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.