February 5th-9th 2024

This last week I spent in Malmo, Sweden! We left right after we got back from Milan last weekend and I am pooped 😴 We left on Monday at 10 am (I got back from Milan at 1:30 on Sunday mind you) for the hour long bus ride to right outside Malmo. We had our first academic event of the week at 2:00 which was a visit to the biomedical center at Lund University. It was really interesting and I ran into a PhD student who was actually originally from Minnesota! It was really interesting hearing her story about moving here for school and how she felt about the process (she may have slightly convinced me to further my eduction in Europe... 🫣).  After our visit to the biomedical center in Lund we went back to Malmo to check into our hotel and get ready for some dinner! We went to a nice restaurant that gave us some delicious food and played pentanque (aka bocce ball). It was really fun and I had a good time bonding with people from my core course. (I probably should have mentioned I went to Malmo with my psychopharmacology class to get a cultural understanding and background of the use of pharmaceuticals and brain disorders in Scandinavia as a part of the DIS program.) I was really worried before leaving because I hadn't talked much to the people in my class before this trip and we are spending a full week in Munich together later in the semester as well. This was honestly really telling of everyone's personalities and how we would all mesh. After our long and tiring games of pentanque we headed to get a sweet treat (a cookie and ice cream) and went back to the hotel. You will soon pick up a theme of many of these posts as my stomach quickly began to hurt after finishing my treat 😢. Nevertheless I would go back and get that dessert many times again 🤤. Because my tummy was hurting though I was able to stay up a little longer and talk to Alex again which was really quite lovely 🥰. We had a late wake up call so we were able to sleep in the next day and slow roll the morning which was really nice. We had breakfast provided by the hotel and got ready for the day. On Tuesday we went to a children's museum of life. This was a really cool experience because we were able to see how Sweden presents their information on mental health and overall wellness to the general population. This museum also gave us a little bit of a look into the past of Sweden and their medical inventions. Ventilators, X-ray technology, Dialysis were all inventions made in Lund which was incredible to learn a little bit more about the history of such well known creations especially when it comes to things that are used frequently in hospitals I will hopefully be working in one day. After the museum we went to another fancy restaurant where we were served a three course meal with the entree including rainbow trout and hollandaise sauce. It was all so yummy and it was so fun to have it all set and ready for us. This was technically our lunch, but we finished around 3:00 so we weren't really hungry by the time dinner time rolled around. So after these elaborate meals what I had for dinner on tuesday was some chips and chocolate and it truly hit the spot 🤤. We had a much earlier wake up call on Wednesday since it was our day to head back to Copenhagen. We started out the day by packing our stuff up and grabbing a quick breakfast from the hotel. We then went on our way to go see a viking museum, but we showed up and it was in fact closed. At this point we had realized that the booking for the viking museum was in Denmark and not Sweden so we set off for something else. We headed to the southern coast of Sweden near the baltic sea (I touched it no big deal 😎) and found a cute little lighthouse. We went and saw it and turned around and left 😔. We had places to be and those places were a gorgeous meal at a beachside restaurant and a forensic psychiatry unit where we got a tour and information on how the criminal justice system works in Sweden. It was interesting to see the quality of life and options these patients had of things to do at the facility. It was much more rehabilitating than it was punishing which was a unique contrast to some of the facilities in the united states. After this visit we headed back to Copenhagen where I felt at home again. I got the best sleep of my life that night because I was wanting my own bed again back in my little apartment. This incredible sleep was not long after I planned a trip to Iceland. I really want to see the northern lights so I figured what better to see them than to book a flight to Iceland so look out for an update about that in a few weeks 🤭. The rest of the week was filled with lectures and reuniting with my friends as we all went on trips to different places this week which was so sad and I missed them so much. It was quite upsetting because the day I got back a couple of my other friends left shortly after for their study tours 😢. They just got back today and I missed them so much :) I don't have too exciting of a week coming up so stay tuned in the next 10 ish days!