Core Course Week Day 1

Quick overview: Core Course Week is a week where we don't have any classes and we spend the whole week doing activities with our "core course," which for me is my Cyberpsychology class. We will spend the first 3 days traveling in western denmark doing a mix of academic and cultural activities and then we will spend the last 2 days of the week in Copenhagen doing some more academic activities.

DAY 24, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4TH

Today was an early wake up call, I woke up at 5 am which was a bit rough, as we had to meet in the city at 6:45. To help make my commute shorter, Host mom dropped me off at train station so I could take the train in rather than my normal bus. I met up with my class at the designated location and we got on to the charter bus that would be driving us around for the next 3 days. Luckily the bus ride was quiet and uneventful so we all just slept and relaxed on way. I was awake to see a beautiful Sunrise crossing the bridge from the island Copenhagen is on onto Fyn (another island between Zealand and Jutland).

After 2ish Hours we made it to our first stop in Odense, Denmark for a lecture with Jens Strandbech about robotics in healthcare. It was interesting to see real life applications of robots and what research is being done on how humanoid robots can be used with dementia patients.Then we continued on, eating a packed lunch on the bus, to Aarhus, this ride took about another 2 hours.Once we got to Aarhus we checked in to our hostel and then met in the lobby to go on a walking food tour of the city!! The tour was led by a chef who grew up and worked in Aarhus so he knew the area and best spots super well. The first stop was at a food hall/food vendor area called Aarhus Central Food Market that has tons of options but we were there to get smorrebrod and a glass of wine. Smorrebrod is an open-faced sandwich which is traditional in Denmark. I don’t love smorrebrod too much- usually it’s the spreads/sauces I don’t like.

After that we walked to a cafe called Jumbo. Since it was raining and cold we walked pretty fast and didn’t look around/see the area too much. We got coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and pastries in the cafe which were delicious!!

We walked along a very old street called Møllestien lane that dates back to the early middle ages!

Then we headed to a place called Reduktivt that sells natural wine. They had been selling to restaurants for years but just opened up their own shop. Apparently normal wine has tons of preservatives and additives so this wine was made all natural. I really enjoyed it- definitely not too strong of a flavor. We also had some canned fishes on bread which I surprisingly enjoyed. Our last stop was a restaurant called Rømer. We all were served two small sandwiches/hot dogs. One was chorizo sausage with onions and tomatoes, and the other was shrimp with potatoes. Both were yummy! We also could have a glass of wine or beer here, all on DIS (technically we already paid for it with our tuition).

After that we hung out at the restaurant for a bit, some ordered coffee or dessert and then we had the rest of the night to ourselves. Me and a few others walked around the city a bit, going into a department store and walking along the canal. We passed a cool looking church and a cool looking theater.

We eventually made our way to a board game cafe where we played a game of scrabble.

We headed home pretty early since we had such an early morning!!