Finally, A picture

...a few actually.
click images to zoom

Here is my final print



















Me on the rock wall at the "Rock Church" in Helsinki Finland. (if you look closely you can see that there is a sign that says NO CLIMBING... but like they say: you can take the girl out of the monkey but you can't take the monkey out of the girl... hmm you get the point)















Here is a picture of everyone in textiles on the last day (well not everyone, we're missing Danny our token male.. gay male that is)















Here is a classmate and I jumping off of a dock at Hvittrask Lake in Helsinki Finland. This was probably my favorite day on the study tour... no not probably.. it WAS my favorite day on the study tour.

sad times

I've been dreading leaving since the day I got here.
I've really fallen in love with this city. I'm obsessed with the people, the fashion, the streets, the night life, the culture, the lifestyle... EVERYTHING.

There is no way I can't NOT come back here, so i've decided that i'm going to apply to the DIS internship program.

DIS offers paid, 13 month internships in various departments. They start in August or January so I'll graduate college and move back to Copenhagen for a a year, PERFECT.

I am excited to see people from home, move into the new apartment with my best girlfriends and have a great senior year. But I will think about Copenhagen daily.

Top 10 things I will miss:
1. THE BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE
2. Kulor bar on Thursday nights(my favorite place to go dancing)
3. Shopping on the Stroget
4. The Danish boy haircut
5. Yogi's ( really good granola and yogurt for $1)
6. Crepes everywhere
7. Biking everywhere and having the right of way
8. The dance music
9. Everyone I live with
10. Skindergade 14 (where I live)

Things I will NOT miss
1. The Cuisine, aka meat in everything
2. Spending so much money on EVERYTHING
3. that's about it.....

Things I haven't decided if i'll miss or not
1. Listening to drunk Danes out my window allnight&everynight
2. Not leaving the house on Thurs/Fri/Sat nights (or mornings?) until 12am and not coming back until 4am

finishing up

I've printed my final textile. I'm so relieved!
I'm very happy with it, but do wish I had another week to develop it print it again.

Now we're working on developing a portfolio of our process and all of our samples. We'll have a group critique on Tuesday and on Thursday we'll set up our exhibitions.
I'm so excited to see all the final projects from every program but i'm also VERY bummed it's all coming to an end. I really can't imagine leaving this place.

This past week has been very low key, everyone is working really really hard and not too much socializing has been happening. I'm constantly trying to get people to do stuff but everyone is so busy. I find myself being very organized and on top of things, naturally, so i've had more free time than most.

Not too much to write about this time around. Although I'm looking forward to seeing everyone, i'm seriously dreading leaving. This is such an amazing place and I'm not ready to say goodbye!

Busy times

Yikes, so sorry I haven't written.

This is my daily schedule during the week:
9am-6pm class
6pm-8pm working in the studio or in the computer labs
after 8pm i'll usually make something to eat and then go out with friends.

SO EXHAUSTING. but totally worth it in the end

Weekends are usually reserved mainly for fun, lot so fun. I've been letting loose from my natural type A personality and having a great time on the weekends... (yes that means consuming abnormal amounts of alcoholic beverages). but we all work so hard during the week, we deserve it!

Haven't had much time for sight-seeing, but I also feel like i'm over that point in my trip. I soak up enough of the culture just riding my bike around in my every day routine.

All my friends and I just bought tickets to a Denmark vs Germany soccer game, should be tons of fun! A few of us also bought tickets to LCD soundsystem (i'm not the biggest fan) but it sounds like it will be a pretty big deal here so I didn't want to miss out.

As for school:
All last week we did screen printing, which I'm not the biggest fan of. I much prefer working on the computer.
Anyways, we got to expose our own designs onto the screens and had to mix our own colors (which was cool, until the color dried and turned out TOTALLY different than expected)

Right now, we're working on our final project (which is digitally printed, YES!) Today we did our first test print and I was really happy with mine (opposed to all my screenprints, which i was pretty disappointed with). I'll post pictures later.

Today is the first rainy day, feels like Portland. I got out of class early (for once) and am off to do some shopping... I haven't spent as much money as predicted, so, i'm going to spend it!

Farvel

First day in studio

Today was my first day in Studio.
Up until today, our classes have been just 3 blocks away from our apartment but today we had to ride about 15 minutes north to the Denmark Design School. It was a refreshing bike ride, through more residential areas (rather than the city which is where we have been).

In studio we played with mixing colors and then learned how to transfer the color onto polyester fabrics

here are some pictures from the day:

Back in Copenhagen and it feels SO good.

After a long week of traveling and a crazy weekend of reuniting with Copenhagen and all my friends (who were on different study tours), everyone has decided to take a (much needed) lazy sunday.

As promised, I'll update on all the cool places we visited on our study tour.
Here is a link to my friends and my picture site:
click HERE


Here is a list of all the places we visited:

STOCKHOLM
-Ikea Headquarters
-Svensk Tenn (Josef Frank)
-The Nordic Museum
-Asplund
-Nordiska Galleriet
-David Design
-Designhouse Stockholm
-Modern Museum
-Architecture museum
-National Museum
-Kulturhuset

FINLAND
-Myyrmaki Church
-Hvittrask
-Temppeliaukio (rock church)
-Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art
-Artek
-Formverk
-Marimekko
-Ivana Helsinki
-Design Museum

and a bunch of design stores in both countries.

We did all of this in 5 days, so we were VERY busy and jam-packed with information.

I had 3 favorites:
-The Sweden National Museum because it had every Product i've ever studied in class and MORE.
-The Hvittrask house because it was one of the most beautiful homes i've ever seen.
-Marimekko because... well it's Marimekko! One of the most established Textile design companies ever

i'm alive

Wow!
SO much has gone on in the past week.. and it's not over.
I'm currently in Helsinki Finland for my classes study tour. We were just in Stockholm for 3 days and we'll be in helsinki until Thursday.

So far, Copenhagen kicks every other city's butt.
I see it like this: Copenhagen is Manhattan (condensed, busy but comfortable), Stockholm is San Francisco (huge, spread out and kind of lonely) and Helsinki is a mix between New Jersey, Portland and Sacramento (aka REALLY FREAKING WEIRD, but interesting nonetheless)

Everyday is packed with 8 hours full of visiting museums, design stores, and inspirational sites like gardens and castles. We are keeping a sketchbook and i've already finished half! My head is crammed with ideas, its almost overwhelming.

It's really late and I've got to get to bed but per usual, I'll stick to the list:

Things that have happened in the last week:
1. Stockholm H&M and TOPSHOP, yikes.
2. Class booze-cruise from Stockholm to Helskini, that's a blogpost in itself... think 1974 Las Vegas all rolled into one 500 passenger boat.
3. I've eaten things i've never even seen (i really have no choice, in europe it's just kindof like you eat what they put in front of you)... but for those of you who have been waiting to give me a big fat I-TOLD-YOU-SO, i haven't liked any of the things i've tried... so I guess this constititutes for a I told YOU so
4. Ive been traveling with my classmates, all 25-30something design grad students or professionals and it is SO refreshing to be surrounded by older and wiser but also still really fun people
5. Today in Helsinki it was the hottest day in 61 years, 95 degrees. LOVE IT, everyone else hates it...
6. SO MANY other things, I feel like I need to start writing things down as I do them, because my mind is literally a huge ball of mush

I'll post more detailed acadmenic... details about where i've been going and what i've been learning at a later time. Although Ive always wanted to pull my eyeballs out at the thought of museums, this trip I've been gaining a lot of meaningful information and experiences.

oh and PS, I'm on a scandinavian keyboard (with Finnish spellcheck) and I'm trying my hardest to make sense while still avoiding things like ¤ and Ö and Ä and Å ... so thanks for baring with me.

That's all for now,
i get back to Copenhagen on Thursday night, so check this weekend for another post.

Updates

Yikes, I've been so busy! And keeping up a blog is really hard for me because I've done SO many things... they all just jumble together and I forget.

So to make the reading easier on you guys, I'll make another list of things i've done or that have happened the last few days.

Here we go:

1. I got a bike! I rented from a company that gives my program a discount. I was really nervous to ride at first but once I actually did it, I was quite surprised at how confident I was on the streets (even the busy ones)! In all actuality, I can walk basically anywhere in the city from my location, but having a bike is fun and quicker

2. The WHOLE DIS program when on a boat tour of Copenhagen, we saw all the famous buildings and what not. There are some really cool design concepts, that focus on building on what is already in the city rather than expanding outside of the city.
Take this building for example, it's an old mill? Well they just tacked apartments on to the outside of the building...










3. For 4th of July we had a picnic in Kings Garden, which is an AMAZING park. It actually looks like the garden of a King but is (obviously) open to the public. I'll have to go back and take more pictures of the flowers there! I've also been running here (almost) every morning, I couldn't think of a better place for a morning run
Here is a picture of most my group of friends on our Picnic












4. Currently there is a Jazz festival all over Copenhagen, I haven't really heard anything extraordinary but one of the venues is right outside our apartment, so it's really cool to hear throughout the day.

5. Yesterday, after getting bikes a group of us rode over to Christiania... click here if you don't know what this is. Everyone was talking about how you needed to be careful of your possesions, no pictures are allowed inside, don't do anything to stand out... etc. I was pretty nervous going in. But turns out... it's just like Eugene Oregon. I wasn't impressed at all, other than the fact that drugs are llegal there... it's nothing I haven't seen. I think the concept of the history is interesting but the physical place is just like an Oregon Country Fair experience, if that.

6. There weather has been in the 70's here and all the locals have been raving about how lucky we are to have this nice weather. It is beautiful (even though I prefer hotter) and we have been going to this really cool swimming spot called the Harbour Pools. The city constructed a pool in the middle of the harbour and made a platform to jump off of. So fun!











7. As for school, We've been doing a lot of brainstorming and sketching. We're getting prepared to start printing, but haven't actually done any. This weekend/nextweek we'll go on our Study tour to Stockholm and Helskini, visiting TONS of textile design factories. Once we return, we'll start printing digitally and screen printing... i'm Very excited for that.

That's all for now... I've got to run to class. I promise to update again before I leave on my trip!
Farvel

I think i'm turning Danishese, I think i'm turning Danishese, I really think so.

Ugh,
So it's 7:30am here... I've been up since 5am. I don't know if it's because i'm jetlagged or if it's because I live in a city where large trucks like to park outside my window at ungodly hours and bang things around. Not to mention the garbage trucks come early too...
Or maybe it's the fact that the sun rises at 4am and my room is basically like one huge window, NONETHELESS, i'm not complaining... just perplexed as to why i'm consistently waking up at this hour... even after staying out until 3am...




PLAY
I really couldn't have asked for a better group of people to live with, literally my whole apartment (all 3 floors of 8 double occupancy rooms) is filled with good peoples. (5 of them are architecture boys from Oregon!) Also 2 of my better girlfriends just moved into my apartment, switching from a Kollegium(college dorm-like thing) about 20 minutes away. They said it was dirty, scary and a ghost-town. SO glad I didn't choose to live in a Kollegium! Where I live could compared to like SOHO of nyc or the Pioneer Square of Portland, SO amazing.

A perk of living with all Architecture/Design kids is that we have the same views on life. We realize that having class at 8:30am every morning is very brutal, therefore we don't feel the need to go out until the wee hours of the morning everynight. BUT last night my whole building went out (for the first time since we've been here) to a REALLY fun dance club, Danish people still really confuse me though... such weird beings.

WORK
My textiles class is really awesome. The main instructor is Malenea Christiansen, a big textile designer in Denmark.. she has designed for stores like H&M and also has her own business.
The first day we learned how to format patterns. Although most patterns look like they're just thrown onto a surface, there really is a scientific method to how elements are placed.
Our professor advised that we started very simple to get the layout down, then we could move onto more advanced designs.
Here are some pictures of what I worked on

busy

SO BUSY & jetlagged.
Will post intimate details soon.

Settled in

So much to say:

I'll shorten it into 10 events of the day

1) I didn't sleep a wink on the plane (I've been up for over 24 hours)
2) Upon first glance, Copenhagen truly is an amazing city and it was SUCH a nice day today
3) My apartment is AMAZING, straight out of an Ikea catalog. I'm in a large room with 2 beds (I ended up having a roommates but it's okay i don't mind) and 2 HUGE windows that face the street
....... i'll put up pics later
4) I've met some really great girls who I explored the city with today, including getting stuck in a glass elevator (all of them from the southern east coast... georgia, north carolina etc)
5) Everything here REALLY is more expensive.
6) My whole apartment complex (3 floors, 8 rooms of all DIS kids) took a trip to the food store to buy food.... we all came back with nothing but cereal, eggs and beer.
7) Danish is REALLY hard to read and understand... making their transit system impossible
8) Already, I've been to the Stroget and to Nyhaven
9) I watched the Portugal/Spain soccer game on a HUGE screen on the harbor
10) Time change is weird, I don't know what i'm doing, when I'm doing it and how much it costs.


I start class tomorrow so won't have much free time but best time to skype me is like 6-7 my time... so like to 2pm your time.

Here!

I've successfully arrived in Copenhagen! It's 936am here and its already very warm.
Don't have time to type more, but will post again once i'm in my room!\xoxo

CONTACT INFORMATION

For those of you who I haven't explained my adventure to, I'll be studying Textile design in Copenhagen, Denmark!
I'm going with the program DIS (danish institute for study abroad) and will be gone June 28th-August 17th.
What is a textile?
Technically, a textile is any fibrous material.
In my case, I will be designing printed textiles... the stuff you see on walls, couches, bedspreads and clothes.
for more info click here

I got really lucky and was assigned a double room, to myself, in downtown Copenhagen only a few blocks away from my school building!
Here is my location, and if you're enough of a stalker, you can even zoom in to street view and see the actual street i'm living on!

View Larger Map

PERSONAL CONTACT INFO
Address: Skindergade 14

Room Number:112

Street name: Skindergade 14

Zip code: 1159

City: København K

Cellphone: +45 30973180

Email: annalee@uoregon.edu
Skypename: peaceloveak


PROGRAM CONTACT INFO

american # 612.627.0140
danish # +45 3311 0144

danish address:
DIS Copenhagen Office
Vestergade 7
DK-1456 Copenhagen K
Denmark

www.dis.dk