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.