One Year Ago

One year ago yesterday, I arrived in Copenhagen jetlagged, a little nervous, and overwhelmingly excited. In the next six months, I learned a little Danish, went on amazing bike rides, learned how to love photography in a completely new way, went to ridiculous parties, learned how to cook healthy and delicious food, and met the most amazing people. If anything, the friends I made in Copenhagen made an incredible impression on me. Intelligent, beautiful, quirky and adventurous, they have reminded me to keep dreaming in everyday life. Whether people I met by chance or got to know better abroad; knew briefly or still see on a regular basis; met through friends of friends, at folkekøkken and on the street; they all taught me how to enjoy the little things in life.

Accordingly, I think this is an appropriate time to end this blog. I started it as a way to keep my parents and friends at home filled in, but it became much more than letters to home. Below are some photos from my final evening bicycle ride in Copenhagen at the end of June.

Elegant and undestated, the city's benches are something I miss.

Looking down Fælledvej to Nørrebrogade.

The inevitable Nyhavn photo.


The Lakes, one of my favourite places in the city.

Thankyou for reading!
Vi ses!

Heartbeats

This weekend I made a much-needed visit home. I saw this film at Toronto's new cultural film centre (heavily corporate but at least we have one). The influence of Xavier Dolan's favourite directors like Almodovar and Wong Kar-Wai are pretty obvious, but he's still offering something new. I think he is the first director to truly create moments on film (and not patronizingly) that are descriptive of 21st century youth. It feels like a plot - however trivial - straight out of mine or my friends' lives. And he makes use of some pretty killer songs, like The Knife's "Pass This On".

Support French-Canadian cinema. Support young directors. Go see it!

On another note, recently I have been thinking a lot about What I Am Going To Do After School. I am still utterly absorbed with my thesis, but school life is starting to feel a little dull. I'm hit by the realization that I need to be doing more things that make me feel like I'm living a real life. It may also soon be time to change the name of this blog...

Before Bed

Settling in for some bedtime reading. Why is Lefebvre so cool?

You may have guessed correctly that school is in full swing. What you may not have guessed is that I am writing my undergraduate thesis (or maybe you did, but anyway - YIKES!) Getting film developed from the summer is getting piled under a longer and longer list of group meetings, pseudo-intellectual conversations with dearly missed friends, 2304982340932 books from the library and unnecessary spending sprees at farmer's market (it's harvest time!).

The Last Moment

The closest I got to Iceland was Keyflavik Airport. I know now more than ever that I must go back.

Transfer

Two hour transfer at CPH on my way home. I pretended to write my paper while really I tried not to cry.

Golden Cage

It feels so strange to be home. Been floating through the last few days; cleaning out my teenage bedroom, eating chilean japanese chinese and mexican food, avoiding my very near birthday, hiding at my parents' house, sleeping way too much. Don't feel like I'm fully here yet...

Trapped in the Brain

Two artists I discovered during my travels that I really like and two books that I would really like to read.

p.s. I'm home.

Soft Modernism

Even the subway cars in this great city are functionalist. Been living in a borrowed apartment in a traditional working class neighbourhood with a great flea market, cheap beers, sweet trams and lots of drunks. Been commuting to days full of lectures in amazing Aalto buildings and wanting to steal E stools. Been sweating in saunas and jumping in the gulf.

Note: I will be taking a break from blogging for two weeks or so as I work on a case study in suburban Helsinki.

Also, there are 5 rolls of film are burning a hole in my backpack. Can't wait to develop them! (poladroid stand-in).

Caffenation

Hello good coffee! Hello Helsinki! Cappuccino and americano by Tuomas at Kaffeecentralen.

Havre Gryn

It feels like we are always in grocery stores, perpetually roaming a new fluorescent aisle that is totally different yet exactly the same as the last one. I have read (or struggled to read) packaging in Danish, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish.

I have a growing guilty conscience about the inefficiency of buying for single meals and the number of plastic packaging we have inevitebly disposed of (despite considerable conservation efforts). At times, the inability to eat salads and warm meals, the excesses of white starch and müsli. We have become masters of assembling swiss-army sandwiches on trains, buses, park benches and steps.

I dream of pear and gorgonzola pizza, potato wedges, quinoa salads, toronto takeout and my mother's cooking. For now, at a friend's apartment in Helsinki, we have permanence.

I have never been so excited for domesticity in my life.