ready for the best spring break EVER!

Since I leave for my two week spring break on Friday, I thought I would update everyone on where I'll be traveling to! Friday afternoon, we fly into London out of Malmo, Sweden. We'll be spending 3 days there, while taking a day trip to Oxford. I can't wait to visit my friend Elyse Garner who is studying at Oxford right now! Tuesday morning, we fly to Dublin. I'm not exactly sure of the order of the cities, but we will be spending a week in Ireland, traveling between Dublin, Cork, and Galway. The following Tuesday night, we fly from Dublin to Barcelona. We'll be spending 4 days there, and traveling back to Copenhagen Saturday morning. It's going to be a hectic two weeks, but I think we've planned it so that we see as many cities as we can without getting burnt out. Please be praying for Laurel, Nicole and I as we take this adventure. All our flights are booked, and we have hostels planned out, so right now, pray for safe travels and a really fun time of exploring just a tiny bit of Europe! Can't wait to update everyone when I come back!!!

halfway there!

Just wanted to write a quick post, marking the half way point in this crazy adventure I'm having! Tomorrow marks two months here, and two months until I'm home. I'm having a lot of mixed feelings in saying that. It's true that I'm having a once-in-a-lifetime experience here, and for that I'm extremely thankful. I'm also anxious to get home, because I miss familiar faces, a familiar language, and just the comforts that home brings.
Yesterday, the AUC middle school and high school group went to the Vision Conference in Lancaster, as they do every year. Since it's Amy's senior year, this was her last year going to the conference, and it caused me to think back to the 7 years that I went to that conference. Every year a similar message was spread: Break out of your comfort zone and be willing to go where God wants you to go. I feel like every year I would say I was willing to do that, but never knew how I'd live that out. I never felt God calling me to be a missionary in Africa or go to a country I'd never heard of for any length of time.
Now I find myself in Denmark, a country I didn't know existed until a few years ago, living for 4 months with a family I'd never met before, surrounded by a language I'd never heard before, and will most likely never hear again. It's funny how God works isn't it?! No, I'm not translating the bible or running a camp for children, or doing the typical 'missions' work, but I'm here. I'm living in a country where less than 10% of Evangelical Lutherans (the official state church) attend church on a Sunday. I'm living with a family that does not believe in God, and going to school with students who don't either.
Looking back to the many Vision Conferences I've been to, I've realized that God does work in us at a young age. I always thought that I'd say yes to following God's call, but he wouldn't call me until I was older, out of college, married, 2 kids and a dog. Instead, I still have another year of college in front of me, and He's placed me in Copenhagen. I'm so grateful to be in His hands, and that I can trust in a God that knows me inside and out and knows what lies ahead of me. And I'm pretty excited that He does, because that means I don't have to worry about it! So let that be a lesson to all the students who were at Vision yesterday... if you tell God to stretch you and do what He wants with your life, He won't forget it! When you least expected, He's going to change you, and you're going to be amazed!
Keep praying for me, as I embrace these next two months. Time will fly, and the homesickness will probably get worse at points, but God is the God of comfort, peace, and joy, and I'm so blessed to be His kid :)

 

longest blog post ever?!

wow, I'm really sorry it's almost been a month since I've updated! I can't believe how much I am growing here and how my view of life has changed, and been challenged. School has been very easy; I actually just had the last week off for my long study tour, but I'll get to that in a bit. I had my final critique for my first design project, which went okay. There was good feedback, but I think they expected me to do a lot more than I could fit in a 2 week project. But, all in all, the project turned out well! Here's an image of the final: 

 

My other classes have been easy. I had my first exam in Danish, which was really difficult, but a lot of the class had trouble with it, so hopefully he'll be easy on it!                  

This is from a field trip my visual journal class took to Bagsværd church. That is my teacher Courtney. She's an amazing teacher, full of passion about architecture.

We also spent the day in Sweden a few Saturdays ago. It's a half hour train ride from Copenhagen to Malmo, so we decided to be adventurous and take a trip there!

Two weeks ago, DIS held a party for the Danish holiday Fastelavn, which is similar to Halloween in that you get dressed up, but it isn't based on death at all. I won't go into explaining it, but it takes place at the beginning of Lent, and involves something called 'Hit the Cat Out of the Barrel', which is like a pinata, but in the old days, you would hit a barrel that had a real cat in it. Now, it's just filled with lots of candy. Karin made the costumes for the kids, and I wore one of her costumes from a few years back. It was a lot of fun; I got to make crafts with Ida and there was yummy food!

This past week, I went on a long study tour with 29 other students from the Architecture Deparment to Germany and the Netherlands (also called Holland). Early Sunday morning, we flew to Amsterdam, only a 1 hour flight, and then stopped by our hotel in Amsterdam to drop our stuff off. Right after that, we had lunch at the Lloyd Hotel, and toured around the Borneo Housing Complex. The rest of the night was on our own, and we got the chance to explore old Amsterdam a bit. It is the most beautiful city I've seen since coming to Europe. A very old city, but new buildings are starting to take over, and the mix of them is very beautiful. Monday, we visited a Dutch architecture firm, and got the day on our own in Amsterdam. My friends and I decided to see the Vincent Van Gough Museum and go on a canal tour of the city! That night, we got to go to the large concert hall in Amsterdam and watch an orchestra perform, with a Spanish guitarist. It was so beautiful; I just wish I had been a little more awake for it.

a really neat walking bridge in the Borneo Housing development

Borneo Housing development

walking around in Amsterdam

Tiffany and I on the canal tour

view on the tour... SO pretty!!!

Tuesday was an interesting day. We took the train from Amsterdam to Utrecht, but Laurel, Nicole, Tiffany, and I missed the Utrecht stop, and we didn’t realize it until 2 stops after… So after finding change to purchase a train ticket, getting on the International (aka more expensive) train, and finding the bus to meet the rest of our group, we made it. However, I missed the tour of the one building I wanted to see. Before we had left for the study tour, we were put into small groups and assigned one building we would see on our tour. I was assigned the Educatorium, which is the student union of Utrecht University. My group researched it, did some analytical drawings, and built a 1:100 scale section model of it. Of course, getting lost made me miss my presentation of the building, and the time to see it. We got the university with a half hour to spare, so I was able to look really quickly, but it was a bit disappointing. After this, we visited the Schroder House, which was really interesting because we studied that last semester in my Architecture History class. After that, we got to walk through Old Utrecht and went out to a nice dinner!

the concert hall

Utrecht Library

Educatorium

inside the Educatorium there is this funky curving wall

The next morning, we had a 3 hour bus ride to Essen, Germany, where we saw the largest coal mine in Europe, called Zollverein. It has since been kept as museum, so we went through that, and also saw the Red Dot Museum, which has a lot of technology from the past century, and just cool things to see. Then, we left and drove to Cologne, Germany, where we saw an interesting museum called Kolumba. It holds the ruins of an old church that once stood on the site. Then, we saw the Cologne Cathedral, which was the most impressive and breath-taking building I’ve ever seen. It’s a Gothic cathedral, first constructed in 1248. That night we stayed in a very fancy Holiday Inn, and enjoyed a yummy pizza from Pizza Hut for dinner :) hey, a little taste of home never hurt, right?

The next day, we left for Hamburg, and had a guided tour of the city. We were taken out to dinner at a very fancy restaurant, then had the night to explore the city. But, we were about a 45 minute walk from the exciting area (aka where all the people were), so that was a little annoying, but luckily, it wasn’t too cold. The last day we got to tour Hamburg a bit, so we decided to do some shopping. We ended up in the more high-end area of the city, so I didn’t buy anything, but it was a fun time of being in a different area. After another great meal provided by DIS, we hopped on the bus, which then hopped onto a ferry, and then back on the bus, and then we were home.

Zollverein

the longest escalator ever!

Zollverein School of Management & Design

the Cologne Cathedral (my favorite place I've been so far)

no words to describe how beautiful it was

incredibly delicious! 

Hamburg

Hamburg

So needless to say, it was an exhausting week. But I can now say that I’ve been to Germany and Holland! There was a lot of getting lost, being late, good food, and time with good friends.

Tomorrow school starts up again. The time is counting down until I leave for my spring break! We’ve made definite plans for where we are going and I’m getting excited! Of course, traveling on my own makes me nervous, but hopefully Laurel, Nicole, and I can keep each other sane and patient. We’ll be flying to London on March 30^th, and over the next 13 days, visit England, Ireland, and Spain!

Thanks for the prayers; it’s nice to hear from my parents that people from AUC are thinking about me. This weekend and this coming week will be tough, because the missions conference is going on at home, and that has been a part of my life every year since I can remember. So even though I’m feeling a little homesick, I’m almost half way done my adventure here, and I’m trying to make the most out of the time that’s left! Bye for now everybody :)