Been so busy with different projects and exploring/enjoying my new Williamsburg neighborhood, I’ve been neglecting this site a bit. Apologies!
Was fortunate to have a few Danish pals visit over the last couple weeks. First, my pal Jesper, a fellow I met during my time in Copenhagen, Denmark and his friend/now my friend designer Thor Høy stayed with me during NYC Design Week 2010. It was a lot of fun cruising ICFF2010 and hopping around all of the showroom parties in SoHo with them.
Then, a week and half later, two of my best friends from Copenhagen, Rasmus and Laleh came for a visit. They lived, briefly, in NYC last year so they were pretty familiar with the city so they decided to spend most of their time here in Williamsburg. We had a great time! They shopped and shopped (the kroner is worth way more here) and we enjoyed a few nights out on the town.Interestingly enough, they both reported seeing a lot more New Yorkers on bikes. I think that’s was we were in Brooklyn most of the time, where NYC bike culture seems to thrive more. But I guess I do see a few more bikes in the city than before. Hopefully, the trend continues!
All of these Danish visitors makes me “homesick” for Denmark. I hope I can make a visit back to my adopted second home very soon!
Now, I am fairly diligent about carrying a shopping bag with me at all times. I became committed to the idea whilst living in Europe, where bringing your own bag to shop is pretty much a requirement, not just a eco-friendly gesture. I had decided to travel light to the Architectural Digest Home Design Show this weekend and found myself with handfuls of trade show swag and no bag. Not good. So I stumbled over to nearest booth for respite and as luck would have it, landed in the trusty hands of OBOE or One Bag One Earth. Seeing that I was two seconds away from a majorly embarrassing swag-alanche, Sam from OBOE generously gave me one of their fabulously stylish reusable bags.
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It wasn’t as cold as it has been over the last few weeks so I took a walk over to Greenpoint today to mail a few letters and shop for soup ingredients. I am making a potato-cauliflower soup tonight and I needed to pick up the cauliflower and garlic but ended up also getting chives and an extra bag of potatoes.
It was a good walk. On the way I passed: a house that looks like it could have been home to Norman Bates, some groovy street art and a little delivery truck with a mustache drawn on it’s back.
Groovy street art aside I actually didn’t intend on going to Greenpoint today. I needed to mail a couple letters and it was the nearest post office to me.
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Well I am happy to report my Danish is coming along nicely. It was a wise move to start taking classes! You can only go so far on your own and I feel it really helps to be amongst other people struggling with learning a new language. One thing I did not expect from taking a Danish class is how much I have learned about my own language. I never thought about why we say things the way we do in English. It’s been challenging but also a lot of fun.
The people in my class are very diverse. Everyone is learning the language for a different reason, but we all have one thing in common-we all enjoy learning about Danish culture. Our teacher is from Copenhagen, her name is Camilla (it seems-all girls are named Camilla in Scandinavia) and she is very sweet, but tough! She really forces us to speak Danish since almost of the class is taught in Danish.
Overall, the experience has been very positive and I intend to stick with it. I will keep you posted on my progress!
I have a friend visiting from Denmark right now and we have been doing a lot of walking around the city. Yesterday, we caught the Gay Pride parade down in the West Village. It was so much fun!!
The energy was electric, so many happy people. I love watching the drag queens and many creative floats (a lot of gay marriage themed). By the time we reached the parade it had been going for about 5 hours and still no end in sight.
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Just returned from a lovely visit home. I took some pics of my mom’s lovely lawn and garden. This is the front.
And here is a picture of part of the back garden.
I mowed both lawns and was quite proud of myself! I also did some lawn repair on the back. Hope it grows! Mom said she would send a photo. :>
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Today was a really nice day. The sun was shining and blue skies as far as the eye could see. I was happy to get get a phone call from my friend Dan inviting me to lunch in Chinatown. Dan (a.k.a. Gastrodomus) is a total foodie. I have enjoyed many fine and memorable meals with Dan. He makes it not just fun but a learning experience.You can see Dan here photographing our yummy Vietnamese lunch.
After lunch, Dan took me on a little tour of unknown Chinatown. OK maybe not completely unknown to most New Yorkers but I can honestly say I had never been to some of these streets. The best thing about the tour is NO TOURISTS! I had never been down the street you see here. And see the couple in the corner? They were actually being photographed for what I can only assume was a engagement photo, since there was a lot of canoodling going on for the camera.
After some walking around we decided since the weather was so great we needed to have a our first ice cream cone of the season. So Dan took me to Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. It was super yummy and well worth the wait. I guess everyone else had the same thought we did.
Overall, a fantastic day!
Was walking home from a sunny day in Chinatown and saw this pink unicorn in atop a mound of junk. It was so odd and out of place, I had to take a picture of it. It kind of looks like a hippo. Can hippos be unicorns?
Well today was my last day in Copenhagen (at least until warmer weather comes!) and it was lovely spent with a new friend. We walked all around Copenhagen revisiting some of my favorite sites and exploring some one new ones. I have always wanted to go up in the Rundetaarn or “Round Tower”, an old 15th century astronomical observatory. 
Instead of stairs, you climb a spiral walk to the top of the tower.
When you climb to the top you can see the whole city of Copenhagen. It was a great way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon. Farvel Copenhagen! See you when the sun is shining again. :>
Well just three more weeks til I head back to New York so I’ve decided to get out of the city and take a short trip to Århus to visit with my friend Bjørn. I was there just over a year ago and am looking forward to visiting again.
Fun Facts about Århus:
*The second largest city in Denmark.
*Was first settled by Vikings, who called it “Aros,” an Old Norse word meaning “river mouth.
*One of Scandinavia’s oldest cities.
