Poland!

In an internet cafe, while actually paying for internet minutes, so you'll have to excuse my abbreviated version of events.

Flew into Gdansk from Oslo. Stayed at a hostel which was *literally* at the corner of a festival. There were rides and stuff set up across the corner from where I was staying. Nuts.
Also impressive were the food booths with 2 m wide stirring pots, with giant spoons to stir them. Don't know if I'd eat anything from there, but it was rather impressive. Food in general in Poland is fantastic. Lots of cheese, lots of potatoes, lots of beer. I am in heaven.

Visited the largest Gothic castle in Europe. It was pretty fantastic. Highlight was having lunch inside the castle.

Warsaw was nice, though I spent less than 24 hours there. Arriving on a Sunday afternoon (and museums being closed on Mondays) left me with not that much to check out.

Am currently in Krakow. Did a tour of a famous salt mine; at one point was 138 m underground, in 14 degrees C caves walking around (in flip flops and shorts) for a few hours. Very cool, as the miners (in their free time) made statues and even dug out cathedrals and whatnot made entirely out of salt stone. Also visited Aushwicz. Very disturbing.

Off to Zakopane next, to probably spend a few days hiking in nature. After that likely Czech Republic. Not sure how much time I'll spend where, or if I'll make an effort to go to Romania afterwards to check out Transylvania. Plane is leaving out of Budapest on the 12th, and that's all that's concrete for now.

Am having a great time taking the train from city to city. Is also quite librating not knowing which city I'll be in on what day, and making my mind up as I go along. Fun way to go about things. Has nothing to do with my laziness or unwillingness to plan ahead.

Hope you all are well. Cheers,
-me

Oslo

Good times were had by all. Parted ways with Osvaldo after taking the ferry from Copenhagen and spending the better part of the day with him.

Highlights in Oslo included a statue park, with the life-works of (some dude) all situated in one magnificently preserved and cultivated park. Wish I could share pictures, but alas I haven't quite gotten around to that yet.

Also fantastic was finally going to a part of Scandinavia which embraces its Viking roots! If I were the descendant of a viking, I would definitely pack my museums with information about how badass they were. Oslo does this in spades. The guided tour of the museum was fantastic for finally getting some clarity on this topic (as opposed to the PC 'only some vikings were raiders' rhetoric that seems prevalent in the rest of Scandinavia). Learning about Norse mythology was also pretty cool. Apparently to get to their version of the best part of heaven, you actually have to die while in battle. Very clever.

As per popular request...

...changed the format of the blog. Hopefully this one's more popular.

Reader's Digest Version:
-flew into Gdansk, Poland from Oslo
-Polish food and beer is fantastic (and cheap especially compared to Scandinavia where everything is ridiculously expensive)
-saw the Teutonic Knight Castle in Malbork, the largest Gothic Castle in Europe. Pretty phenomenal.
-off to Warsaw today

The long version:
Coming soon. Need to catch a train to Warsaw, which leaves in a bit.

Hope everyone's doing well.

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to Oslo I go

Probably the last time I'll reliably have access to the internet for a while, so I thought I'd do a quick update. That, and I'm trying to kill time before a meeting at noon. You'd be surprised how much 'down time' the doctors, residents, and students have here. The David surgeon guy (from yesterday) made a really good point about Danish values. Not being stressed out, and having lots of family time is chief among them. Can understand why he's sticking around.

Anyhow, I booked my flights and hostels for the next two days, which puts me in Gdansk, Poland. For the end of my trip, I have a flight out of Budapest to London, then from London to Ottawa the next day. In between these times (almost 3 weeks), I've got nothing concrete planned. Figure I'll get around to reading the Lonely Planet book on the ferry ride to Oslo. Despite the Lonely Planet series letting me down in the past, I was too lazy to look for another guide book. Last chance Lonely Planet.

I've also decided on an esoteric goal: no use of ATM cards while in Scandinavia. I've actually managed so far with the small amount of cash I brought, VISA, and the substantial cash allowment for meals that was given the other day. The fact that I realized my OSAP won't be coming in for a while and that I'm quickly depleting whatever funds I had left for this trip have nothing to do with this. Only two days left to go.

Met the nicest man ever today.

His name is David. He's from New York, and is a gastroenterologic surgeon. I switched over to what is kind of like abdominal surgery here after I felt I'd spent enough time in thoracics. The first day I had this student Simon babysitting me, and things went fine. Today, though, I met this guy David who's perhaps the most enthusiastic surgeon I've ever met. For those of you who know Kenya Chris, this dude reminds me of him (not just because he's also brown, though that does help). Too bad that I met him on what was my last full day; although everyone else here has been really nice, has answered questions and whatnot, this guy has gone way out of his way to make sure I have a great educational experience. Also very personable, and it was fun to swap stories with him.

Finally got around to doing the Carslberg brewery tour. Third brewery I've taken a tour of now, and it was worth the trip. Hightlight of the trip was finding out that in days gone by, the beer ratio per worker was 4L. It was later cut down to 2L. I assume the reduction occured because everyone was hammered all the time.

Other than that, I've just been touring around the city a bit, going for runs, reading, watching movies from the rather extensive library my housemates have going on, and planning the coming stages of my voyage. Also managed to justify bringing along my climbing shoes by bringing Thue (housemate) climbing once. It was on an outdoor artificial wall, which was just fantastic.

In about 24 hours I'll be on my way to Oslo; two days there, then flying to Poland. Still trying to figure out exactly what the itinerary will be after that.

cheerio

Shazzam

Went to Christiania last night. Good times were had by all. Had two beers (learned that Carlsberg is apparently better than Heineken, though I'm waiting until I do the tour of the brewery to definitively make up my mind) and then the rest of the night was fairly mellow. The guys here have a home-theatre set-up dealio going on with a pull-down screen to complement the projector, so as per their suggestion we watched 'Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay'. Very enjoyable flick.

Got a flat tire again yesterday, which was no fun. On my way home today, I passed by the botanical gardens, and then snuck a peak in. These are perhaps the most fantastic gardens I've ever seen. In one part of the greenhouse, there's an 8 m staircase, which you can take up to the top, then walk around and look at all the greenery below. Fantastico! Probably never would've found this place had the structural integrity of the vulcanized rubber used to propel myself to and fro remained intact, so I take it as a good sign that I occasionally get the shaft.

Got all my papers signed, so I'm leaving 17:00 to Oslo this coming Wednesday. From there will travel to Eastern Europe, alst the while merry-making and whatnot.

Miss you all,
-lp

Coolest place ever

Went biking the other day looking for a part of town that the frisbee dudes I met suggested I check out called Christiania (aka freetown). Apparently, this community was settled on a former military base by some squatters in the '70s as a result of an affordable housing crisis. It is currently a semi-autonomous state, governed by a mixture of collective-agreement decision making and anarchy. I even heard a rumour that it's not a part of the EU. Apparently up until 2004 (when the centre-right government started 'cracking down') hash and weed were sold freely on the streets, though the residents have chosen to make harder drugs illegal. I thought it was fairly funny when I entered the town and saw a sign which read 'Say NO to hard drugs' with a picture of a marijuana leaf next to it.

Unfortunately, they do not allow pictures to be taken, but I think a description could be fairly helpful. Imagine if the Swiss Family Robinson were to rescue a group of hippies who's ship went down just off the coast. A few years later, a group of gypsies travelling with a performing troupe come across the site and decide to settle down. The whole place is covered in what is actually very well planned-out and tasteful graffiti.
For those of you who know them, picture Meg during her trip to Kenya, and Liam on a cool fall day after a week-long concert, and you'll get a pretty good idea of what an average resident looks like. Never have I seen so many people wearing so many natural fabrics. The entire economy of the place is mostly small bakeries, a bike shop, cafes, bars, carpentry, restaurants, and night clubs. While I was there, an improvised band was playing which featured a didgeridoo. Very neat.

Was also pretty interesting that I had no idea about any of the history of the place (found out later by asking around) before I went there. I plan to return with my housemates tomorrow night; they've promised to take me to one of the cafes they like.

I never thought I'd say this...

...but the cafeteria food is fantastic! I've been doing the whole bring-you-sandwich-to-work thing, but was actually given cash on our last social gathering by the IFMSA organizing girl (the one who's boyfriend's name is Anus) since we didn't get meal tickets, or some such thing. I didn't ask too many questions. Anyhow, I've been having a bit of difficulty finding good (read: both vegetarian and not ridiculously expensive) food, but apparently it's been hiding in the cafeteria this whole time. Not only that, but the food here is actually nutritious; they don't seem to have the standard burger/pizza/greaseball food that is unfortunately typical in most hospitals.



So I was in surgery today, talking to the Japanese dude who's started working here while we were both observing a procedure. The patient (3 years old) was having a modified Glenn procedure [most might want to skip to the end of this parenthetical, but for those interested, this patient needed to have his superior vena cava connected to the pulmonary artery thus bypassing the right side of the heart; normally this is done because the right heart isn't working, but in this case, the right heart was actually connected to the aorta in a previous surgery because the left heart wasn't working properly].

Anyhow, the Japanese dude was explaining a bit about the procedure, then we started talking about thoracic surgery in general, at which point the surgeon looks at us and says 'you can not talk while I am operating'. This was a bit unusual, as surgeons here mostly encourage talking, especially asking questions and what not. I almost responded with 'but what you're doing is so boooooooooooring. You want me to not talk too?'. Clearly, I am not cut out (pun intended) to be a thoracic surgeon, where the operations are several hours long; I just don't have the attention span for it. Although doing an operation would undoubtedly be more exciting, watching someone delicately disect away interstitial tissue is not.

Later on, Dr. Surgeon warms up a bit, and answers some questions I was asking Japanese dude (waited until there was a 'break' in the operation to ask). I asked whether or not a heart transplant would be a better alternative to the procedure, to which he replies: 'actually, the best treatment would be an abortion at 20 weeks'. Dead silence. Then some awkward silence. 'I'm actually quite serious' he goes on 'we're actually starting to screen for this defect now'. Wasn't really sure how to take this. I mean this guy was painstakingly operating on this poor kid for at least the second time in a procedure that takes the better part of a day. Clearly, he's making an effort, and trying to do what's best for the patient. At the end of the day, though, he sees it all as being futile, but continues to do it anyway. I guess I'll just file that one away under 'things that make you go hmmm'.

Stockholm field report

I've come to realize that this blog is becoming as much a journal as whatever it was I originally intended it to be. This one's about what I got up to over the weekend.

Train ride down was uneventful, though very comfortable. Am currently reading Hemmingway's 'For whom the bell tolls' which is quite good; got a chance to get through a chunk of that on the way up and down.

Made it into the hostel before they closed at 23:00. Note to self: some addresses are in Stockholm are shared by more than one door. Further note: some signage is diminutive or barely noticable at all. Further note: when entering a passcode into a door, entering it for the third time then pulling harder on the door will not yield different results.

Sleep was fantastic. You'd be surprised how much of a difference sleeping in a completely dark room will make. This is especially true if the sun is only down for 4 or 5 hours a night.

Got up to a bunch of stuff. Highlights include:
-random buildings that I don't even know what they are, but looked fantastic so I took lots of pictures
-the Royal Palace; guided tour was quite nice, with the tour guide taking a bunch of shots at the Danes
-the Aquarium, where they have a program where they release salmon every year, who a few years later will actually find their way back the the aquarium to spawn
-Grona Lund, an amusement park; made me realize how much Canada's Wonderland kicks ass
-trying viking beer; apparently the vikings drank tiny portions out of dainty glasses (this is much funnier with the visual, which, unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to upload yet)
-Nobel prize museum; neat, but kinda weird
-Nordic history museum; in no country have I ever visited have I ever found a history where the traditional peoples have not been oppressed by those who came afterwards
-hop-on-hop-off boat tour; a neat way to see the city
-Vasa(something) museum; biggest wooden Swedish warship that was ever constructed has been raised out of the harbour and placed inside a massive museum for all to see. Even more fantastic is that the ship sunk on it's maiden voyage, and was meant to be a symbol of Sweden's military might. Found this particularly cool since I like old boats and such.
-a bunch of military maneuvers by a bunch of military dudes. I guess around the palace is where they get to act all tough and stuff. My favourite part? When they all marched onto a chartered bus, and it took them away.
-trying to find the right souveniers is proving a bit tricky
-city hall was pretty fantastico
-absolut icebar; a bar made completely of ice: absoluetly over-rated
-old town has some pretty neat and narrow vendor-lined shops
-teenaged punks exist everywhere (they managed to scare off a street performer, who looked like he had a neat show lined up)
-I love falafel

Tried to pack in as much as I possibly could into the 44 hours I had while I was there, and definitely got some good use out of the shoes I bought for this trip. Would really be nice to be able to share some pictures, but whadreyagonnado?

My laundry story.

Sounds like an exciting post, doesn't it?

So the laundry room was described to me by Thue (my flatmate) as being, 'the door on the side of the building down the stairs'. So I go down to reserve a time (you need to hang a little wooden block with your name on this big board with dates/times, which is actually a pretty good system). I make it into the courtyard (we are on the 5th floor, which, by the way, the cat took a fall from, and needed nothing more than stitching on it's cheek), then go down the stairs into the building. Kind of snoop around for a bit, then this dude wearing all white comes over, speaks to me in Danish and shakes my hand. I just smile politely. Look around some more, and start thinking I'm in the wrong place. Do find a laundry machine and dryer, though, but not the wooden board, so I go back and ask the dude if he knows where it is. He replies in a puzzled manner, and answers something along the lines of 'no, just use it whenever'. So I snoop around some more, go down a hall, and see the inside of a restaurant. Come back and speak to the dude, and yup, I was in the backroom area of a very classy restaurant. The dude turns out to be the head chef, and I guess he thought I was the new help (hence the introduction). Very friendly guy. Found the laundry eventually (different door). Relayed the story to Thue, who is now considering sneaking in for some free food (which is incredibly expensive here).

Things at the hospital are going well. The pace is pretty slow, but that gives me time to read up on stuff. Am getting to try different procedures and such, so I feel like I'm finally (after two years in medicine) starting to develop some practical skills.

Off to Stockholm this weekend.

I'm awesome

Today I intubated a real-life patient for the first time ever. Got it right away. Thank you WMA!

Also assisted with a thyroidectomy. It's funny how things work here sometimes; I didn't even know what surgery was going on when I scrubbed in to help.

The great thing about the sun not setting until after 22:00 is that you can find a park and read until then.

May be going to Stockholm this weekend. If not, then the weekend after. Also looking into taking a ferry to Oslo before flying out of there to Eastern Europe somewhere. Though I'm having a great time getting to know Copenhagen, I'm starting to get excited about travelling afterwards, as it's getting to the time when I need to start booking tickets and such.

cheers,
-me

Random Thoughts

The funny thing about getting a bunch of medical students together whose first language isn't english is that when they struggle to come up with a word like 'bruise', they come up with a word like 'hematoma' instead.

The woman who taught me to put in a chest tube could get by as a celebrity impersonator of Michelle Pfeiffer.

During a CABG surgery today, I sutured up the leg from which they removed the greater saphenous vein by myself. Hooray for me. This elective is going well, and I'm feeling much more comforatble in this department.

Free jazz music is fantastic. There's a festival going on here which is stellar.

Weekend Wonderfulness

I had the opportunity to do a bit of travelling this weekend with Osvaldo, my partner-in-crime at the thoracics department. We made it to Elsinore, where we saw Hamlet's castle. From there took a ferry to Sweden (20 minutes away) to Helsingborg where we saw the remnants of a castle, as well as a very pretty Swedish town. The main attraction there was a garden which was kind of neat, though I appreciated the forest we walked through to get there much more. From what I can tell of Sweden, it's a very pretty country. The fact that there was no immigration or customs was nice; they also served beer on the fairy which I thought was funny. That reminds me, you can even have beer at the hospital. They sell it at the cafeteria, and they'll even deliver it to the inpatients. Crazy. I guess that would make your hospital experience a bit more bareable.

Anyhow, from Elsinore we went to Hillerod, which is home to possibly the coolest castle/landscaped garden I have ever seen. It was ridiculously awesome. Made the trip especially worthwhile, because we had considered heading home after checking out Hamlet's place. Perfectly manicured hedges laid out in really neat patterns, with cool-looking, though not over-the-top fountains/river/pond/waterfalls dealio running through the middle of everything.

Next day we headed west to Roskilde, where there's a massive week-long concert going on. We found this out afterwards, though on our way home we should have figured it out based on the incredible number of backpackers heading home. This is also where my one housemate has been spending most of his time, volunteering for 24 hours in exchange for free tickets.
Roskild is home to the Viking Ship Museum. This was a perfect example of don't-judge-a-book-by-it's-cover-ism, as the museum looked incredibly small and uniteresting at first sight. We ended up spending most of the day there, though, and participated in such activities as archery (I won a beer in a bet with Osvaldo), rowing, and sailing. Although rowing/sailing a viking ship around was good times, there was far less pillaging than I was expecting from this activity. The rowing also further confirms my stereotype that Danes have horrible timing, as the rowing was not exactly synchronous, and the dude behind my kept crashing into my oar about 50% of the time.

Sunday night was a social gathering for all the exchange students, and it was nice to meet people from all over the world. Took about thirty minutes before we started talking about religion, politics, etc, and it was really interesting to get perspectives from different parts of the globe. Also met a guy who's name is Anus.

Now for the bad news: I can't figure out how to upload pictures. None of the computers at home or the hospital take SD cards, and I didn't bring my camera cord. Boo hoo.

Also, Mexican candy is delicious.

Stupid tourists

Was walking by the train station the other day, when I heard the following comment:
'What are those four numbers for, daddy?'.
To set the scene, above the front of the train station, there are four red prominently displayed numbers, in some type of what-I-presume-to-be-electrically-powered display. During this incident, the numbers displayed were '1542'.
Father turns to his daughter and says 'I think it must be the year the train station was built'.
Yeah. The trainstation in Copenhagen was built in 1542, and they commemorated it by erecting a giant neon sign. It's the time, you idiot.

Also introduced myself to some American tourists (and a Dane) who were throwing the disc around in the park yesterday. Now have a bunch of leads on local spots to check out. Fantastic.

Never thought I'd find anesthesia interesting, but followed a doctor around this morning, who let me do some procedures on a patient. Maybe it was just the lack of other things going on. Apparently there's a doctor shortage here, but from what I've been able to gather, no one works particularly hard.

I think I've managed to cycle through the culture shock cycle in record time.

Biking around town is a fantastic way to see places you'd probably never walk to until you get a flat tire.

cheers,
-louis

I feel like I'm living in opposite land

...well at least when it comes to the medical side of things. Here are my five solid reasons why:
1. Everyone here is mandated to work no more than 37 hours per week. Everyone. That includes clerks and residents. As a result, though they do have overnight call shifts that last 24 hours, that means they can only work, you guessed it: 37-24=13 hours for the rest of the week.
2. The resident I spoke with was actually envious of our system, and wanted to work more. His reasons: you'd get a lot more experience with everything, and become competent much faster, if you worked the number of hours we did.
3. General practitioners make significantly more money than specialists in hospitals.
4. The work of general practitioners is considered more difficult.
5. Although the public system predominates, the private system is actually being subsidized by the government right now, because it's not doing as well as the publicly-run system.

Continuing in the medical scheme of things, I saw a transposition surgery today (switch the aorta with the pulmonary artery); the patient also had several septal defects corrected. She was 9 days old. Crazy. Apparently they only get something like 10 cases like this per year.
Oh, another random medical thing was when this one guy comes up to me and starts chatting me up about the American system. He seemed to be of the opinion himself that despite the fact that he could make way more money there, had no interest in going to the States because of their 'social problems', which he especially didn't want to expose his kids to. Haha.

Hey, there's a new feature in blogger that apparently saves your drafts as you're typing them. This comes in especially useful when the cat bats at the mouse and manages to close down the browser you're using to type stuff up in. How nice.

Did more of the walking tour thing today, and ended up in a museum for a bit. Apparently, Denmark has a relatively peaceful history. I found it funny describing a siege by British warships, which they enumerate in detail, as well as the plan of the British, which was essentially to steal all of Denmark's navy. The next line begins 'after Copenhagen's capitualtion, the British went on to...'. Guess they didn't see the point in fighting.

Communication with the dude in charge of our placement (herein referred to as the 'handler') has not been super-fantastic. He posted our names, as well as who we were paired with, in Danish, as well as our objectives for the elective. I found this out after the resident dude I was following around showed it to me, and translated the contents. I still haven't been introduced to the doctor I'm supposed paired up with. On the sunny side of things, the set-up other than that seems pretty sweet. Show up in the morning, find out what's going on that day, then pick whatever sounds the most interesting and do it. No other students around (holidays) so Osvaldo and I pretty much have the run of the department.

Ran across a bar in the sex district called the 'spunk bar'. Had to take a picture of it. While there, I asked a random Danish dude walking by what 'spunk' meant in Danish; he answered 'it's a type of candy'. He then started turning bright red. Don't know if asking him right next to his (presumed) girlfriend was such a good idea, but I think he could've come up with a better lie. I mean seriously, who eats candy at a bar? Also, the Danish word for stop is 'slut'. Figured this out after a while of pondering why so many operations on sluts ended so abruptly.

Also trying to figure out if I want to go to Stockholm or Oslo this weekend. I thought it'd be nice to check out the viking ship museum in Oslo.

Next post will either be more hilarious or have better visuals. I can almost promise.

Important things I learned today

1. How to bike for 25 minutes and not build up a sweat. For those interested, the trick is to pretend you're not a speed demon (which is really hard for me) and take 'er easy. Lack of showers at the hospital has me doing the whole commuting-in-work-clothes thing. Unfortunate because the loaner bike I have is killer (internal gears and everything, though I fail to understand the advantage of having pedals that can only be used one way).
2. I'm probably not going to be a surgeon (at least not a thoracic one). Yup, first day. Not that I don't find it interesting, I just can't handle standing for 5 hours straight. Lower back was killing me; maybe it's because my abs are so ripped that my back is pulled all out of alignment. Still going to be a fantastic experience (especially since I wouldn't have gotten to experience thoracics otherwise), and I'll be able to suture like a mo-fo, but thoracic surgery is probably not the life for me.
3. The secret to stitching an aorta. You ready? The trick is to do it really fast. Had to get sprayed with blood to learn that one.
4. If someone asks you where the 'windy city' is, the correct answer is 'Copenhagen', NOT 'Chicago'. I think I understand now why alternative energy such as wind turbines are so popular in Scandinavia: it's so freaking windy here! This conveniently brings me to how I'd love to take a boat to Poland, preferably a(n almost tall)ship I saw at the docks today.

Sightseeing has been fun so far. Have taken lots of pictures, but am too lazy to try to figure out how to upload them right now. Visited a canal with lots of funky sailboats today. It's along a busy street with restaurants, cafes, and the like. For those who are familiar with my love of all things nautical, you'll appreciate how good a time I'm having.

I still hold that the Danes have a terrible sense of timing. After specifically telling me to show up at 7:45 for a meeting (which was in Danish, by the way, and a complete waste of time), my preceptor dude comes strolling in at 9 am. Wanker. At least I had time to meet Osvaldo, the other exchange student from Mexico. The airlines lost all his luggage when he arrived, so when he presented himself to the preceptor (also yesterday, so I wasn't crazy in thinking we started on Monday), he took the day off to buy some clothes and such instead of sightsee. His take on it: 'actually, it was kind of funny'. We discussed hitting up Sweden at some point, likely on a weekend.

Also met one of my roommates today. He came home for a few hours, probably just to shower and change. He's currently at a festival of some kind. Seemed to be ok with me using his computer, and very happy that I'd feed the cat for them all. Nice guy, though his room reminds me of Simon's when I shared a house with him.

Did I mention there's less than 6 hours of darkness here at night? Haven't woken up early enough to figure out exactly how much less, but that's crazy.

Ok, that's it for now. Cheers (speaking of which, beer, not to mention foodstuffs, and general knicknackery is prohibitively expensive here; all the more reason to look forward to my future travels),
-lp