P.S.

May month is Speech & Hearing Awareness month!
http://www.caslpa.ca/english/profession/index.asp
and
http://www.ted.com/talks/roger_ebert_remaking_my_voice.html

One last entry before we meet again

Hello everyone,
Today was a very nice day and a good way to wrap up the trip. I think I'm starting to slowly embrace travelling alone and asking for a 'table for one' :P After a nice boat tour of the city, narrated by the same girl in Danish, English, Italian and then Russian (!) I decided to head for the Church of Our Saviour (mentioned by Jules Verne I think) so I could climb the famous winding staircase to the top. I will fully admit that I chickened out (the floors were moving and it was windy!) and didn't climb it all the way. I did take this photo while hugging the wall and trying to maintain my cool. On the right side of the picture, kind of half-way on the side is a modern building facing the water - this is the opera house. Exactly across from it, on the left, also facing the water, is the theater. It opened with Hamlet, which apparently is set in Copenhagen.
Pete, you mentioned some of the local food - herrings I've had, but in Edmonton...from Costco :). They had them at the hotel in Turku as well, but for breakfast which didn't appeal to me at the time. In Copenhagen I haven't quite seen anything 'local'. Last night I had duck in red wine sauce. It was spectacular! I also had some banana-nutella chocolate crepes which I'm fairly confident I can duplicate at home. You can get anything from Chinese to Italian to Subway here. I did enjoy a coffee and a creme brulee on a marina patio by Christian Andersen's house - a tiny sad little dish of creme brulee was 16 Euros!!

Well, time to pack and call it a day - tomorrow I head back home; I miss everyone and I should likely start training again. Mini-tri is set for May 22nd.

Love,

Gabi

Copenhagen - the bike haven

I left Turku at 6:45 in the morning. The airport there has a total of 4 terminals, a stark difference between that of Copenhagen's, the largest airport in Scandinavia. After landing here at 7 am local time, I decided to make my way slowly towards the hotel, with two heavy bags dragging behind me. Locals here are very sweet and eager to help, but I was sent in the complete opposite direction 3 out of 3 times. The hotel is situated, conveninetly, in the heart of the old city, 1 block away from the central metro station and within walking distance from all the big parks, the castle, and the central shopping streets. Unconveninetly however, one must haul one's luggage up 7 flights of stairs (or more, depending where your room is).

Copenhagen is a gorgeous city! Its population I think is around 1.2 million people (compare that to Turku's 150,000). It's also the place in Europe to take your standard artistic "bike-leaning-against-brick wall" photo. I have never seen so many bikes in one place in my life. It's actually quite awesome! Wiki tells me that 36% of the population here commutes to work and that it is considered one of the world's most environmentally friendly cities.
One more day before I head home! Oh, and despite the blog title, the stop in Copenhagen was not for work ;)

Gabi

yksi, kaksi, kolme - the extent of my Finnish

Today was more work and meetings. I think we accomplished a lot by coming here and both sides had a lot to learn. Everyone here is super nice and humble.
I did a little bit of shopping and walking around, but unfortunately I have not had the chance to see much of the town. Although Turku has been named the Cultural Capital of Europe for 2011, most of their festivals happen in the summer, much like in Edmonton. The weather here is also strangely familiar.
I also get the feeling that people in Turku don't embrace the muumi culture as much as I initially thought. I think they may feel the same way towards Muumiworld as Romanians do towards Dracula-land. Still, I purchased some :)
Off to Copenhagen tomorrow morning at 5am! I will admit that I'm ready to come home at this point.
Excerpt from the Turku hotel guide:
"Facts and Fables - #3 Women from Turku are beautiful - Fact. Watch the cityscape. All men are handsome too, and children more intelligent than average."
Love,
Gabi

Nothing to report, really :)

Today was focused solely on work, from 9 am until 10 pm, so I haven't had a chance to see much of the town. Here are some pictures I took yesterday on a brief walk around the hotel.

As you can see, people don't lock their bikes here. They don't wear helmets either! The second picture is of a church from the 12th century.

I did learn that Finland was under Swedish rule once and then Russian rule as well. Turku used to be the capital. Turku has a population of about 150,000 people, but the University hospital serves the population surrounding the city as well. I still haven't picked up any words yet - this language is intense. Everyone here however, is required to speak English to have a job. Most people also speak Russian and Swedish.
I hope to have some time to see something tomorrow.
Also, I found this gem in a bookstore window :)

Hello from Turrrrrrku

I made it!

(one minor correction from my last entry: I meant to say Frankfurt)

This might make little sense as I haven't slept in 21 hours. The flight Chicago - Frankfurt was oversold and cramped. I sat next to some entertaining people from Oregon though and I got to finish On the Outside Looking Indian. Now I'm well into The Unbearable Lightness of Being which is very melancholic, and beautiful. After landing in Frankfurt (I got it right that time!) I had 40 minutes to make it to my next flight. A line-up at customs and another one to go through security again made getting to my connecting flight the ultimate challenge! To add to it all, none of the attendants spoke English, so when I desperately pointed at my boarding time (20 minutes ago) all I got was, "Yes, B12 is to the right. Follow the line." I received the exact same response to other questions, which clued me in that I wasn't getting through. Anyway, I had to beg to go in front of people and a nice girl from Marseilles helped me find a 'secret' faster line. With no minutes to spare before the plane took off, I had made it! After that I caught my two other flights and now I'm in Turku.

Turku: Some first impressions. Well...

It's interesting.
There's a GIANT mirror above my bed, with um, pink lights surrounding this very elaborate golden frame. There are about 4 other mirrors in this otherwise small room. Everything else is very modest. On TV, all the american actors speak Finnish.

To add to my list of things I wish I had brought: plug adaptor. I'm running on battery and if I don't find one tomorrow at a store I may be MIA when the battery runs out.

I'm off to try and get some intermittent sleep.

I miss everyone dearly.

Gabi

Chicago in 12 hours

Well one of you must have asked for sun, because he finally made an appearance today, just in time! Not only that, but my breakfast orange juice was made with happiness and double rainbows...

After a free breakfast from the nice people at Silk who gave us samples (Almond Chocolate is by far the best by the way), we embarked on the architectural boat tour of Chicago. That was 90 minutes jam-packed with information! I saw the building where The Dark Knight and Transformers was filmed as well as the building that Ferris' dad worked out of :) (From Ferris Bueller's Day Off).

After that we ventured to the Ferris Wheel again, which is actually half the size of the one that was originally built in 1893! That's right: that's 150ft more than the one we went on today! And the cars from the original ferris wheel could sit 60 people. After we had some gross and overly priced fair food we made our way out through masses of little loud lively schoolchildren. Where did we go from here for the next 4 hours you ask? Weeeeeellll...

Like any respectable nerds, we found the University of Chicago - pretty as it may look in this photo, I assure you, one must go through some sketchy sketchy neighbourhoods to get to it. After that, it took us even longer to find the hospital, and then the Otolaryngology and Speech/Swallow department. We were only accosted by security once. Tired and with stiff legs, walking back to the train made me think of the two ladies in Rat Race who don't buy a squirrel, after getting out of the rocket car...yup, that's the exact image of Irene and I. It was worth it! We ended the night off with some dinner and the theater - a Broadway musical of Next to Normal. It's been a while since I've seen something this good.

"What's the difference between being happy and thinking you're happy?

--The people who think they're happy, haven't thought about it long enough" --Next to Normal.

I'm off from Chicago to Freiburg to Copenhagen and finally landing in Turku on May 1st.

Good night,

Gabi

Rain rain and more rain

Hello,
Today I saw my first SLP talk! It may have been the only one during this entire conference. The study showed that prophylactic swallowing exercises had no statistically significant benefit on functional swallow outcomes at the 3-month post CRT time point. Irene presented at the poster session.

I took a solo walk in the Loop section of downtown Chicago, otherwise known as the commercial historical center of downtown. The architecture gives the city a wonderful texture: you have the old with the new, the detailed with the minimalist, the gothic with the modern.

In other news, some things I regret not bringing include: dressy flats, tylenol, an umbrella.

The rest of the evening was spent on the Magnificent Mile, not buying things. I did however indulge in this hot chocolate with caramel from Ghirardelli. Yum.
Love,

Gabi

I am in love with this city!

Today was a day full of conference talks. The male to female ratio in the room was incredulously high! I feel like I'm in the wrong building. All these suits, patting themselves on the back, calling themselves 'the most educated people of society'. What about rocket scientists?! Then one of the MDs used the phrase 'evidence based' and 'god' in the same sentence... He also asked all MDs in the room to greet a janitor because somehow, that's what defines you as a 'nice' person and physcians are also healers of society.

After the conference Irene and I went to Andy's Jazz Club where our waitress was a Romanian named Adela from Targu Mures! We took a picture together and I busted out my Romanian. We listened to Matt Nelson Trio - very good; I got their CD and we had some very yummy dinner. We had then intended to go on the Ferris Wheel, but it closed at 8:00pm. B'oh! We'll aim for Friday.

I learned that the ferris wheel here is actually a replica of the 1st ferris wheel ever built, which was done here, in Chicago, in 1893. The idea came from George Washington Gale Ferris, a 32 year-old civil engineer. The ferris wheel was built to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of America. Later, in the park, I found someone who could help me out...

Off to bed; tomorrow is another long day of conference talks followed by a poster session that goes late into the evening.

Cheerio!

Gabi

P.S. I met a really cute dog today that's a bearded Collie. His name was Ringo and he was 4 months old :)

Hello from Chicago, day 2.

Today was, what I had anticipated to be, the toughest day of the whole trip. We'll see if that holds true. From about 9 am until 9 pm, the entire day consisted of prepping, meeting and a good dose of schmoozing.

After 2 1-hour meetings, 1 4-hour meeting and a 3 hour dinner, I am ready for bed! My hope is that I can retain everything that was said today or that I have taken good enough notes to be able to transcribe minutes in 2 weeks time.

Today's highlight was dinner at Quartino, a little Italian place in downtown Chicago (the picture is from yesterday's dinner by the way...) The food was amazing, but not served as a meal-per-person style, but rather as a shared dinner between all 10 guests. I'm not even sure what I had anymore, I must have tried 12 different dishes tonight. Today was also the first time I have walked into a bathroom with an attendant in it; a very strange experience. It reminded me of a conversation we had over lunch at work once about stinking up the bathroom and blaming it on the person who was there before you -- you could never do that in this particular situation...

Also, trekking all over downtown in high heels has reminded me that I don't have the callouses for regular high heel use. Unfortunately, they're the only dress shoes I brought. It's either that for the next two days...or my converse.

Until tomorrow! I can't wait to sit back and learn. Yay!

Love,

Gabi

P.S. I miss my bed and my laptop already. I also miss Oliver :(

P.P.S. One of the participants today remarked that Chicago was his favourite city to visit. When asked why, he replied that the conference rooms are really nice here...

First night in Chicago

Hello,

After a slightly turbulent flight, we landed in Chicago at 5:30 local time. The weather here is wet, gray, foggy and dreary but the effect that this creates on the skyscraper skyline is beyond words.

I love this city :) I haven't seen any trees or grass yet though.

Irene and I had deep dish pizza for dinner. We didn't even finished half of a 10" pizza between the two of us, even though the label read that it serves 1-2!

As for my book - On the Outside Looking Indian - it might as well be called On the Outside Looking Immigrant. Nothing new or groundbreaking - but a very easy read.

Well, I'm off to study for tomorrow.

Cheers.
Gabi

My very first post...on my very first blog

I'm going to give this a try and see how it works. If I have wifi in Chicago/ Turku/ Copenhagen then I can keep you posted...if you care that is.

I'm just about to finish packing. My two travel companions will be Milan Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of Being and Rupinder Gill's On the Outside Looking Indian.