Darkness and the fog

this won't stay clean for long...

We had the official group orientation and tour today.  I am the new inhabitant of an awesome 2 table space with a sink conveniently located adjacent to it.  I bought some clay today, and I’m pretty excited about it.  I decided to use earthenware, and the earthenware they have here is local clay which they use to make bricks.  It’s a little different than what I’ve worked with before.  It seems very plastic, but likes to get "cracky" when you put water on it.  I tested it for shortness, but it passed.  I’m a little confused, but have decided to keep with it anyway.  I’ll just make some slip and use that instead of straight water.  It's nice brown clay that fires more red with higher temperature, and looks a lot like a nice chocolate icing.  I want to learn while I’m here, so what better way than by using the local clay and learning a new way of working?  I'm excited about it. 

Our side of the studio

I walked into the main part of town by myself today, without a map, and actually got to where i wanted to go without getting lost.  Not too bad for only going into that part of town once.  I went to the store to get myself a coca cola.  I should have picked up some chocolate while i was there.  There are whole isles of chocolate in the stores here, and all native brands.  There is also a lot of liquorice.  The Danish apparently also love their licorice.  I tried to eat a liquorice piece shaped like a key offered to me by Kimye.  I thought it was good at first, kind of creamy...  then it all went terribly wrong when i went ahead and really started chewing it.  it was like all the things i find horrible about American liquorice all came together to form a posse in my mouth bent on destroying all future possibilities of trying anymore Danish liquorice.  I'm going to "man-up" and try a different flavor at some point.  I wouldn't want to deny myself something I may like. 

this is 4pm. 

I had been noticing that it has been getting darker earlier every day that I've been here.  It got dark at 6pm the first day i was here.  The day before yesterday, it was dark around 5:30, and today it got dark at 4.  My roommate Heren was telling me that it's going to get darker sooner every day until sometime in mid-December.  I'm wondering how early it will get dark by then. 

It was a nice sunny day earlier, but the fog has started to move back in.  There’s a nice mist in the air.  It’s to the point where the fog is so thick that it sounds like it's raining when you go outside, but it's really just the moisture dripping off the trees and into the dead leaves on the ground.  It actually feels like it's raining when you walk underneath some of them.  It's a frequent dripping.  It's all very strange.  It actually reminds me a lot of the Oregon coast, and makes me feel a little nostalgic.

The group is supposed to make an excursion out to Copenhagen soon.  I'm pretty excited about that.  We're going to some museums.  They said it's a tradition to go on Fridays.  I think i can live with that. 

I finally signed up to make dinner for the group.  I'm doing it on Sunday, and I'm going to attempt to make gnocchi for the first time.  I’m going to boil the potatoes the night before to save some time.  Wenda has partnered up with me for that night, and she'll be making something Italian as well.  Party!  I've really been enjoying these shared dinners.  So much good food, and always so different.  There are people here who can just make bread without looking at a cook book or using a measuring cup.  It's awesome!  Tonight we had potato and beet soup, salad, pasta salad and home made bread.  I'd never really eaten beets, other than on the side of a salad on a rare occasion.  I think I've had them more in the last 4 days than I have in my whole life.  For the record, that magenta colored soup was amazingly good.