How are you all doing? It seems like this hot and humid weather is getting worse every year. It will be a little while until the end of the rainy season.
There are many students in Temari's classroom that I don't get to meet very often, so I decided to blog about my trip to Europe this June for the first time in a while. On Instagram, you can see my travels under #nonatabigram.
I apologize in advance for this being quite a long post!
Have you ever been to Denmark? I was living in Europe, but at the time I had no business to go to Denmark, so I had never been there. So I am glad that I was able to research a lot about Denmark and go there this time. Learning new things is so much fun no matter how old you are.
Since I started this job, I have heard and met many people who studied abroad at handicraft schools in Denmark, and I have always been curious about the existence of such schools.
Have you ever heard of the word Folkehuiskole? I was also very interested in this school's system and wanted to try it out.
Folkehuskole is a boarding school unique to Scandinavia, mainly Denmark, and is called Folk High School in English. It was originally created to foster democratic thinking among the people. Anyone over the age of 17 can enroll, and students come from a variety of backgrounds, from young people taking a gap year after graduating from high school to adults who come to reconsider their careers. People gather. According to the site linked above, most of the people are between 18 and 24 years old. A major feature of Folke Heu School is that there are no credits or grades, and you can learn according to your own interests. It is characterized by communal living where students eat and sleep together every day, and although the idea seems to have been taken from British boarding schools, the content of the education is completely different. Democracy fostered through dialogue in communal life will create a Danish society where a wide variety of individualities can be utilized. Several Folkehuskole schools accept international students from various countries.
The school I visited was skals højskolen for design og håndarbejde
It's popular among Japanese people and has a lot of graduates, but the school doesn't seem to be centered around 18-24 year olds, it seems like it's more of a calmer age group.
I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't know much about Denmark. The land area is almost the same as Kyushu. The mainland consists of the Jutland peninsula, which is connected to Germany, and the islands of Sjælland and Fyn, where the capital Copenhagen is located, but the mainland is made up of 406 islands of various sizes, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland. Someone said that Denmark is small, so I thought that all the information was centered around Copenhagen, so I started looking into it, and it turns out that the handicraft school is located on the Jutland Peninsula, which is completely different from Copenhagen! I learned that it would take 5 hours to travel by train from Copenhagen.
I revised my plans and decided to take a vegetable dyeing workshop first, then go to a handicraft school, and then go to Copenhagen. I'll tell you more about the yarn plant dyeing workshop that I attended.
Now, I took a train and arrived at a small town called Viborg via Aarhus on the Jutland Peninsula. Trains don't even come on schedule! It suddenly didn't show up on the scheduled platform! I managed to get there while carrying a suitcase with my experience overseas.
It's my first time in a city and I don't know what to expect, so I aimed to arrive before daylight, and I felt relieved when I arrived at the room I had secured on Airbnb, but the lock wouldn't open! ! !
Everyone, it's really difficult to open and lock locks overseas. No experience?
My first job was in Germany, and when I arrived there, the first thing I learned was actually about keys. He said he would have a hard time with the "key". I remember how carefully you taught me.
I thought I knew the British, German, and Czech doors, but when I found the Danish key, I was shocked and almost gave up.
I have to raise the doorknob to open and close the door, but I still don't understand how it was done... Everyone, please be careful with your keys. (It's best to learn from a local person.) ↓A very ordinary-looking key! ! But it won't open...
Well, I found out that I could take a bus from the town of Viborg to Skals (where the school is), so I bought a ticket online, checked the bus stop, and decided to take it easy that day and go the next morning.
The following transfer search apps were useful in Denmark. From there you can go directly to the site where you can buy tickets. Apps like this have always helped me. I was busy with work until I got there, so I actually started looking into the app from the airport. I'll do some research when the need arises.
Rejseplanen
Next time, I will write about the handicraft school in Skals! See you soon~!