Amsterdam bound!

I'm currently on the overnight train to Amsterdam! It is 16 hours long and I am already starting to go crazy after only one hour. Luckily, I bought a "couchette" car so I kinda have a bed (its more of a bench but it'll do)

Here's a little cultural insight! One of the top songs in Denmark right now, Lækker:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k22VMbhAnzw

Last night we had a bonfire with the DISers at my kollegium in the forest near our dorm. It was SO much fun being in the woods, we made smores and sang old 80's and 90's songs :) the nice thing about being in Denmark is that people are so laid back and don't care about things (such as noise) like they do in the US, so it didn't matter that we were belting out songs and drinking beers in an open area because the police really don't care about things like that. I think that mentality should really be brought back to the states.....

I'll write again once I have stories from Amsterdam! :)

Week of Classes

This week was pretty busy with school and not much recreation unfortunately... though I did have an interesting field trip yesterday to a cancer rehabilitation center with my complexity of cancer class. We visited the "house" (as the tour guide kept saying), that is part of the municipality of Copenhagen and provides cancer patients access to personal training, nutrition and cooking classes, group workshops and social events. It was a BEAUTIFUL building with so many little nooks for chatting with other visitors and rooms to watch films and do yoga and other physical activities. She told us about 1000 cancer patients and survivors use the facilities regularly, and it seemed like a really wonderful resource that I haven't seen any similarities to in the US.

Other than that, I started my work-study job at the library this week. It is pretty boring (I just sit at a desk and check in books, which rarely happens because the library is tiny!) but I've talked to a few students who come in so I guess I may meet some interesting people! Also the money can't hurt when I'm planning TONS of travel.. my list of destinations follows:

Sept 21-24: Amsterdam to visit Lily
Sept 29: Milan with Tim
Sept 30-Oct 1: Budapest with Tim
Oct 1-4: Berlin by myself (I have some contacts I can hangout with!)
Oct 4-7: Krakov and Novy Sacz with Jack, Doug and Dubi!
October 21-26: Bratislava/Vienna with Medical Practice and Policy
October 26-29: Possible after-tour trip to Prague with MPP friends
November 10-18: Madrid and Barcelona with Anna!!!
December 1-3: Possible trip to Greece with Aly, Genna, Maggie and Marissa!

Little Surprises

I'm continuing to be charmed by Denmark more and more each day. I went into the city yesterday (Saturday) to feel a little more productive, even though all I wanted to do was get hyggelig (cozy) in my bed and watch TV on my computer - I woke up feeling really homesick and just overall unhappy, but after a good cry and Skype with Tim, I was ready to get out of my room. I'm only here for 4 months, so it would be a shame to waste a beautiful day! I took the metro in and went to my favorite coffee shop, Studenterhuset. However, when I got there, it was filled with tables and people selling all sorts of clothing/accessories/shoes...like a flea market! I knew at that point I wouldn't be getting much homework done so I perused the stands. Clothing here is extremely expensive, so it was great to find some name brand items that people were reselling for extremely cheap. I found a pair of shoes that I fell in love with instantly (picture below) and asked the girl how much they were. She replied "15 kroner" and I thought I heard wrong... did she mean 150? "15?!" I said. "Yes!" she replied. There are 6 kroners in the USD, so I had just stumbled upon a pair of shoes for just over 2 dollars. Day. Made.

Ok, I know they look kinda dirty (and that's mostly because I wore them out last night to a bar) but they are awesomely comfortable!!!

I then sat outside (since there was nowhere to sit inside) and actually did get some homework done. After that, I was going to walk back to the train station, but I got seduced by my favorite place in all of Copenhagen - a place we refer to as "the Glass Market," eventhough I'm sure it has another name. It is two huge glass buildings right behind the train station that are hidden so that most people don't even know they are there. But, it is a huge market with different vendors selling fresh fruit and vegis, fish and meats, spices, chocolates, baked goods, and olive oil. Almost every stand has a table of samples, and the owners are usually very generous with their portions. So, instead of going home to make lunch, I decided to have lunch at Glass Market by wandering from stall to stall and taking advantage of the samples. Much better than Costco.

After a hearty meal of cheeses dipped in dill honey mustard and freshly baked bread soaked in garlic infused olive oil, I spotted Maggie, a friend from my kollegium who, surprise, was doing the exact same thing as me! We went back to our kollegium together and I rested before a night on the town with 3 of my girlfriends.

At one of the bars we went to, we hungout with a group of 8 British guys who were hilarious and really fun. What started off with me crying into my pillow about how much I wish I was home turned into one of the best and most surprising days here so far. I think I'm starting to call this city home :)

Short Study Tour

My Medical Practice and Policy left on our short study tour to western Denmark on Monday, and spent 2 nights in 2 different cities - Vejle and Århus - doing both cultural and medical activities. There are 20 of us in our class, and we were accompanied by Henrik, my biology of cancer teacher, and Stephanie our TA.

We first took a bus to a place called Koldinghus, one of the original castles in Denmark. We got a guided tour of the castle which was interesting (but somewhat anticlimatic because the castle had burned down in the 18th century and there wasn't much original stuff left).

After that, we went to the Monkey Trail, which I was really looking forward to since me and my roommate Mathias found a monkey hat in our apartment's junk bin... so I brought it to wear on the ropes course. Our class really bonded with each other after attempting really tough rope obstacles, and though many of us got injured, I was the most proud of my huge bruise on my arm ;) It was beautiful outside and we were in the forest doing ziplines, climbing and jumping from platform to platform. Fun stuff. We then went to a hostel in Vejle and spent the night playing games and bonding some more. I really love our class and we all get along really well!!

Our group at the Monkey Trail! (Henrik my professor is in the monkey hat..)

The next morning, we woke up and went to visit the Jelling Stones, another cultural artifact in Denmark. It is supposedly the place in which Denmark got its name, and there are old stones with inscriptions about the start of Christianity in Denmark. We had a tour and got to climb the mound in which it is said that an old king of Denmark is buried under.

Next, we went to Aleris-Hamlet Hospitaler, a private hospital in Denmark. A little about the Danish healthcare system - all citizens of Denmark are covered under socialized medicine, and have access to a general practitioner for free any time they need. Everyone is assigned a GP based on their geographical location, but if you want to switch, you are allowed to as long as the GP you want doesn't have too many people in their area already assigned to them. If you get sick, you visit your GP and they can refer you to a specialist, also covered under the national health insurance. However, you cannot just go to a specialist whenever you want. The reason their system is so successful is because the GP's are the gatekeepers to the system, meaning that they handle most of the "trivial" issues, which is much more cost effective, and the specialists are only used when absolutely necessary. One may ask, isn't the wait time an issue? Well, Denmark has combatted this with the invention of private hospitals. There are several private hospitals that have opened, and citizens can buy their own health insurance to go to them if they do not want to wait for a public hospital. Additionally, if the waiting list to see a specialist is longer than 1 month, the Danish healthcare system will pay for you to see a private doctor. This is good and bad - the good thing is that it eliminates the long waiting lists and gives everybody access. However, it leaves less incentive for doctors to stay in the public sector if they will be funded by the government to work in the private sector. Still, many Danish people resent the private system and choose to stay public to withhold the integrity of the country.

SO, the first visit was with the CEO of the private hospital. He was very pretentious, and while he was a good speaker, you could tell he was trying to sell us on the concept of privatization - which, I do understand there is a need for. Public hospitals do not cover cosmetic surgery or elective surgery (such as some opthamology surgeries or cosmetic reconstruction). They also give competition to the public sector, which helps the public sector to constantly improve. What else is interesting is that their "right and left wing" governments all fall under the American Democratic party. So, if people are concerned that the government may be "too conservative", it is still liberal by American standards.

Our group at a port during a quick ice cream break :)

Next, we visited a GP. It was my favorite visit of the trip because he was so warm and friendly, and stressed that holistic treatments to illnesses are both cost effective and the best approach. At one point in the talk, he said "you guys look tired! everyone up!!" and taught us a Danish children's song and dance.  One interesting thing was that as a GP he takes care of people from "cradle to grave", so he is basically a pediatrician, ObGyn and internist all in one. I would love to do what he does, but it is hard because in the US, family medicine is very different (from what I've heard). I'll definitely need to do more research.

That night, we stayed in Århus, the second largest town in Denmark. I had a really good dinner with some friends, and there was a street festival going on so we just listened to live music and walked around. It was a really nice evening!!

The next day we went to Aros art museum, which has really weird modern art. After, we visited a research center, but it was really boring so I won't even explain it. We then ventured back to Copenhagen! All in all, it was a really great week and I"m looking forward to going to Vienna and Bratislava with the same group of kids in just a few weeks :)