Saturday, July 30, 2011

Back in the CPH

(FYI-This is a longer post)

Well the western Denmark study tour has come, and gone.  Busy schedules, no internet, and basic Danish-ing has delayed the update process.

7:30AM came very early Thursday morning, but me and the roomies made it to the bus in plenty of time.  Again, Tim and Brandon had to say goodbye to Shaun and myself, and it wasn't really too emotional, go figure.  Off they went, but we had a delayed departure due to some missing students who held us up due to drinking-induced hangovers.  Party on.  Eventually we took off.  And as usual, it was an interesting ride out of the city; a city that was not designed to accommodate a large tour bus.  I have to give the bus drivers in Copenhagen a lot of credit.  Tight streets, pedestrians, bicyclists, cars, tourists, and the occasional horse...good work.

Our first leg of the trip consisted of a long bus ride to the main land of Denmark;  Jutland.  Taking us over the world's 2nd largest/longest suspension bridge and crossing the very flat, green and cultivated landscape of Denmark.  We stopped in a town called Kolding, and got to tour the Koldinghuset, a very old castle that was semi-destroyed but re-finished by a Danish architect.  It was a very cool combination of the old and new of Danish architecture.





We also stopped at an art museum with a chair exposition.  We got some solid sketching in and even a quick nap and cartwheel demonstration on the back lawn of the museum.




Oh yeah.  Shaun dressed in a Canadian tuxedo too.

After some lunch we boarded the bus again for another journey up to Ebeltoft, a quiet retreat along the water.  Very nice.  Here we stayed in a very nice hostel and got to explore the town.  Even squeezed in a game of volleyball and some limbo with the locals.  Fact.




Oh yeah...and then these 2 showed up.

An early wakeup call again got us up and out early to look at some old churches and other buildings around Ebeltoft and then it was on toward Aarhus with a few stops at some buildings along the way...

Just walking around some fields.

Old-ass church


One of my favorite squares


An old silo converter into high-end housing



Aarhus was awesome.  A smaller city, centered around a University, much younger crowd, nice people, awesome buildings, good food and the weather was great.  We walked along the city's river walk, up to the Aros Art Museum.




I'm not usually the biggest fan of museums, but it was a lot of fun.  There was an exhibit with interactive art installations (a room filled with heavy fog and neon lights-causing you to navigate around with heightened senses.  It was disorienting and fun.  You couldn't see more than a couple feet in front of you).  There was also the iconic rainbow elipse on the roof to walk around to give colorful perspectives of the city and the people within.



Borderline creepy

 What up, Scott?

Where'd you come from Shaun?






Aarhus.  Aerial.

We bumped into Tim and Brandon here, who were getting ready to leave Aarhus and continue on with their trip.  They suggested some places we needed to check out, and warned us about the hostel for the night.

The hostel we stayed at was terrible. Forced you to buy sheets and towels, no outside food and drink, only 3 keys to a room of 6 guys, and only 3 toilets/showers for the entire group.  Epic fail.

We went out in Aarhus on Friday night, and bumped into our guide, and my studio instructor, Bo, who was having drinks with a friend he knew.  Next thing we know he was telling us we needed to go out with him...and since Bo knows all, and hasn't steered us wrong yet, we followed him and had an awesome time.  Long story short, me and a group of people decided to walk back to the hostel.  Another Fail.  We got lost and 2 hours later we rolled in and called it a night.

Today we, again, woke up early, had some Bfast, and hopped on the bus for some sightseeing around Aarhus.  We saw a crematorium (a bit much for 8:30AM but what can ya do?), the university, city hall and then had the afternoon to ourselves.

Aarhus Crematorium




Sketchbook review session in Aarhus.


City Hall Chambers

Just hanging out in the bell tower...no big deal.

Oh.  Hey Aarhus.



Lounging.

Aarhus was surprising and I'm glad we made it there and spent a day there.  We bussed back from Aarhus to rainy Copenhagen.  After some talk about going out for what might be the last "free" night until our final reviews...we all decided against making moves, grabbing some food and calling it a night. It's good to be back in our place to get some good sleep and feel a little more at home.

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