weekend getaway--sans getting away

It snowed so much last week! Here is where I live, covered with snow. Let me describe the bike rides home: pedaling with all my might against a harsh wind with snow/sleet punching me in the face. But just this week it got sunny, and every time I see the sun I am reminded how much I miss it. It is beautiful and makes the world happy.

So Friday, I had my critiques for studioproject which went pretty well. I am still content with my decision to spend only as much time as is necessary working on school. I have a feeling the work load might step up a little now, since the initial concept stage is over, and I will have to go more detailed into my building. But hopefully, not too much.

Andrew got here Friday night, really late. So, my host family let me drive one of their cars to the airport (I took the bmw, and left the audi behind). It was a little scary to drive in a foreign country for the first time, especially since I haven't driven in a month. But, driving here is very orderly, and I had their trusty GPS to guide me (which btw, is super polite, and not as annoying as the American GPSs).

So, Saturday we got up, had our bread and Nutella (ps my new fave is nutella with strawberry jam on top of it. mmmm.), and did a crash tour of the city.
Nyhavn below (behind our faces):
Inside the Royal Playhouse:
The Black Diamond (Royal Library):
The Jewish Museum by Daniel Liebeskind (we were actually too cheap to pay to go in, so we just checked out the entrance and the gift shop):

Sunday was a Danish holiday which I still dont know the name of, but from what I can tell, it is like halloween. Everyone dresses up in costumes, and then they have these wooden barrels with candy in them that they hang up like pinhatas; they hit the barrel with a stick until it is completely demolished. We went to one of their friends' houses to participate. My host brother dressed up as a girl (he went all out and put on fake boobs and wore heels...it was hilarious and scarily convincing), and my host sister dressed up as a dude...and my host mom was her 'homey.' Here they are: Mads is in the white fir, and Karoline is in the blue hoodie. I was suppose to dress up too, and my host mom kindly offered to donate her costume from last year (dracula) to me, but in the rush to get out the door, I escaped from that. We had some good Danishes and tea after the barrel breaking fiasco.
Then, Andrew and I went to the Bagsvaerd church by Jorn Utzon (the Dane who design the Sydney Opera House). It was so beautiful, not to mention awesome to see something in person that I had studied at school.
The ceiling is like being under a cloud.
They heard I was there and asked me to preach.

And the hallways are all naturally daylit. It was amazing how light the church was, even though it was a hazy day.

Then we stopped in Bad Fart park.
It was pretty, but a little cold. I did not wear the proper footwear to be sloshing through the snow. brr.
The next day we wandered around the city more. Here is the English church, that my host mom took me to a few weeks ago.

We went to see the 'Little Mermaid,' the biggest tourist attraction in Copenhagen. It is in honor of Hans Christian Anderson, who wrote the Little Mermaid. My host parents make fun of it because it is soo little in actuality. And they joked that there are always a flock of Asian tourists snapping pictures around it. They were right...about both.
Here she is in all her glory:
Here is our effort at a team picture. It was evening and really beautiful, but super cold so neither of us wanted to take both hands out of our pockets to take a picture. He did most of the work, and I just pushed the capture button.

Now that the weekend is over, it is back to work. I whipped out three watercolors today. I also got called out by my host mom for eating three cupcakes before dinner. oops.

drugs and beaches

Time for a new update! because I should be working on homework for my watercolor class. :)

Saturday was a beautiful day, so we went to Christiania. That's the hippy/squatter/artsy community in Copenhagen. The state is trying to get rid of them, but they have managed to stick around for all these years anyway. It's not too big, but it's fun to walk around. Basically there's a lot of shabby but colorful houses, lots of drugs, hippy looking people, and beautiful plants. There are signs on the main street (called 'pusher street' lol) that politely ask not to take pictures. Every once in a while the police come in and raid the community, so I was told if you see cop cars there when you go to visit, just go back another day :)
[side note: We also bought our plane tickets for Spring Break last week! woo. ]

This is the edge of the community, so the big building in the far background you can tell is not part of it.

Ally in the alley behing some of the houses:
The community is peaceful, so basically you can do anything as long as it doesn't inhibit anyone else from doing what they want to do. The only rule is no hard drugs--just weed is allowed (as is illustrated in the grafitti below).

I came home to beautiful Valentine's Day flowers :) Thanks, Andrew!

That evening my host family came home from their ski trip, and the next day they took me up the coast to the crown prince's castle, the beach (which is gorgeous--crystal clear water and beautiful rocks), and their old summer house.

dont worry, the next one isn't their summer house--that's the back of the castle.

My host mom and me at the beach: my favorite picture of the last week. I had to stand where the ground was lower so she would look taller....

And here are a couple pictures around Copenhagen. They're from this place called the Round Tower.


Last night, my host dad showed me pictures from some of their vacations around Europe. One thing that has made me laugh recently is that they don't know that you aren't suppose to say the 'h' on 'herbs.' And that word kept coming up last night for some reason...so I got to hear 'hhherbs' in a Danish accent multiple times. It's also really funny when they try to say 'corn.' I told my host dad he sounded like a pig oinking. I also watched the Disney channel for awhile with my host brother. Hannah Montana dubbed into Danish? priceless.

I talked to Jenni and Alex on skype the other day!! yay. so fun.


Andrew's coming to visit on Friday--so I have to get a lot of homework done!

blitz.

This weekend DIS took us on a blitz tour of Western Denmark. We visited on average four places per day, so it was a little exhausting. Unfortunately, they didn't take us to Legoland, since it's not open in the winter. boo. I'll have to go again later in the semester.

PS I'm watching Powerpuff Girls in Danish while I'm typing this.

This is a traditional Danish kirke (church) that's from the Viking era. It's like we're in Scotland. so foggy! The landscape and weather in western Denmark reminded me of the final scenes from Pride and Prejudice :)
Next we visited an art museum. They had an awesome chair exhibit and a whole exhibit about shoes. :)

This table is sweet cause multiples of it all fit together.

All over western Denmark were houses like this with straw or thatch roofs.

Here's a panoramic from outside the museum. It looked out over water, but it's hard to tell cause of the fog. I think if you click on it you can see it bigger.
We went to a castle in Kolding that had been renovated on the interior. It was huge! I think I would get lost if I lived there. ...and I wouldn't ever want to be that far from the kitchen. There was a model of the castle all in Legos, but I didn't take a picture of it, cause at that point I thought we were going to be going to LegoLand. bummer.

I climbed up the tower there, and a fantastic view awaited. haha. thanks Denmark.
inside the castle...
We went to this awesome kid's play center. All of us wished we went to school there. In one of the rooms they had a ball pit with a plexi glass floor, so from the room below you could see people above you in the ball pit.

from below...

This was the jungle room, which had floor-to-ceiling vines for climbing. Of course, all the boys felt the need to show off their skills.


I don't have pictures of it, but that night I had the opportunity to go to a Danish swimhall/bathhouse in Kolding. It was definitely an experience. I was preparing myself to be in a room with a bunch of naked Danes. But fortunately, everyone wore their swimsuits in the main area. The girls shower room was definitely another story, however. I opened the door to be in full view of several fully naked and incredibly huge Danish women. I did not think that there were fat people in Denmark, but apparently there are...and they are all at the swimhouse in Kolding. I have not seen people this big since America. wow.

Anway, after that, the bathhouse was enjoyable. It was interesting cause the lights were dim and there were candles everywhere. Think hygge. It was like the couples' hang-out joint. We actually named one of the pools the 'make out pool' cause it was full of danish couples....just doin their thing. I always thought swimming pools were for swimming, but apparently I was wrong. So, once we steered clear of the pda sessions and the giant naked women, we were good.

the next day
This was at performing arts school. It had a punched metal facade that opened up to form the shutters for the windows.
They had some fun furniture there too. Some of the chairs had designs or words relating to the arts on them.

We went to this house that's still under construction that is designed to produce more energy than it needs; so by 40 years time it will pay for the cost of making it. It was pretty cool, but I was distracted by the architects daughter who was SO CUTE. I couldn't get a very good pic of her, but the whole time her mom was talking, she was climbing around on the scaffolding. All the kids here are dressed in these ski gear worthy onesies.


Then we went to Arhus! We had some free time, so we walked around the city and went out to dinner. We found a bar with live music, and I ended up playing foosball with some Danes there. But they are serious about their foosball. It's ridiculous how good they are--it's like a sport. You have to shake hands before and after the game with all participants, and losers pay for the game. Most of them own their own table at home. Needless to say, me and my teammate got owned. But later, I beat some other Danes, so I felt accomplished and worthy of my stay in Denmark.

The next day we went to a funeral church. It's cool to see hymns in Danish. I'm glad God knows what we are saying no matter how weird we sound.
This is the entrance to the women's bathroom.

We toured the town hall in Arhus-- the 'prime example of Scandinavian functionalism' (which basically means design without excess). We were on top of the tower on the hour, so we got to hear the bells ring up there. so loud! but pretty.


Finally was the Aros Art Museum. It was nice, but a lot like Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim.

At first I thought this said Nudist Art. haha. I wouldn't be surprised here.
They had a giant man! He looks different depending on what angle you view him (sad, thoughtful, pleasant, etc.).
Here he is from 2 stories above. You could see everything: veins, wrinkles, arteries...
So that concludes the highlights of the trip.

This weekend I went to the copenhagen vineyard church. It was really great to be with people that love God, since that hasn't happened for awhile. I talked with a really old lady who sat next to me. She was very sweet and we had a lovely conversation, but I'm not sure if she'll remember me though cause she had altheimers. I also met a German guy who frequents christiania (the hippy squatter community). i think ill go back.


Now that we are back from our trip, studio seems to be starting up more. The kids are overachievers for busy work--wayy to excited about working. Meanwhile, i'm happy to just be taking 3 classes and have time to look around the city. Our first project is to design a furniture gallery. Here's our site:


My host family is gone this week on a ski trip to Austria, so Ally is staying here! It's been fun, but I think I've been eating way to much sugar. We're trying to do some exploring, but have been a little more successful at sleeping in. But we did make it to a Zaha Hadid addition to a museum that's just around the corner from my house. We also went to the Danish Design Center today. We desperately want to make some good ol chewy American cookies, but haven't been able to find the right ingredients yet. It doesn't help that the stores here close by 9.

Well, powerpuff girls is now long over, as is Johnny Bravo.
Miss you all!