cph architour photoshare

i was lucky enough to have two friends visiting at the same time last week – i’ve traveled in china, japan, and taiwan with both liz and makie, so it was really fun to spend some time with them here in copenhagen. i think it’s been more than two years since we’ve all been in the same place at the same time! since we’re all in design fields, i got to take them on my now-practiced architour of copenhagen… now with plenty of breaks for fika:

me, liz, and makie take a fika break near the central station

me and liz at lagkagehuset in christianshaven (this is my favorite bakery…they make amazing rhubarb muffins!)

but we did more than just eat pastry! me and liz use our map recognition skills in christiania

makie and i taking photos at the royal danish academy for fine arts school of architecture

liz and makie at the christianshavn canal

me and liz at the danish architecture center

makie and her friend clover on playground equipment near the tietgen dormitory

those chairs spin like crazy!

makie, clover, and liz on the see-saw

testing out the main design features of prags boulevard…lampposts and the prags chairs

makie and i are ready to devour a long-anticipated brunch at kvarterhuset in holmbladsgade

clover hard at work promoting the architour

me, makie, and clover at the kastrup public bath/liz and i at the gemini residence

clover gets a swimming lesson at kastrup public bath/makie and clover

a lovely end to a day of archi-touring…

…and a lovely place for a nap!

fika and falu (stockholm slideshow)

my good friend liz maly is visiting me in copenhagen, and we decided to take a weekend trip to stockholm (one of my favorite cities!) to visit our friend and uw colleague heather burpee, who is there on a valle scholarship. we had a fantastic time – visited some museums, met up with some friends from copenhagen who were also visiting, and got to see hb’s side of stockholm. i would say that the highlights of the trip were an amazing meal of swedish meatballs at pelikan, seeing the restored ship at the vasamuseet, visiting traditional buildings from all over sweden at skansen (stockholm’s open-air museum) where we learned about the origins of falu red paint (which gives many rural swedish buildings their distinctive color), visiting the dalahäst (traditional carved wooden horse) museum, and being initiated into (and heavily practicing) the swedish tradition of fika, a verb meaning ‘to take a coffee break,’ one that often includes friends and snacks, between larger meals…a tradition that i will be taking back to the states, and anywhere else i go…anyway. although that seems to be a lot of ‘highlights’ for two short days, it’s definitely an indication of what a great time we had in stockholm. here’s the photo-illustrated version:

may day in dk

in denmark, may day is more of a political holiday than it is a day for making paper baskets and leaving them on your neighbors’ doorstep filled with flowers (which is what i remember doing on may 1 as a child). here’s the wiki-info i was able to dig up: “Left-wing policial day. Many people try to get a day off this day, and some even have it in their employment contract. A few people attend political meetings, though many – especially young people – meet at the sites of the political meetings to drink beer and other alcoholic beverages. Copenhagen’s Fælledparken is well known for its annual May 1st gathering. This is a full holiday for blue collar workers, but not for white collar workers.” we decided to check out the activities at fælledparken (which were crazy – lots of music, political speeches, LOTS of people, tons of beer). we international students celebrated in our own way with a picnic featuring delicious sandwiches engineered by cat and a fantastic ‘apple sand’ cake that laura got from lagkagehuset (my favorite, favorite copenhagen bakery!) in honor of cathrine’s birthday.

sandwich detail – there’s pesto in there!/klaus and cathrine enjoying the picnic goodness