In This Post I… Return to the Classroom

Weekend Recap

On Sunday, Carissa and I decided to go down to the dock and explore the swimming spots and shopping. The area is absolutely adorable, and we spent a few hours exploring. There’s a boogie board “trick” course, a public beach, and lots of cute cafes and bars lining the pier. This area is also home to many of Aarhus’ famous residential buildings. Most of them were designed with the idea that “every home deserves a view,” so they have fun balconies on all sides.

We walked to another pier with a small park and tried out slack-lining… we were not successful. After exploring all of the photo spots and enjoying the view, we decided to head back to the main beach area and grab a drink. We enjoyed the evening sunshine and discussed the week ahead as well as our plans for next weekend (no ruining the surprise, you’ll have to wait and see!)

Monday

Monday morning marked the first day of my classes at Aarhus University, although today my schedule consisted of my Laboratory Animal Care course (dyreforsøgskundskab, for those who are SUPER curious about how to say it in Danish—I cannot even pronounce this word).

My class was located on the north side of campus, so I decided to take the bus rather than bike. Unfortunately, the bus doesn’t come as frequently, so I had to leave my house at 7:30 to get to class by 8:30, even though the commute only lasted 33 minutes. When I arrived at the university, I killed the leftover time by exploring the library.

My morning was spent listening to lectures about current legislation in animal experimentation in Denmark. Unsurprisingly, the animal care laws in Denmark are much stricter than those in the United States. In fact, research on non-human primates in Denmark is illegal.

My professor is a member of the Animal Experimentation Approval Board in Denmark, and he described the various proposals that they read each year. Many of the proposals come from the Danish pharmaceutical company, Novo Nordisk. Denmark is actually a major exporter of medication for diabetes and obesity, including the increasingly popular Ozempic. Roughly 250,000 animals are involved in experiments each year in Denmark, and many thousands of those are in Novo Nordisk labs alone.

In the afternoon, we toured the animal stables on campus and then practiced anesthetizing and euthanizing mice. I’ll spare you the details and simply say that it was a tough introduction to working with mice.

Monday night, in the POURING rain, I biked to my first ballet class. Unsure what to expect, I dressed down my normal ballet attire (leotard and pink tights) with athletic shorts. I also hadn’t had the chance to buy ballet shoes yet, so I was hoping they’d be okay with cute socks!

When I entered the studio, absolutely soaked despite my rain jacket, the desk attendant directed me to the changing room. I inquired about ballet shoes and in return got a strange look. Odd! However, when I entered the studio, I understood why. There were only six dancers in the class, but they all wore baggy athletic shorts, tank tops, and crew socks.

The class was super informal and TONS of fun. We worked out at the barre to hip-hop beats and finished the class with a short and funky routine. It was a serious workout, but relaxing and the perfect end to a long day. After the class, I met a few of the girls and found that one is pursuing her master’s degree in microbiology. I’m already excited for next Monday!

Tuesday

More of the same today. We started the morning with a lab on surgical techniques and suturing. Despite having lots and lots of experience with animal dissections, this was the first time I’d stitched something up! It was pretty tricky, but I think by the end I had the hang of it! I see lots of sutures on bananas in my future!

From there, I biked to Aarhus’ sports science campus, which is where my first official class of the semester was! I sat in on the lecture and found that it actually built on the muscle physiology I learned at Columbia. Every Thursday in the class, we’ll read papers and have a group discussion—sounds fun! After class, I ran into Sada, who is a Fulbright scholar researching corruption in sports management. You may remember her from my last post.

After some more laboratory animal safety lectures in the afternoon back on the main campus, I biked to the pier to meet my housemates. Today, our landlord, Marnie, was taking us sailing on his vintage sailboat! The day was sunny and a bit windy, perfect for sailing. When I helped Marnie push the boat away from the dock (thank you Minnesota and Dad for the boating experience), my reward was being the first to sit on the pulpit, which is the seat at the very front of the boat.

We sailed around Aarhus Bay for a bit, watching other sailboats in the bay and receiving a geography lesson from Marnie. Towards the end of the evening as the sun was setting, Marnie brought the boat in closer to the beach and gave us a chance to jump in the water. Given that it was a bit windy on the boat, none of us jumped at the chance. However, one by one we slowly succumbed to the pressure and FOMO (fear of missing out), and five of us decided to jump in.

The guys went first, and when Matthiew surfaced after his jump, he spent the whole swim back to the boat swearing in French. Then Stella went in and stated: “it’s not that bad,” which Jordan and I found reassuring. However, when I hit the water, I realized her lie. IT WAS FREEZING. Jordan and I swam quickly to the ladder, and Marnie threw blankets in our direction.

I’m really glad I jumped in the water, but I’m starting to rethink my original plan of polar plunging this winter…

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Photo Descriptions
1. The swimming area on the pier
2. Residential buildings on the pier
3. Can you read backwards?
4. Drenched after ballet class!
5. Captain Kate
6. The brave swimmers!
L to R: Matthieu, Stella, Me, Jordan, Pietro