DIS - I've finally arrived

I have now officially spent a week in Europe. it's pretty crazy stuff. My friends corrie and sarah and i flew into hamburg last wednesday, and spent a couple days de-jet lagging and getting used to everyone around us not speaking english.

germany was beautiful. i am very interested in sustainable urbanisim, and seeing how cities work. hamburg is a great example of a sustainable city with heavy car usage. all the cars there, even the work cranes, delivery trucks and cement mixers, are much smaller. they have smaller roads with tree-lined medians in the middle. everywhere there are smart cars and hybrids. they park halfway on the sidewalks, but the sidewalks are much bigger than in the states. the sidewalks have a bicycle lane marked in a different colored paver to distinguish where the bikes go and where the walkers go.



the U-bahn (U train) is very good as well. Easy to navigate, as long as you look to the end of the line to see which direction you should go in. corrie sarah and i walked all over the place, saw many people and tons of wonderful architecture.



that saturday we took the train from hamburg to copenhagen. there was a man in a chicken suit on our train. he and his friends were drinking the whole time on the train, and he ran up and down the main aisle, singing children's songs about birds in german. all the little old ladies on the train were delighted, and egged him on (no pun intended!) the whole time!



we got into copenhagen and managed to find our way to the hostel we stayed at for the night. we met up with another friend from school, drew, and went out and explored the city. there is a lot of american influence in the city center. i have seen Build a Bear, Burger King, and Blockbuster, just to name a few. when we walked through the town hall plaza there were some Native American dancers performing in the center! geesh, we traveled thousands of miles just to get surrounded by american stuff!





but seriously, copenhagen is amazing, and very different from the states.
they are not kidding when they say there are bikes EVERYWHERE. in a lecture the other day a professor told us that 36% of locals bike into the city, 34% take public transportation, and the rest are a mix of walking and driving cars. there is a forty percent tax on everything, and so a 15,000 dollar car can end up cost almost four times as much! but there are bikes for every sort of occasion. i've seen mail bikes, rentable bikes (stick in some money, ride it, put it back and get your money back), and even bikes that sell ice cream or fruit in the front!



the streets here are geared more towards pedestrians than cars. the bikes have a lane in the main streets, and they even get their own street light! basically, i want a bike. apparently you can rent one, kind of like a car, for a week or a month.



i am in the architecture\design program at DIS, and there are students from Pratt, RISDE, Oregon State, Columbia... everywhere, basically. our first assignment is to make a model of the old part of Stockholm, Sweden. next week we will travel to all the places the groups are modeling. i think there are 20 or so total buildings, and we will be in sweden and in findland.



I could write for another hour, but i need to head to studio. most of you over in the states will be waking up soon, but it is already almost 1 pm here! i hope to post more later.

peace!