April 26, 2012

Today I didn't have my public health class because we had just turned in our projects so I was able to sleep in. My first class wasn't until 10:20. I then went to school and had my Holocaust and Genocide class, where we talked about the war in Yugoslavia. This was very interesting because there was a girl in my class whose family was from Bosnia so we were able to hear her story first hand as she lived in Bosnia until she was 6. After Holocaust and Genocide I had my Danish Test...EWWWWW. I don't think it was terrible, but I wouldn't call it a masterpiece. The test involved a section that we had where our Danish teacher read something in Danish and we had to answer questions about it, then a section where we had to read a long text in Danish and answer questions about it in English, and then we had to translate certain phrases, and the last part of the test was the culture portion where we had to answer certain questions about Danish Culture. After my Danish test I went home, and did more work. We then had dinner which consisted of meatballs, potatoes and vegetables. I helped my host dad cook dinner. I was peeling potatoes, but clearly I wasn't peeling them fast enough because he asked me if I wanted to switch jobs. I didn't really want to make the meatballs, so I said I would rather not, so once he got the meatballs started in the frying pan, he helped me finish the potatoes and they were done in no time. After dinner we had flødeboller. This is pretty much the best Danish dessert ever!! It is a wafer-type thing with lots of marshmallow on top, covered in chocolate. This is one of the types of food I will miss the most I think when I am back in the states this summer. They are so delicious but very rich because I ate two (because my host mom wasn't home) and I started to feel sick from consuming all that deliciously goodness so quickly. It was definitely worth it though. I only have 3.5 weeks left of flødeboller so I have to make the most of the time I have left.

April 25, 2012

Today was Wednesday which meant it was field trip day. I actually had a field trip today. I went to the Danish Pharmaceutical Industry Association today with my Public Health Class. We learned about how the pharmaceuticals are sold in Denmark. I then went to a place called St. Peter's Bakery and bought a cinnamon snail. This place is famous for their cinnamon snails, but I never got a chance to try them until this week because by the time I found out about it Lent had started, and then last week I didn't come to the city at all.

We then came back to DIS and worked on our public health project as that is due tomorrow. We had quite a bit of work left to do with it. It took us longer than we thought to finish it. It had to be good though because this was a large portion of our grade. We finally managed to get it almost done, and then it was time for me to head back to my host family's house. By the time I got back it was almost bed time, so I basically just finished my homework and went to sleep.

April 24, 2012

Today I met up with my group for my Danish project. We are doing a presentation about the Danish education system. This meeting basically just allowed us to figure out where we are going with our project and what needed to be done. I then had Public Health Ethics and we talked about immunizations and whether the state should be allowed to mandate immunizations or not. My teacher asked me if there were certain rules in New Hampshire, because after I mentioned about the seat belts, she has been particularly intrigued by my response to these issues. After public health ethics I had my Human Trafficking class, and we talked about forced labor. We heard stories of how gangs are taking homeless people off the streets in Britain and are using them as modern day slaves, where they aren't being compensated, and are being forced to work, and are being sold from one person to another. It was hard to imagine that this type of stuff is happening right under our noses. It isn't the thing that you just hear about happening in the poor underprivileged countries, but happens all over the world. After class I came home and slept for 2.5 hours. I probably would have slept longer, but my cell phone rang because my host parents were wondering where I was. They weren't home when I got home so I just came upstairs to take a nap, and since I had said I would be home for dinner tonight I think they were concerned.

April 23, 2012

Today my public health class was cancelled. This meant that I got to sleep in. I ended up going to school earlier than I had to so that I could finish proofreading my Holocaust paper. I finally got that to a point where I was happy with it, and I turned it in. In Holocaust and Genocide class our teacher knew it was pointless to have us do any reading considering we all had to finish our papers so instead of lecture we watched a movie. This movie was about a mass grave excavation in Vukovar, Yugoslavia. This movie was also very graphic. It involved people digging up the dead bodies from the war, and putting them into body bags, and sending them to the lab to be identified. Some of these bodies were still in a recognizable state, as the soil acted as type of preservative. This movie was very informative, but very hard to watch. I then had my Danish Class. In Danish class we talked more about our test on Thursday, which might be kind of difficult. In Danish we heard some popular Danish music. The types of songs that we heard in Danish class were not ones that I would have expected my Danish teacher to choose. I didn't really like them either, but it was to give us a taste of the type of music that is currently popular. After Danish I went to the computer lab as I had a skype meeting for Radiance since I am co-president next year. That seemed to go pretty well. All I can say is I am glad I am not in Rochester right now because it was snowing when I was skyping with them yesterday. I then went to Torvehallen (the glass market) to get dinner. I was hoping to get falafel because when I went there before I got this really good falafel and french fries, and it was pretty cheap, but I got there and the falafel place was closed. I don't know why. I ended up with Shawarma (a meat sandwich) instead. It was really yummy. I then went to this place called Agnes Cupcakes, and got a Caramel cupcake, which was a vanilla sponge cake with chocolate chips and caramel on the top. I then had to meet up with my group for my public health project. That meeting seemed to be pretty productive. We managed to get a lot accomplished, and I think we are almost done with that project. We worked on it for about 2 hours. I then went to catch my train home, and that didn't work out so well. I guess they changed the schedule of the trains on April 10th, but I didn't know that because I hadn't stayed late at all since travel break. This meant that I had to take another train to one station and then switch, which would have been fine, but I didn't know that so I managed to miss the last bus back to my host family's house, which is at 9:49. I ended up having to call my host dad to have him come pick me up because I arrived at the station at 9:55.

April 22, 2012

Today I slept in until about 11. I was just too tired I suppose from last week. Today was also a work day as my Holocaust and Genocide paper is due tomorrow. Since we all woke up at different times we decided we wouldn't have breakfast together like we normally do on the weekends. We then had lunch together, and it was later time for more work. Later in the afternoon we decided we would have some cake (muffins) and tea, and play a game. We played Cranium. I thought cranium was hard enough in English, but when you throw in Danish things I've never heard of it makes it much harder. We also kind of made up the rules as we went along, for example if we didn't know what the song was that we were supposed to sing for the humdingers then we would just come up with a new song. Considering we were making up the rules as we went along, and my host family was trying to translate all of the cards into English the game took awhile. Sadly we didn't end up finishing so we don't know who won. Either way it was fun though and we laughed a lot.

April 21, 2012

Today my host mom, Laura, and I went to Sweden. We woke up and left around 10:30 or so. We got to Helsingør and bought tickets for the ferry. When we got to the ticket booth for the ferry they told us that they were having some promotion and the ferry was free. We weren't totally sure how or why, but we didn't argue and we just took the free tickets and got in line for the ferry. When we got to Helsingborg it started to rain. We didn't end up doing too much in Sweden. We wandered around a few shops, and eventually we ended up at this "hyggligt" diner for lunch. I got a sandwich with Brie and Salami on a Baguette and it was delicious. This place also had really good looking cakes (in Danish a cake is basically anything sweet that has been baked). I ended up with a mint chocolate frosted brownie and it was superlækert (super delicious). We then walked around a little more and came to a park. By this time the weather was much nicer so we walked around the park a little bit, then we got back on the ferry, and headed home. We were home by about 5 or so. We really weren't in Sweden very long, but long enough for me to say that I have been to Sweden. It was a fun day out, but unfortunately the weather wasn't nicer. When we got to Sweden though, the foggy rain was kind of how I had imagined it. Thats typical Swedish weather, so I don't think I would have gotten a true Swedish experience if it had been a really nice day.

April 20, 2012

Today I got up and went to school. My first class was public health ethics. In that class we talked about whether the state has the right to raise taxes on cigarettes or if that is infringing on a person's freedom. Our teacher told us we were playing a "game", but it was basically like a debate with three sides. One side had to argue from the tabacco industry saying it wasn't okay. My side had to argue for the WHO and say that it was okay to raise taxes, and then the third team were the Danish Lawmakers and had to decide what they were going to do. In the end we all ended up winning a prize which was a bag of candy for each team. Normally when you present a group of college students with a bag of candy they devour it like a pack of wolves. This is not the case with Danish candy. Pretty much every type of Danish candy contains either black licorice or black licorice flavoring, and no one really likes it. All of the Danes it by the handful, but I don't think you could pay most American students to eat black licorice. After public health ethics I had my human trafficking class. During this class we watched a movie called "kidneys on ice". It was about these people in poor Eastern European countries who sold a kidney for $3,000 because they needed the money. These people were also not informed about any of the risks that were associated with donating a kidney. It was a very graphic movie. It was very informative, but it made me very uneasy as I was watching it. This afternoon I bought an ice cream from one of the really good ice cream shops in town. I was sitting outside enjoying my ice cream for a little while, then I decided I should head home. It was almost 3:30, and I needed to keep working on my paper. I got to the train station and there were a TON of people there. Apparently there was a problem with the trains. The longer I've been here the less I am liking the Danish public transportation system, but I've learned to live with it. I knew if I waited for the train there would be no way I would fit on the train because so many people were trying to get on. I decided I would walk to the train station before Nørreport because that way I would already be on the train when everyone else was trying to get on it. This theory worked, but the walk between Nørreport and Vesterport was much longer than I had imagined. It wasn't that long, but in my mind I thought it was much closer. I then got on the train, but we were squished for about 5 stops. It wasn't until I was 1/2 way home when I was actually able to find a seat on the train. This has never been an issue before, there are usually plenty of seats for everyone. I got home eventually and I worked on my paper some more. We then had dinner, and my host mom and Laura wanted to watch a movie so we watched "My Big Fat Greek Wedding". I don't know how many times I've seen that movie, but I still think its a very funny movie. We had a feast while we watched the movie which included pineapple, grapes, pistachios, and best of all flødeboller (thats a Danish dessert that is marshmallow creme covered with chocolate) I don't know how they are so good, but that is definitely one thing I will miss when I get back home. No more flødeboller.