Weekend in Berlin

        Two weekends ago Tina, Rachel, and I went to Berlin for the weekend. Packing only a backpack (because extra luggage costs extra money on easyjet), I can now say that I have traveled to another country with only a small backpacks worth of stuff(and trust me, packing wasn't easy). Our flight didn't leave until 9:25 so we made sure to get to the airport with plenty of time to spare. At the airport we quickly realized that all the staff were big jokesters. The guys checking our passports told us they were tired and wanted to know if we would take over their job for a bit, another guy checking our boarding pass started to sing New York New York to me when he looked at my passport, and asked Tina (whose full name is Kristina) if she was like Christina Aguilera. Then when we were about to go through security, we quickly took off our scarves, belts, any metal, and naturally our shoes. Upon seeing this the workers started laughing at us and said that taking off our shoes wasn't necessary because “We are not in America.” This cracked them up so much that for the five minutes it took our stuff to go through the scanner and for us to gather everything back together they just kept telling us that “We are not in America.” With no luggage to check we were never told what gate to go to. After asking someone and arriving at the appropriate terminal we realized that our flight wasn't even listed on the screen. We panicked slightly that we may have missed our flight so we asked again and were told that it wasn't listed because they didn't even know exactly what gate it would be coming to. This is around the time that we learned if you are going to fly on a cheap airline, they don't tell you where you are supposed to go until 20 minutes before you board.

We finally found the right gate

The flight was only 45 minutes long and we landed in what appeared to be, as Tina put it, “The parking lot of a grocery store.” It was the sketchiest airport I have ever been to. Rachel's brother, Samuel, has been living in Berlin for about the last month so we were lucky enough to have a personal tour guide as well as a free place to stay. After finding Samuel , he brought us back to his apartment, which is on the 5^th floor (hiking status). Fun fact: the second floor of his apartment building is home to a children's dentist office located right across from an AIDS clinic (interesting combo). Friday night we went out to a hole in the wall bar-literally. This place actually seemed to be a hole in a wall. The atmosphere was very relaxed, and cozy though. People were sitting on milk crates and the only source of light came form candles spread out around the place. Saturday morning we woke up early and spent the entire day exploring Berlin.

Make shift bed on the floor...so comfy...NOT!

Berlin is very proud of their stop and go men

Entrance way to the city

With Samuel leading the way, we never had to worry about where to go next or how to find the next destination. I even forgot I was in a foreign city at one point when I stopped to take a picture in a train station and urged the others to go on and I would catch up with them-to which someone kindly told me that I most likely wouldn't seeing as I had no idea where I was going. Saturday we covered a large portion of the city, and got to see many things including the Berlin Cathedral, The Holocaust Memorial, the gate that is considered the entrance way to the city, the Berlin Wall, Kunsthaus Tacheles, as well as awesome graffiti everywhere.

Holocaust Memorial

 

Berlin Cathedral

Where did the other L go?

  

 

The Berlin Wall was incredible to see-it had the coolest murals painted on it.



The Kunsthaus Tacheles used to be a department store in the Jewish quarter but was later turned into a Nazi prison camp. It was later taken over by artists who still have it to this day. There is graffiti everywhere, random sculptures, as well as artists all over showing their work and selling replicas. Apparently it is a pretty big tourist destination but I definitely would not have gone there on my own. The place was very sketchy and I felt like I was trespassing the whole time. 



For lunch we went to Mustafa's Gemüse Kebap-a small stand that is known for its durums. I'm not sure exactly what was in it, but it was amazing. The meat was cut from a giant hunk of spinning meat and I was told it was chicken. I didn't ask questions.

Later that night we went out to a gay bar. It's amazing the things you see outside of Greenville. After the gay bar we went to a rave called Berghain. Little did we know this is one of the most popular raves in Europe. From the outside it looks like a run down prison, and waiting to get in has been compared to judgment day. The bouncers faces were covered in piercings and tattoos. They looked us up and down in order to judge our worthiness to go inside. I'm not sure why they let me in. Upon arriving in Germany I immediately noticed that their style was very different. Most people wore black, and if you didn't have some sort of facial piercing you were a minority. So there I stood, with my Steve Madden boots, gray peacoat, and pink floral scarf...and somehow got in...It is really hard to explain what Berghain was like, so I highly recommend reading about it here Berghain Berlin Since no cameras are allowed I couldn't take any pictures, but I found a couple online that people had somehow taken-google image it! The music that was playing was amazing. After being described as "quite possibly the current world capital of techno” it did not disappoint. The music itself was not loud-I could talk in a normal voice and everyone could hear me fine. However, the bass was turned up so high that it pulsed through your entire body, with different tones rattling different bones (rhyme!) If you closed your eyes and just let your body move to the music you could get into a trance-like state. It was like nothing I had ever experienced. My pink sweater and scarf set me apart from most of the other people there (many of whom were men in their 50s wearing various small pieces of leather clothing...including chaps without jeans underneath (wonderful image now permanently burned into my memory) and suspenders looped through nipple rings). This place put me as far outside of my comfort zone as I have ever been in my life-and it was amazing! I never felt threatened by the people there-they were too busy dancing, or in the “dark rooms” (see wikipedia-it's not lying), or probably doing drugs. However, in a place like this, leave it the Americans to find on the very top floor an.... ICE CREAM BAR! We were the only ones in it - everyone else was probably preoccupied by everything else Berghain has to offer. I'm sure you're wondering-and the answer is of course I bought myself some ice cream. If you randomly find an ice cream bar in a rave-it's a sign from God-and you can't not buy any. Around 4:30am we discovered one of the many giant swings (a roughly 10 feet x 10 feet square piece of metal hanging from the ceiling). After sitting/lying on it for a while we started to realize just how tired we were. The swing was rocking us to sleep. On our way to the door to leave, the music somehow sucked us back in and we danced for a good 30 minutes more without having any idea where the time went. We finally managed to leave around 5:30am- only to find that there was still a line of people waiting to get in. The Germans were no where near done for the night. Rachel's brother said they will stay there until probably noon the next day. I don't know how they do it. Sunday we woke up in time to meet my friend Mike. He has been living in Leipzig since last August. It was so nice to see a familiar face from back home. We spent the day exploring the city as well as visiting the Ritter Sport Chocolate Factory/Store and of course having lunch at Mustafa's Gemüse Kebap again.

Berlin was so much cheaper compared to Copenhagen, so every chance we got we were buying ourselves some kind of delicious pastry. I was also able to get a thimble to add to my collection! By Sunday night we were exhausted and ready to go back to Copenhagen. However, while waiting to board our plane, the emergency inflatable slide decided to pop out and inflate. This hindered our departure just a little in that now they had to find someone to deflate it and either roll it back up properly to put it back in or find a new one to install. Thank you easyjet. All in all it was an awesome weekend but I dont think I would like to study there for four months. Let me just say that I was very happy to be back in Copenhagen.

hApPy BiRtHdAy BoPpEr!!!! Or should I say Tillykke Med Fødselsdag Bopper!!!!

Although this will probably show up as being February 19th, it is technically still February 18th in the states, right around 7:30-and yes, I am thinking about the cake I'm missing (please eat a piece for me).  I think I'll survive though because Helle just gave me a Snickers bar. I love that woman. Anyway, back to the main reason for this post, it's me dad's birthday.  Since I can't be there in  person, I am doing my best to be there in spirit.  I just spent the last 30 minutes trying to figure out how to take this picture with my big toe that way I could have both hands free...go ahead and laugh at me. After far too many tries, these are some of the winners.

Look closely-typical Ricci-Family-Member-Concentrating-Tongue-Out Shot

CHEEEESEEEE-It's Your Birthday!

Trying to be normal...so difficult

Bopper~I'm so sorry I am not there to serenade you with my angelic voice...try not to miss it too much. I hope your birthday was FABULOUSSSS (said like the Grinch-ask Ryan to say it for you properly).  Some words of wisdom:  Bernard Baruch once said, "To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am."  Keep that in mind and you're *golden* I love you!

Nature, Western Denmark, and Life Lessons

Since I last wrote many things have happened. A few weekends ago, Cecilie, one of my host mom's other daughters came to visit. After eating a huge meal of frikadella, a popular dish consisting of meatballs made of pork, Helle and Cecilie took Tina, Zoe, and myself on a nature walk. The trail starts right across the street from our house and is going to be an excellent place to run. With a fresh layer of snow (and by layer I mean about 1/8 inch) we were able to see a side of Borup we have yet to see. A small town, located in what seems to be the middle of nowhere (sound familiar Freehold?), it still has a lot to offer-and on this nature walk, I discovered that the landscape was one of these things. It was a sunny day (rare in Denmark) and the sparkling snow covered fields and woods made for a wonderful walk, not to mention great photo ops.

Frikadella, Veggie balls, and Boiled Potatoes...Yummmm

We then went to the cutest tea shop I have ever been in.  My nose didn't know what to do with all the wonderful smells.  There were hundreds of different teas, as well as coffees, candy, and crafts.  The floors were uneven, the ceiling was crooked, and their was so much to look at it was overwhelming.  Helle let us pick out tea, which was hard since they all smelled like heaven but we somehow managed. 

The smell was out of this world

                                                                                                                                                             More recently, February 3-5, was our short study tour. With the 11 other people in my Medical Practice and Policy class along with another class of 11 we traveled to Århus and Aalborg in western Denmark. The bus left from Copenhagen at 7am, so rather than have to get up around 4:30 to get there on time, my wonderful host mother, a multi-year veteran in hosting DIS students, used one of her many connections and arranged for the bus to pick us up along the way. We were told that we would be dropped off at the highway. In my mind I had pictured a truck stop or a pull of area located near a toll booth along the Thruway. To my surprise, this was not at all the case. At the intersection where the highway met the connecting road we were on, we were dropped off on the side of the road, told to grab our bags, and go to the bus. I wish I had video footage of Tina, Zoe, and I running along the side of the highway with our suitcases to catch our charterbus. To me, this was possibly the funniest thing that could have happened at 8am that morning. Once on the bus I noticed I didn't feel well, but decided a 2 hour nap on the way to Århus would magically fix my stomach. When we arrived in Århus I ate half a banana, thinking my stomach ache was because I didn't eat anything all morning. At Århus we were to tour a hospital. While waiting in the main entrance to meet the engineers and doctors that would be showing us around, the first thing we immediately noticed was that all hospital staff were zooming buy on scooters. They were similar to razor scooters only each foot got its own platform. I felt like I had been time warped into the future-seeing a nurse zoom with her kit for taking blood in the front basket of her scooter killed me.
Our tour began with a tour of the MRI department. As the doctor was talking I felt the urge to either throw up or pass out suddenly come over me. Trying to talk myself out of getting sick I leaned up against a wall, told myself my blood sugar was probably low and that after the presentation I would snag a piece of gum from a friend and be fine. This mental convincing didn't work and I soon found myself hiding behind a small barrier for a children's play area puking up the banana I had just eaten. The doctor of course stopped his presentation to rush over and make sure I was okay while everyone in my class-some I had just met that morning stared. I was making friends left and right. Awesome. Feeling much better, we then went to see pigs being operated on. They were trying a new experimental blood pressure medicine on them. It was quite odd to walk into a operating room and see hooves sticking out from beneath the surgical coverings. Shortly after leaving the operating room the nauseous/fainting feeling came over me again, and with no garbage in site I once again puked all over a random, although strategically chosen piece of floor(out of the way of heavy traffic) of Århus hospital. Apparently I didn't make enough new friends after the first episode so I gave it another try-no such luck. We then were given a presentation by two biomedical engineers who gave a presentation about mechanical heart valves. I slept through most of this since I had just gotten sick twice, but luckily I woke in time for the one engineer to say- “Now where is the girl who got sick? How are you feeling?” Danish people are so nice and caring but I would've been fine without all the attention. From there we went to a general practitioner’s office. I immediately noticed the bright natural light and the design of the building. It very closely resembled an art gallery. The general practitioner we talked to was awesome. In an attempt to come up with an example ailment a typical patient may have he said “A patient walks in with a burning bum and I tell them well maybe you should stop sitting on the stove.” Best example ever.

Waiting area of GP's office

After checking into our hostel, located in the middle of the woods, we went to the Sct. Clemens Bryggeri (Brewery) where we were served delicious ribs and spicy fruit cake.

Hostel

The next day we headed off to the Center for Sensory-Motor Interaction at Aalborg University. Here we got to tour a pain threshold lab, learn about neural prosthesis', and experience virtual reality while on a treadmill with two different belts that could be moved at different speeds. Thanks to Ryan always torturing me as a child and squeezing different pressure points(all out of love of course), I realized that my pain threshold for pressure was quite high. While learning about neural prosthesis' I had electrodes attached to my arm and was able to control a small model wheelchair. The technology that this lab had developed absolutely amazed me. For people who had been paralyzed from the neck down, they were working on making it so they could tilt their head backwards, forwards, and side to side in order to steer their wheelchair. They had also invented a virtual keyboard that projected onto the roof of one's mouth and by using a tongue piercing the person could type on the keyboard. The biomedical engineering students who were working on developing these ideas were so humble, and yet the work they were doing is soon going to be changing the lives of so many people who have become paralyzed or have completely lost limbs.

Double treadmill

Me controlling the miniature  model wheelchair just by moving my arm

   Later in the day we went toured the Utzon Center, a building designed by Jørn Utzon, the same man who designed the Sydney Opera House.

Miniature Model of Utzon Center

With a little free time left before checking into the hostel, we decided the only logical thing to do was shop. During our exploring Tina, Rachel, and I discovered that Denmark has Coldstone which naturally couldn't be passed. I later found a pair of boots that reminded me of something Amelia Earhart may have worn if she ever flew into combat in Alaska... I had to have them.(Mom-I thought you would be impressed to know that it took me a whole 3 weeks before I bought some sort of footwear).

They were udsalg (on sale) and can be worn normally or folded down with fur showing-it was love at first sight

Bar Street

Later on we went out to the “bar street”-an entire street just lined with bars. I was a little disappointed there was no karaoke bar but we still had fun. When we left around 1:30am the Danes were just starting to come out. Us Americans can't keep up with their crazy lifestyle...

Bar Street

Viking Burial Ground

  The next day we had a long bus ride back to Copenhagen (and by long I mean about 5 hours-it amazed me that we basically spanned Denmark in the time it takes me to drive from home to Rochester). On our way back we stopped at Lindholm Høje, the site of a recently discovered Viking burial ground.

It was a little windy...

Overall, our short study tour was a ton of fun-minus the banana puking/friend making incident. As fun as it was, it was nice to be back in Copenhagen and our cozy home in Borup. I was really lucky with the host family I was placed with. The Scheibel Family has made me feel right at home. Just the other day my host sister Sofie told me that maybe I should have my head examined (this was prompted by me staying up very late, getting too little sleep, resulting in uncontrollable fits of laughter...no surprise). Sofie's blunt honesty reminds me a lot of my wonderful brother Ryan (who misses me a ton I'm sure) who never holds back what he is truly feeling.  Since our host mother, Helle, always makes us wonderful meals we decided to return the favor.  The other night we made salmon, breaded chicken cutlets, rice, and a potato/vegetable side dish.  Tina, Zoe, and I were quite proud of how it turned out. 

So.Much.Food.

   I have absolutely fallen in love with Denmark-the people, their way of life and attitudes, the cobblestone, Copenhagen, and just the overall feeling of contentedness that seems to radiate out of the natives. The perfect example of this happened just the other day. Denmark got a really bad windstorm which consequently caused trees to fall down over the train tracks. Tina, Zoe, and I left our house around 6:45am to bike to the train station and catch the 7:04 train. Once there however, the 7:04 train flew by without stopping. We then waited for the 7:34 train, which also flew by. Realizing that the trains were not stopping in Borup, we took a bus to a town south of Borup called Ølby which actually didn't get us closer to Copenhagen at all. From there we took a train to a neighboring town, where we had to catch a bus. When the first bus came it pulled into the stop next to the one we were at, so it filled up before we had a chance to get on it. Learning from this mistake, we went and stood at the correct stop. About ten minutes later the next bus came and somehow we got pushed towards the back of the line and didn't make it onto this one either. At this point Tina and I were laughing hysterically. Although not a typical comedic situation, it was so ridiculous that we just had to laugh. A stern looking Danish man in front of us on line kept turning around and giving us the evil eye. About another ten minutes later a third bus came...and pulled into the stop we had originally been at. At seeing this, the stern man in front of us, along with many of the other Danes there, and of course Tina and I, let out a good hearty laugh. Finally, the Danes were on the same level with me when it came to laughing in not-so-great situations that are just out of your control. So far all of the Danes I have seen are stoic and mostly silent in public. Not that the Danes seemed mad about the situation to begin with-they all seemed content and as though they knew there was nothing they could do, but Tina pointed out that this was the first time we had ever heard a group of Danes all pull together and laugh aloud-it was awesome. I was very tempted to slap the "stern-guy” in front of us on the back and say “Yeah buddy-that's the spirit!” but somehow refrained. Frantically running to the other stop we managed to squeeze our way onto the third bus, which took us to yet another random town. On the way to the next stop I pointed out to Tina that from our side of the bus we were able to “See the sun rise over the Baltic Sea at 9am”-check that one off the bucket list. At the next stop we were able to catch the metro into Copenhagen. Our normal 50 minute commute took over 3.5 hours that morning-causing me to miss my entire first class and half of my second one...and I had a blast doing it. Particularly funny to me was the fact that it took over an hour longer to get into Copenhagen than the number of hours I had slept the night before (yes, sometimes I only sleep for 2.5 hours). At one point Zoe pointed out that I was awfully positive over this whole situation. If there is anything I have learned in life it's that some things are just out of your control. While many people may get stressed out or angry at this far-from-ideal situation I've realized that it's not worth it. During this very long commute I decided to listen to my ipod-and chose Phil Collins-Another Day In Paradise. This song talks about people who are homeless, and goes on to say “Oh, think twice, it's just another day for you and me in paradise.” I love this song not only because it is catchy, but it also has an awesome message. It is so easy to get caught up in your own day to day problems, but in the big picture, what does it really matter that I will miss my first class because of train issues when there are so many people in the world who don't even have food or clean water? My uncontrollable laughing may have been caused by too little sleep, but my positive outlook stemmed from the realization that I am lucky enough to have loving family and friends, I've always had a roof over my head, food to eat, and I am currently lucky enough to be studying abroad in what I have determined is the best city in the world. Why shouldn't a day in which my 50 minute commute turns into a 3.5 hour commute be considered another day in paradise?