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.