to catch you up

This is a picture of one of my favorite little courtyards between two of the major pedestrian-only shopping streets. There are stores below and it's surrounded by residential apartments above. Courtyards are abundant here to allow more light to reach buildings and to create more healthy environments. It is a city after all.

Here's a version of the summary I've been emailing some people. A good overview and will fill in some of the missing gaps so that you can understand what I'm talking about in subsequent posts...

Copenhagen is great. It's so cold sometimes but it's such a cool city with all these fantastic cafes and shops and clubs and bars. An ideal place for young students. It makes me realize how little money I spend at Lehigh because now I'm financing groceries and going out for myself.

There's a tourist must-see here in Copenhagen called Christania that we visited the other day. It's this little enclave in Copenhagen that is not technically part of the EU and is kind of overlooked by the authorities. It's a place where literally no rules exist. It all started in the 60's (obviously) when the abandoned WWII military barracks began to be settled by hippies. The result is exactly what you'd expect to happen with such a crowd living in a very small area (maybe a square mile) for long enough: amazing food, graffiti, and even some permanent residents. There are drugs sold there, which is why it's a controversial area. The government wants to shut it down but there are riots every time they try. It's apparently one of the few things Danish people get hostile about. I've also heard people make the point that the drugs would infiltrate the rest of the city if they were to shut down Christania. It's an interesting political conundrum.

The shopping here is fantastic. It seems like everyone here is beautiful and stylish, which makes sense because it's apparently one of the fashion capitals of the world. It was Copenhagen Fashion Week at the end of last week but we unfortunately missed it while on our three-day western Denmark study tours. Bummmmer.

Architecturally speaking-you'll probably hear about more of this when I revisit the study tour-the Danish have amazing ways of bringing light into buildings because they get so little of it in the winters. A lot to be inspired by and learn from as an architecture student/enthusiast. It was sunny yesterday and the city's buildings and public spaces were even more fantastic because they were designed to take full advantage of it. My dad has reminded me several times that the last time we were in Copenhagen it was 70 degrees and the Danish were acting like it was a 90 degree day at the beach. I'm looking forward to being one of those people.

My living situation is what my program calls a Danish roommate. I am essentially renting a room in her apartment. We share a bathroom, a little kitchen, and the closet sized entry hall between all of the rooms. My room is very sizable (enough for a bed, desk, shelving, a dresser, and a couch) and has a window facing east (I think?). My roommate decorated it for me exactly as I would have for myself: everything is pretty, antique, and Ikea. I am in the land of Ikea, which is apparently like their Target/WalMart. She painted the window casing purple and the radiator gold. There are a few antique items from her grandfather who was a jeweler: a set of drawers that he used for paperwork for his business, an old chair and dresser set, a towel rack, and probably one of the mirrors. There are some cute teal and white striped pillows for my black couch and a beautifully elegant stick-on design on the back of the door that makes me love my room even more every time I close my door. She painted the outside of my door and hers with chalkboard paint. I arrived to a message and some beginner Danish phrases from her best friend. Mine now has something I doodled and hers a Mean Girls movie quote. A whole wall of her room is floor-to-ceiling with shelves of movies, and I'm trying to take advantage of that while I'm here.

Every surface of the walls in the hall and kitchen are decorated with posters and pictures and postcards from her childhood, travels, and great Danish design stores. She has Christmas lights in the kitchen and colorful kitchen accessories. I love it. A lot of chatchkas from Berlin-both of her sisters have lived there for different periods of time but now live in the apartment above us. Someone should be paying her for advertising so well for the Berlin- she's convinced me that I must return to Germany to go there, and it's not too far away so I probably will.

The roommate herself is named Laura, she's also 21 and she's studying at the University of Copenhagen. She's in a program which loosely translated is called entrepreneur-design, which sounds like a mixture of interior architecture and graphic design. Her last project was to redesign and improve a room at her school. Her group (they do mostly group projects in school here in Denmark) chose to turn it into a student lounge and designed the architectural space and the graphics and signage. We both came home and had basically the same thing to say about our days: "I feel like all I did today was build models." She's incredibly easygoing and living with her has gone very smoothly. 

We've started a tradition of Wednesday dinners with her sisters, her sisters' boyfriend, and other friends. The boyfriend is especially good in English and we all sit around and talk about Danish-American comparisons. I answer questions confirming or disproving what they've seen in movies, and they educate me about the Danish culture. And (major bonus) tell me their favorite hot spots in the city. I've learned from conversations with them and class readings that Denmark treats their citizens very well- it's known as the welfare state- and the entire socialist philosophy for their government is very different from our own. More to come about this later, but it's a really interesting juxtaposition.

DIS (Danish Institute for Study Abroad) takes about 500 American students from all over the country and condenses us into six or so programs. Architecture and Design is one of the bigger ones which is fun for me because I'm so used to being a minority at Lehigh. Lots of other people who also get excited about crown moldings, windows, materials, etc.

My classes are really interesting and the faculty are top-notch. All split their time between practice and teaching and have incredible resumes. I'm taking a Danish class and three architecture classes: an urban planning studio, a Danish 20th/21st century Architecture class, and European Urban Design Theories. There are a lot of walking tours and field trips to neat buildings and spaces in the surrounding areas. The number of pictures I've taken is probably nearly 1000. Maybe 30 of them have people in them. It's laughable.

I live about 20 minutes (bus or train) from the center city where school is located. Because I catch the metro from center city to go to the dorm where a lot of my friends are, I'm quickly mastering Copenhagen's public transportation. Not without mistakes-standing in the rain for 20 minutes after having taken the bus the wrong direction-but mistakes I'll hopefully never make again. 

There's the background story for you.

Good night and good luck.