Hej all!! This week, the sun has started setting earlier and earlier every night. All of a sudden, it’s been getting dark around 4pm, and the days have become that much shorter. It feels like it’s time for bed every day at 6pm! The temperatures have fallen to the 40s now – another precipitous drop-off from the 50s. I’ve definitely been wearing my gloves while biking. š
I spent all day Saturday in a cute and cozy bike shop-cafe hybrid called “WeCycle” catching up on my work after my family left. They had quite the delayed journey getting home – they emergency landed in Brussels, then flew to Barcelona where they spent the night, then flew to London the next morning, and finally flew to LAX. I’m just glad they made it back safe! On Saturday night, I went to an ice bar on Gothersgade with Claire, Hope, Lauren, and their Danish roommate Sebastian. It was really fun (and REALLY cold). After that, we got some fun cocktails (I had a koldskĆ„l one – it tasted just like it and even had the cookies on top!!) and tried a Christmas beer. Tuborg releases its “Julebryg” (pronounced yule-brew) every year on the first Friday of November, nicknamed “J-day.”
I spent most of this week working on my research, yearbook articles, scholarship applications, and group projects (I wrote a paper with my MPP group about access of low-income patients to healthcare in Denmark vs. Poland!), as well as studying for my Neuro of Fear exam. On Monday, I did some work in a kaffebar called Original Coffee at the Illum rooftop restaurants. It was good coffee and a nice view of StrĆøget (the main shopping street), but it was a little touristy – I’ve definitely decided that I prefer the cozier and quieter local coffee shops. On Tuesday, I did homework with hope in Buzz Kaffebar by DIS (much more my style š ). That evening, I went to a communal dinner in my kollegium, where I enjoyed vegan chili with some Danish students who live in my building. Such a fun opportunity!
On Wednesday, I had two field studies. First, I traveled to Lundbeck, a pharmaceutical company in Valby, with my Health Economics & Policy course. There, we toured the facilities, applied the cost-effectiveness principles we had learned in class to real examples of a pharmaceutical budget, and learned about drug pricing and approval processes in various healthcare systems. It was interesting to compare this to the rising drug prices in the U.S. Since I’m the Health Econ class representative, I had coffee with my professor afterwards at a fun New Zealand cafe.
My second field study on Wednesday was at the medical museum for my Medical Ethics class. We saw the “body collected” exhibit and talked about how the human body has been used for research throughout history. There were preserved hearts, fetuses, and brains on display! We also learned that for the last 30 years in Denmark, every single newborn automatically has their blood collected and stored in a government research database without asking parents for consent, because everyone just trusts the system. I found that to be quite the opposite of the legally fraught consent processes in a U.S. biobank. My medical ethics class has been really interesting lately, moving out of pure philosophical theories and values and now applying them to the ethics of head/body transplants, Ebola treatment allocation, and CRISPR gene editing.
On Thursday, I started the morning with my usual tennis with Danes. I did some work at Cafe Det Vide Hus that afternoon, a new favorite of mine close to NĆørreport Station! In Medical Practice & Policy, we had an orthopedics lecture and learned all about the different types of bone fractures (from greenstick to compound). After our lecture, my class went to Bastard Cafe for board games (Copenhagen-themed Monopoly!) and glĆøgg. It was a very cozy night with the rain falling outside.
danish dictionary moment
glĆøgg: (n). a spiced, mulled wine, served warm; originally consumed by messengers and postmen who travelled on horseback or skis in cold weather inĀ Scandinavia.
This was such a cozy week. Winter is definitely coming, but with it is coming the end of the semester, which is making me really really sad. I’m going to have such a difficult time leaving Denmark. I can already tell that things are winding down – I’ve been spending so much time on end-of-semester papers and exams, and I only have six or seven class sessions left for each of my courses. I’m now working on visiting the last few cafes and bucket-list places during my final four weeks in Copenhagen, and I’m doing my best to cherish every last moment here. Hej hej for now. š
copenAIDAN 