MERRY BELATED CHRISTMAS!

It’s mid-January already, which means that several weeks have passed since my internship in Finland has terminated just before Christmas. Still in this blog-entry I want to focus on my last weeks in Helsinki, and later I will add another one about how this journey will continue.

Christmas in Chicago

ALA Architects has the awesome tradition to take their whole team on a christmas-excursion every December. This time, they chose no other city than Chicago for this and we interns were lucky to be invited too!

DAY 1:

We arrived around noon and had the rest of the day for us. We enjoyed the fantastic sunset-view from the John-Hancock-Center and had a nice evening walk.

pictures of day 1

DAY 2:

The day started early and we had a full program ahead: A walking tour around the city with over 50 sights to visit, including Mies’ Lake Shore Drive Apartments, the Poetry Foundation, the Cloud Gate and Gehry’s pavilion next to it, the Aqua Tower, the Art Institute of Chicago by Renzo Piano and so much more. In between the group separated several times, people got lost constantly and were found again later. Arriving at the Willis Tower as final stop, we were all exhausted, but happy.

pictures of day 2

DAY 3:

This day a bus helped us rest our feet. We visited the legendary Farnsworth House and theIllinois Institute of Technology with buildings from Mies van der Rohe as well as Rem Koolhaas. In the evening we had a delicious christmas dinner and afterwards went for a beer with the whole crew.

pictures of day 3

DAY 4:

Before heading home, we had free-time in the morning of the last day, which I used to shop some presents and send postcards. It started snowing, which perfectly added the christmas atmosphere to the trip.

Christmas in Helsinki

Christmas-time in Helsinki was very busy for me. We worked on a competition for a sports complex and I believe that we ended up with a quite interesting concept. But as competitions always are, we didn’t really have much free-time. I even had a friend visiting me, but could rarely see her. My last day in the office was the day of turning in the competition. We managed to get it printed and sent in the last second. Two days later I had to leave Helsinki already.

Christmas in Germany

I hope you all had nice holidays! I spent Christmas, New Year and my birthday with my family and friends back in Germany, where I currently still am. But soon the journey will continue…