Chocolate

I bought my family a special box of Danish chocolates. I bought them at Copenhagen's airport, and they were kind of a pain to take home because I had to have them in my carry-on bag and resist eating them during my 7 hour stay in the Seattle airport.

When I took them out yesterday to give to my parents, my dad starting laughing. Then he went to our pantry and took out a GIANT box of the SAME chocolates. "I bought them out Costco!"

oh, costco

Home again

I'm back in Oregon, after what was possibly my worst travel experience ever.

Abbreviated version:
-My flight to Seattle from Copenhagen was delayed so I spent about 5 1/2 hours in the Copenhagen airport. Although the airport there is really nice, so this wasn't so bad.
-After the 10 hour flight and the 1 hour getting through customs, I had missed my flight to Portland. I then spent the next 7 hours (6 pm-1 am) in the Seattle airport waiting for a new flight to Eugene that kept on getting delayed. To my body, this was from 3 am- 10 am, when I'm normally sleeping.
-I made it home at about 3:30 am.

So, that was not a fun day at all. It feels good to be home, but I'll admit that I was not ready at all to leave Copenhagen.

Last final

I had my last final today from 3-5 pm. My finals felt like more of annoyance than the all consuming thing they usually are. On Wednesday I went ice skating and had dinner at a thai restaurant down in Nyhavn (the harbor and the picture of Copenhagen that is on a lot of postcards). On Thursday after my Cancer final I went to Rosenborg Castle which was pretty cool. I barely studied all week, it was really nice.

I'll miss that aspect of my classes here. I like just being able to show up for class and know enough to do fine on the exams. I decided very early on that school was not going to be my emphasis here and I've stuck by that. My classes are for the most part interesting, and I've learned a lot, but I'll admit that I barely did outside reading or work. Sure, I studied the morning of exams and a bit the night before but that was it. It does not make sense to travel to Copenhagen and spend my time studying. And I have no regrets, I've really enjoyed myself here and a big part of that was not being worried about school.

Walking back from my final I couldn't help but think "this is the last time I'll be at my school here. This is the last time I'll walk on this road. This is the last time I'll wait for the 300S bus to come at Glostrup station..." I've been here for 4 months and I have a whole routine established. It's strange to think that I'll never go through those motions again. Of course I'll come to Copenhagen again. Hopefully many more times. But it will never be in the same way, not living with my host family, not having my group of friend, not having a purpose of going to school and living my life. When I come back I'll just be a visitor. And I'm not ok with that, this is my has become my home.

But what can you do? Time moves on. Tomorrow I'm going to Paris.

Finals week schedule

Tuesday: history essay due, Danish oral final exam, History final quiz
Wednesday: no class or finals! Hopefully smorrebrød at Ida Davidsen's and ice skating. And maybe some studying.
Thursday: Cancer Final
Friday: Human Health and Disease final
Saturday: Political Rhetoric final


Then I'm going to Paris from the 14-17 (Karen and I just booked this, pretty last minute but exciting), then home (Oregon) on the 18.

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-me-danish7-2008dec07,0,3956278.story



This story is great. Read it!

It gets dark here at around 4 pm. Meaning that at 4 pm, it is just as dark as midnight. It is strange to live in darkness, but it makes it easier to go out at night. My second half of my time here I have been more into dancing at clubs. It's an interesting life, you leave late and get back really early (like 5 am). I've never experienced anything like a european club. Techno music, everyone doing their own thing. In Denmark your average club goer isn't out looking for a boy (or girl) but is just out to dance and have fun. I love it. I only go with a group of friends, but it is pretty common to have people there by themselves, not looking to socialize with anyone but just to dance.

Last night I saw the Crazy Christmas Cabaret at Tivoli. I was happy to finally go to Tivoli. The Christmas decorations were amazing. Maria and I decided to go on the ride that swings you around from really high up. (you can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YKd-6fkmhg) For pictures of Tivoli click on this: http://images.google.com/images?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=tivoli%20
The show was hilarious, it was in English performed by a British acting group. It was interesting, some of the jokes we (the small group of Americans) did not understand, and other jokes we were the only ones who were laughing.

Today I'm going to a Christmas lunch and then maybe starting to study for my finals that start on Tuesday

Also: on the Danish television they are showing the CEO of a Danish company that ran off with 100 million kroner of the company's money. He turned himself in in California, of all places.

Happy (almost) New Year!

The theme of tonight's party was so cute, I have to share it.

It was a New Year's party, celebrating the almost last hour of the almost last day of the almost last month of 2008. Cute, right? (so we counted down when the clock almost hit 11). Lots of dancing, lots of fun.

My almost new year resolution? Keep my room clean. Boring but oh so necessary. My room is a disaster.

My host dad told me that tonight there would be "really a lot of trouble". I asked him why and he said because it's almost Christmas, which means that the Danes start doing Christmas lunches. Which means that people get really drunk (or at least drunker than Danes normally get...which already is very drunk), and then cause trouble. ha.

I have a Christmas lunch of my own tomorrow. The doctor that teaches Human Health and Disease invited us all over to eat lunch and make Christmas decorations. I'm excited.

Cultural experience of the day:

Eating raw salted herring on rugbrød and drinking snaps (akvavit) for lunch.

Happy Thanksgiving

Yesterday was my first Thanksgiving out of the United States. It was pretty great. I woke up early in the morning to make stuffing. Making it was kind of an ordeal, between taking a bus to the grocery store and searching desperately for chicken stock (it doesn't exist here actually, I had to use a bouillon cube thingy). But it turned out great! I was impressed with myself.

For the actual dinner I went to DIK Kollegium, where some friends were hosting a pot luck thankgiving. My stuffing was a hit, and there was tons of delicious food. There were about 30 of us there, and it was a good mix of Danes, Americans and others (someone from Sweden, one from Finland, two from Poland...) At one point we had everyone raise their hand who was attending their first Thanksgiving, and about half did.

It wasn't anything like my usual Thanksgiving, but it was a good one. Of the many many things I'm thankful for, the newest one is Denmark. I'm so happy to be here and I'm sad that I only have a couple of weeks left!

Photos from Budapest

(some of these pictures are my friend Karen's... she graciously agreed to let me post them!)

Turkey photos

Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been very busy. Here are some photos from my trip to Turkey. Enjoy!

Back from the travel break!

I'm back in Copenhagen. It feels good to be sitting here in my bed. These past 3 weeks have been great, a perfect way to end my 20th year (turning 21 tomorrow!) It's weird to think that this time last year I wasn't even planning on studying abroad. I'm excited to see what my 21st year will bring...

Expect Turkey updates in the next couple of days, especially because one of my assignments for my Turkey at the Crossroads course is to write three blog entries. Also, Copenhagen is cold. I miss this morning when I wore a swimsuit and hung out on a boat off the coast in the Aegean Sea.

Budapest, Venice, Florence

I'm hanging around at my host family's, waiting to leave for the airport to head to Turkey (unfortunately my flight doesn't leave until 1:30 am). More travel break updates:

End of Berlin: The DIS part of the trip ended in Berlin after a visit to a concentration camp, but instead of going back to Denmark, my friend Karen (from the program) and I stayed in Berlin for an extra night. DIS was supposed to drop us off at the train station, but instead dumped us off at an abandoned train station. In the middle of nowhere. I think (hope) that was a mistake. Luckily we found a police officer who spoke English and had her call a cab for us. Oh adventures in public transportation...

I was really happy that we stayed in Berlin an extra night as there was still so much to do and see. (Topography of terror exhibit, National Gallery art museum, etc.)

Budapest, Hungary: Jillian (my friend from NU) is studying math in Budapest for the semester and offered to let Karen and I stay in her lovely apartment. It was great to see Jillian and Budapest was a beautiful city to spend a couple of days in. While Jillian went to her classes during the day, Karen and I explored the city. We climbed St. Peter's Basilica, went to castle hill, visited a museum of medical history, ate honey nut cookies and pastries, and relaxed in thermal baths. I was expecting it to look and feel similarly to Poznan, mostly because of their shared communist history, but was pleasantly surprised that they were very different.

There are about 180 forints in one dollar, meaning that I spent most of my time in Budapest having no idea how much I was spending. If a price was in the thousands, I could come up with a rough estimate, give or take several dollars. We had some really nice dinners out, I ate pumpkin pasta with goat cheese and chicken paprikash.

We went out dancing one night and I was suprised to bump into someone from DIS that I know from one of my classes. The world is small. Also, the guys in the club would sketchily dance by themselves really close to girls, hoping the girls would turn around and start dancing with them.

Venice, Italy: Went here from Budapest with Karen, Jillian, and Jillian's friend Amelia. Lots of canals, very pretty. We walked everywhere and were hopelessly lost, which was the whole point. It also had a lot of tourists, for obvious reasons. We opted out of the $80 an hour Gondola ride, but rode the water bus down the Grand Canal at night to enjoy the light reflecting off the water.

I encountered my first ever "cover charge" that restaurants had added to their menu, just to sit down. For one of our dinners, we tried to not order any drinks and our waitress went "no. that is against the rules. The rules are you must order drinks." This made me miss eating in the US where the waiters are mostly kind, tap water is free, and no one makes you order anything. Luckily my gnocchi al ragu was delicious, so I didn't mind the forced water consumption so much.

Florence, Italy: Amelia, Jillian and I took the train here from Venice. Our hotel was really great, so that was a good surprise. We spent our days wandering the city. We climbed all 438 steps of the Duomo, saw the famous art work at the Uffizi, and ate far too much (or not enough?) gelato. I also had roasted chestnuts for the first time and they were amazing! Our dinners here were also really great. One night I managed to meet up with my friend Katie from DIS, and we all went to a bar with a live cover band. We also experienced the stereotypical Italian men who followed us around wanting to know our names and where we were from.

My second week of travelling was successful. I'm amazed that nothing went wrong. This was my first time making travel plans all on my own and it was a lot of work. We had to book the plane tickets, find the hotels and make reservations, figure out how to get from the airport to the hotels, etc. I used the internet for all my directions and reservations and everything ended up working out.

This week was a good break from the structure of the first travel break. I liked getting to make my own plans and being free to do exactly what I wanted to. However, I am looking forward to being part of a tour group for Turkey again. It is nice to not have to worry about transportation, getting lost, etc.

I also feel lucky that I had such great people to travel with. Karen, Jillian, and Amelia were all really fun be with and I think everyone got along well.

on to Turkey (Istanbul, Izmir, Bodrum)...

Back in Copenhagen... for 24 more hours

After 2 weeks of travelling, I am back in Copenhagen! I'm here until tomorrow night, when I leave to spend a week in Turkey. Here's a brief recap of the beginning of my trip, when I was travelling with my Human Health and Disease class through DIS (my study abroad program)

Poznan, Poland: It took about 12 hours to get here by bus, but the ride wasn't bad at all because I sat in the back with my friends and ended up having a good time. Poznan itself was... sad. Really really sad. There were all these buildings that looked like at one point they had been glamorous, but instead they were abandoned or in desperate need of repair. The city was gloomy and the people walking around matched their surroundings a little too well. You could tell that the city had not yet recovered from communism. Public transportation involved really old trams that everyone jammed themselves into, making sure to validate tickets every 15 minutes or risk getting an on the spot fine (or jail, if you don't have enough money on you).

Admittedly, my views about Poznan were tainted by what happened my first day there. I woke up feeling a little bit off, and ended up dramatically running out of our pathology lecture to go throw up in the bathroom. I spent the rest of the day either throwing up or sleeping, and alternating between being feeling feverish or freezing cold. Not good. Any time I tried to sit up in bed, I had to lie back down. I've never experienced anything like it before and I hope to never again. Luckily I woke up the next day feeling mostly better. I thought it was from the water (I found out too late that in Poznan the tap water is only fit for consumption after boiling), but now that I'm back in Copenhagen I found out that my host mom had the same thing happen to her on the same day so I'm guessing I actually got whatever that was in Copenhagen.

In Poznan we spent a morning shadowing a pediatrician around a hospital. This was eye opening. And sad. The hospital was very outdated, and one of the first things the pediatrician mentioned was that all of their equipment was really old and the government doesn't give them nearly enough money. We looked at hospitalized babies, like a premature baby that was really small and had jaundice and had an extremely puffy abdomen. Or a baby with fetal alcohol syndrome who was blind and has lived in the hospital for 1.5 years since it was born. I was still feeling kind of weak and dizzy from my day of illness and these children were hard to look at. At one point we were talking with a resident, and she was at the end of her call and so tired she could barely concentrate on talking to us.

Of course Poznan wasn't all bad. When I was feeling a little better I managed to go shopping in the largest mall I have ever seen. The exchange rate with the polish zloty was really good so everything was cheap. A welcome change from Copenhagen. I spent about $16 the whole time I was in Poland. The best was soft gingerbread from a small shop- a whole bag was only about $1. I bought some chocolate covered gingerbread for my host family. I also saw an opera, which was beautiful and I enjoyed it even if the subtitles were in polish.

Berlin, Germany: My new favorite city ever. I could write pages and pages about how much I loved Berlin. So much history! Such a great mosaic of old and new buildings! I saw the wall, checkpoint charlie, the Berliner Dom, went in the parliament building, ate dinner at a blind restaurant, went dancing until very late at night, went on a pub crawl with my entire group, bought perfume and marzipan, and got lost in the largest department store in Europe. That's only the beginning! Such a gorgeous place, I'm determined to go back there.

The bests "academic" part of the trip was our visit to Charité hospital. We went to a cadaver room and were shown dissected cadavers. We put on lab coats and gloves and were allowed to poke around. I held a brain in my hands. I picked up a heart, and lungs, my hands were inside of someone else feeling the small intestine or lifting up the liver. It's hard to wrap my brain around that.

I'll update more later (there's still Budapest, Venice and Florence)

Night before the 3 week break

Last night was Kultur Natten (Culture Night) a big celebration that Copenhagen has once a year. Things were open all over the city that are normally closed to the public. The city was packed with people. My friends and I toured Nytorg prison, climbed 7 flights of stairs in an attempt to find reindeer soup, went inside Christiansborg castle and made pancakes in a campfire outside. So it was a good night.

I've done a lot things in the past couple of weeks. I went to Legoland, went fishing on the Baltic, and toured Carlsberg Brewery. Last week was "midterm week", but like most weeks here I still had a good time and found myself completely free of stress. I like that I can take an exam here everyday for a week, write two papers and have two presentations and not be worried about them.

Tomorrow I'm leaving for 3 weeks. I'm spending a week in Poznan and Berlin with my Human Health and Disease class, then it's on to Budapest, Venice, Florence, brief 1 day back in Copenhagen and then Turkey! I'm ridiculously excited. I'd like to say that I'll blog about it in depth when I return but to be honest I probably won't.

Bye for now...

Bank of America

Bank of America put a hold on my card for suspicious purchases. When I called the operator he goes: "let's see... we have a purchase for 1 am at a 7-11 in...uhhh...kobe..koben..kobinvn...? Where is that? Is that in the US?"

Copenhagen is spelled København in Danish so he must have seen that. I thought it was pretty funny. Also 7-11's are open 24 hours in Denmark and they are everywhere and amazing. Not at all like the 7-11's at home. These ones are fancy (and expensive!!!) and sell baked goods and hot dogs in addition to candy bars and magazines, etc.

I'll update more later, right now I'm busy packing and organizing. Or I should be packing and organizing for my big trip tomorrow, I'm actually watching Danish television. I have no idea what's going on (wrestling and dating show combined is my best guess) but I still think it's pretty hilarious.

Summer house

I am typing this from my host family's "summer house" in northern Zealand. We are watching a movie and in true Danish fashion there are candles lit everywhere. Earlier we went for a walk along the beach and I spent the morning sitting by the fireplace, drinking coffee and eating fresh bread with blue cheese.

I pretty much got no sleep last night and last week was really busy (more on that later), so I'm appreciating a relaxing weekend. Plus dinner: shrimp with lemon over avocado for starters and roasted lamb for the main course. mmmm

General update

My host family returned a week ago from their 3 week long vacation. I'm really happy they are back. While there were some nice things about having an entire house to myself, it's also good to have company. Plus dinner is always delicious. Tonight we ate mussels cooked in broth with vegetables and last night we had pork chops with roasted apples. I really lucked out and got such a nice family. I have no complaints.

My host parents have two children, both in their early thirties. They don't live in the house, but I always like it when they stop by. My favorite is when Alexander (one year old grandchild) is around. I like it when the house is full and everyone is running around.

But I'm actually not home all that often. I leave for school in the morning (takes me about 45 minutes to get there) and spend the day going to classes or exploring Copenhagen with friends. I've been going on trips almost every weekend. The weather is only just starting to get colder, so I'm trying to cram all the outdoor activities I want to do before it gets too cold. I'm saving museums, etc for November.

I'm also in the middle of planning my travel break. I booked tickets for Budapest and Venice, and will most likely go to Paris. I'm leaving for Poland on October 12, which is coming up quickly. I have a bunch of midterms and papers next week, but I'm really only worried about my Danish oral.

Today I had needles stuck in my hand during Human Health and Disease, where we learned how to draw blood. And yesterday for my class about cancer we met at a hospital and went to the radiation department to look at the machines.

I would write more, but I need to get ready to go. Tonight I'm going to my host sister's house to watch the soccer (football) match on tv. Manchester United in Jutland and it's apparently a big deal. I'm in it for the cake my host mom is baking. Tomorrow we don't have class so I'm going to try to go shopping with friends and hopefully visit the Carlsberg Brewery.

Bornholm part 2

Bornholm continued:

At the hostel we were basically handed a bike and a map and told to have a good time. We decided to attempt to visit one of Bornholm's beaches. Bornholm is famous for having the finest sand in the world. It is exported from bornholm and used in hour glasses.

The bike ride down was really nice. We had a view of the ocean the entire time, and we stopped at an outdoor market in a town. There was a choir singing and I ate a fresh mini donut that was fried in front of me.

Bornholm looks small on the map, but it is definitely not. It took us about 6 hours to get to the beach. We dumped our bikes a little ways away from the beach, bought some soft serve ice cream rolled in cocoa powder and sugar and walked down to the beach. The sand was about the same consistency as flour and was really great to walk in and touch. It squeaked when we ran in it.

The idea of biking all the way back was pretty exhausting, and we were hungry at that point, so decided to find food and then head back. Instead of following the coast, we thought we would trek inland, as it looked shorter and we wanted to see something new. Probably not the greatest idea, inland ended up being mostly farms. It's pretty depressing to be biking forever and seeing nothing but farmland. We finally ended up at a small town where over pasta we decided we were not biking the rest of the way back.

This is where it gets interesting: we ask for directions and find out which bus stops we need to use to get back to the hostel on the other side of the island. When the bus pulls up the bus driver looks very grouchy about having to put our 5 bikes on the bus and only speaks a mixture of German and Danish. We pay (a lot! $10 each) and sit on the bus.
(all our bikes+ the worst bus driver ever)

A woman sitting next to us with her two daughters leans over and asks where we are heading and then she talks to the driver for a bit in Danish. She tells us that the bus driver made us pay way too much because he purposefully sold us tickets that were only good for 1 hour, when the next bus doesn't come for 3 hours. Then she tells us that we obviously cannot wait at a bus stop in the middle of nowhere for 3 hours so that we should come back with her to her house.

With some hesitation we finally agree, and that is how I spent 3 hours in a stranger's house in Bornholm, drinking tea and eating pizza. It's a good feeling to meet nice and caring people. (my biking friends Maria, Shawn and Elizabeth with the nice Bornholm family)

We ended up not getting back to the hostel until 9:30 pm, with our bikes left on the other side of the island because the driver would not allow them on the next bus. We spent the rest of the night hanging out at a crepe restaurant/café/bar.

DAY 2:

We decided to travel up the coast instead of down it. My bike got a flat tire along the way, but the hostel delivered a new one. Everything was so pretty! But it was also cold and windy and it rained on and off.

We stopped for lunch at a smokehouse, to eat traditional smoked herring that Bornholm is known for. It was a whole smoked herring (minus the guts, but with the skin and bone and eyes and everything) and it came with two pieces of rye bread (not the American kind but the dark danish one with seeds), onions and a raw egg yolk. It was really delicious!

We made it all the way north of the island to the ruins, the remains of a giant castle. We wandered around and admired the view of the water and the bright green grass growing everywhere.

On the bike back I was pretty sure I wasn't going to make it, with my poor tired muscles and the intense wind smacking me in the face combined with the rain. But I made it! We took the overnight ferry back and made it back to Copenhagen the next morning, just in time for classes. Actually other people made it to DIS for their classes- I went home and slept. oops.

Bornholm

I've been a blog slacker!

Bornholm:

Last weekend I went to Bornholm, this great Danish island located in the Baltic, east of Denmark (it's actually closer to both Sweden and Poland than Denmark). We left Friday night and took an overnight ferry. The ferry was massive and pretty nice, much different than what I was expected. Actually, pretty much everything here is different than I expect so I should really stop having expectations in the first place.

You could tell the seasoned Bornholm ferry travellers because they had inflatable air mattresses and sleeping bags and were already passed out by the time we made it onboard at 11 pm. I don't sleep well in upright seats, so I was kind of lame and purchased my own cabin to sleep in. So for me the ride was great, I hung out until 1 am and then had a nice sleep. For the people sleeping in chairs, it apparently was pretty uncomfortable and cold.

The ferry got in at 6 am and after we all groggily stumbled onto the bus we headed to our hostel for the weekend. The bus ride there was beautiful.

Oops! I have to leave for my fishing (!) trip. I will update more later.

Short study tour recap

It's been awhile so I have lots to update on. But I also have a new gossip girl episode to watch. So: mini update!

• Went out for drinks with Karen and her boyfriend's best friend Simon who goes to Copenhagen's business school. He is from Finland and has been in Copenhagen for awhile. The three of us stayed at the café talking for over 3 hours.
  
• Last Thursday was the short study tour. I toured around western Denmark with my Medical Practice and Policy group. We visited ribe, an old well preserved medieval city, went to a viking museum, a castle, an art museum. We ate delicious food and stayed at a folk high school.
• Folk high school's are crazy. It's a Danish thing that some people do for 6 months between the ages of 18-25. It's a school that emphasizes "learning for life" and "how to be a democratic citizen" (whatever that means). They take classes in art, etc and they dont' have exams. They all live at the school and eat all their meals together with the teachers too. It was very interesting, but not something that I would be interested in doing myself. We ate dinner with the students, most of whom were actually not Danish (I talked to people from Lithuania, Hungary, and Germany). We played soccer with them, except modified with paper cones that covered your entire face so you couldn't see anything.
• That night at the folk high school we drank hot chocolate and ate almond cake. Then we all sang songs.
• Medical related portion of the trip involved going to see a General Practitioner and visiting a hospital to listen to a lecture about how the Danish medical system is being restructure. The GP was really interesting to listen to. In Denmark your GP is the "gatekeeper" and you have to see them first for any medical problem. The GP pretty much does everything: they'll give you a cast for broken bones, perform gynecological exams.. anything generalized and they do it. They deal with 99% of people and refer 1% on to specialists. Very different from the US where most people go to a specialist right away. The Danish government foots the bill, and this helps them to keep costs down.
• On Wednesday my Danish class went to a cemetary and general mini walking tour. We were in this clean neighborhood outside of an apartment building when my teacher stops. "This" (pause for emphasis) "This is what the Danish refer to as the slums" Some kids in the group laughed a little bit. The building looked nicer than the one I lived in this summer in Evanston. There was no trash anywhere. So the Danish slums> Ridge and simpson in Evanston.
• This week was the start of midterms. They kind of snapped me out of my "I'm still on vacation" mode. Maybe now I'll actually do work.
  
• So strange that I've almost been here for a month and Northwestern hasn't even started yet.
  

Ok, that wasn't so short. Tomorrow I'm taking an overnight ferry to Bornholm (a Danish island!) to spend the weekend biking and sightseeing.

Sweden

Sweden was everything I pictured it to be, from houses with thatched roofs to fat milk cows grazing in the countryside. I even ate cake in a garden with a frolicking goat. I kid you not.

After a short ferry ride, we pulled up to our hostel where we were going to stay for the weekend. I have never stayed at a hostel before and I definitely wasn't expecting a big mansion with a large garden.







The garden of the hostel





That day we went canoeing on the Ronneå. Elizabeth and I took on our own canoe, and quickly discovered that we are possibly the worst canoe-ers ever. For whatever reason we were unable to go straight and had to settle for zigzagging down the canal. It didn't take long for everyone else to be way ahead of us. Not that it mattered. It was just us and the Swedish countryside and lots ducks. It was really peaceful.










before we were way behind everyone else.


That night we had a barbecue on the lawn in front of the hostel. We had marinated grilled chicken, grilled sausages, chips, and salad. We spent hours hanging out, talking and playing cards. At one point there was a mini bonfire but it was short lived. We stayed out until we it was too dark to see much.

The next day after a delicious hostel breakfast (very Scandinavian: bread, cheese, jam, muesli, yogurt, coffee) we headed out on bikes towards Nimis (for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimis_(artwork) ). The bike ride was much longer and more aerobic than I was expecting. But it felt so good to be outside and exercising. My favorite thing to bike by were the milk cows eating grass outside of cute Swedish houses. We took a break in the middle and wandered along the coast for a bit. I think living in one of the idyllic houses overlooking the Kattegat would be a very nice life.

The hike down to Nimis was pretty difficult but well worth it- Nimis was incredible. The driftwood structures were giant and had winding tunnels inside that you could climb in. They were like giant tree houses. At this point we were all sweaty and very tired from biking all day. On our way back to the hostel we stopped off at Flickorna Lundgren for cake in the garden (www.fl-lundgren.se/).

So it was a very good weekend! Tomorrow I don't have any classes or field studies. I'm looking forward to sleeping in and then hopefully seeing some museums tomorrow.

First field study

On Wednesdays, instead of classes we participate in "field studies". These involve going out and visiting places or hearing speakers that relate to the classroom topic. I had my first one today for Political Rhetoric. It was pretty interesting, we went to the Danish Parliament and listened to a representative from Denmark's newest political party, the Liberal Alliance (formerly called the Ny Alliance). Basically the party was created by a popular figure in one of the mainstream parties who decided to make a new party that better fitted his ideas. The whole thing was a complete disaster and they are now struggling to survive. Afterwards we had a "coffee debrief" at a local café (how I love free coffee!)

Once the field study was over, I went with Karen and Tim to the Jewish museum. The architecture of the inside is supposed to make you feel seasick, like the Jews who were smuggled into Sweden by boat may have felt. Lots of corners and sloping floors and ceilings. Very disorienting.










My first class doesn't start until 3 pm tomorrow so tonight I'm going to the University of Copenhagen student bar/café. Megan is also coming over for dinner beforehand, so it should be a good night.

I am a champ at using the Danish transportation system. Today when I was riding the S train into the city I remembered my disastrous first attempts at riding a PACE bus to work for the first time in Chicago this summer. I took the wrong bus twice and ended up in a sketchy part of town with no clue how to get back to my apartment. I finally made it onto a bus that was going in the right direction, only to think I recognized where I was and got off a good 30 minute walk south of where I needed to be. I ate dinner at cozy noodle alone that night. Not a good night (although the pad see ew helped a bit).

Now I use a combination of buses and trains everyday. On some days I even ride the bus, train and metro. I think my favorite thing about riding the train (besides how clean and efficient they are) is that I can't understand what anyone around me is saying. It's really peaceful. That obnoxious kid several rows up? No clue what he's crying about. The arguing couple's fight? The group of girls gossiping? All blend into the background. Just me and my reading or staring at Denmark.

Classes started up on Thursday. I'm taking five, 3-credit classes and one 1-credit class.

Danish Language 1: I am terrible at languages and Danish is no exception. But I think if NU didn't make me take it I would probably want to anyway. My IHS indoctrinated cultural sensitivity would make me feel like a schmuck if I didn't at least make an effort to learn the language of the country I am living in for the next 4 months.

Complexity of Cancer: This is taught off campus at the Panum Institute, which houses the medical faculty of the University of Copenhagen. It's counting for my major and I'm sure it will be interesting.

20th Century European History: This one is my favorite. I love love love 20th century history.

Political Rhetoric: About political spin. We run fake campaigns. The teacher paces around the room and makes me dizzy but this should be fun. I was late today because I first sat for 20 minutes in the wrong room.

Human Health and Disease: This one is taught at a hospital. We get to diagnose fake patients.

Turkey at the Crossroads: I'm going to Turkey! And taking this class once a week with everyone else going to Turkey. Merhaba.

Quick recap of the last several days

I was planning to do a full post (with pictures!) but I'm pretty tired so here's a short post. Hopefully I'll do the full post tomorrow.

Things that have happened since last posting:
-classes started. I'll write in depth on those later
-attended a party at a Dane's apartment
-Luux club for dancing
-Toured Copenhagen by bike.
-Visited the hippie squatter town called Christiania that reminded me of the Oregon Country Fair (think dreadlocks, and high barefoot dancing people)
-Ate 20 dollar pizza.
-Went to Kronborg castle and Helsingør
-killed two spiders. (one just right now. My heart is still beating about 3 times faster than normal.) Killing these spiders involved a paper towel wrapped boot, a broom inside the boot and a vacuum. I shrieked both times, making a sound I wasn't even aware that I was capable of making.
-developed a cold. I'm not a fan of stuffy noses and sore throats. Hopefully it will pass quickly.

My host family has peaced out for the next 3 weeks (they are going to France). I already miss their company and delicious dinners. However they left me with a fully stocked fridge and having an entire Danish house all to myself is pretty nice. They also gave me permission to have friends spend the night. My host mom also bought me a box of fancy chocolates.

So things are still going well! The weather was very warm this weekend, although I've heard that after this it will pretty much rain all the time. Luckily, I happen to like rain so I'm not worried.

"Guelerødder" means carrot in danish. It's pronunciation is something like this: goolerutha, with the middle part all blended together. When my danish teacher pronounced that today we all just stared at her. And then started laughing. The last two days as part of orientation everyone has to take a Surival Danish course. I think the most useful thing I learned was how to order a wienerbrød, which is a danish pastry, but it translates into bread from vienna (Jeg vil gerne have et stykke wienbrød. Pronounced: Yi vay garne hé et stuuké veenerbrod). After they had us practice saying the line we were all given giant danishes. mmmm

I last night I met one of my host parent's two daughters and her boyfriend when they came over for dinner. It was really nice to meet them and she told me stories of her year in the US while we ate roast lamb and potato stew. Then I headed off to downtown Copenahagen for my first night out in the city. I met up with some DIS friends, and we went to a bar called "The Happy Pig". It ended up being full of foreign students and a lot of other DIS students were there. I was all set to get back to Ejby on my own, but luckily Megan's host sister came with a car and she graciously offered to drive me back.














I was definitely not going to go to my 9 am Danish class today, so I skipped it and slept in and then went to a random one in the afternoon. It was a good choice, the other Danish class was a much funnier and livelier group and I made some new friends. Plus I slept in until 11 am instead of waking up at 7 am. In the class we went to a nearby Netto and translated the names of different foods into Danish. I have a dinner with the class on Tuesday, the catch is that you have to find the place on your own (although with the internet that should be easy) and then DIS will pay for the meal.

Tonight I met my other host sister, who came with her boyfriend and their 14 month old son, Alexander. He was soooo adorable and my host parents were absolutely obsessed with him. After hearing so much about him, I was glad I could finally meet him. We bonded when he drooled on my knee.

(sorry that it's not right side up! I can't seem to fix it)











And for anyone who doesn't have facebook, you can see more pictures here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2277175&l=638c8&id=3421298

alright, I have a little bit of pre-reading for my classes tomorrow then I'm off to bed.

Day 1 of Orientation

Quick post!

-Today: DIS welcome ceremony and a tour of Copenhagen by bus.
-food of the day/ what I think is a typical danish day of food:
breakfast: muesli (not sure exactly what was in there but it was good), and then toast with blue cheese
lunch: A sandwich of ham, tomato and lettuce. I was very happy to have my own lunch when I saw how expensive everything is in Copenhagen.
dinner: mashed potatoes (definitely mashed with lots of butter, and cheese, also onions and maybe carrots were in there) and bacon. Potatoes+meat= very Scandinavian. For dessert we had a dark chocolate dipped mound of marshmallow with coconut on top that is called something in Danish that I won't repeat here because it is terrible and racist. Yes, apparently marshmallows can have a racist name.
-things are still going well.
-Tonight I just hung around the house, but in the future I hope to go back into Copenhagen to see friends. My host family is leaving for three weeks starting on Friday, so that would probably be a good time to explore the city at night.

AND, my weekend schedule for the next month+:
-August 29: bike tour of Copenhagen, August 30: Elsinore (Hamlet's castle) and Kronborg Castle
-Sept 6-7: Sweden!
-Sept 12-13: short study tour with my Medical Practice and Policy program around denmark
-Sept 19-20: Bornholm to go biking
then one weekend off
-Oct 11- Nov. 2: Three week travel break: so far...Berlin, Poznan (Poland), France, Turkey.

So I'll be plenty busy. I'm excited!

My host family (Erik and Enni, both 60) is great, they are very welcoming and warm and I feel lucky to have them. I live in Ejby (good luck pronouncing it). Their house is hands down the cleanest and most organized house I have ever been in. Nothing is out of place, and clutter is completely non-existant. I obviously cannot be the slobby American who comes in and takes over so I will try to imitate them. So far everything unpacked well (I maybe should have brought less stuff...), and I will try to stay clean. Unfortunately, anyone who has ever lived with me is probably laughing right now. I know, I know, but I'm going to try
For dinner we ate roast chicken and linguine with a buttery onion sauce. Everything was so delicious and they had candles lit on the table and the light in the dining room was dimly lit. Very hygge. I had read in my DIS packet that the danes consider it childish to cut your food and then switch forks to eat it, so I tried my best not to do it. It was much more difficult than I would have thought, especially when eating the pasta. Their forks never left their left hands, and generally I eat with my fork on my right hand. I hope I didn't look too incompetent. Anyways I think they like me and I know I really like them so this is good.

Random observations:
-I had my first mini Danish healthcare system lesson. They know I'm a pre-med student and they asked if I hoped to learn more about Danish healthcare system. I said yes, and they shook their heads and said that their system has a lot of problems. And that the nurses just finished their two month strike for more pay and during that time no one could have any surgeries performed and now there is a huge backlog. And that the nurses didn't even end up getting their pay raise.
-I met a lot of people I really liked in my program today just at the airport.
-the Denmark is pretty! The sky had big white fluffy clouds, it looked straight out of one of those Denmark guide books.

Tomorrow I have the Welcome Ceremony followed by a tour of Copenhagen. My host dad is taking me in the morning to help me buy my train pass for the semester and then showing me how to get there.

hi,hi! (that's pretty much only Danish I know. I think it means goodbye)

Finally in Denmark

Traveling ended up going smoothly, even if I am completely exhausted. My Chicago to Copenhagen flight ended up being an almost even mix of DIS students and Danes. On the train to the international terminal I was approached by a girl my age who saw my DIS luggage tag. By the time I reached the terminal there were three of us and soon more students congregated around us. I felt like a college freshman all over ago- there was a lot of "name?, where are you from?, what school do you go to?," But it was fun to meet new people and I liked already having friends before even getting to Denmark.

Scandanavian airlines was very nice and the service was excellent. The flight left Chicago at 10:05 pm and arrived in Copenhagen at 1:20-ish (Danish time). So to my body I was traveling from 8 pm to 4 am and I unfortunately didn't manage to get more than an hours worth of sleep on the plane. I'm looking forward to a shower and my bed!

The Copenhagen airport was amazing and our luggage was already circulating by the time we arrived at the luggage check. Efficiency! I was prepared for a long line in customs and instead, all we had to do was walk through a door that said "I don't have anything to declare". So customs took about 3 minutes, the time it took to walk through the door.

Right now I am waiting at the University of Copenhagen for my host family to come pick me up. I'm a little bit nervous, even though I know I shouldn't be.

Airport

The Portland airport is by far my favorite airport. I love having my departing terminal next door to my arriving terminal and the free wi-fi is a definite bonus. My flight to Chicago should board within the next 10 minutes. This is a route I've taken a lot over the past two years to get to Northwestern, but this is the first time I won't be staying in Chicago. My flight for Copenhagen then leaves at 10 pm and (according to facebook at least) there is a sizeable group of DIS students that will be on that flight. It's hard to think that in less than 24 hours I will be in Denmark (a country I have never been to), living with a family that I've never met. Of course I'm nervous, but right now I am mostly excited. As I won't be coming back for 4 more months, I will try to enjoy the view of the pacific northwest when my plane takes off.

First post!

I thought setting up a blog would be a good way to keep in touch with family and friends when I spend a fall semester in Copenhagen, Denmark.