into actually spoke a good amount of English). It made us enjoy our time in Copenhagen so much more! Here are a few must visit places in/around Copenhagen!

Louisiana Museum of Art

The Louisiana Museum of Art is technically not located in Copenhagen (heh) but is only an hour train ride away in the city of Humlebaek, Denmark. I believe we took the 029 train from Nørreport and from there it was just a straight shot! There may be a stop closer depending on where you are, so make sure to consult your maps! Just a tip on riding the train - they like it quiet. The train had signs everywhere informing passengers to remain silent while on board. I guess we were too excited or somethin' and all three of us didn't manage to read the signs as we boarded. We had to learn about this preference for a quiet environment the hard way when an elderly lady smiled, looked at us, pointed to the "be quiet" signs, and put her finger over her mouth indicating us to "hush". I think it's a cultural norm kinda thing! I can see why Americans have this rep for being so loud. We loved watching the flowers and peaceful houses whiz by the countryside. We were enjoying it so much that we actually missed our stop, but made the best out of it by getting chicken skewers as a snack at the side shop (yum), then got back on the reverse stop to get to the museum. We got a nice little student discount (so remember to bring your student IDs). We came here hoping to see the Yayoi exhibit, but were so sad to discover that the one Yayoi exhibit was closed for construction.Nevertheless, the museum did not disappoint.

The museum was filled with huge windows and abundant light. There were beautiful garden portions of this museum, where one can step over running waters to observe pieces of art and nature while breathing in the warm outdoors. But even from within the museum, the museum utilized the blooming beauty of nature and delicately displayed it as its own sort of artwork  throughout the abundant windows lining endless hallways and rooms. Walking through the hallways lined with blossoming white and pink fluffy flowers bush after bush were my absolute favorite part. I felt like I was in a sort of flower dream. Needless to say, I loved it.

I just thought this thumb guy was funny. (:

My second favorite part was definitely  giggling non-stop at Hans-Peter FeldMann's work. The work featured in this German Artists' work was hung all around in a portion of this exhibition. As the museum plaque put it, Feldmann's works are "decidedly humorous...he obscures, turns upside down and short-circuits an ostensibly venerable but also ambitious tradition-salon art". These hilarious modifications of more traditional painting styles include additions of red noses, tan lines, googly eyes, and more. Look closely and scroll below to take a look!

Superkilen Park

Like I very much like to say (I've literally used this joke way too many times), this park was super KILLIN it. This crazily lined park was actually just steps outside of our Airbnb in the Nørrebro district.

We found this first part of Superkilen to actually be a skate park, where daring bikers and skaters can ride down along multiple crazy lines from the top of the hill down to flat ground. We had a lot of fun just people watching, treading up the large hill, and walking through the squiggly lines. The park itself was just a real urban piece of art.

Excuse the iPhone quality, but just had to show my beloved baes <3

There was a second park to Superkilen named the "Red Square". As it is named, this portion was all red. It was fun little circular swings that I think we had a little too much fun swinging at. We felt like little kids rocking back and forth on the little benches trying to swing around all crazy. 

Byoh Matcha

If you love matcha, you will love this place. Byoh Matcha brought us to a section of the city that really reminded us of the modern, industrialized, downtown feel of big cities. There were tall buildings everywhere, loads of cars, and lots of people of course. We headed over to this quaint little store for a nice dose of matcha. The lady was super pretty and super sweet. I ordered the Elderflower Matcha drink and it tasted sweet and delicious! The inside decor was very sleek and modern, with a comfy pink couch I could not stop admiring. Since we spent so much time in the hip multi-cultural neighborhood of Nørrebro, it was well worth the stop in my opinion to get to walk around a completely different part of town! 

Nyhaven 

Well known for its colorful houses, canal views, and rows of restaurants, Nyhaven makes one of the Copenhagen's top tourist spots. Here, we actually ran into a couple of fellow UC Davis students who stopped by to take a picture for us and decided to have us take the same picture for them since they liked the pose ideas we had. We got to chatting and found out they graduated from UC Davis as well! It was crazy to bump into people so close to home, such a small world! Fun fact, Hans Christian Andersen, the famous Danish fairytale writer, used to live in house No. 20 along Nyhaven. It was here he wrote a few of his most well-known tales, including "The Princess and the Pea" and "The Tinderbox". Crazy right!?

After watching the sunset at Nyhaven, we walked on over to Copenhagen Street Food to grab some dinner. Whilst we arrived too late (sad most of the stands were closed), we managed to grab some burritos and tacos and enjoyed each other company munching away! Unfortunately the place is closing on December 22, 2017, so make sure to snag a visit if you can before they close! 

Thank you Copenhagen!

Copenhagen had so much more to explore, that we wish we had allotted more time to the city. We had no idea we were going to fall in love with the city as much as we did! From it's clean transportation to it's beautiful sights to the friendly people, we were so thankful to have gotten a few days to spend in the city! 

Just me chillin' at our Airbnb. Cool carpet tho right?!