allisyn copenhagen

iceland

2006-08-30T04:49:00.000-07:00

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

finally, our photos from iceland...

c l o s u r e

2006-08-21T15:08:00.000-07:00

holy crap. we've left the country. we're in iceland now, but i don't feel like i can even get into that yet, since i don't feel i've had blog closure with copenhagen. i will attempt to recapture our last 2 days in cph, and then get to iceland next time...

but first... can i just say how adorable my fairy godson, jake is?

ok. so we've been wanting to check out this cute looking breakfast place called granola in our old 'hood, vesterbrø. amazing granola & oatmeal. we would totally be regulars here. we bought some tables at design zoo & had to leave our bikes there the night before so we could haul the tables back home, so we took the bus back down & grabbed our bikes after breakfast. we did a pretty thorough run through of a bunch of places we wanted to hit one more time. there are tons of great kids clothing places. the patterns are so good out here. we also went by jason's favorite bike shop. so dreamy. then one more look at det mondaere skur. that place kills me. bought some spoons, cause i can't resist a great spoon.

after a little downtime at the apartment, we headed back out & rode to islands bryggs, and had our favorite pizza in cph one last time at il pano. the guy even threw in an extra piece for free! i felt like we had excellent islands bryggs closure. it was still light out so we took another exploratory bikeride which worked out great, because the next night was rainy. we were trying to figure out our favorites of our trip (sometimes we like to pretend-interview each other) and jason asked what our favorite hidden discovery was. we found a really beautiful area on our bike ride that became our favorite hidden discovery. how well does that work out!?

we ended up headed towards an enticing archway, and rode right into some armed soldiers. crazy. you never know what you'll run into on exploratory bikerides in copenhagen. these were not friendly fellows, like the soldier we made smile at the royal something castle. they were not to be reckoned with, and kind of harshed our mellow, so we headed back home...

next day: returned by bike to malene & bought 2 amazing skull glasses from lotta (soon to be photographed). then louisiana for one last time. checked out the sip my ocean video exhibit. loved it - especially the mother & father film clips. so brilliant. they also had a calder stabile up on the lawn overlooking the water that wasn't there last time, so we admired it from the cozy cafe while it rained for a bit. then a train adventure on the way home, hopping on & off, and checking out the town klampenborg, where arne jacobsen-designed restaurant. fyi -- closed on sundays, like everything else in copenhagen. but we had a nice walk & had a beach to ourselves and discovered this bikerack garden. pesky bees...

and with a light rain and a cozy bowl of chana aloo from our neighborhood indo-italian-mexican (what?) spot, came our moment of closure in copenhagen.

jason's opening

2006-08-19T07:05:00.000-07:00

the dis (denmark international studies) opening was pretty amazing. it featured the work of all of the summer students in furniture, textiles, and glass. jason's chair looked amazing -- especially with the textiles in the background. lots of cool designs, like this one, for example:

and this one:

and this one:

and this one, by our friend kevin. it feels like a superhero chair, no?

some of my favorite textiles:

now they are working on shipping all the chairs back to the US, so the exhibit is coming down.

we are getting ready to head out to island brygge for one last outing by the water. you would never pronounce it the way you think.

special shops

2006-08-15T23:01:00.000-07:00

i finally got back on my bike yesterday after being away and had time to explore østerbronx. it's about a 10 minute bike ride from here, and there are tons of cool little shops. well maybe not tons, but a good handful. my favorite discovery was a shop called forsberg, the home shop for modern living. the woman who runs it is very sweet, and carries lots of amazing local/scandinavian designers work. i am going back to get some of these cups made by a joint effort -- graphic designer (liebe) and a couple who produces them (urbanite) by liebe ceramics by urbanite! all of the displays in the shop look so good, perhaps some other purchases will be made as well...

i see these patterns in pillows & pot holders by fribert all over the place. all hand printed!

mette & malene's work looking great on display. super cute snap-together kid utensils:

this is new work from anne black that i've never seen before:

i also found another sweet little shop called søstjernen. they've got a really small shop for womens shoes/clothes, and also a kids shop. this is what their floor looks like:

so special!
one last find from smykker (jewelry) shop i found in stockholm that i took for amy:

my time in sweden

2006-08-13T05:42:00.000-07:00

i like sweden. a lot. for one thing, smoking indoors has been outlawed there. we had breakfast this morning at the laundromat cafe, and it sucked that we got smoked out.

so my trip started with a 5 hour train ride. i love the trainrides here, and train rides in other countries in general. i'm working on a little photo documentary of trains. they are so colorful here. much more creative than our dumb old trains.

i learned that pippi longstockings is from sweden! who knew?

i spent my first night in sweden just wandering around -- well, i suppose i spent my whole time in sweden just wandering around, but my first night was a general, clueless wander. i ended up on a 2 hour boat ride that toured sweden's bridges, which i have to say, didn't knock me over or anything. but the buildings & the sunset were incredible. i couldn't get enough, so here's just a few photos. a sampler, if you will. the rest are on the photo page

this crane looked so much like a sea horse to me:

my 2nd day was my amazing shopping day. a few house-y highlights:

who wouldn't want to dust with one of these!?

amazing window of tea shop

from david design. perfect for me. i love hanging things off of things.
to give you a sense of swedish design:

quite possibly the coolest name ever. right up there with ascha drake! jewelery designer. closed. bummer.

my other favorite shops in sweden were: bric-a-brac, design torget, david design, and zadig & voltair (french & expensive, but still...).

the next day, i went to see karin eriksson in uhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.giflriksdal. i took a pendaltåg to get there! so much better sounding than "commuter train," no? my visit was great. i got there, and it was in this compound sort of place -- big gardens & farms... it was like going back in time, sort of. i met karin's brother & his wife & kids, who were picking out some of karin's work for their new home. i also met her dad! he runs a compost shop right by karin's studio. she's hoping to move to a bigger space that's become available, which she took me on a tour of. amazing space, and perfect for a studio & shop. we went back to her studio and she showed me around. karin does literally everything, which is shocking to me, since her work is sold all over the place -- so many shops in denmark & sweden, and in the US. crazy & huge. but it makes her work that much more special. i wandered around & did a photo shoot of the area because it was so inspirational. more photos here. we went to the cafe and had a very delicious lunch overlooking the garden & golf course. then back to the studio where i helped her with the decals she uses. it was so incredible to get a peek at the behind the scenes of karin's studio, and to talk blogs, style, etc... for a day. it was a perfect visit.

my 4th day i checked out anna-carin & karin's recommendations for a day of galleries, gardens, and museums. there were a handful of really amazing small galleries and shops along hornsgatan street. my favorite was blås & knåda (blow & knead, as in glass & clay), where i bought a small ceramic piece by hisako mizuno. it's a small dish that has such a soft, round feel. i couldn't stop touching it. when i asked about it, the gallery owner introduced me to hisako, who was working in the shop, so meeting her made it ever more special.
then i went to rosendals trädgård, these beautiful gardens with a great outdoor cafe.

a quick tour of the stig lindberg exhibit at the national museum -- the man behind the cup!

on my last day, i found my favorite cafe -- the copacabana. great location for people watching, and even though the weather was perfect & i didn't need one, they had the cozy blankets!

new tricks

2006-08-10T12:10:00.000-07:00

amazing day with karin eriksson. clearly, i also learned how to make links. more once i get back to cph and am able to post my photos...

bloody birger jarl

2006-08-10T00:55:00.000-07:00

bloody hell. i just lost my posting i was working on about my time in stockholm, since the bloody computer at the bloody birger jarl just quit out on me, unannounced. shouldäve saved. letäs see what i can muster...

iäm here on a short excursion, to explore stockholm. i canät figure out how to make apostrophes on their computers, but å, ö, and ä are readily available. after my 5 hour train ride,and a bit of wandering, i sensed that i was more of a copenhagen girl than a stockholm girl. but after my day yesterday, stockholm got kicked up a few notches. perhaps it was because i had a great hair day. perhaps it was the perfect weather. whatever it was, i rocked the stockholm shopping scene. which, for me means, i scored lots of little gifts, 2 shirts, and an outfit. thatäs right, mom. an outfit. my favorite store, bric a brac, was a recommendation from karin erikssonäs super dreamy blog. as soon as i figure out how to make links on my blog, i will make those easily click-on-able. or perhaps karin will show me today, when I VISIT HER AT HER STUDIO! perchance.

so i will surely have more to write about at the end of the day after meeting karin...

malmö

2006-08-08T00:58:00.000-07:00

yesterday was our first time in sweden together (jason cruised through on his study tour, but didn't get to malmö). it was fun to explore, but lots of shops were closed on sunday. we took lots of photos, though.

this is jason... allisyn literally just walked out the door. she'll be sipping up the stockholm scene until saturday. i'm sure she'll have plenty of finds to share then.

so malmö...

basically, if you stand on your left foot you're in københavn, but hop onto your right foot and you're in malmö. (i äm løving using åll these nü chäracters).

the form/design center was fantastic and well worth the (short) trip. their current exhibition meanders around a camping (and camping gear) theme. al loved the textiles and hanging screens (including a beautiful birch print by maija louekari for marimekko). seems like the denmarkians & swedens cant get enough of their dishtowels. they are everywhere, in the dreamiest patterns. we are stocking up. i couldn't stop touching the eva solo table grill--i'd love to break this out to grill some veggies in yosemite, right outside the airstream (a boy can dream).

the 2nd floor housed their "literary café", a beautiful little spot where you can enjoy a biscuit and sip a kaffe (or varm choklad) while thumbing through an amazing array of design zines (many of which urge you to learn swedish or danish).

one of only stores that wasn't lukket was the center's butik on the 3rd floor. pretty killer... so many options, so little kroner. we scored some great dish towels in a sweet vintage pattern, though.

we sat by the sea with a light lunch before heading back to our homebase. this kid couldn't stay away from us, so obviously we had to document him.

we will be back, mälmo. we'll be back...

last days in vesterboro

2006-08-06T01:01:00.000-07:00

our last night in vesterbro began at riccos, where we sat outside & had our last coffee/hot chocolate as official locals. my "varm chocolade" was made like this: a reeses peanut butter cup-shaped piece of chocolate with a skewer poked in it was plunked into a glass of steamed milk. you stir yourself. i loved it. conceptually a dreamy way to make hot chocolate, for one who likes to control the degree of chocolatiness.

it was VERY hard to leave signe & thomas' place. just a lovely apartment in a perfect location. but we left, and now reside in østerbro, or as ulrik calls it, østerbronx. it's a great apartment -- very spacious, but removed from the city. fortunately, malena from the studio (she makes the beautiful ceramics, mette makes the jewelry) loaned me her old bike. here's our new place:

note the color coded bookshelf. nice touch.
we've had a few more great bike rides, and come upon such things as this ginormous yacht, owned by a microsoft fellow & used in a 007 movie (i may have written about it before, but that was when i saw it from afar. this time i touched it.):

for the last few days, i've been working at a different studio: helbak-scherning. mette took some photos of me working on her jewelry:

today we are headed to målmo, sweden, so we will have more adventures to write about tonight...

helbak-scherning

2006-08-03T09:07:00.000-07:00

last night we got a preview of our 3rd and last apartment we'll be staying in. we are definitely a bit sad to leave the place we're in now. the apartment now feels like home to us, and we really love this neighborhood. but, we will quickly adjust to life in "østerbronx," as ulrik calls his neighborhood.

today i worked in a different studio, in downtown cph, called helbak-scherning (www.helbak-scherning.dk/02.html). anna helped me arrange it so i could experience a different studio. it's run by 2 women, mette & melana. they are both so sweet, and working mom's. very inspiring. here's mette:

i worked with mette on her jewelry. basically, she uses cookie-cutters to create different sized disks, and then uses decals to apply her designs onto the ceramics. that was my job today, applying the decals. the yellow part of the decals burn off in the kiln so that just the design sticks on. it's tedious, but fun to be in a studio & see how things are made. tomorrow i'll be working with her on glazing. here are a few photos of the work i did today...

finished products look like this:

for mette's website & photos of her jewelry, check out: http://scherning.dk
i think i may help her translate it to english.

more soon**

design zoo

2006-07-31T11:33:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-30T09:20:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-27T00:49:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-26T10:02:00.000-07:00

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

2006-07-23T13:49:00.001-07:00

*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

2006-07-20T12:08:00.000-07:00

*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:

hygge

2006-07-19T10:04:00.000-07:00

ok -- call it fate or whatever, but copenhagen is like, the perfect place for me. there's actually a name for the CPH vibe, which my new friend alexa describes perfectly on one of my new discoveries -- her amazing website: www.lillehusonline.com/hygge.asp. the danes are all about comfort & coziness. i am all about comfort & coziness. i love being home! it's too good.

so today i visited some big buildings & headed downtown for some exploring. a glimpse of downtown:

i headed over to the danish design center. smaller than i imagined, but cool little exhibits and a really cool "flow market" which maybe you'll be able to experience via video? let's see:

i was having this amazing moment, where bjørk was playing (in a museum!? only in copenhagen.) & i mostly had the area to myself... the concept was about shaping our world by the choices we make as consumers. for now, here are a few photos:

i also learned that the post-it was invented in 1981!

after ddc, i went over to check out the glyptotek museum. big & fancy, but free on wednesday & sundays! score. lots of rodin. who knew "the thinker" was in cph? here are a few photos:

the rest of the afternoon/evening was strolling around strøget -- big shopping area. kind of lame main street -- it's supposedly the longest pedestrian shopping street in the world. but there are really cool little side streets, so i stuck to those. i wandered a bunch, tried on a cool shirt that was too big, got an iced coffee (i drink coffee here! but only at this one place, occassionally) at one of my favorite little cafes, the secret kitchen, and read through my new "danish crafts guide to shops & galleries" book that i picked up. i'm using it to plan some little day trips. i somehow made it back to where i parked my bike hours earlier, and it was still there!!!

i thought i'd go for a swim, but was sadly mistaken thinking the pool would be open past 19 o'clock. everything closes early here. i ended up wandering over to a laundromat to check out the situation for tomorrow, when i'll be completely out of clean clothes, and some kind lady explained how it works to me. so i'm all set for tomorrow morning!

over & out...

*more thorough photos of today:
http://web.mac.com/allisyn/iWeb/Site/3CF43C66-BC6A-4700-B3DD-EB53FCF6F910.html

apartment #1

2006-07-18T14:59:00.000-07:00

some photos of jeanette's place, our sweet little apartment in frederiksberg. we live right across from a public pool in a great neighborhood.

it took me a while to get over jetlag -- i was waking up at 5am, and staying awake until 00 or 01 o'clock! yikes! so not typical for me. lately i wake up around 7:30, when some person drags a trash bin right by our window...

i'm trying to eat breakfast at dinner at home, since it's pretty pricy to eat out. we found some yogurt & granola we like, and there's tons of good fruit at little markets around here...

18 july

2006-07-18T11:54:00.000-07:00

woke up this morning & established my danish hairstyle. i rode my bike to design zoo to check in with anna & have another look around. she wasn't in, but i photographed some of her work...

after that, i rode further into the downtown area to check out a photo exhibit that signe recommended, called "war and love." it was a photo documentary about immigrants from all over coming to scandinavia mostly because of war (as an escape) or love (to reunite in a safe place). pretty amazing photos, and an incredible exhibit space.

i rode through an area that is the "red light" district -- lots of porn shops & drugs, but safe enough. plus i was on my bike, so i wasn't worried about getting accosted by a hooker or anything. i'm pretty tough on my bike.the only thing is, everytime i walk away from it after parking & locking, i am obsessed with checking on it to make sure it won't get stolen. but people don't steal here! i can't help but sneak peeks to see if it's still where i left it... anyway, i discovered my first visual aid on the smørrebrød i've been reading about -- the open faced sandwiches... a little shrimp-y for me, but good to know.

i also discovered one of my new favorite shops -- donn ya dall (donnyadoll.dk), where i made my first purchases of denmark: a cool new bag to replace the one rach lent me 10 years ago, which i realized is decomposing all over my clothes, and a cool owl shirt that i'll have to photograph. i also found some possible emily bags -- she loves the kraghrosenberg.com bags. em?

ok - my patience for uploading photos has run out for today! more thorough photos from the past week are at:
http://web.mac.com/allisyn/iWeb

allisyn copenhagen

*iceland*

*c l o s u r e*

*jason's opening*

*special shops*

*my time in sweden*

*new tricks*

*bloody birger jarl*

*malmö*

*last days in vesterboro*

*helbak-scherning*

*design zoo*

*weekend outings*

*artful finds*

*arhus*

*catching up*

*lovely day*

*hygge*

*apartment #1*