Angela comes to visit!

After I got back from Stockholm, I had a busy couple of days trying to get ahead on work because my friend from high school, Angela (I visited her while she was studying in Paris last year) was coming to Copenhagen on Friday and was going to be here for a week. It was really nice having a friend visit and getting to show someone else Copenhagen since a lot of people kind of forget about Copenhagen even though it is a really neat city. Angela arrived early in the morning on Friday but I had class all day so she just walked around Copenhagen by herself for most of the day. On Saturday we woke up early and took the train to Malmö, Sweden (a 30 min train ride). Copenhagen and Malmö are part of the Oresund region which includes Zealand (the island that Copenhagen is on) and Southern Sweden and in the last decade I think there has been a large move to tie the Oresund region closer together. A major part of this was the construction of the Oresund Bridge which crosses the Oresund strait between Copenhagen and Malmo, I think it is the second longest bridge in the world and it spans over 4 miles!

The first thing we did in Malmo was to walk over to the Turning Torso, the tallest building in Scandinavia (at 54 stories) and very neat looking, the entire building rotates 90 degrees as it goes up. The Turning Torso was on the edge of Malmo, in an newer developed area which was fun to walk around in. It was all residential but the homes and apt buidlings were very modern and it was right next to the sea with a good view of the bridge. I really liked the feel of this part of town and both Angela and I agreed that it felt a lot like parts of Oakland and Emeryville.

From the Turning Torso we walked down to the older, main part of Malmo to find some lunch. Both Angela and I are very indecisive when it comes to food because we always think there might be something better if we keep looking, so it always takes us forever to decide on a place. We finally ended up going to a little Italian restaurant on the main square and split a pizza. I was kind of shocked by the price, we each ended up only paying $6 total for pizza and a drink! (Malmo was even cheaper than Stockholm!).

From lunch we walked over the the old Renaissance Castle in Malmo and went to two of the museums there (total entrance price $2). The first museum was about the city history and it was very strange. First of all, there are many fewer things in English in Sweden than in Denmark (this was also the case in Stockholm). Also, the museum was very kitsch and had a lot of random and strange, but sometimes funny things. We ended up being confused most of the time and I'm not even sure all of the exhibits would have been clear if we knew Swedish. But is was still fun to see the museum becasue it was very different and much less academic than the museums in larger cities.

We spend most of the rest of the day walking around Malmo. It is not all that different from Copenahgen, which is to be expected because this part of Sweden used to be part of Denmark. However, the buildings still were taller and a bit more grandiose than anything in Copenhagen. Around 5 we stopped at a cute looking teahouse and each got a drink (I got a very rich hot chocolate) and a pastry and then walked around again until dinner. For dinner we ended up eating in the main part of Malmo again, but outside. There were a two restaurants that had set up a lot of tables outside with lots of heat lamps and warm blankets. We had a bit of a hard time figureing the menu out since it was in Swedish, but finally we pretty much managed to figure out all of the different meat types from what I knew of Danish and were about to order when the waitress told us that there were English menus! So we took a look at those which were much easier and it ended up that we had figured out pretty much everything except for the word for elk! We had a pretty late dinner so afterwards we just decided to head back to Copenhagen, especially since it was starting to rain so we walked back to the train station and were back in Copenahagen 40 mins after we left the restaurant!

On Sunday I had to do some work because my final studio project was due on Wednesday so Angela did some more exploring on her own and then we met up in the afternoon and went to the Carlsberg Brewery where we took a tour which went over the history of beer, of the Carlsberg brand and how they make their beer. Afterwards, your musuem tickets get you two free tastes of beer in their beer room. I really enjoyed the tasting because before you went up to order your beers they had 20 or so different aromas that you could smell to determine what you liked and what you didn't like and then they had a list of their beers with the flavors that one could taste. Angela and I each got two different beers so we could try eachother's. My favorite was a stout beer that had chocolate, coffee and oak as the listed aromas while one the Angela got had a very strong apple flavor.

On Monday Angela and I went to a famous cake/bakery near my school and each got a pastry and a drink before I headed off to do work and she went sightseeing. That night we cooked chili (something I've been meaning to do but have never gotten around to do). It was pretty good but more solid than usual since we added more mushrooms and more vegetables than the recipe called for because we figured we wouldn't use them up otherwise.

Tuesday was a loooooong day. I had class all day and since my project was due at 10pm on Wednesday I knew I had a lot of work to do. I ended up pulling an all-nighter in the studio, along with a lot of other people because I just wanted to get my project done with. And of course, everything took a lot longer than anticipated. I ended up working pretty much straight from 2 pm on Tuesday afternoon to 7 pm Wednesday evening with only a few short breaks. Needless to say, by the end i was exhausted and had no idea how the other people who had pulled all nighters were still able to keep working since I had to concentrate really hard to do anything. however, my project turned out really good so I was pleased about that and I hadn't really made any big stupid mistakes. I was so tired Wednesday that I came back with Angela, ate dinner, took a shower and was in bed and asleep by 8:30! The next morning though I had to wake up early because I had my presentation for my project at 9 which was kind of annoying but it ended up being good to get out of the way. My presentation went very well and I think my teacher and the two guest critcs liked my idea and by presentation board so that was good.

Thursday afternoon Angela and I just walked around for a bit and the weather has finally started to be more springlike in the week Angela was here and we had 3 or 4 sunny days in a row! Also, as the weather is getting warmer ice cream stands are starting to pop up on the streets which is really nice and there are even more people out. I'm really looking forward to coming back to Copenhagen after my 3 week travel break becasue it will really be spring then!

Angela left early Friday morning and I've pretty much been spending my time getting ready for my break as I leave tomorrow (Sunday) at 8 am. I am really excited to go but I am been getting sick/have been kind of sick, for about a week now. A lot of people in my studio were sick and the rooms don't really have good ventilation so it isn't that surprising that I got sick. however, I also don't think my body let me fully get sick since I had so much work to do and I don't feel all that bad, just mostly feverish at night. So I'm hoping that I'll get better by tomorrow or at least during the first week of traveling.

Since I'll be traveling for the next 3 weeks, I probably won't be updating the blog unless I find time and a free internet connection, but here's a list of where I'll be going:
Week 1: I'll be traveling with the DIS Architecture program to Germany (Hamburg and the area around Dusseldorf) and to the Netherlands (Amsterdam and Utrecht).
Week 2-3: The DIS tour ends in Utrecht so I'll take the train to Amsterdam, spend 1 day there and then take a train to Brussels and spend 1.5 days there before I head to Barcelona where I'll meet up with another friend from high school, Lexi who is studying abroad in barcelona. I'll spend 3 days in Barcelona and then both Lexi and I will fly to London, spend 3 days there, then fly to Zurich and spend a couple of days in Switzeland, take a night train to Budapest, spend 1.5 days there and then take a night train to Prague where we'll spend out last two days before heading back to Copenhagen/Barcelona, respectively.