Happy Birthday, Bedstefar:

It has been quite some time since I’ve updated on my family happenings and living situation, so here is a (mostly food) recap of my first two months here.  Hard to believe time is flying by so quickly!  I finally got to meet Pernille’s father, Josefine and Cecile’s bedstefar (grandfather) who came over to celebrate his birthday!  The girls made the most beautiful and delicious meal, and then topped it off with the most beautiful and delicious cake.

Other happenings:

DR Concert Hall (left): That big blue box is the new DR (Danish Radio) concert hall.  ”Us girls” went to see a concert for the blind where no one knew who was performing at the concert, and when we got into the hall, they turned off all of the lights and then the show began.  At the end they turned the lights on and introduced the performers, but it was a really neat experience just listening to a performance; the acoustics in the room were amazing, it actually sounded like the music was coming from above.

Valentine’s Day (right):After I got back from my ski trip in Sweden, there was this mysterious white bag with pink tissue paper in my room on a shelf, but my room is so big the girls sometimes hide or store things in there, so I assumed that this was one of those things.  Well, the next day Josefine was very unsure as to why I had not open my present, so I of course dug right in and inside was a box of chocolates from Pernille to wish me a Happy Valentine’s Day.  It is exactly something that my mama would do, and the chocolates were DELICIOUS!

Girls’ Night:

After what felt like weeks of not seeing each other, at the end of my presentation / critique of this project, Pernille and Josefine came into the city to come visit the studio and see my model and where I had been living for the last couple weeks.  To celebrate a successful end of project, we had a girls night on the town.  To start off our evening, we went to “La Glace,” a very famous bakery and confectionery right near DIS to get some cake.  This, clearly, is how every good night should start.

There is nothing like eating delicious cake to bring out big smiles…

Then we continued to walk along Strøget, the main shopping street, and did a little window shopping, looking at all different design stores, and Josefine and Pernille were pointing out different things to me.  When we were exhausted with shopping and had digested some of our cakes, we went to the new raw bar in town called 42ºRaw.

We got three different and very tasty salads and enjoyed a little healthy raw food after our cake indulgence.

Josefine and me sipping our raw smoothies through our cardboard straws.

Moral of the Story:

I am incredibly happy with my living situation, I miss my family when I am not with them, and I really do feel “at home” here. I absolutely love having a real house and family to come to while in Denmark.  Even during the stressful studio times, Pernille (my mom) was sending me the sweetest text messages letting me know that a little family in Gentofte was thinking of me, and every morning she made sure I had plenty of food and snacks to take with me to the studio to “keep the oil burning.”  I can’t imagine doing this study abroad experience any other way.