More soon!

I promise, there's a blog post coming soon about the study tour! I just posted a bunch of stockholm pictures to facebook, so check those out if you want a sneak peek. I have to do them in batches or else i'll be totally overwhelmed and it'll never happen. Also I had a paper to write (I know.) about a chair and some place called "Scandinavia" whatever that is. so there's that.

Like i said, stay tuned people!

Stockholm/Helsinki

Where do I even begin?? Yesterday we were in Stockholm, where I managed to find both Anna and Jenny who I haven't seen in months, which was great. Stockholm is a gorgeous city, I can't wait to post pictures of the buildings and streets. It kind of reminds me of the north end of boston, with cobblestones and colonial-style architecture. Helsinki is very 30's modernist style, because it's a newer city (finland wasn't even its own country til it broke from sweden like a hundred years ago or something) but mixed in with cobblestone streets (KILLING our shoes!) and old stone buildings. All 3 capitals so far have been very different from one another in terms of the way the city looks and feels, but they're all similar in how nice the people are. They're not outgoingly friendly, but even our waitress, who was alone in the large tex-mex restaurant we ate dinner in tonight (I tell you, it felt soooo good to eat american food and listen to johnny cash and not feel so foreign,) was smiley and kept thanking us every time we ordered or asked for something.

Tonight we're in a real hotel, instead of a hostel or on the cruise ship which we took overnight from stockholm to here, and to which we're returning tomorrow night. OMG that ship had a sauna, which consisted of an amazing steam room, a not-so-hot tub (for cooling off) and a sauna in each locker room. it was soooo nice, it's the first chance we really had to relax since starting the study tour (we've been getting up at 6:30 and 7 every morning, and bussing and walking around nonstop looking at more chairs than my brain can handle all day, until we finally pass out around midnight or later after staying up with everyone, because that's the only free time we have. Like i said, tomorrow we're back on the cruise ship, which is basically a floating casino (our room was so dark and small that we thought it was 3 am when the alarm went off). I wish i had more energy to post about the Swedish national museum, Alvar Aalto's house & studio and all the other things we've seen in the past couple of days, but honestly it's all blurring together right now, so I'll have to do it later when I have my pictures uploaded and sorted. We're getting up at 6:15 tomorrow morning for yet another full day (our second to last one of the study tour! :( the last day is the Ikea factory though!!) I've been eating so much food though that it's more than cancelling out the energy i've been expending staying awake this long, (despite the nap we all accidentally took before walking around Helsinki looking for somewhere open for dinner) but when we get back to copenhagen it's back to bikes, walking, and having to pay to feed myself. But right now, all I can think about is how glad I will be to take a shower in a bathroom with a tub instead of a phone booth. And i'm really really REALLY excited to go to bed, so, goodnight!

Quick update!

I'm on my iPhone in the cold ouside a hostel in the very north of denmark right now. We've been bussing around all over the place, visiting churches, factories, museums, etc. Tonight in aalberg we told the British bartender we don't like beer, so guess what he gave us. PINK RASPBERRY FLAVOR BEER!!!!!! it was awesome. Tomorrow were getting up early to catch the ferry to Stockholm, where we have two nights. Were meeting up with the other group (b-team) AND I get to see Anna and Jenny, my long lost exchange buddies!! I'm really excited to see Sweden! I'll have TONS of pictures to post when I get back to CPK next week, so stay tuned!

"Home isn't a place, it's a feeling."

Here are a couple pictures of our apartment in Copenhagen, and then one of my wonderful pink bike :)
I've been biking a total of at least an hour every single day, if not more, and it's always windy (hard) and bridge-y (also hard) especially when you've got a basket with a heavy bag in it!

My bike!! It's called the Belleview, and it's fancy and pink and european and has a basket and a bell and 2 lights (one shaped like a flower!) and i LOVE it!! and it was 1000 DKK (danish kroner) which is about 185 USD. Woo hoo! I'm going to want to ship this thing home, even if i only ride it infrequently, simply because of how adorable it is and how attached to it I have become already.

our balcony:

view from the living room: you can see the mall in the distance, we ride this way to the studios every morning.
living room; there's a daybed to the right where you can't see
hallway: bathroom, kitchen, my room on the left, cody on hte end, livingroom on the right which leads to natalie's room
this is literally the entire bathroom. it could in its entirety fit in a phonebooth. Let me tell you, it's no fun taking a shower in a shower where you bump your elbows washing your hair, and where the water nozzle doesn't even point down enough; it points at the back wall, over my head....

View from my window (onto the courtyard/garden)

This is how the windows stay open; i love it!!
courtyard seen from the kitchen
my bedroom (smallest, but not street-facing!)
the kitchen!

Day 3 in Copenhagen: study tours & bikes!

Today we had a 'study tour' as they love to call them, where they bus us around to a million different places. We're supposed to be drawing all sorts of specific things and taking notes at every place we go, because they then grade us on it later, but I only had my camera so i took a LOOOT of pictures. We went first to a big furniture store, I think it was just seating and tables, very knoll-like. They hire outside designers, etc., only they didn't mention sustainability once and their whole facility is automated and wastes a lot of material (Knoll is REALLY REALLY good at being sustainable, and even moreso for being a HUGE company.) The second furniture manufacturer was all wood, mostly hand-made, concentrated on quality over quantity, and even uses soap instead of lacquer to finish their pieces. The guy ( the 3rd generation owner) mention Cradle to Cradle like 4 or 5 times, which, if you don't know what that is, it's basically the bible of sustainability. That place was fantastic, and I love their chairs (it's at ppdk.com i think). Back to the first furniture place for lunch (we were divided into groups A and B from yesterday, alternating who went to which furniture place first). Then we went to a church that had a ceiling shaped like andy goldsworthy designed it, and it was all white and blue and looked like it belonged in Greece somewhere. The next church (more like a cathedral) was HUUUUUUUUUUGE and all made of brick. It was really impressive, and for some reason i really like ultra high vaulted ceilings, so I got some really nice pics there too. THEN we went to a huge showroom that had nearly every furniture item we'd ever seen in history of design last year, plus a million more things. it reminded me of Moma, except with way more, and really expensive. By the end of this trip it was 4:00 and we took the buses back to DIS again. Me, Cody, Brekke, Doby and a few others not from pratt walked around looking for a bike shop for a little while before we split up to head home. Cody and I stopped at a few bike places on the way home. The first one didn't have any used bikes, but the second one had a whole slew of them locked up outside. (The deal in Copenhagen is that people mostly don't steal bikes, and if there's any sort of lock at all, unless its made of gold and diamonds no one's going to steal it no matter how shoddy the lock is.) Guess what, we each got one!! Cody got a bike for 800 dkk, and I found one for 1000 dkk that's girly with the really low center bar thing and high handlebars (so you're sitting upright-- european style-- EVERYONE has those here! All the girls anyway.) That's a great deal, a lot of used bikes sell for 1600 dkk, but 1000 is less than 200 dollars. It's pink and has a basket and a wheel lock and everything! I'm so happy to have a bike! Especially since we have to make our own way to the studio tomorrow for the first time, and although it's not too far there's no train or bus that goes directly there from here, so we'd have to leave early to rent the free city bikes. Now it'll only take us like 10 minutes to get to DIS and probably about 1/2 and hour to get to the studio. I'm glad it gets dark here only around like 11 so that when we're there late it won't be dark or scary. not that this city is ever scary, it's very clean and there are always people out and about. The thing I have to get used to now is a. riding without a helmet (like most people) unless I buy one, and b. riding in the bike lanes. The bikes have their own raised sidewalk type thing between the street and the sidewalk for most streets (except tiny ones) and htey have traffic signals to obey just like the cars and everything. It's going to be really great once we get used to it, and then we can explore the city even more, and in true Danish fashion!

Oh, and happy birthday dad!

Copenhagen! -- the first few days.

So it feels like i've been gone FOR.E.VER. And it's only been like 3.5 days. Yesterday (WAS THAT ONLY YESTERDAY?!?) when we got off the plane, we were all super duper exhausted, and we had to do all this check-in orientation stuff when we got off the bus (DIS loves bringing us places by bus, it's great). Cody met us there when we got off the bus, and after we got our schedules and stuff like that we had the extremely arduous task of bringing our luggage back to the apartment. We also happened to arrive the week Denmark was having unusually hot weather, like in the 80's rather than in the 70's like it's supposed to be. And our apartment is like a 1/2 hr. away, walking at not a slow pace. But we had been dragging these bags around for like 3 days nonstop, with no food or sleep in days, and let me just say these Danes LOVE their cobblestone streets and sidewalks. Yeah, fun. It took us about 45 minutes to get back to the hotel, and then we had to bring our stuff up 3 flights of stairs (because, here we are in europe, where the 2nd floor is 3 floors up). We then had to walk alll the way back to school, for the info session, and then back to the apartment. Natalie met her friend from home who was getting in to visit for a few days, and I walked around the area with Cody, who was here since sunday night (monday morning denmark time). Then when we got home I was really hungry, and REALLY tired, and it made me really homesick, and I skyped with mom (I miss you guys!). I fell asleep while Natalie & Maria (her friend) cooked pasta for dinner, and cody woke me up when it was ready to see if I was ok. I felt better after sleeping only 1/2 and hour and some food, and then we watched danish discovery channel, on which they take american shows and either re-dub them in british with danish subtitles, or in danish depending on the show, and then the futurama dvds I have.

We had to get up early today to take a bus to our studio ( which is a little farther than city center from here, but I really need a bike because it's easier and cheaper than taking a bus. They showed us around, including the mini scandinavian (and famous originals) chair museum at the Royal College, where the studios are, and then made us sit in a very hot auditorium and watch an hour and a half lecture about the history of copenhagen & it's growth from medival times through present day. It might have been interesting if they hadn't shown it at the absolute worst time for us, and hadn't we all been dozing off because of our exhaustion & heat & hunger. They gave us lunch (we furniture people didn't get to go to the "canteen", we worked through lunch... on the first day) which were FANTASTICALLY DELICIOUS deli sandwiches. We got assigned to sections for hte materials we'll be using to make our chairs: Steel rod (the one I got), steel tube (would have liked), wood veneer laminate (the one i traded brekke for) and solid wood (the one i really wanted). Brekke and I traded, and we're both very happy with that decision. We also got assigned to group A or B, which alternates the times we have studio shop use, so when we're working on our chairs later on for a week we get to use it in the morning, and the next week we have to use it in the afternoon. It also decides our study tour schedule, because group A goes around scandinavia (western denmark, stockholm, helsinki and oslo) one way, and group B goes the other way. Brekke, Doby and I all got group A, and Cody got group B. Natalie is in textiles, so her tour is different anyway. We all also have different materials for the chairs we're making, they really did a good job of splitting us up.

After all that studio stuff we took a boat tour of the city by canal, with an architect/teacher as our guide, and it was FAN. TASTIC. I loved it. It woke us all up, and we met a bunch of U of Cincinati kids (apparently they have like twice the 16 kids pratt sent to copenhagen... who knew?) who are in the arch program, and very nice and funny. We walked around that area once we got off the boats, it's the main downtown area with really old buildings and shops you'd find in soho. The first real danish food I got here was the Belgiske Vaffel with Soft Ice (belgian waffle with soft serve) and it was sooo good but I couldn't eat the whole thing! Cody and Doby both got what I like to call tube hot dogs, which heather actually told me about in amsterdam. Basically the bun is solid but has a hole in it, the condiments are squirted in and the hot dog slides in and sticks out hte ends. It's really really bizarre looking, and hilarious!

We managed to purchase train tickets which they didn't check (there's a stop between the mall and our apartment, very close!) and spend about 20 minutes trying to read the maps with numbers and letters and color codes and danish words which were all very confusing, even though all the trains stop at our stop, but there were no labels for which way the trains were going! But we worked it out and guessed right. The trains are very modern looking with glass doors blocking the exit areas and cushy seats with ugly upholstery, but a very smooth ride.

All in all, I am much happier with the city today, even though our apartment is kinda far from where we'll need to be most of the time. But it would be like that if we were in the dorms too, just not as far. I do wish I got to meet more people though from living in the dorms, but we've got all the other dis people in our classes, and I'm sure we'll explore the city and meet Danes. I'm definitely glad to be living with my friends, htough. I like this city much better now that I had a great time today, and I can't wait to see all the sights and go shopping and do lots of danish stuff! (And natalie and I promised we'd never leave each other behind when in the city because we don't want to get lost (cody is our guide, we're so lost and confused right now. all the streets look the same!!) or pick pocketed at night by people targeting tourists. So I'm happy about that, too!

Oh, and I posted pictures from iceland on my facebook tonight!!

COdy is bugging me to watch pushing daisies (he actually fell asleep while i was writing this, haha!) so i'm gonna leave it at that for now. I miss all of you, and keep in touch!! (and comment on my blog!!)