Welcome to Copenhangen, all that and the rest.

Its 18:27 in Danmark, as the Danes spell it. I'm sitting at Julia and Kandice's house waiting for them to come home. They live 2 blocks from us in a nice two BR renting from a nice guy named Thomas. They have a lot of flies. No one knows Whys. I have been going to school for a little over a week now and have learned a number of things. I have learned how to mix reactive dyes, how to mix opaque pigment, how to do a burn out, how to wash and set pieces, and learned a lot about repeat patterns. Today we had a big lecture about scandinavian designers.

Some things I have been doing:

I went to Paris. There, Ben and I walked around a lot. We got kicked off the Metro when it closed at 1. In Paris, there is not a last train, which you catch or don't catch. at the stroke of 1 or slightly before, it stops at a station, and everyone gets off. not matter where you are. You could be all the way across town, and you are walking or in a taxi. We drank a lot, we visited all sorts of nice people, we saw ocean's 13 in version original, I bought a bunch of clothes.

That leads me to the other winding thread which ties all this travel together. Britsh Air, or BA or Bitch Ass, Has not been able to get my baggage to me from the transfer at Heathrow. No one I know has been able to get a good experience getting over here, people were late all over the place, baggage has been all sorts of lost, and remember that I got to Paris on the 26th of June. SO, I have been buying clothes like a rich man; not too many, but some nice things because they have not been able to get the luggage, which we now know is in italy, to paris, Amsterdam, or here. yesterday I bought a really nice jacket from a danish designer, a pair of levis and a hoodie. Today I bought a backpack, a digital camera, a matte knife, a ruler and some other shit. I was expecting to buy things, but its getting out of hand. H&M is a friend of mine. I'm about to start buying watches and a new Sport Coat. I'm hoping for a 1st class upgrade on the way home, because I don't really want to ever ride this airline again. Heathrow has been a mess, they shut it down for 24 hours, after there was a threat at galwaith. not to mention that we were delayed at all points on both legs of the flight.
For instance:
1. Off the gate at JFK
2. On the taxi way at JFK
3. Waiting to land at Heathrow
4. On the taxi way at Heathrow
5. At the gate at Heathrow
6. In the terminal at Heathrow (I wrongly rode the tram all the way back to terminal 1 went through security, was told to go back to terminal 4 to talk to the ticket agent there, and I still beat some of the people who went through security at terminal 4.)
7. Before pushing off at Heathrow
8. On the taxi way again at Heathrow
9. landing at CDG
10. On the taxi way at CDG
11. Waiting for a malfunctioning Jetway, and then waiting for the stairs to be driven to the back.
12. That was the one bright spot was that I was in the last row, so suddenly I was first off the plane. I was taking pictures of getting off, and they asked me to delete the pics on the camera. I think If it was JFK, they would have arrested me or at least detained me. But the guy walked away before I erased them. I will show you that pic later when I can get my computer hooked up to the internet.
13. Then, everyone who was on the original flight was missing their luggage, the whole thing went to Milan. Where I assume, its been sitting since then.

I don't really want to fly back with them.

From paris, Ben and I took a Beautiful Thalys train from Paris Du Nord, to Amsderdam Central Station. The weather continued to be bad, and we quickly found Mr Charles Mitsui who took us back to his amazing flat. We kept going to this coffeehouse near his flat because they had internet, and we wanted to use it. He lives at this intersection of two canals and over a nice restaurant, and there never ceases to be interesting things to look at. we spent the first couple days looking out the window, but quickly moved to sitting in the window sill and hollering at girls who would ride by on their bikes. We again, walked around a lot. It was interesting because we visited Berenis, our friend in paris, and Chuck in the twilight time of their stays in Europe, and they were both so excited to have some american people around. There was a lot of chilling. There was a lot of lurking. There was a lot of walking around just checking things out. Drinking beer. At Chuck's we BBQ'ed s couple times. We relaxed in his palatial flat.

From there, Ben headed out to London, I got on a train bound for Dusseldorf. I have to say that the german ICE (InterCityExpress) has some new trains just delivered by Siemens which are super smooth and quiet. they have this fresh fold down step that almost disappears when the door is closed. The trains got worse as I moved north. the train from Dusseldorf to Hamburg was a little less nice, and the train from there to Copenhagen was the oldest and least smooth. But it had the distinction of riding the ferry. I had been asleep, when I awoke everyone was getting off, and we were clearly on a ferry boat. They had loaded the whole train on to the boat. The boat itself was two cafes, a money exchange, a huge duty free, ( why are they always basically perfume and booze?), and an ice cream stand. I was awake when the train rolled off the ferry.

Tell you about CPH soon.

K.