an update... finally!

Okay so before I talk about the rest of the study tour, let me tell you about my morning, and the weeks since i got back.

so a few days ago (last thursday) i went to the Carlsberg brewery with my friend Christian, which is literally down the street from my apartment. it was really cool, and they had some really good beer (i don't even like beer!) but when we went to the gift shop the guy told me my card had a bank error.... uh oh. i chalked it up to a danish pin-needing credit card or something (they've all sorts of weird pin credit cards here) but no. This i found out this morning, when i went riding in the sun and heat across the city to a hardware store to pick up nuts & washers for my chair (the guy gave them to me for free, which was nice-- about the only good thing that happened today) and then afterwords i found a Baresso (the coffee chain here-- like starbucks, but more expensive (hey, it's copenhagen!) and way better) because i decided i deserved an iced latte (Iced coffee is soooo hard to come by in this city!!) and a sandwich for later, when i'd be at the studio 2:30-10 pm. well, i finally make it to the front of the line (let me tell you, Nyhavn (street) on the canal + sunny day = tourists galore) and i order my stuff, and, no surprise, my card doesn't work. So the girl tells me to go to the ATM outside and skip the line when i come back, but when I go outside to find the ATM and I think I'm about to get cash, the machine goes, "sooooo ummm, yeah.... your card? it's bad. we're gonna keep it. KTHXBAI!" and im like WTF?? So i go back inside to tell the girl i don't have cash on me (where does my money goooo??) and that it ate my card, and she just gives me a pitiful look and wishes me luck. I was going to go home and get cash, but instead since i was closer I just went to the studio. Where i spent the entire day doing not one single thing on my chair except draw a line where my teacher needs to cut it for me. that's it. in 7.5 hours i did only that, and i got a bacon cheese burger in Christiania. that's it. Why? because ever since my chair came off the mold yesterday morning, i've been shoved to the back of the line since i'm way closer to being done than anyone else in veneer, which I guess is a good thing.

Anyway, so, i called the bank back again, after i couldn't get in touch last time, and they told my mom nothing when she went to the bank looking for info, and the guy connected me through to bank of america headquarters, where a nice woman named Georgia explained to me the BoA Emergency Card Dispersal Procedure, which is limited to once a year per customer if you qualify (and I was like, i freakin qualify, you shut my card off!!) and basically it boils down to them private courier-ing (courieing?) my card to me tomorrow by noon. I must have sounded so relieved by the end of my 20 minutes on the phone with Georgia she actually laughed at how many times I thanked her for helping me. So as long as i manage to wake up and hear the door buzzer ring tomorrow morning, I won't be in a foreign country without any money or any means of providing for myself. Phew.

Kay so that happened. That, and, i woke up with the skin of a sunburned 85 year old lady on my face. I'm not going to get into details, but i'll just say that something about the combination of wind, sun, exercise, and probably something I eat all combine to create an all-out war of epic proportions against eczema on most of my extremities.

I know what you're thinking, today was a blast, right? You're jealous you're not in Denmark, with eczema, no credit card, and no help on your chair. But I do love it here, every minute in this city! I'm not taking any of my time for granted, and I finally feel like I belong here, and it's sad to think i'll be leaving in 2 weeks!!

As for the rest of the study tour, well after Stockholm we went to the Ikea factory in sweden, which was pretty boring because everyone except for 2 people were on holiday (everyone here is on holiday!) and it was pretty much like any other furniture factory we've seen (you've seen one, you've seen em all, except for PP Møbler, which was pretty fantastic. Our teachers call them the best furnuture makers in denmark, and i believe it!) except for their super amazing gigantic RP machines. (That's rapid prototype for all you non-ID people out there... it prints computer models from Solidworks or other programs in 3D from liquid plastic. Hot stuff.) Only one that they had prints in 14 kinds of plastic, from really hard to really soft, and it can print joints and moving parts somehow, instead of just solid pieces, which is AMAZING. They had a plastic bike chain, which they had printed from a computer model, and it moved and worked and stuff. It's really cool, especially if you're an ID dork like we all are. That's the thing I learned the most from this study tour; how quickly 30 kids can bond with just a bus and a week and a few awesome teachers, and the common interest of being interested in how everything works. It's great, and we were just talking last night about how that fact that we're all design-based means we can all make really good friends in a short amount of time, since we all have the same base interests.

Since we got back from the study tour we've been in the studio every day (including both days last weekend) for at least 6 horus a day (last week we were there 7 am -2:30 pm and B team was there 2:30-10, and this week it's switched.... our poor teachers get no breaks) busting our butts to get our chairs done. Mine is closed to being finished, making one really difficult mold was definitely faster than several easy ones like most people are doing, and I'm really excited to see it finished! I'm going to post process pictures and final pictures on facebook eventually, but believe it or not I actually have a test tomorrow (on our process and on the study tour info- don't worry, it's "open sketchbook"!) so I should be going to re-read our study tour guidebook, I suppose. And I've got to get up early to make sure I don't miss the courier tomorrow!

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!

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!