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.

Viborg Day 7 Alanna

What did you do over the weekend?

Jess and I attended a concert on Saturday called Viborg Rocker with some students from the Kollegium. The Viborg Rocker is a small festival/carnival in the center of Viborg where Danish rock bands come to play. Later in the evening we attended a dinner party at the Kollegium to get to know more people over some great food.

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

I thought the Viborg Rocker was especially interesting this weekend. The music was what really shocked me. What we found popular in the late 80s/early 90s has made a comeback in Denmark. I don’t think the music here would fly at home.

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

On Sunday Jess and I decided to take a bike ride out to Foulum. We wanted to see where it was and how long it would take us to bike to work. We shortly discovered that on our way to Foulum the bike paths cut off midway and merges in with traffic. Biking several miles in heavy traffic is very difficult especially when cars are going faster than 40mph. There were several points during the trip where we thought we’d get hit. Cars came very close to us and some were not as yielding as others.

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

I have learned that I will be working with dairy cows. I am not sure what I will be doing exactly because I have not been to Foulum yet. Denmark has been on a holiday since we flew in.

Wageningen Day 10 Sam

My first week on the job has gone much better than I could have ever predicted. The Aquaculture department here at Wageningen was beyond welcoming in they I’ve learned about every research project currently running at the hatcheries, by different people working on each project. I was able to help a masters student with her project that examines coral consumption of artemia and also amino acid input to stimulate consumption.

She finished this week, but since she was not able to get all of the data her supervisor would like with the new acid input, they have passed the work on to me to complete next week. We exam 8 different corals, 4 types, complete water sample collections 4 times per hour with each set of 2 corals and then analyze the samples by counting the number of remaining artemia, to determine how many were consumed.

I was also able to help with a much bigger project that being sponsored by the government of the Netherlands. It is a 2 year project that concerns Nile tilapia fish farming and whether closed re-circulation system are causing growth retardation. With this project, we took many samples from 4 different systems, I worked with filtering samples to be prepared to determine COD and mineral levels. I found this project particularly interesting because we completed a small tilapia fish farming study during my program in Jamaica and this situation is much different, but does have similarities.

It has been very enjoyable so far working in the aquaculture department. Everybody in the hatchery is so welcoming to my presence and I had no idea I could learn so much in just 3 days.

Wageningen Day 9-11 Allison

This week has been great! I have met a lot of great researchers, all part of an animal physiology team. I have been working under Professor Katja Teerds in labs with her graduate students.

How has your first week “on the job” gone?
The first week was great! I started out obeserving, but by the second day, I was allowed to help with some of the slide staining procedures and then tissue cutting from parafin blocks.

What did you do?
I have toured all but one of the animal science facilities used by my work group. This includes the isotope labs, the photography lab, the rat behavior and experiment rooms, the livestock houses, the staining labs, and a lab for nutritionists and physiologists to use to test engergy consupmtion in humans. I have also done some hands on work preparing slides of testis from hypothalimic rats as well as preparing supplies for an upcoming radioimmune assay.

What did you learn?
I have learned quite a bit about how to use antibodies to stain certain cells in slides. In the lab I have been helping in, they are using vectastain and the ABC method, which is a very sensitive method of staining. I also sat in on some presentations of other projects going on currently. One of these was on the recognition by cells of a certain protein receptor that may be linked to cancer.

What did you find particularly interesting?
I find the process of using primary and secondary antibodies to stain specific cells for their function particularly interesting. It is amazing to me how this technique works. The girl I have been helping is staining testes for identification of Leydig cells. Only these cells will turn brown, while the rest of the tissue turns blue.

What did you find frustrating?
The only part I have found frustrating is how much each student is expected to just know. They just asked me to help, assuming I had all the skills necessary to do the job, but there are many things I have never seen before. At first, I thought this was just because I am at an earlier stage of schooling than the other students, but one student told me that this was the case for her as well when she came, and she wished she had had someone walk her through the basics the first time, but they were upset when she needed help.

I have been very lucky to see all these things they are doing. I feel very in the way when I am there, but I am appreciative that this team is willing to take time out and share what is going on and allow me to visit other labs.