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?