Jeg elsker universitetet

"I love university"

On Thursday April 22 I started a new class called "Health in Emergencies and Refugee Health". Actually it started on Monday April 19 but due to the volcanic ash I enjoyed an extended vacation in Switzerland. It is a great class; it's a pretty heavy work schedule but I really like it! It's Monday through Friday from 9.00-15.00 with an hour lunch break. It's very practical information about how to work in an emergency situation and what the most important things to look for are. We are talking a lot about the UN, the Red Cross, and the Red Crescent, which is great because I had just gotten a tour of these buildings while I was in Switzerland. And next Wednesday we are going on a tour of UNICEF in Denmark which I am very excited for!

Inside the UN in Geneva
Red Cross/Red Crescent Museum in Geneva
Red Cross reunification initiative

But with this heavy course load, combined with having two essays due I had been pretty busy which is why I haven't been very good at updating my blog. But now the essays are out of the way so I can concentrate on enjoying Copenhagen again, especially now that the weather is nicer! I don't even need gloves when riding my bike!!

Stranded

That is probably a bit of an exaggeration. "Extended vacation" is probably a better term for my current situation.

I went to Switzerland on April 9, supposedly just until April 18, however with the volcanic ash filling the European sky, I was unable to catch my flight home. Saturday night I sat with my friend that I was staying with, Joëlle, and we tried to find a solution. There is a train that goes from Sion Switzerland (where I currently am) to Copenhagen. It only takes 18 hours and 35 minutes - it was the best solution for me! So Sunday morning we went to the train station to find out when the next train was available and how much it would cost. It turns out all of the trains are booked until Saturday April 24, and one ticket would cost 295 francs (which is essentially $300). So I decided to hold off on buying a ticket.

I have transferred my flight time until tomorrow (Wednesday April 21 at 10.10am) and I think that I will be able to take it! The Geneva airport is reopening and the Copenhagen airport says that at 2am Wednesday morning, they will re-open. So, hopefully my flight will leave tomorrow.

That being said, I have enjoyed my extra days amongst the mountains of Switzerland! I was able to see some of my friends again, practice some more French, and visit some of the beautiful landscape. So all in all, I've enjoyed my extended vacation, but it is about time that I get back to school and the real world.

Cinq ans plus tard...

Five years later...

Five years ago, in 2005 I went to Switzerland for three months on my first exchange program. My exchange partner Joëlle, had returned to Canada twice to visit since the exchange, but I never made it back to Switzerland...until now!

On Friday April 9, I flew into the Geneva airport where Joëlle met me. We spent the day in Geneva and saw the Red Cross Museum and then got a guided tour of the UN. It was pretty amazing to see all of the big conference rooms in the UN and learn about what types of meetings occur there. It is the biggest UN headquarters in the world. I really liked the room for conferences on Human Rights because the ceiling was so interesting; it wasn't really beautiful and I would probably find it distracting to actually have a meeting there, but it portrayed a good meaning I think. It looks different from every place in the room and so it is supposed to symbolize not being judgemental and trying to empathize with others.

Since I have been here I have gotten to eat all of my favourite Swiss foods again: fondue, raclette, fondue Bourguignonne, assiette Valaissane, apricot pie...and I got to try some new things! Snails, frogs, and horses. And all of the horse meat here actually comes from Canada, so although we don't eat horses in Canada, Canadian horses are eaten in Switzerland.

And of course Swiss chocolate! Joëlle, myself, and her parents, went to Fribourg to visit the Cailler chocolate factory - delicious!! At the end of the tour (which was kind of like a ride at Disney world) we got to sample all of the different types of chocolate, and then we were given a free chocolate bar.

The reason that I came during this time actually was to see Milow, a Belgian artist, perform at a music festival Caprices. Five years ago I went to that same music festival in the mountains of Valais to see the Servant, a British group.

I did a lot of tourist things and got to see a lot of places that I didn't get to see my last time in Switzerland (thanks to the wonderful organization of Joëlle), such as Ballenberg Museum which is a huge outdoor museum. It is like the Greenfield Village of Switzerland. There were old houses and exhibits from all over Switzerland.

I also got to see all of my friends that I hadn't seen in five years which was really nice. Joëlle and her boyfriend Loic hosted a party for everyone at their flat on Thursday. We talked, we laughed, and we played Taboo.

All in all, it was a great trip and I'm glad that it was able to be extended a little bit (due to the volcanic ash halting air traffic).

Alt er lukket om mandagen

"Everything is closed on Mondays"

Since I had a holiday this past week, my friend Claudia and I decided to take a daytrip to Odense - the third biggest city in Denmark. We went on Sunday March 28 in the evening, spent the night and planned what we would do the next day. On Monday morning we got up and went into the city, ready to see several museums and Hans Christian Andersens house!

We started with HC Andersens home. There was a portion open for children to play games in, but we were told that his actual home was closed every Monday. So we walked around and peered into the window where he was born.

It's closed =(

Next we walked down by the canal and onto a little island that was supposed to have art hanging from the trees. This is what we found:

Really some magnificent art work, don't you think?

We found some interesting statues that we took pictures with, and then walked along the main walking/shopping street. The whole city was so empty, but the shopping street was rather full because all of the shops were open. We enjoyed huge sandwiches for lunch and looked at our free map/guide pamphlet. We decided after lunch we would go to the City Hall because the guide said that there was art exhibits all throughout it that had become a permanent fixture and a bit of a tourist attraction! We found about 5 pieces of art after searching through all 4 floors of City Hall.

Statues we found in the city

I'm a part of the art!!

We found a cheap Mexican restaurant that offered chocolate cake and coffee for only 29kr (about $6CAD) so we enjoyed another break there and then went to the train station and went home.

Despite everything in Odense being closed on Mondays, we still had a lot of fun! We took plenty of jumping pictures (on automatic timer it isn't too easy), and were able to relax and go on a self-guided tour of the City Hall, which I'm sure not many tourists do!

Aldrig stoppe med at spise

"Never stop eating"

At 8.30 on Sunday April 4 I arrived at my Polish friends place for breakfast. They had invited some of us over for breakfast and told us to all bring a dish traditional from our home country. However when I got there they had already prepared so much food - there was chicken lamb (a chicken in the shape of a lamb), bread, sausages, different types of sausages, eggs, a pickle/pea/egg salad, and there was still more in the oven! Then when everyone else arrived, we had bread and cake from Switzerland, pancakes from Russia, sweet bread from Austria, and several types of food from Italy. There was so much food on the table that it had to go onto two tables.

Only a very small portion of the food.

After the first round of eating was done at 9.40 we all did a Polish vodka shot to help us digest since we were so full. That was a big first for me, but it actually did help! And we were able to move on to the desserts - there was about 5 or 6 different types of desserts that everyone had made...for breakfast.


I moved from the table only to go to the washroom and to play a card game (which lasted maybe an hour and a half), other than that from 8.30-17.00 I was sitting at the breakfast/lunch/dinner table just eating. When we left there was still so much food left over! I was able to take enough for breakfast and dinner the following day as well.


So at 17.00 I left and bicycled to another friend's place where I enjoyed dessert dinner and games night! Everyone who came brought a dessert: fruit salad; Belgian chocolate; brownies; apple pie, cake, and crumble; banana bread...there was really too much food to say what exactly everything was!



All in all, it was a successful day and I have never eaten (almost non-stop) so much food in my life!!

Fuglekikkeri

"Birdwatching"

Somehow, while in Kraków I became a bird-watcher, which is rather ironic seeing as I don't like birds that much and sometimes they scare me. Only when there is an army of pigeons flying at or just above me (as in most European cities).

On Tuesday morning, myself, Julia from Switzerland, and Andrzej from Poland (the official bird-watcher) met at 7.00 outside of Signalhuset (mine and Julia's residence building). We biked through a nice path that Julia had found earlier in her stay here. It was a very different view from the sunny, warm, beautiful birdwatching exhibition we went on in Poland. This time it was rainy and cold, but beautiful nonetheless.

I am calling this 'birdwatching' but really I just go because it is relaxing and the landscape is beautiful.

And the birds are beautiful too...as long as they keep their distance!

We stopped, parked our bikes, and trudged through a swamp-like area, up a hill, to a park bench that was completely soaked. It had a great view though and would be a perfect place for a pic-nic (in the nicer weather of course).

Maybe "leapt" is a better word than "trudged"

It was a nice little trip and we saw plenty of birds - mainly a lot of ducks, and birds that I don't know the name of but they are black and white and like to sing. We saw a quail in a big open field so we decided to go closer to it. Andrzej went through the fence, and then I trip over it...it was electric but luckily I didn't get shocked! Half way across the field it suddenly dawned on me that we were in a field full of horses when I saw some of the owners returning from a horse ride. My yellow coat isn't the best camouflage and so we turned back without seeing the quail up-close.


We finished our morning with a pic-nic breakfast complete with homemade Polish cookies, apples, and chocolate covered plums!