Getting Lost - Happy Birthday Jaime!

Today was a day of walking the city and exploration for me. It was nice and sunny but still cold. Daniel had to go into studio so I marked a few points on my map and went exploring. One building happened to be at the end of our street. This is an apartment building called Øbro 105-107. It's a modern interpretation of buildings in Østerbro, the borough we live in. 

Architect: C. F. Møller

Project Website

Underneath this building is a Netto, which is a small discount grocery we go to sometimes. There is also a Fakte we go to right on the corner of our building. Since we live in a residential area there are a lot of apartments and food stores beneath them.

Then I set off for my next destination which I never arrived. I got turned around and lost, found a Førtex, or an equivalent to our Super Target I guess, and found a really cool gymnasium on some elementary school campus next to a beautiful park that was frozen over. There was a father and two kids feeding the ducks and some other white birds. The kids were having a blast and were really sad to leave say,"Farvel,Farvel" to the birds. I walked around the park a few times, passing strolling lovers and dog walkers. No one looks you in the eye here, they just simply avoid walking into you.

Finally, I just want to wish Jaime a happy birthday. These last ten years have been extraordinary with you, and I wouldn't change a moment of them. I miss you more than anything and always thinking of you.

Sun! They do have a Sun!

Today was the first day of school officially. it was dark and cold this morning on the way to school. We walk about a mile to the train station and then ride 3 stops to Nørreport Station. It's a quick ride and we usually don't even sit down in a seat. I like the train because you get to see so much. We are close to the port, so we get to see the Baltic Sea and the dozens of windmills out there. Lots of really interesting architecture. I'm excited about this weekend. We are going off to explore the city all day, taking pictures and sketching the places we couldn't during the scavenger hunt.

Today, our first class was Sustainable by Design. It's taught by a young architect named Christian. He took us to the København (Copenhagen) Business School building. It was spectacular. I didn't get to spend much time on the outside of it as I wanted to, so I plan on going back, but the most amazing thing happened while we were heading there. The sun came out! It wasn't like it had been out for hours and we all of a sudden realized what happened. The second the light sprang through the clouds we all looked up in bewilderment. The city seemed to spring to life. Venders were selling Pølser (sausage dogs) and pralines, a violinist played in the square, and people were everywhere.

Here are a few photos of what I did get while at the sustainable building we went to. They are a little dark, sorry.

What: Copenhagen Business School "The Wedge"

Architects: Lundgaard & Tranberg Arkitekter

Link: Lundgaard & Tranberg Arkitekter

See... in the distance... the sun!

Let There Be Light

So the sun finally came out for a few minutes today, and it was amazing. It was the first time we have seen it since we have been in Copenhagen. Classes also started today, and they seem pretty reasonable. Visual Journal seems pretty interesting thus far. we get to go to the Diskotek tomorrow to meet our Danish "buddy" and then saturday night he invited us to go out for dinner and then possibly out afterwards. Matt seems pretty gitty about meeting him.

We 're also planning on exploring some more this weekend, as long as this sickness I have is willing. We re figuring out more and more and meeting more and more people. We have studio tomorrow, so I guess we'll meet the people we'll be around the rest of the semester.

Last Day of Orientation

Today was the last day of orientation, and we are thankful. Not to say we didn't have fun, but I was outside for 3 hours today hunting down checkpoints on a scavenger hunt while it was pouring down snow. It was freezing. I saw a lot of cool things and made notes for Dan and I to go back and check them out this weekend. I took some pictures of what it's like to wake up over here. Today was really dark because of the snow coming in.

This is looking out of our hallway across to the other wing of our apartments.

This is looking down the axis of the apartment complex into a small courtyard inaccessible to us.

This is a small bakery on the corner of our street. They always have fresh Weinerbrød (Danish) and other breads. This morning I was about 45 minutes early to the scavenger hunt meeting post so I went into a local bakery and got a Chokocroissant (a croissant with a small piece of dark chocolate stuffed inside.) It was delicious.

On the scavenger hunt we saw where the Queen lives, only the second Queen in almost 1000 years of ruling, and still a member of the original ruling family of Denmark. I saw the changing of the guards, Nyhavn, the Parliament, and many other interesting sites. Daniel and I plan on going out and actually documenting all of this with photos and sketches this weekend on our own time so we can spend as little or much time as we would like in the places.

Post # 2

Sorry I do not keep up with this as well as Matt. After my first post, I found out that I am supposed to title these things in oder to prevent confusion. It is day ?ish for us. Orientation is still in the works for us, but informative nonetheless. It snowed last night and contiinues to be overcast in the daytime. Feels like a Tim Burton film almost with all the dirty snow and overcast skies. We did manage to get some of the essentials done today such as getting our books. Grocery shopping was another experince. However, if Matt does not keep buying 100 kroner lap dances from the Scandinavian amazons, his stipend will go quickly.

Moving on Up

About five in the morning while staying our first night in the hostel I awake on the top bunk to see some European guy bending over, butt in Daniel' vicinity, wearing nothing but some purple panties. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. Who checks out of a hostel at 5 am? I just hope Daniel doesn't get pink eye. 

I couldn't get back to sleep, and I don't think Daniel slept either. We checked out of the hostel about 9:30 and walked a mile in the chill with all of our luggage to the DIS arrival. It was packed, but there was free food and water. I made a small stockpile for later. Saving everywhere I can. 

We checked in and got our food stipend, somehow missed a whole satchel full of important documents and information regarding our orientation and got on a bus heading toward our shared housing. Everyone is very nice and evidently very excited. We unpacked our stuff, surveying our 300-400 sqft. apartment. If Daniel gets on my nerves I can almost hit him from anywhere in the room without getting up. It's easy to keep warm though. 

They gave us brand new towels, sheets, and a down comforter with an absolutely terrible duvet cover. It feels like sandpaper. We decided to just leave that off. It was a Moroccan theme anyway. Didn't work. After we unpacked we took a nap, the cold just does that to you evidently, plus we are still adjusting. 

DIS took everyone living at Tåsingegade out to dinner, Salim, a Thai restaurant. It was pretty delicious. I haven't had white starchy rice in a long time. After that we walked to a bar and watched the very excited students begin to toss their food stipend away. Dan and I went back early, but not before I had a nice talk with Ruben, one of the DIS staff who lives right next door to us. He is a technical Architect/ Student. 

This morning Daniel and I were split up into different groups. I went to the opening ceremony and then helped some girl find the DIS building, both buildings were built before the Declaration of Independence. Pretty cool. The fresh snow makes everything very pure and beautiful. I will try to post some pictures soon of that. 

I have Intense Danish Immersion Lesson in about an hour which will finish up my day. 

Honorable Mention in Volkswagen Bridge Design Competition

Early this last semester Walter and I dove into a student design competition we had no idea about. It turned out to be a very fun experience, being able to incorporate new design techniques and technologies that we were learning simultaneously as the design program unfolded. We were to design a 700 ft pedestrian bridge connecting visitors and workers to VW's billion dollar new car factory in Chattanooga, TN. The whole semester we talked about it and it came down to about 72 long hours in the computer lab at school. We did stop for a break to watch the SEC Championship game (I love to see Tebo cry). The results? 

A bond stronger than glue with Walter and Honorable Mention worth $500.


Here is the link about the winner... Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

Here are some renderings from our boards. Cheers Walter.

It's Cold Outside - Day 1

So Daniel and I made it. He slept most of the flight away and watched Funny People while I slept off and on and read. The flight was not bad at all. The meals were quite nice actually. Dinner was a sizable piece of rosemary chicken, a salad, two pieces of bread, a slice of monterrey jack cheese, and tira misu.

Breakfast was half of a ham and swiss sandwich and strawberry yogurt (which I actually ate Jaime). Overall SAS was really nice. We sat in the very last row of the plane, so it was pretty loud. When we got off the plane we were both exhausted. We sat in Starbucks for about an hour trying to let our minds catch up to the rest of us while we sipped our $4.00 cup of coffee.

Eventually we got the nerve to head toward our Hostel we had made reservations for, DanHostel. We bought a ticket for the Metro and preceded to the station. Had it not been for a very nice Dane that helped us we would have taken the Metro to the end of the line. It's a little bit different than our trains. When you hop on a woman/man comes around to check your ticket. If you don't have one or have the wrong one you get a fat fine. When we got off the train we located our hostel on the map and started walking. It was probably half a mile or so, but we had all of our luggage, so it felt like 3.

Once we arrived at the Hostel they wouldn't let us check in until 2:00 pm. We had to wait 4 hours, so we went to a small grocery and I got an apple juice and Dan got what appeared to be European Sunny Delight. Then we walked back to the hostel because it was so cold and the time difference was starting to hit us pretty hard. We ended up sleeping in the cafe and lounge for a while before they let us in a little early. It was alright, a full room - 8 people - but most of them were DIS students as well. Daniel and I took a nap until we got up for dinner.

We walked around looking for places to eat on the cheap. We settled on some place that looked warm. It was... and expensive. Daniel and I each had one beer and a chicken ceaser salad. It was tasty, and it was also $61.30. We sat there trying to justify it by saying, " wow, the chicken is cooked perfectly," and," they do know how to make good beer, how's yours?" All we could do is shake our heads.

We went back to the Hostel and stopped in a 7/11 so I could get some emergency sugar just in case the salad wasn't enough. I got a small Snickers for just over 2 bucks. We hustled back and played some scrabble slam and went to bed.