From Asia to Europe

I’m having one of those mornings where everything piques my interest – I’ve jumped web-wise from catching up on a few emails to visiting the Dansk Design Center to surfing worldchanging.com and now onto the blog. So many lateral jumps, it’s practically a workout. Every once in a while I dream about a bit of focus but then wonder if I’m wired for that sort of thing.

October’s come and nearly gone at such an aggressive pace. The 4th saw me jumping on a plane for a nearly 40 hour journey, school-to-plane(s)-to-rehearsal-dinner, for Ashley and Neil’s wedding. All went very well, bride and groom in relaxed and happy spirits, no last minute catastrophes, a memorable ‘party’ atmosphere througout the evening.

I did experience my own little bump (or lack thereofs) when I zipped up the back of the strapless bridesmaid dress and the whole thing fell down around my ankles. The measurements Mum and I worked out along with the alterations weren’t quite small enough – sadly if I was better endowed the task would have been made easier. Luckily Rosalyn, mother-of-the-bride, saved the day with a quick safety-pinup that created extra darts under my arms and saw me walking gingerly during public moments.

The rest of the week was spent trying to keep up remotely with the aggressive pace of the program here at school as well as fitting in a great visit or two to Toronto where time permitted.

Returning back to Sweden for the following week had its shocks – most prominently, the weather, which hovered above 0C and had my spring jacket feeling as though I’d wrapped myself in tissue paper. And so, much like Taiwan (though for heat, not air-conditioning), I darted building to building vowing to buy a winter jacket during the following week’s trip to Copenhagen.

Relaxation was had during our Commercialization classes that week – our teacher is a kind, grandfatherly-like man who pays little attention to the clock and carries on in the same unrushed pace for hours… at one point, my simple question was met with a 10-point, 15 minute answer that more or less crawled circles around the issue I’d hope to clear up. He’s such a lovely man that I couldn’t bring myself to point out that his words made muddy sense – and so I chose to answer “Yes!” when asked if I understood, if only to salvage my classmate’s growing impatience and put to rest the sheep jumping fences above my head.

Moving onto last week, where I met Chrissie on Monday evening at the Central Station in Copenhagen (Denmark). Copenhagen had much more of a ‘European’ feel than does Stockholm or other parts of Sweden – it’s well-kept but a bit scruffier than its Northern neighbour, the styles seem less uniform (though this may be the curse of this small city), and their attitudes are all-around ‘snappier’ than the Swedes’. Actually, I’d had a taste of their sense of humour after a few chats with a Danish couple in Thailand, and found that I enjoyed it further after a visit to the country. Copenhagen also seemed to be the land of beautiful eyes; there were so many people with light-aqua-blue peepers that were absolutely arresting.

Even Sweden doesn’t seem to match the Dane’s focus on design – from building to furniture to fashion to print – I found it all to be delicate, functional and attractive. The shopping was excellent in Copenhagen as well – I did end up buying a new winter jacket, brown, pea-style with a double set of button up the front, belt and classic cut – and Chrissie went home with a new set of boots and jeans to round out her new European wardrobe.

Friday and Saturday I went down to Tonder (minus the Danish letter ‘o’) to visit Lindsay and Ejnar. They were loads of fun, and quite busy people – I had little idea of how influential they both are on the ECCO brand – it was great to contrast and compare Lindsay’s spread of model headshots for an upcoming photoshoot, and Ejnar took us on a tour of his ‘design laboratory’ where we saw the styles of next spring’s casual and running shoes in their developmental phases. So cool, and a little bit ‘glamourous’ forgetting the rural setting of the ECCO compound.

Saturday saw a return back to this country of barn-like houses and writing furiously to complete the 12 or so page take home exam due Monday. At the moment, I’m about 2 hours away from our first Swedish class – ooo, I look forward to this one. Once again I’m on the other side of the language class as a student – though this experience will likely be a step away from weeks of Chinese phonetics or sleepy one-on-one conversations about French existentialism with a passionate professor growing quickly weary of my hungover lack of effort.

Everybody say ‘awwwwwww’ (yesssssss),
Laura

Wow, that last entry wasn’t very nice.

I’m tempted to erase it, but instead I’ll leave it standing as a reminder of what not to do next time the overwhelmed feeling creeps up.

I remember striking out at all things Taiwanese during the initial adjustment period there – but luckily it was about the same time daily power surges fried the guts of my laptop, so all was forgotten after a few long bike rides.

Maybe its time to buy a bike.

Or, now that it’s dropped below 0C (today), it’s time to buy a gym pass.

Just Laura

To quote the overused "Keep it Simple (Silly)" - I suspect that, if our school had aligned their curriculum planning with this philosophy, we might not be in such a keep-one's-head-above-water predicament. 4 modules over 8 weeks, back to back with ... [Continue reading this entry]