Viborg Day 6-10 Jess

What did you do over the weekend?

This weekend Alanna and I spent Friday night watching some television shows that we downloaded from the internet, we talked to some of the students who live here and had a quiet night. We were still suffering from jetlag a bit.

Saturday we went to a music festival in downtown Viborg with some of the other students who live at the kollegiet. The festival was a ton of fun and a great way to learn what people here enjoy and find funny. It was amazing for me to read some of the T-shirts and clothes that people were wearing that had American logos, or quotes from American television characters. I am sure they are much more aware of our culture than we are of theirs. It is kind of sad for us.

Saturday night after the festival we attended a birthday party for one of the grad students who lives here. Even though we had only been here for three days, everyone welcomed us and made us feel at home. We baked a cake, took strawberries and ice cream to have with the cake, and everyone was happy with us.

What did you experience over the weekend that you found especially interesting? Why was it interesting?

I found the time we spent at the music festival to be very telling of the lifestyle here. Most of the people where probably not typical everyday people, but the way they do things I am pretty sure is typical. For example, when we were waiting in line to get into the festival everyone was happy. They were happy to open their bags for the guards, happy to pay for a ticket, in general they were happy to follow the rules. If someone wanted to, they probably could have walked right passed on of the ticket sales booths and walked right into the festival without paying, but nobody did that. I guess I was just amazed at how cooperative everyone was.

What did you experience over the weekend that you found especially negative? Why was it negative?

The drunk people who were at the festival were a bit negative to see! I always thought that the Danish would look down upon someone who was drunk, but they really didn’t. It could very well have been the environment we were in that made it more acceptable to be “smashed”, but I was still a little surprised by the huge amounts of alcohol being consumed.

Also, the amount of warm alcohol that was being consumed really surprised me. I don’t drink, but I know that most Americans like cold beer. Not here. When I asked some of the Danish people here about it, they just shrugged and said something like “…why waste time and energy to make cold beer when you can drink it right out of the store and it tastes just fine!”

What have your learned to date about the work you will be doing while there?

Today was our second day of work and I have learned a great deal already. Yesterday I was able to read a PhD Thesis paper explaining the procedures and point of the trial that I will be helping collect data for. That really helped me get a good idea of what was going on. Even though Peter and the other people at Foulum speak excellent English, are very patient, and explain almost everything, it still really helped me to read the material and figure it out for myself.

I will be helping with a dietary trial that measures the nutrients that are absorbed by the small intestine. Using catheters to draw blood from an artery and a vein and then analyzing this blood, it is possible to determine what the animal is using from its diet.

I read an entire ninety page or longer thesis on this and can explain it in much greater detail if that is necessary.

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

I am enjoying my time here and I am hoping that it stays that way. I really like work so far. I am getting great hands on experience, not only with veterinary related applications, but with science and learning in general. I am afraid that my time here is going to fly, but I will be sure to say at the end of the trip whether the nine week period is long enough or too long.

How has your first week “on the job” gone?

My first week working at Foulum was wonderful! I was able to jump right into the trial that Peter is working on and learn why he is doing this experiment, who it is for, and how it is being performed. The experiment that I am helping with actually belongs to another PhD candidate who left Foulum to work on another project and Peter took over the experiment. So, he was actually learning a lot about the trial as I was learning the information as well.

I was able to read a thesis on Monday that explained the reasoning and procedure behind what I will be helping with. That gave me a good idea of what was going to happen as a general view, but I learned the details more when we went to the barns and started working with the pigs. Tuesday, I was able to watch two surgeries to fit the pigs being used for this trial with catheters so that blood can easily be drawn from them on a regular basis. Wednesday was a surgery recovery day for the pigs…and the humans both. Thursday is the really busy day during the week though. On Thursdays, blood has to be drawn about every fifteen minutes. The blood is then tested for glucose and hematocrit levels. Then the drawn blood is placed in a centrifuge and spun down. The plasma that is separated during this process is then pipetted into various test tubes so that it may be further tested later. All of this took about ten to fifteen minutes, so by the time you finished with one blood sample, it was time to turn around and start all over again with another blood sample. After Thursdays, Fridays are a breeze. The pigs are done with their trial diet for the week on Fridays and put back on a flushing diet by the stable help. This leaves Fridays as work days in the office.

What did you learn?

This week at work I learned how to draw blood from catheters, measure blood flow using a probe that is surgically placed around the portal vein in the pig, centrifuge blood samples, pipette plasma, and how to pool samples. All of this had to be done when a sample of blood was drawn, so I learned very quickly how to perform each of these steps.

What did you find particularly interesting?

I found that I really like drawing blood and then using it to draw conclusions almost immediately. When I have worked with veterinarians at home, we are usually drawing blood samples for health certificates. So, when I have drawn blood before, I simple place it in a test tube and send it off to a lab where someone else analyzes it. Here I can at least take glucose levels, measure hematocrit and centrifuge down the blood to obtain plasma before I send the blood to a lab. And by doing all of this and recording the information that is being gathered, I am able to see patterns among all of these steps and feeding times. So, I feel like I am actually learning more about the blood samples here than I would be at home doing similar work.

What did you find frustrating?

I found reading Danish very frustrating this week. All of the tables that have to filled in with glucose levels, hematocrit, volume of plasma, feces and urine mass are all written in Danish. So, I had to have a crash course on Wednesday in reading the important words in Danish to make sure that I provide all of the information necessary for the blood samples. Also, all of the procedure sheets for drawing blood and analyzing it are written in Danish. So I had to write my own procedures in English and go through it with Peter to make sure that I first understood what I was trying to read in Danish, and then second understood that I had the correct times and amounts of everything that had to be taken from or given to the pigs. This was just a minor frustration though. It was actually kind of fun to learn some new vocabulary and to learn that I will be working with gris here…(gris being the Danish word for pig)!

Viborg Day 9 Jess

How are you feeling about being away from home?

At first, I was really homesick. Just for the first night here and a little bit the next day though. Then I came to the realization that I am going to be here for the next nine weeks, I am in Europe doing something that I am really interested in and absolutely nothing is going to change at home during the time I will be here. I also really started learning the names of everyone here and talking to them and made instant friends, so I think that really helped too.

How are you feeling about being where you are located now?

I love Viborg and the Kollegiet very much! It is really a nice town. I feel very safe here. This evening I went jogging around the lake and felt more comfortable and safe then when I am jogging around Champaign! The trip to Foulum is a little long, but by bus it is no problem at all. The bus picks you up almost at your door and literally drops you at the main door to enter the institute at Foulum.

What have you had to do to adapt to living/working there? How are you coping with those changes in your day-to-day behavior?

I had to learn how to make a dinner that is healthy for me when I got here. I never cook. Never! When I am home (at school) I eat out, at the dorms with friends, or eat a sandwich at home. Sandwiches were not cutting it for lunch and dinner here everyday, so I made some pasta and got some broccoli and tomatoes from the store. I made a weeks supply of dinner all at once. I am sure I will get tired of it by the time it is gone, but at least I have something hot to eat for dinner.

Is there any knowledge that you would like to contribute to our program’s Survival Handbook for that country.

Buy a bus ticket! Before you travel to Denmark, plan on setting aside money to take the bus to and from Foulum almost everyday…unless you feel ambitious and want to ride your bike a few days a week. It was 140 Kroner for a ten trip ticket. One trip to work, and one trip home counts as two trips. So, basically a weeks worth of rides costs 140 Kroner. I am going to check into how much a month pass is because I am pretty sure that it will be even cheaper. I really think it is something that you have to have though.

Also, make sure you either plan on spending quite a bit of money on food and going to the grocery store almost daily or take lots of boxes of pasta, pop tarts, granola bars, or other snack like foods from home because they are really expensive in Denmark. Almost everything is more expensive in Denmark. Plan on spending some money of your own just to survive by our U.S. standards.

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

I noticed that people here are very willing to help you find whatever you need. They will be happy to give you directions, help you read something, or find you anything from DVDs to watch at night to a bike to ride around town. Even perfect strangers on the street will talk to you and ask where you are from. They are not weird at all, they truly want to know about you. I have found this to be very comforting and I have been able to learn more about the culture and how people do things here that are sometimes the exact same as in the U.S. and sometime completely different than the U.S.

Viborg Day 6 Jess

We had our first day of work today. I loved it!! Peter Theil, who I am working for, picked us up from the Kollegium this morning and drove us to Foulum. It was so nice to go there when you do not have to avoid the traffic and being hit!

When we arrived Peter drove us around the institute a little bit and we were able to see where some of the student housing and livestock barns are located on the grounds. Then we went into the research “stable” as they call it. Calling the area a “stable” kind of sounded funny to me because I am used to people calling them barns. It really isn’t a stable or a barn though. The way the building is set up and is attached to the barns/stables reminds me of the vet school at Illinois. The halls of the building and offices eventually turn into halls that lead to the barns.

In the animal areas there are nice, clean, rooms with small individual pens. For the pigs at least this is true. I have not seen any of the other barns. There are sliding doors that lead to each room and I believe that each study has its own room with its own pigs in it. There is also a kind of cooling room for different blood samples and such and a freezer with different diets and necropsy samples.

There is a surgery suite as well, but I have not been able to see it yet. Tomorrow I will be able to observe and possibly assist in two surgeries to put catheters in two gilts. The blood flow probe is placed around the portal vein in between the small intestine and the liver. This is where the blood flow in the pig’s body will be measured and recorded during each day it is on a specific diet. Catheters are then used to draw daily blood samples out of each of the pigs one from a vein and one from an artery.

I was also able to read a research thesis that was created and started by a woman who actually left the institute to take on another research project, but left Peter with this thesis to finish. I have never read such a long explanation of one experiment in all my life though!! And I realized that statistics, microbiology, and organic chemistry are going to all come back to haunt me for the rest of my life…so long as I am in the scientific community. Of course the courses that I loved like anatomy and physiology will be forever constant as well, but I like those subjects more anyway.

Viborg Day 4 Jess

So, it turns out that we cannot read our blogging page when we open it here in Denmark. All of the text is in Danish. We can type in English, but we don’t know what any of the icons say in order to save it or edit it at all. For now, Alanna and I decided to type our thoughts into word and post everything when we figure out how to change all of our computer settings to English again.

It is really strange because we went to use Google yesterday, just like at home, but when you type in what you want, all of the text pops up in Danish. So you really can’t even use Google without changing the settings on your computer. I didn’t realize I was so dependent on my computer and I don’t even feel like I use my computer as much as some of my friends at home do, but after going a few days without internet it has made me realize how dependent I have become on communicating through this technology.

We went to downtown Viborg today to buy internet cables for our computers so that we don’t have to keep bothering Marianne (my neighbor) for her cords. So, needless to say we are feeling much more freedom now and closer to home because we can pop on the internet now and find someone to talk to on AIM or via email or Facebook. I can’t imagine traveling here without all of this access to see and hear from people at home. I am finally starting to understand what people mean when they say, “The world is getting smaller and smaller all the time.”

One thing we did learn, on a very slow learning curve, was that whenever you go into a busy store you have to take a number from a machine. We went into the bank this morning to exchange some of our cash and I saw a guy take a ticket with a number on it, so we went up to the machine, pressed the British flag and out popped our ticket with a number on it. Then we waited for the number to pop up on a screen and we were helped. It was no big deal. However, when we went to the electronics store next, we thought you only needed a number if you had a question and needed help from a salesman, so we didn’t get a number. We just went and got what we needed and then got in line at one of the many cash registers in the store. We waited in line forever because there was a dad there with his two kids about ten and nine years old and he was buying a lot of stuff. So we finally get up to the girl at the register and I set my stuff down and she says, “You have to have a number.” So, we went back to the number machine and started all over again. Luckily this time there were only two people in front of us and we got out pretty quickly the second time around. So, the lesson we learned today was that if you walk into a store and there is a little machine there spitting out tickets, you had better take one or you will never be helped or get out of the store.

The grocery store we went to next was interesting as well. It was similar to a Sam’s Club, only on a much smaller scale. But there were random jackets, shirts, pants, books, cosmetics and such there along with food like Sam’s Club. So we walked around for a long time just trying to decide what to buy because the meat is sold so much different here. All we wanted was lunch meat, however unlike home you can only buy about five slices of ham, turkey, or chicken in each individually wrapped case and it is about $1.50 for the five slices! So, needless to say we were much more careful about what meat we were buying and how much it cost and whether we really would like it once we got it home.

Milk is sold differently as well. We are used to gallons of milk that will last a single person for a good seven to ten days. Well, here you can only buy cartons of milk. So, because I eat a lot of cereal, I tend to take down a lot of milk. I got about five bowls of cereal out of one carton of milk. I guess I use more milk in my cereal than the average person would, but I will definitely have to reconsider my cereal eating habits now that I am in the land of the small.

Speaking of small, everything here is small, except the people. The cars are small, the houses are small, the boats are small, even the stores are small. It is really strange to realize that these people have been living here for hundreds of years with very little space for a large number of people and they have managed to downsize in order to fit everyone in. I am sure it has a lot to do with being more environmentally friendly and conservative too, but no one seems to be worried about not having enough space for his or herself like it is in the United States. I feel like people here are a lot more laid back and happy just to be than people in the U.S.

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.