amsterdam.

so now, after another obscenely long delay, it is time to talk about amsterdam.

just some young ladies, sitting in a shoe.

 over a month ago, i ventured to the city of aggressive cyclists and space muffins with my dear roommate taylor and our friend elise. took the night train again and became friends with a lovely swedish couple. i had another experience this weekend that confirmed my great appreciation for the swedish. they look very similar to danes, have many of the same habits, but want to get to know you much more aggressively than any other dane i've met. this particular couple chatted us up for a great many hours and shared some swedish easter soda with us. and then showed us pictures of their children and pets on their iphones. then took a video of all of us in the train car. sweet people.

we we we so excited.

once our train rolled into the station, we hit the ground running (errr...rolling. bah. pun.) with a bike tour. our guide took us all over the city, showing us all the major sights. honestly, i think bike tours are the most awesome thing. i can't rave about them enough. they're fun, they're a quick way to see all the major sights, and they give you a good understanding of the lay of the land. i think i'm going to be a lifelong advocate.
i was told amsterdam is a city best enjoyed by wandering the canals, so wander we did. and we had our first taste of dutch cheese. holy canoli. the stuff is unreal. and this coming from a girl who usually wants to implode after eating dairy.
we bought tickets online for the anne frank house (BEST DECISION EVER.) so we got the skip the line. absolutely the best way to go. it requires you to show up at a specific time but saves you one to two hours of miserable line time.

the museum was incredible. so powerful. very well done. the tour takes you through the house as it was when the frank's were hiding there and you're guided by plaques with just the right amount of text and large quotes from anne's diary on the walls.
the tour ends in a room with some general frank family paraphernalia and world war II artifacts. then you're ushered into a room showing a video highlighting modern day forms of discrimination. the whole experience is very sobering and extremely educational. i absolutely loved it. i just read the diary of anne frank this weekend. finally got my hands on it from the DIS library. that girl just reaffirms my opinion that society underestimates the potential of young people far too frequently. sure, she had her whiny, self-centered moments, but she also wrote with a level of introspection and philosophical understanding well beyond her years.

nomnomnom.

i don't like posting pictures i didn't take, but i found this one far too moving not to share it with you. this is otto frank in the secret annexe after the war. i had to buy a postcard of it.
the anne frank house is conveniently located right down the street from the pancake bakery. and we were in need of a pick-me-up after the museum. nutella and cherries on a whole wheat pancake? don't mind if i do.

the next morning we made our way to the van gogh museum but stopped along the way at the i amsterdam sign on museumplads for a photoshoot. insider tip: at 10:30am on a sunday morning, there's virtually no one at the sign. our pictures contained minimal amounts of randos. donecheckdone.
again, we got our tickets ahead of time for the van gogh museum. another wise decision. zipped right in there and began perusing. fabulous museum.

ALL THE FLOWERS.

i heard a lot of mixed reviews in the weeks leading up to the trip. some people think it's great but others are pretty disappointed because it houses very few major works. instead, it includes some of his earliest pieces to give complete coverage to his progression as an artist. i thought it was phenomenal. i left feeling like i had a greater understanding of van gogh's art instead of just having looked at famous stuff.
we found our way to some lunch after the museum, did some more wandering, visited bloemenmarkt (the most famous flower market in holland), and lounged in vondelpark until it was time to make our return to the station. however, we didn't board the train before stocking up on bread, jam, and three wheels of dutch cheese. it made for a lovely dinner.

 a special shout out/shower of thanks to my high school friend monique. this fine lady studied in amsterdam last spring and stayed for the summer so she provided me with a rather extensive list of things to do during my brief time in the city. i feel i can safely say her suggestions made our time what it was. thanks, monique!

now enjoy a few more photos of amsterdam. because we all know how much i love weighing my posts down with pictures.

that's all, folks.

kærlig hilsen,
kati

p.s. before we left for this trip, sweet taylor had a birthday. there was a fine little shindig in celebration and an impromptu photoshoot in our matching outfits. i feel i would do both of us a disservice if i failed to share at least one of the products of said shoot.

we decided this one looks a little like a birth control ad.

ok, now i'm really done.

bruxelles.

the next event in my study abroad saga? a trip to brussels to meet up with my dear friend c-ray!

c-ray has been in france since fall of 2011 teaching english. when i found out i was officially studying abroad, we decided to meet up in belgium because:
1. it is in between denmark and france.
2. neither of us had been there before.
3. they have waffles.
so a few weeks before our agreed upon weekend, i purchased a eurorail pass that would allow me 6 days of unlimited travel in germany, denmark, belgium, luxemburg, and the netherlands. by taking the night train, i could save myself money on a hostel and technically get two days of travel for the price of one since the pass only counts the morning after the night train as a travel day. so take the night train i did.
there's something romantic about traveling by train. however, since it was a night train, i missed out on all that gazing out the window at the european countryside. on the other hand, i was able to befriend a dutch man moving back to the netherlands from denmark. he was a computer programmer who had been working in spain and then denmark for a cumulative total of 10 years. he was finally returning home and was excited to leave denmark. apparently the danes are little too private/not sociable enough for him.
we ended up chatting for about five hours until we decided it was about time to go to sleep. unfortunately, i got off the train while he was sleeping and we never exchanged names, so he'll be forever preserved in my mind as the nameless stranger who helped me pass the time on the train in a very enjoyable manner. something romantic about that, too.
when i arrived in brussels, i went immediately to the ticket counter to try to purchase a return ticket. i got my ticket to brussels in copenhagen but they were unable to sell me a return ticket on the night train because it appeared to be sold out. the woman at the counter advised me to wait and try to purchase it in brussels instead since they sometimes limit the number of tickets that can be purchased at other stations leaving some available for domestic purchase.

unfortunately, the train was still sold out so i ended up having to buy a ticket for travel home all day sunday. unfortunate to lose a day to the train, but i was glad i just sucked it up and got the ticket. i think it ultimately made the weekend less stressful and caused me to take full advantage of saturday since it was the only day i'd have in the city.
and take advantage we did. we had such a refreshing and enjoyable time together but we certainly packed a lot into it. by the time we found each other and dropped our luggage at the hostel, we were both pretty hungry so we grabbed a map and headed towards kebab street. after a bit of meandering and stopping to take pictures, we eventually found a little indian restaurant. it was my first indian food in over a month. deeeeeeelicious.

after lunch we hit the museum of musical instruments, a fun and relatively extensive museum full of...pretty much just instruments. when you enter, you're handed a pair of headphones which you then plug in to the many headphone jacks throughout the museum. since the plaques were all in french, i pretty much just flitted about, listening to didgeridoos and harpsichords for about an hour and a half.

then we moved on to the royal art museum, the attraction c-ray was most interested in. it was absolutely one of the most fantastic museums i've ever been to. the art was beautiful but i was almost more impressed with the way in was arranged and presented. the whole museum was just very aesthetically pleasing. also, c-ray may have contributed quite a bit to my enjoyment of the museum. as a classics major with extensive knowledge of church history, he was able to explain what was happening in pretty much all the paintings we saw. you know how much i love learning. beautiful art + a free education from a wonderful friend = totally worth the three euro i paid to get in.

having been in brussels for about six and a half hours now, it was high time for some waffles. the extremely useful map we got from the hostel suggested a cafe in the city center for cheap waffles so we headed over to check it out. waffle with chocolate? wise decisions.
however, in case that wasn't indulgent enough, we decided to try a street waffle as well. it cost about half as much and we both actually thought they tasted better, too. so many waffles. so much love.

we spent the rest of our evening meandering about the city as the sun set. after dinner at a halal restaurant, we decided to go to the top of a parking garage to try to see the atomium, one of the major draws for me in brussels. unfortunately, the view of the atomium was lame. but the view of the rest of the city definitely wasn't.
since we couldn't see the atomium well from the garage, we decided to make the trek out to the end of the metro line to check it out. usually you have to pay to get in and see it but having gone and stood in the parking lot outside and had my fill, i'm not sure why you would. perhaps our entrance fee lets you travel to the top of the sculpture. there's a restaurant in the highest ball.

the statue is a representation of a 9-atom iron crystal. it was built for a world's fair some time ago and is adjacent to mini-europe, another big attraction in brussels which sadly didn't open until march (we were there the last weekend in february). the statue was incredible at night. the lights made it look stunning. i think i still would have thought it was cool in the daytime, but at night it was crazy cool.

and with our excursion to the atomium, we concluded our adventures in brussels. the next morning we had just enough time to enjoy breakfast at our hostel before i was off to catch the train. it was a brief trip, but so good for my soul to spend time with my dear friend.

and so concludes the record of my first european trip by myself. i don't think i could have asked for a better first experience. things i learned?
1. trust the street food.
2. the brits make delicious diet coke with cherry.
3. riding a train all day by yourself is mind numbing.

not even a week after this trip, i boarded a bus to poland for my long study tour. until i can say more about that, enjoy this long-exposure photo of brussels at night.

kærlig hilsen,
kati

rejse til det vestlige danmark.

holy canoli. i knew it had been a long time since i last regaled you with my adventures in denmark, but a month? that's a little obscene. i can't attribute it to anything other than sheer laziness. in my head, it takes a great deal of energy to compile my thoughts about my adventures. definitely false. and so, out of a contrite spirit, i will set out to post something every day this week so that i'll be all up to date by the time i leave for my two-week european adventure (get pumped. it's going to be "off da chain" as the kids say.)

i believe i left off just before leaving on my short study tour to jutland. this was a phenomenal trip and study tours will definitely stand out forever in my mind as one of the best parts of DIS. each program has two associated study tours: a short one to western denmark, sweden, or another place we can get to quickly. the tours are intended to supplement what we learn in the classroom with visits to relevant locations and institutions interspersed with fun cultural activities and delicious foods. what's not to absolutely love about that?

my short tour took me to århus, denmark's second largest city, and ebeltoft, a much smaller city, both of which can be found on jutland, the largest of denmark's islands. we had three academic visits during our time there (which was quite brief. i think we left on a thursday morning and came back saturday night.). the first was to the PET center, a institution that specialized in neuroscience research with an interdisciplinary approach. members of their faculty include musicians, philosophers, biologists, psychologists, you name it, they've probably got someone. all of their studies involve looking at brain function or structure in one way or another. one of their particularly interesting studies seeks to explain the phenomenon of pathological gambling. quite intriguing.

our second visit, and potentially one of my favorite things i've done here in denmark, was to a danish general practitioner's office. here we met with one of the doctors who works in the practice and enjoyed a fantastic presentation on the structure of the danish healthcare system along with some comparison to the US system to put it in perspective for us. i think that session might still be my favorite academic experience here in denmark. i just loved finally knowing exactly what danish healthcare looks like and coming to understand why it's able to function the way it does. the more i learn about it and the more i hear danes talk about it, i'm convinced such a system would never function in the US. it's not so much that we don't have the money or human resources for it; it's that it goes so completely against american capitalist ideaology. there are two things without which universal healthcare absolutely cannot function. the first: a stable economy. the second: the people have to have complete faith in the government to use their funds appropriately. danes pay obscenely high taxes (50% flat rate with an additional percentage graduated by income level) but they generally don't mind it because they trust the system will come back to them in one way or another. i think the bipartisan political system of the US will make it virtually impossible to have any more than 50% of the population to trust that the government has their best interests at heart. until that issue is somehow resolved, i think it would be of very little benefit to our country to try to implement a system of universal healthcare. we could definitely do with a little more regulation of the system, however. you know, just to stop this ridiculous price gouging/inflation business.

our last academic visit was to århus university hospital, the biggest hospital in denmark. my impression is that it's århus university that gives life to århus. the city is home to 50,000 students, 35,000 of which attend århus university, and huge numbers of other residents are affiliated in some way with the university. it struck me as being very similar to ann arbor in that way. maybe that's why i enjoyed it so much.

sadly, this visit wasn't very memorable. i say that because i had to turn in an assignment about my short and long study tours yesterday and i truly struggled to come up with anything to say about the hospital. however, one of the things we saw there will live on forever in my head: pig surgery. we were allowed to venture down into the basement where fourth year medical students were practicing their surgical skills on pigs. one group was performing an appendectomy, the other just practicing suturing, cutting, and cauterizing. it was awesome. but smelled unsettlingly like bacon.

our cultural, non-academic visits on this tour were also phenomenal. our first one was dinner and bowling at a very tiny bowling alley in ebeltoft. it seemed like an odd thing to have us do at first but i think it effectively bonded us as a group. on this trip we weren't just with the other members of our section of our core course--we combined with section a which ended up being an awesome thing. it was great to get to meet and spend considerable time with other students from the same program that i probably wouldn't have had the opportunity to meet otherwise. the section a-ers also traveled with us on our long study tour and the end of it felt a little like graduation when we realized we wouldn't get to see these people all day every day anymore.

anyways, the first night was bowling and food. our next non-academic visit was destined to become one of my favorite places in denmark: the aros modern art museum. i think this museum got me excited about museums. i've never been a huge fan but this one just had so many pieces that i loved and was structured in such a phenomenal way that i fell in love. highlights included a 5-meter tall statue of a boy, a room filled with fog and colored lights, and the rainbow panorama. the rainbow panorama is a circular hallway on top of the building. the outer panels are tinted in a rainbow gradient so depending on where you're standing, you see the city in different hues. people come from all over just to see this piece. it's definitely worth it.

this is how the panorama looks from the exterior.

aaaaaand the interior. way cool. i took pictures of the city through each of the colors. feel free to check them out on my facebook.

our next visit which i have trouble categorizing into academic or non-academic, was to a very small museum of medicine. here we were shown through their main exhibit that describes the progression from the very beginning of medical care to the modern day, showing examples of old instruments and machines as well as simulations of what old doctor's offices and pharmacies would have looked like. the highlight of this museum was definitely their temporary exhibit. it was one fertility treatment and contraception. the main attraction (that was probably not intended to be the main attraction but became so for 30 college students)? a giant uterus.

big enough to crawl inside with pillows and warm red lights. and a track of a beating heart playing. to make the whole thing seem more realistic, of course. here's a picture of a couple of my classmates lounging inside.

i think at this point in the trip we were all so tired from going and going and going non-stop that we would have been quite happy to curl up together and sleep in the hyggeligt uterus. unfortunately, the museum was closing and we were ushered out and back onto the bus.

we also had the opportunity to see the jelling stones, a very important piece of danish history. the stones are engraved with runic text that tells of how harold bluetooth christianized the danes and they also contain the first mention of the name "denmark". i think in the early 2000s they were officially declared unesco monuments so they've been encased in glass to protect them from the elements. it's often hard for me to comprehend the age of what i'm looking at when i'm confronted with objects that are hundreds of years old. i just can't imagine anything being that old. i think, were i to make a list of the top five differences between europe and america that i've noticed during my brief time here, the concept of time would definitely make the cut. europe just has so much more history than our country does. for danes, it's no big deal that there's a 17th century church around the corner from their home but in america, since our history has been so brief, we tend to make a huge deal about the historical elements we do have. even homes built before 1900 are a big deal. hm. such a fascinating difference.

our last stop before going home was a handball game. handball is a very popular sport in europe. apparently. i don't know that i was actually aware of its existence prior to coming to denmark. when i first got here it was hard to ignore: the danish national team won the european handball cup (or some other tournament of equivalent importance). it's an intriguing game. it appears to be a mixture of soccer, frisbee, and extreme catch. every time i see it played i'm struck by how terrifying it would be to be the goalie. giant men jumping and whipping balls at your face? yikesyikesyikes.

so that's our first study tour in a nutshell. i love that DIS offers us opportunities to travel in such a structured way. and to see things in denmark that many danes don't even get to see. my danish professor was one of our chaperones for the trip and she loved getting to see this side of denmark. her background is in business so all of these medical-themed visits were brand new to her. it was fun to watch her experience that. and to watch her grapple with her curiosity and gag reflex when we went to see pig surgery.

stay tuned for the tale of my whirlwind trip to brussels to see my dear friend c-ray. until then, here's a picture of another fantastic piece from the aros modern art museum.

kærlig hilsen,
kati

alle de ting.

hej, friends!

since my last post to you, my life has been quite a whirlwind. here is a summarizing list of things that have transpired in the last week:
1. tried to go to the ungdomhuset (the youth house) for a cheap vegetarian dinner only to find that dinner is only served on thursdays. it was a monday. alternatively, we (the sweet group of girls i was seeking sustenance with and i) enjoyed pizza at big ben's pizzeria.
2. explored the city by accompanying brittany while she completed an assignment for her history of copenhagen class.
3. went to two more meetings of the ICC bible study.
4. attempted to insert an IV in a classmate.
5. showed up 45 minutes late to a field study at the panum institute, a research facility that conducts multiple studies on HIV and AIDS.
6. spent the weekend traveling on jutland, the largest island of denmark's 406 islands.
7. visited a danish GP's office.
8. went to a fabulous modern art museum where i saw a 5-meters-tall boy and walked through the rainbow panorama.
9. did some relaxing inside a very hyggelig giant uterus.
10. started riding my bike to school.
11. held a conversation on the train with a man from afghanistan in danish. because he didn't speak english.
12. spent the night at brittany's host family's house in hvalsø, a 40 minute train ride outside copenhagen.
13. visited christiania, the free town of copenhagen.
14. held the first meeting of the DIS photography club which brittany and i founded.
15. was offered a job because of the aforementioned club. i'll get paid $8 an hour to go through their photo library, sorting them into folders and adding appropriate tags.
16. went to another copenhagen hucks practice.

and now i am finally home after a very long day, cuddled in my bed and enjoying some g-chatting with the parents. i promise i will expand upon this list with photos and prose later. but for now, i'll leave you with a picture of myself taken in the rainbow panorama. you can check it out for yourself here: http://www.aros.dk/samlingen/your-rainbow-panorama/
i was pleasantly surprised to find that my museum brochure unfolded into a free poster of the museum with the rainbow halo around the top. it now hangs next to my map of europe which i use to record the places i've been and to prevent myself from being so ignorant of european geography.

so much more to come.
kærlig hilsen,
kati