*design zoo*

so this is anna's cermics studio at design zoo.

this is anna, working on some glazing. for the past few days, i've been helping her glaze, sand off the seams from the casted vases, and cutting out decals. that's me in the reflection, with the cute ikea apron on.

i'm so happy anna agreed to let me work with her for a while, because i've never done slip casting, so i had no idea how it works. when i started with anna, she was kind of in the middle of the process, so i haven't gotten to see exactly how slip casting works yet. so more photos soon to come. for now, here is some of her dreamy work that i get to be surrounded by:





the building that design zoo is in is next to this building, which i thought looked great with the pink flowers:


there's also a cool bike shop in the back that builds these crazy bikes with compartments for kids:

*weekend outings*

jason made us a delicious dinner (after a bit of arguing!) and the presentation was so good, i had to take a photo.

then we went to a free outdoor screening of Good Night and Good Luck. it was perfect out, and so many people come & picnic. they even bring little disposable tin grills. we've seen them all over here. so that was our friday evening.


we had lots of outings this weekend. yesterday, we went to the black diamond library on our way to the kunstindustrimuseet (museum for danish art & design). dreamiest library ever.



can you imagine if our libraries had views like this!? me neither.

after the black diamond experience, we rode over to the kunstindustrimuseet museum. super cool. again, nothing like our museums at home. it was a very amy tavern & rachel harris museum, with tons of jewelry and textiles, as well as furniture & ceramics. we loved it.



today we went to a new beach, called amager strand. a little ways outside of the city, but an easy enough bike ride. it started out perfectly beautiful, and then some crazy clouds started coming in. i love how you can see the white windmills from this beach. we also saw lots of boobs -- topless beach, turns out. but only... maybe 1/4 of the people were topless.




lots of beautiful danish moms, dads, and babies, of course. here's one little guy:


now we're home, and i've spent the last 28 minutes trying to figure out what the hell this means so i can cook dinner:
tilsett evt. 1/2spsk smor eller margarin.
tilsett posens innhold og rør godt om.
la retten småkoke uten lokk/låg i ca. 10 minutter. Rør av og til.

Here's what the inter-language online translator told me:
attend to evt. smor or margarin. attend to the bag innhold and piping good about. la the court småkoke uten tempt / lid to ca. 10 minutes. Piping ouch and to.

hopefully it will all turn out okay...

*artful finds*

i am keeping a separate folder in iPhoto of all the photos i've taken for inspiration -- cool objects, beautiful color combinations, designs, people, etc...

http://web.mac.com/allisyn/iWeb

*arhus*

so yesterday i took a little day trip to arhus. i guess not that little - it takes about 3 hours by train. the ride was lovely. lots of windmills & fields.


i checked out the aros museum, where there's a robert rauschenberg exhibit. the museum itself was great -- yet another amazing space. light and airy, scandinavian style. you walk in and you're on the 4th floor, and there are 8 floors altogether. lots of choices.




i found a cafe that i read about (somehow) in a danish magaine, called costume (that's the name of the magazine, not the cafe). i'm getting pretty good at reading danish magazines. if there's a good picture, i can usually track down what/where it is. so i ordered a really yummy brunch at this place, and when i paid, saw that they charged me for water! water! and 12 kroner! that was copenhagen's first strike against me, although technically i wasn't in copenhagen. is that legal?! well, i found out the answer today: yes it is. ever since the cost of water went up a few years ago, it is legal to charge for water, although, in true danish style, if someone is in desperate need of water, it is illegal to charge them. a girl in an amazing kids shoe store explained that to me today.

my point was really that there are lots of cafes along the main shopping streets, and in arhus, they overlook these little canals or bodies of water. on the day i was there, they were doing some hardcore construction of the water area.


anyway, after my brunch w/water, i did some shopping around the smaller cobblestone streets, and scored a pair of shoes & a little top from a great store called muloo. all of the shops close around 5:30 - 6:00, so i headed back home on a 6:31 train.

*catching up*

*i am writing from our new home, located in vesterboro, or the porn district. we love it here & fit right in. it's very lower east side feeling, with lots of cool shops & cafes. in fact, after moving in, doing some grocery shopping, taking a little nap, & making dinner, we took a walk in the rain & discovered our new favorite coffee shop in the world: riccos. why, you ask?

tin roofs, beautiful trinkets on organized shelving

coffee presentation

jas plays scrabble with me

hot girl with great dress


last night, we met signe & thomas, who's apartment we're living in now. they made us an amazing, very vegetarian friendly dinner which they grilled in our backyard, where there is a beautiful common garden/picnic area with some tables, benches, flowers, & a big grill. we also met ulrich, who we'll do the last bit of our apartment swap with in another 2 weeks. all of our new danish friends are great. we had a really fun evening with them.



we had our first bike ride in the dark when we rode home after dinner last night. you have to use bike lights at night, and you can choose if you want them to blink or not. i go with the steady light, but we definitely passed some blinkers. there are also some crazy shadows & interesting lighting happening during copenhagen evenings. we had a great day riding around in our park on saturday too. i'll post all of our catch up photos on http://web.mac.com/allisyn/iWeb tomorrow...







photos of our new home:




some notes:
*when we asked thomas how/when to water the plants, he replied, "the one by the loudspeaker {stereo}, rarely; the others, give a sip once every second or third day."

*flowers = blomsters

*jas loves the "well defined spaces of this house"

*lovely day*

*i had the best day with myself today! i got laundry done this morning -- so satisfying. i love that i can hang everything out to dry outside here. i decided to do a DIY tour of frederiksberg that i downloaded before i came here. i rode over to a new park with a picnic lunch, and sat & read for a while. then i found cisternerne -- the museum of modern glass art. holy crap. most amazing museum -- totally underground. cavernous, wet floors, creepy noises, and cold, but so incredible. bo, my new friend who works there, gave me a sweater so i wouldn't be cold. a sweater!!! they have a few in the entry way. i had heard of a similar myth -- that restaurants here give you blankets -- good, soft blankets, if it gets chilly and you are sitting outside. could this place get any better? copenhagen is so in touch with my inner-most philosophies, like soft, warm blankets as needed, in life. i tried to capture the magic with my undercover camera work -- there were signs all over not to take photos, but it didn't say anything about taking short video clips...


the second half of the museum -- where the glass is:


bo said i can come back for free next time. i think he likes me!

after the museum, i rode across the street to the zoo! i took a bunch of photos for my kids, since we did a zoo field trip. i thought it would be cool to see what kinds of animals (and kids) they have in another country. the polar bear freaked me out a little, but that's because i've been watching lost... anyway, here are some:






the rest of the photos are here, under "zoo day": http://web.mac.com/allisyn/iWeb

alexa from lille hus recommended i check out her favorite shop, which inspired her to start her company. *a m a z i n g.* i went in semi-undercover to get the scoop on the latest goods & got so much inspiration for layouts at home. a few photos here - the rest are on web.mac...




and that was just the first floor! check out the basement and this amazing beater.




how could anything not taste great if you use baby blue beaters!?

speaking of beautiful danish babies, my last photo for the day: