Bornholmania

Viva la Borholm

In Denmark an element clearly missing from the landscape are mountains. With this in mind, I have embraced the clouds to ponder upon. The winds are frequent, and the transient clouds make for a fascinating dynamic in the sky...

While many exchange students went to Germany for Octoberfest, or to some other quintessential euro-trip destination... I journeyed to the stormy island of Bornholm in the middle of the Baltic Sea.

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Before I get to the boat wreck and the people drowning in Bornholm, let me back it up to Friday Night. I went to Amager (Copenhagen island neighborhood) to a show with a couple new friends to see another new friend's group, The Stradlins, play. Good time. I even managed to half restrain myself in order to make the 6am train to Bornholm.

After a downpour of a bike ride to the train station on 4 hrs sleep, I met with the rest of the ScanDesign crowd where we hopped a train to a ferry to Bornholm. All with our bikes. It turned out that Captain Hazelwood was asked to pilot the boat to the dock, as he smashed into a piling and literally tore a gaping hole in the starboard bow of the high-speed ferry.

The weather was admittedly bad though, approaching higher sustained winds than Ive seen. My guess is a steady 60 knot wind with gusts to 90+. I was impressed anyway. That didn't really let up for our trip much. Luckily I love stormy weather, and the harder it stormed, the more I smiled. Marianne, our local friend and guide got quite literally blown off her bike on the 2nd day as 3 of us opted to bike the 25 kilometers across the island. 2 people actually did drown on the island on Friday too.

Bornholm is an agricultural granite island with a few quaint coastal towns and a rich Danish history throughout. The group of ScanDesign fellows are a well rounded bunch of graduate students, varying from architecture to business and urban planning. I enjoyed getting to know them all better over the weekend. We stayed 2 nights in a hostel in Rønne, and had a really nice time hanging out together. We shopped and cooked good dinners both nights and had a few bottles of vin. Marrianne is a neat lady, and we are lucky to have such a fascinating Danish perspective as our local liaison.

On Sunday we either biked or bussed across the island to Gudjhem. Beyond Marianne getting blown into a ditch and a tire I blew (which Nic patched), we bikers had a lovely ride, actually with the wind at our backs most of the way, even going up hills with out pedaling a few times. After the couple little time hangups, we met the rest of the crowd at the Bornholm KunstMuseum. Not being a huge museum buff, I was thoroughly impressed with this spot. It was more than just a museum, although the art displayed was quite impactful. The building was a profound architectural success in my mind as it embraced its environment, framing the surrounding landscape, effectively bringing together and highlighting the best of inside and outside.

The Ferry ride home on Monday morning was flat calm and I even got to meditate over a phenomenal sunrise on the boat deck in solitude. I opted to not photograph that as it seemed like an inevitable injustice to the moment. Memories of profound morning wheel-watches in Alaska were conjured. It was nice. All in all a smashing good weekend!