Where to begin on this day? There were so many momentous occasions that would serve as a good lead in but are typically off topic. Ah well, I'll just work chronologically today.
So this morning I woke up at about 6:20 since I was due at Frueplads at 8:00 to catch the tour bus. I figured on an hour getting ready, followed by a forty minute bus ride and bingo bango I would be there on time. Upon rising I went to the kitchen to eat some of my newly appropriated danish breakfast food (read: cereal, milk and oj.) I poured myself a big bowl of cheery-o's, excited to finally be eating a cereal I can identify and not promoted by a soccer playing talking bird. I turned to the fridge, pulled out my brand new liter of milk and poured it onto my cereal.
Now there are times in life when the function of the human body smiply amazes me. The speed, for instance, with which your mind will notice that something is taking longer than usual, even if it is a fraction of a second longer. Or, for example, when the muscles in your arm, wrist and hand all can identify that weight is not shifting as it should. We have all experienced this and when I poured out my milk onto my cereal, my experience was just the same. The milk just took too long to get to the bowl. It did not, however, take long enough to allow me to register and react. So as the viscous, milky fluid oozed onto my cereal, there was very little I could do to hold back my disgust.
What was going on? Are Danish groceries that bad? I checked the date again and reaffirmed that I still had a week to drink it. This just didn't make sense. Well, as it turned out the Danish word for milk is not okonozze9er (I'm making that up but it was somthing akin to that) it is, in fact maelk. What I had purchased (as I learned only by a brave touch of the tongue) was simply yogurt. Lesson learned.
After my breakfast of yogurt and cereal, I prepared for my day and headed for the bus stop. I got there just as soon as my trusty 1A was pulling away. It was here that a little seed of panic was planted. I had planned my morning on making that bus. But surely, there would be another soon.
So I waited...and waited...and waited. This is the worst part, the waiting. Once you are on a bus and going somewhere, you have done all you can. But the waiting just makes you want to run towards the next stop, just so you feel like you are actively contributing. It's ridiculous I know, but still...
So finally a bus arrives and takes me to my stop by the National Museum. I begin the two block walk towards the buses which I have convinced myself will not leave before 8:30. I mean, they just tell us to be there at 8. I had this thought completely locked into my head as I walked towards the Plads. As I passed a church, the steeple began chiming eight am. It was not done before I saw our tour busses pulling out of the lot. It was only by luck that I was able to flag them down. Apparently someone else had done the same thing not 30 seconds before me and had delayed them enough to allow me passage. Sweet.
Time for me to sit back and let the responsible driver and knowledgable professor take charge of the day. Tom can relax now. I mean except for the fact I was on the wrong bus, but at least it was the right program. We are divided into A and B groups withing our particular mediums so that we will not all be on top of each other all the time. I, of course, am an A. I did, however, get on the B bus. Which was problematic only in that I spent all day bonding with the few other grad students here who seem all to be in B group instead of meeting and secretly despising the undergrads in mine. I'll still call it a win.
the first stop on the tour was this very small furniture workshop. PP Mobler Furniture has been in the same family for three generations now and one can see that it is cared for. The furniture is all crafted by hand here through pain staking processes of steaming and bending and sanding and finishing. Every detail is inspected and precision is paramount. I think the owner said it best when he mentioned that the purpose is not to make money but to make a piece of furniture your grandchildren can use. Now, while that is a little altruistic to be true, I at least appreciate the sentiment. They are very good and purposeful with their work. It takes them a great deal of time to make a single chair. The upholstering process alone is a 5 day process. Everything is dont by hand and with great deliberation.
This workshop, which employs roughly 35 people has a neutral carbon dioxide output in that they create 40 tons of CO2 a year, but counteract that by heating the whole place come winter time by burning the scrap wood in the basement. Not a bad thought. I wonder though, how much is created by burning the scrap? I suppose much less than oil or coal. Maybe that's how they make it up.
The next stop was a supreme juxtaposition to the first. Fritz Hansen Furniture sprawls over at least two serperate campi and is labled on all buildings "The Republic of Fritz Hansen." This is a true factory outputting thousands of chairs a day. Everything is done by machine with a minimum of human interaction. They have everything you would expect from a large corperation including a very slick marketting team who gave us a very dull explanation of their design philosophy which meandered over not three but five bullet points. If one were to ask me, five points does not a philosophy make but rather a manifesto. But no one asked me.
It was interesting to see how it all went together. Watching them work specifically with the veneer materials that I soon will be as well. It was kind of misleading though since I will not have robots at my disposal to handle my more difficult works.
From there we headed to two churches both done by prominent danish architects and to end the day, an amazing furniture showroom.
These days are long, starting at about 6:00 am and running until five. But so far it doesn't seem to weigh on me too much. It is true that we are going 6 days a week in this program so ask me again in 2 months how I feel about it.
In the meantime, tomorrow is more lecture based and going over assignments.
So that should be a fun blog entry.
TW
No comments:
Post a Comment