Hi from Aarhus, Denmark

So I have been here a little less than a week. It took forever to get here. First I flew to Toronto and then flew to Copenhagen which I think was better than flying with no stops as I don’t think I would have been able to survive on the plane for that long. Then once I got to Copenhagen I took a three hour train ride to Aarhus.  My PI was nice enough to pick me up from the train station and show me where the University was and drop me off at the dorm I’m staying at.

The weather here is so nice for the summer it’s only 75 degrees Fahrenheit. It takes 30 mins to walk to work from where I live so it is a really nice walk especially since everyone in Denmark rides a bike or walks. The sidewalks are nice in that half of it is for pedestrians and half of it is for bicycles. The traffic lights are awesome too and that unlike the U.S., before the light is about to turn green again, it goes red yellow green so you know when the light is about to turn green. Also the lights at the crosswalk beep and when it’s your sides turn to cross it starts beeping faster which is kind of nerve racking as you feel really rushed to cross the street.

Everyone in the lab is really great. I am working with my PI, a post doc and two PhD students but Con Amore (which is the center on autobiographical memory research, which my lab is a part of) is made up of a lot of different labs that all collaborate together. The lab has a whole floor of the psychology building at Aarhus University. It’s very different from my lab at Emory where everyone, the PHD students, the lab coordinators and the research assistants are all in one big room so we all work alongside one another and talk and joke with each other throughout the day while at Con Amore everyone has an office. I have a computer and a desk and I will be posting pictures shorty. What is nice that even though everyone is separated, they all eat lunch together which is really nice as I am used to people just eating at their desks.    

I haven’t been told exactly what I will be doing but I have been going to a lot of meetings and watched the studies when the participants have come in.

I met all thirteen other people I was living with Friday night. They have a communal dinner once a week that everyone chips in money for. Then we hung out after dinner and played a game called Kubb (Kings).

The Pieces used can be seen below:

(Picture used from: http://www.oldtimegames.com/viewgames.html)

And the set up looks like this:

(Picture used from: http://www.kubbgames.com/kubb-game-rules-i-16.html)

You can go to this link to learn about the game:  http://www.kubbgames.com/kubb-game-rules-i-16.html

I live right next to a shopping center and I finally went grocery shopping Saturday. What most students go to is a placed called NETTO and it’s a discount store so they have everything from clothes to food to other things though it is much smaller than the super markets in the U.S. It wasn’t as expensive as I thought it was going to be. The most expensive thing I bought wasn’t even meat, it was the cereal. Maybe that’s because I bought an American brand. Also a lot different that the U.S is that you have to buy shopping bags, they don’t give you as many plastic bags as you want and they don’t even bag your stuff for you, you have to do that yourself.

Monday is a holiday, yayay, so I have a three day weekend! It is Whit Monday or Monday of the Holy Spirit.