(Finally) Exploring Denmark

I've been living in Denmark for over two months now, and I am ashamed to admit that, before this week, I have seen little outside my everday commute between Helsingor and Copenhagen. Study tours were really helping me compensate for my personal laziness when it came to travel. This past week was the second travel break, and my girlfriend, TT, came all the way from the US to spend it with me. We hadn't seen each other in almost four months so yeah...we spoiled ourselves. We're shamelessly sentimental that way.

I wanted to give TT the complete Denmark experience so we went a lot of places that I had always planned on going to...but never got around to. In other words...we got lost a lot. Here are a few pictures from our adventures:

1.) Kronborg Castle -- I've been living down the street from this place and I still had yet to see it. We bought the full ticket (Casemates, Ballroom, Chapel, Telegraph Tower = 75 DKK per person) because I was DETERMINED to climb the tower. I apparently have a thing for towers and stairs...as you shall see presently.

Known for being the setting of Hamlet, Kronborg castle is
located right on the beach.

 The Casemates were kind of like a dungeon under the castle. TT loves scary movies and gory goodness so she was having the time of her life wandering into dark tunnels and abyss-like enclaves off the beaten path. I was afraid for my life. There were some terrifying fake people down there, but this awesome fella down below made every moment of horror worth it.

Holger Dansk -- legend has it that when Denmark is
 in a time of need,the Holger Dansk will wake
 up and come to the nation's rescue!

Trips up the tower occur every hour. It is about 200 steps up this bad boy, and I am not ashamed to say that I demanded a few breaks on the way up. But hey, I was recovering/in the midst of a bad bout of food poisoning, so I think I did pretty fantastically.

Gorgeous and definitely worth the climb!

Sampling the gift shop wares. The things I
do for TT's amusement...

2.) My roommate suggested that we go check out the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art close to Humlebaek Station. (Student Admission = 95 DKK) The museum was featuring Pop Art Design while we were there. Both of us are not very much into modern art (Our favorite thing is to go around, point at things, and say "I can do that.") but it was still a chill afternoon wandering from exhibit to exhibit and enjoying the sea-side garden sculptures.

Definitely our favorite exhibit. Only two people could go into this
 room at once. The walls were completely made up of mirrors
and we stood on a platform surrounded by water. 

The weather was permitting enough for us to sit outside and
 enjoy the sculptures and the scenery. We felt really old just sitting on the
lawn as young children clambered up and down the hills.

One of our favorite things to do as "big kids" is to
crash the children's corners. Yeah, we're horrible people
 but just because we arein our second decade, we
 have not lost our burning desire to play with Legos!!

3.) I'm all about the Two'fers, so I insisted on taking TT to Sweden for a day trip just so she could say she went to Denmark AND Sweden. Like I mentioned before, for only 55 DKK round trip, why the hell not?

Can you name all the country's flags?

Festive Easter celebrations in front of the
 steps up to Karnan.

Special chick cakes for Easter!

We stopped by Fahlman's Konditori, the oldest cafe in Helsingborg.

I promised TT ALL the pastries. This cinnamon roll was SO good.

Almond crusted pistachio goodness. Also, TT swears there
 was a mandarin orange slice in the center.

Some really cool sculpture we happened upon while lost.

After Karnan tower, we decided to venture out to the Fredriksdal Open Air Museum. It's only about 1.5 km from Helsingborg, definitely walking distance. TT is a huge fan of touching animals...especially when it's prohibited. Here are a few photos as proof that I am dating the Animal Whisperer. 

I stood by and watched them cluck at each other for five minutes.
This duck/goose/thing started following TT around
inside the cage. Terrifying.

This is TT reaching OVER an electrified fence (behind the wood)
 in an attempt to touch the pig. Long story short: she succeeded.

After a long day of walking and eating, TT and I found a few reclining chairs by the dock and decided to enjoy the sunset.

4.) The Blue Planet Aquarium just opened last week and TT is a huge fan of aquariums. She decided to take me so we could do a re-visit of our first date to the Baltimore Aquarium.  

PIRANHAS. FROM THE AMAZON.

Just keep swimmin'.

Did you know male seahorses carry the babies to term? 

Life-size shark display...

...a little bit more impressive than the baby hammerhead sharks
in the tank.

Also, the rainforest exhibit was toasty warm and indoors.
Made me dream of better climates and hope for Spring.

TT communing with the animals. Notice how many other adults are
taking part in this exhibit.

After the aquarium, TT and I went to this buffet in Copenhagen that I've been dying to try. It's called Riz Raz and it's located really close to DIS. TT is a vegetarian, and even though I am a devout meat-eater, this vegetarian buffet was OK by me. :)

My mountain of falafel.

If you're a vegetarian, traditional Danish food (meat and potatoes) might not be the perfect fit for you. In preparation for TT's visit, I had to do a lot of research. Some good places if you are vegetably inclined.

1.) Vegetariet -- In Helsingborg, Sweden, this restaurant serves both vegan and vegetarian food buffet-style. You pay by weight. I was actually pleasantly surprised at the vast array of salads + cooked foods they had available. Mmmm. Good. I ate fake meat...and I liked it. (Don't tell my family, I may be disowned.)

2.) Morgenstedet -- There are a lot of vegetarian restaurants in Christiania but TT and I decided to hit up Morgenstedet because it seemed more affordable than the rest. I was afraid to pull out my camera here due to the strict No Camera policy in Christiania, but the cauliflower pea soup and peanut curry  were AMAZING. The two of us were stuffed for 150 DKK.

3.) Pastries -- when all else fails, feed the vegetarian pastries. On Wednesdays, giant cinnamon rolls are sold at St. Peter's Bakery for 15 DKK. I got another puff pastry that was smothered in chocolate and had traces of sweet cream inside. Mm. Two pastries were 26 DKK with my DIS student discount!

One more massive adventure to blog about after this. I'll keep you posted!

Fødselsdag!

When my visiting mom invited me to her son Kalle's birthday, I might have squealed a little bit in excitement. I then proceeded to tell all my American friends at the IPC who begged me for an invite. Everybody knows, Danish birthdays are the bizness! 

First, there are the intense decorations. There are Danish flags everywhere! Kalle was turning 16 so he was getting a little too old for the flag gambit, but Karina put a few up just to humor me.

Little Danish flags lacing the windows. When was the last time
 you saw an American flag at a birthday party?

Little Danish flag and Danish soldiers chilling
on the empty dining room table.

My favorite part though, is the food. Karina made "boller" or buns. We ate them almost straight out of the oven with butter.

The softest, warmest buns I've ever had. Mmmmm...

Then, most importantly, there's the "lackage", pronounced "lau kay". I've mentioned it before in a previous post, but it literally translates to "layer cake". 

Vanilla cake with pineapple cream filling. Iced with love and decorated
 with Kalle's favorite sprinkles. As she put them on, Karina tsked,
 "Going to break everybody's teeth."

There were 10 guests at the party, so Karina also made
 a chocolate lackage with hazelnut and coffee cream filling.

On top of those two cakes, Kalle's cousins brought over yet another cake. It was more strudel like with plum filling. We ate all the cakes with some hot chocolate and generous helpings of fresh whipped cream. Diabetes-inducing sugar goodness.

Before we ravaged the cakes, we had to sing Kalle a birthday song. The family sang the American version once for my benefit, then they broke into the most amazing song I have ever head. Before they began, Kalle chose three instruments -- and being the teenage jerk he is, he chose the saxophone, banjo, and cello. As the family broke into moans and groans, I, the clueless American could only sit and clap my hands in confusion. As it turns out, at the end of each verse, they had to hum the chorus in the style of whatever instrument the birthday boy/girl chooses. Cello. Really?? Brilliant. The song goes like this.

"[Name] har fødselsdag
og det har han/hun jo
og det er i dag.
[name] har fødselsdag
og det har han/hun jo i dag.
Og hør nu her, hvordan vi alle spille vil
Og hør nu her, hvordan vi spille vil
[imitation of a pre-decided instrument to the melody of the song]"

Watching (and listening) to Kalle's 80-year old grandmother singing the song in her prominent, operatic voice in the style of a banjo was, needless to say, life changing.

I had a fantastic time and I can't thank my visiting family enough for inviting me into their home for a family get together like this one. Some more random pictures of the day:

Ofelia, the family dog. She is extremely quiet, but
she'll park herself right in front of me under the
table until I pet her. If I ignore her, she lays down
on my feet.I still wonder whether or not she has eyes... 

When I saw this, I knew there had to be a great story
behind it. Apparently, Karina was vacuuming the house
 and knocked a candle into the television. She didn't notice
 it until she smelled the smoke, and by then, the TV was
 legitimately on fire. After telling me the story, she proudly
 proclaimed, "But it still works!!"

Ultra(sound) Experience

Yesterday, we had another class at the Center for Clinical Education (CeKU...from the Danish, obviously). These are usually my favorite days because they are hands on and hands down AWESOME. Yesterday was no exception.

We learned that in Denmark, doctors, not ultrasound technicians, are responsible for obtaining ultrasound images. These images are then passed on to radiologists for interpretation. After less than five minutes of intro, the medical students teaching the course directed us towards the "expensive toys" and told us to make the most of our time. They taught us how to maneuver the transducer (the head part of the ultrasound machine) to obtain transverse and sagittal images. I had always thought the image showing on the screen was right below the transducer as if the transducer was looking into the body. Nope, educated. Thanks, Denmark!

We were then challenged to look for important organs such as the heart, liver, kidney, bladder, and uterus.  Let me tell you, watching the aorta pulse in real-time?....fantastic. Everyone had a chance to locate each organ, and almost everyone had a chance to be the victim patient.

Matthias (TA) pointing out various organs in the image.
Photo Cred: S. Kass

So much fun! Best quotes of the day:

"Are you sure you even have a heart?"

"1: I really need to pee.
2: Good, let's look at your bladder. Then go pee and come back and we'll look at it again."


Oh man, the two hours passed quicker than it ever has before. Can't wait for more of this goodness!

Study Tour: Vienna - Day Four, Five, and Six

We spent a bit longer in Vienna, so we were given a lot more time to explore on our own. Our first morning in Vienna was spent on an amazing bike tour. Of course, being the genius I am, I had grabbed my camera and forgot that my memory card was still stuck in my computer. So after the great bike tour (where I almost got hit by a car twice due to the fact that I can't really ride a bike...or comprehend traffic signals), I ran back to the hotel room, grabbed my memory card, and did the entire tour again...on foot. By the end of the day, compounded with the three solid hours of walking I did in Budapest the day before, my feet were ready to fall off. Here are the pictures I just had to get. If there's no caption...it's because I forgot what the tour guide said when we rode past it. :X

St. Stephan's Cathedral

Inside St. Stephan's Cathedral

Nacht Market

They sold a lot of dried fruits, nougats, seafood,
traditional Viennese food, scarves, etc.

The best part of being given time on your own is figuring out how to get around the city. Sometimes, we would leave the clinic together, disagree about the best course to get back to the hotel, and race our separate ways to see who could get there the fastest.

How many pre-meds, iPhones, and maps does it take to
 navigate around Vienna?

We won.


So I'm going to be honest and admit that I started getting lazy when it came to taking pictures during our clinic visits. Let me just give a few quick blurbs about where we went, and continue with my picture tour of Vienna.

First Love Ambulance -- Basically the Austrian version of Planned Parenthood. It was a government-funded organization that seeks to educate young girls about reproductive health and behaviors. Services are completely free and open to girls of all nationalities. We learned that Austria is a very conservative, Catholic country so issues like sex, sexuality, teen pregnancy, and abortion are completely taboo. As a result, young people are often uneducated in these areas, as sexual education is not evenly distributed across the population. This, compounded with the fact that the legal age of consent in Austria is 14, makes the services (counseling, contraception, etc.) offered by the First Love Ambulance especially important.

Orthopaedic Hospital -- This visit was so cool! I must admit that I was a little disappointed with a lot of the visits because they weren't exactly what I was expecting out of this program. I was hoping to learn more about what each type of specialist was doing specifically, rather than having  tours of their clinics and general Q&A sessions. At the Orthopaedic Hospital, we got to watch a minor surgery (bunion removal) through a glass window. The hospital was leading a movement to have patients be able to leave the day-of after minor surgeries. It used to be that hospitals were paid (by the government) only if patients were hospitalized for  certain number of days. Now, hospitals are paid per procedure, making day-of release a very practical way to optimize the use of the capacity and resources that each hospital has to offer. It was also interesting that this hospital was Christian-affiliated, yet its facilities supported all religions.

Department of Laboratory Medicine, Serology, and Infectious Diseases -- This talk took place in one of the oldest hospitals in Austria. The buildings and hospital grounds were old and grand in a way that made the hospital look more like a museum. Dr. Koller gave us a talk about the history of the hospital itself and a brief introduction to Medical Ethics.


OK, back to the picture tour. On our last night in Vienna, we had a nice dinner before attending a symphony at the Vienna Royal Orchestra:

Can you imagine casually driving past this on your way
to work every morning?

Gorgeous!

Fish with garlic butter and parsley potatoes

Fresh fruit topped with a tangy lemon sorbet 

We were sitting pretty far in the back so it was hard to get a
good picture but the performance was AMAZING. The musicians
seemed to be having a blast. They were so cute and funny
 and really brought the good times.

We ended our study tour with a guided tour of the Schönbrunn Palace. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but the gardens around the palace were beautiful!

Had to climb up a rather large hill for this picture.
Thank God for the chocolate waiting for us at the top.

Spent my last afternoon in Vienna eating:

Don't leave Vienna without trying the
sacher torte (chocolate cake) and hot chocolate!
 If chocolate isn't your thing, try some apfelstrudel! 

Of course, you must try some weinerschnitzel.
It comes in pork, chicken, turkey, or veal. 

I had a great time touring Europe on this long study tour. My new favorite European city is definitely Budapest right now...but after Berlin, Barcelona, and Palma de Mallorca in April, who knows? Even though I had the time of my life, I must admit, it is SO nice to be back in Denmark at the IPC. Spent this past weekend in bed, with my feet up, doing nothing. Life is good! :D