In short... November was a long cold month with school keeping me rather busy. There really hasn't been much of anything exciting or worth blogging about. I did a couple of papers, had a couple tests and have been working on a new architecture project. There is a joke in Denmark that helps describe what it has been like. "There are 15 months in a year in Denmark: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, November, November, November, December." Its just a long and cold month. The weather has been consistently cold and dreary. The days are getting shorter and shorter. Today was actually a nice day because there was no rain and only slightly overcast and the temperature got up to 40 degrees F (5 C). So if that's a good day.... you can probably guess how miserable the weather has been. However, Christmas season has started. Lights and decorations and candles are everywhere so that helps offset the weather.
Academically, the only thing of interest was a paper I did about courtyard housing by the Danish architect Jorn Utzon. As a part of the research, I visited one of the courtyard houses owned by a retired architect and had a great conversation with him about architecture and Utzon. I am sharing this with you is because I went on a very beautiful (but freezing cold) Saturday right after the first snow of winter. I took some sweet pictures you can check out below:
Jorn Utzon is the architect of the iconic Sydney Opera House and is one of Denmark's greatest architects. He died at the age of 90 two days ago on Saturday, November 29th. The Sydney Opera House is considered one of the most iconic and recognizable buildings of the 20th Century. Utzon never saw the completed Opera House because he was forced to leave Australia after many complications in construction and budget while he oversaw it being built. He never returned even after Australia made amends with him and begged him to return. Utzon cited his old age from being unable to travel again. Utzon remarked "It's part of education - I can't be bitter about anything in life." when asked if he had any regrets about Sydney. There is much I have learned and will continue to learn from this amazing architect. You can read more about Utzon here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7757042.stm
However the highlight of November has definitely been Thanksgiving. It was definitely very hard to not be able to be with my family for Thanksgiving. The only other time I had not been home for Thanksgiving was in 2004 when I was in Colorado. Because there were many of us students from Cal Poly in Denmark, we decided to throw a big Thanksgiving feast ourselves and invited the Cal Poly students in Italy to come up and join us. About 5 of them came and it was great to see them. There were 29 people total. Everyone contributed by bringing food or drinks. There was no lack of food or wine and everyone had a great time. We were at the house of another student's host family who lives outside Copenhagen. It was certainly the most unique Thanksgiving I will ever have and will remember it for years to come. Here are a couple pictures from the night.
Currently I am on the last week of a design project for a multicultural art museum in Copenhagen. When I have the fancy rendering and model done I will post them. I am pretty excited about how this project is turning out and am looking forward to sharing it with you. I hope everyone had a good November. I hear all you lucky people in California had a record hot November. I tried not to think about that when I was freezing over here.
Well I gotta get back to the architecture project.... hope everyone has a good week.
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