Viborg Day 1 Jess

What did you experience during your travel that you found especially interesting? Why was it interesting?

While traveling to Viborg, something that struck me as very unusually was that for the first time in my life, I am in a country where a large majority of the population really does look alike. I noticed myself starting to crane my head toward the rear of Peter’s car to see what the person in the passing car looked like. Yep, most of the time is was a fair-skinned, blonde person. I wasn’t raised in a highly diversified community, but I guess I never realized how much I am used to seeing red hair and dark brown hair in about an equal ratio with blonde hair. I just seems strange to not see very much physical diversity.

On a more agriculture based topic, I noticed that a lot of wheat is now growing in the fields near Viborg. Peter said that this is a common practice because it never becomes hot enough here to grow corn and soybeans. He explained to me that corn is grown here, however it is harvested before maturity in order to make silage for the cattle here. Hay is also prepared in a little bit different manner here than in the Midwest. Here, hay may be mowed and bailed before it is dry. It is then wrapped in plastic. When the producer finally decides to feed the hay to his cattle, it must be used quickly or else it will go bad and the cattle will not eat it.

What did you experience during your travel that you found especially negative? Why was it negative?

Copenhagen airport is huge! We had to travel from one absolute end of it to the other absolute end of it in less than one hour. This doesn’t seem like a big deal, but we also had to go through two security corrals and passport security. We barely made bording the flight to Karup.

What are your initial impressions of the country you are visiting, the town you are living in, your accommodations, the people you are interacting with, or any other initial impressions that you would like to share?

The people here are great. All of them are really willing to speak English and help you find whatever it is that you may need. Alanna and I were at the grocery store earlier today and a man saw her using her dictionary to look up what a specific meat is in English. Alanna triumphantly stated, “It’s chicken!” and a man next to her asked if she needed help. He said, “Yes, that is chicken.” It just struck as funny because in the U.S. if we heard someone so excitedly say, “It’s chicken,” we would probably look at them funny and walk away.

What are you most excited about in looking forward to the next several weeks? Why are you excited about that?

I am most excited to start working at Foulum next Monday. We will have four days including the weekend to explore Viborg, but I really want to start work so that I am busy throughout the day. I also really want to start to learn how the swine and dairy industries differ here from the U.S.

Is there any knowledge that you have from your travel that you can contribute to our program's Survival Handbook for that country.

Pack your own small blanket and pillow. You will want to go to sleep, and it will be easier to go to sleep with a pillow and blanket that you are used to and that smell like home. The pillows and blankets here don’t look or smell or feel all that great, but I got used to them within the first week here.

Also before you leave home, make sure that you have every little detail figured out as far as how you will communicate with home. Make sure that you have proper cables and internet wires that will fit with your computer and foreign outlets. I stressed a bit because I didn’t have an internet cable that worked here, so I couldn’t get internet, so I couldn’t email home right away to let everyone know that we had arrived and everything was just fine. We had to go into the shopping center of Viborg in order to buy internet cables.

Are there any other observations or reflections or concerns that you would like to share?

I am so happy to be here right now! I know that this is the opportunity of a lifetime. However, I have this tremendous feeling that I have gotten myself into something that is so big I won’t know how to handle myself. With this being my first time out of the country, I feel like I have committed to a time period that may be really long and hard for me to handle. It seems like nine weeks is a really long time to be away from home right now, as I sit in my little room by myself, but I know I will look back on this trip and be so happy that I jumped on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and didn’t give up.