Exploring Scandinavia

I’m not entirely sure what it was about Stockholm, but for some unknown reason, I was more excited to visit this city prior to leaving for the trip than I was for the other two. That is not to say that I wasn’t excited for the others as well, but it is definitely safe to say that Stockholm (and the other cities, for that matter) lived up to the hype that I had created in my head since the day I got the email telling me that I’d be going on this trip.

Being a music major, I would always get excited when something on the trip involved music. In Copenhagen, it warmed my heart to hear the tour guide explain how they had just recently built an opera house across the river from Amalienborg Palace and Frederik’s Church to have three important parts of their society represented in one place: music, government, and religion. I really appreciated how much that music was valued. Similarly, in Stockholm, the changing of the guard at the Royal Palace was a true spectacle (all thirty minutes of it). The marching band was a large part of the changing of the guard ceremony. They lead the procession, provided entertainment, and signaled various parts of the event. I was completely caught off guard when I heard over the speakers that the band would give a concert which would include Uptown Funk (the TCU Marching Band had performed the same thing this past football season, so the marching band version was the only version that I’d hear in my head anymore).

I can’t believe the trip of a lifetime is already over. It feels like just yesterday I was meeting everyone at the pre-trip dinner in the BLUU and trying to make sure I didn’t forget to pack something important. This trip has given me some fantastic memories with some fantastic people, and I am eternally grateful that I was able to be a part of it.

 

Whenever I had a bit of down time during this trip, I was scrambling to put together a paper, poster, and presentation for the research I had been doing this summer.  Having spent most of my time in a nano biophysics laboratory this summer, I’ve gained some perspective on what it’s like to be in the trenches of hard science.  Before, I had only seen the glitz and glam of new discoveries, and I had never realized how difficult, lonely, and often discouraging it can be as a researcher.  I’ve spent long hours sitting in front of monitors, in the cold, bug infested basement of Sid Richardson, feeling lonely as I worked in solitude in a lifeless environment, feeling totally incompetent as I sifted through publications in scientific journals full of esoteric jargon that I couldn’t comprehend, feeling disconnected as I worked with microscopic nanomaterials I couldn’t see or touch, feeling hopeless as results were inconclusive or didn’t match with hypothesis.  I realized that being a researcher was far from being a comfortable career, and I lost confidence in my ability to pursue it.

Every single scientist honored in the Nobel Prize center had also felt the same way. But they still pursued a career in science despite all the uncertainty, the low probability of success, and the low appreciation by the public.  Which is why I felt so much joy to see scientists honored in the Nobel Prize center in Stockholm.  I felt kinship with them, seeing their sacrifice, hardship, and important work that I get to build on.  In 2004,  Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov extracted single-atom-thick crystallites from bulk graphite via the Scotch-tape method (see picture above).  In 2010, they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of a method to produce graphene.  This very graphene was the center of my research this summer.

When I saw the scotch tape exhibit in the Nobel Peace Center, I suddenly felt full of pride for my work and for being a successor to the work of such great minds.  I felt a renewed motivation to go back to the lab and maybe one day, just maybe, be featured on those walls.

 

 

Right when I started telling family and friends about my upcoming trip, I started hearing a few main things that I had to do/try. One thing that constantly came up was Scandinavian chocolate. I didn’t pay too much attention, as I was going to Belgium beforehand. I mean, Belgian chocolate is supposed to be the gold standard.

However, as a deep lover of all things chocolate I instantly started taking notice of all of the chocolate shops we passed when we got to Norway. With my first chocolate stop in Oslo at Freia, I started asking about the chocolate culture in Scandinavia. I was surprised to learn that Norway actually is one of the biggest chocolate consuming countries in the world! The average Norwegian eats approximately 18 POUNDS of chocolate each year!

Naturally, I bought some of Norway’s top selling chocolate- the Freia milk chocolate bar. Gotta say, it even beat Belgian chocolate.

I continued the chocolate hunt in Denmark and Sweden. While the Danes didn’t seem to be too huge on chocolate (they prefer sugary candies of other types, and even eat the most candy of all countries), Sweden also had a huge taste for chocolate. The store we stopped at in Gamla Stan featured all of their chocolate made in Sweden, which they were very proud of. The store owner said the Swedes won’t eat chocolate that wasn’t made in Sweden. Naturally, I had to sample some.

Once again, I was not disappointed.

While I never thought of chocolate when thinking of Scandinavia before, I have to say they surprised me. I’ll probably have to start importing it or something. If there’s one thing that I could relate to any Scandinavian about, chocolate is an easy choice.

From the moment I saw the black and pink sign hanging on a storefront in Oslo, I was obsessed. Obsessed with the modern design of the store’s interior, excited by the trendy music playing in the background, and in love with the attractive baristas making the best assortment of coffee, juices, and smoothies. 

Joe & the Juice became a necessary stop in every Scandinavian country we visited, and I even went so far as to ask for a handfull of their logo stickers to wear on my shirt. As my cultural artifact, this coffee shop is a perfect representation of what I love most about Scandinavia- the slow paced lifestyle, health conscious habits, and people-centered values. 

Firstly, the store doesn’t open until 10 am which is a perfect reflection of the leisurely mornings that these Europeans enjoy. A slower-paced lifestyle trumps the daily American frenzy as customers sit down to enjoy their drinks rather than rush on to their next stop. Secondly, the coffee shop serves tropical fruit juices and fresh exotic smoothies which reflects the health conscious, active lifestyles that these avid biking cities promote. And most importantly of all, the friendly interaction between baristas and customers reminds me of the value that Scandinavians place upon the rights and dignity of all human beings. Here, the government is structured as a social democracy. Public healthcare, education, and retirement homes ensures a higher standard of living for the population as individuals forego personal income to promote the overall wellbeing of their country. Furthermore, their prison system is based upon rehabilitation rather than punishment because they believe that all humans deserve the right to a better life. 

If I’m taking away one thing from this trip, it would be admiration for a group of countries that have successfully balanced the need for sacrifice and the desire for achievement to ensure all citizens are able to benefit from a higher quality of life. 

Goodbye Norway. Goodbye Denmark. Goodbye Joe & the Juice. I’ll always be your number one fan. 

On this trip, we have been asked to identify a cultural artifact that represents us. I genuinely struggled until walking through the doors of the Nobel Prize Museum in Stockholm. This item on our itinerary did not particularly stick out to me, and I did not come in with very much knowledge on the awards that are given. However, this ended up being one of my absolute favorite places. It is especially important in Sweden as the Nobel Prizes for Physics, Chemistry, Physiology, and Literature as well as an award in Economics are only given out here.

There really is not much to the museum, but at the back, they have a special photography exhibition. The photographer took on the task of getting portraits of some of the Nobel laureates. He decided to make it interesting though. Without giving the scientists any prior warning, he gave them a giant piece of poster paper and asked them to illustrate what exactly they won their Nobel Prize for. Then, he took their pictures with their posters against a simple white backdrop. He gave them freedom to pose how they wished and allowed their personalities to come alive in the photographs. Now, these pictures are posted around the room with short comments on the photographer’s experience of working with each of these individuals. I loved how transparent and quirky it was. 

For the discoverer of water channels, he wrote, “This is a sportsman in sneakers. He sketches a beautiful picture of his discovery, the aquaporin channels in the cell membrane. During the shoot, he gives me a demonstration of some rather cool ski moves – while holding the sketch with his Nobel discovery!”

For the discoverer of telomeres and telomerases, he wrote, “The sketch comes out detailed, colourful, and humourous. There are emoticons and sound effects… So, this is the kind of professor I would have liked to have had.”

What really blew my mind was how recent all of these highlighted discoveries have been. Many of these awards were given in the 2000’s, and the concepts are now within the pages of my biology, chemistry, and physics textbooks. These fascinating individuals are the pilgrims, blazing the way of scientific exploration. The knowledge I am gaining is so fresh which only means that my field will continue to expand for as long as I live. It is a necessity for me to be a lifelong student, and this exhibit made this truth so glaringly apparent to me. I am a scientist and that identity has connected me to this city through the Nobel Prize Museum.

We had a great guide who gave us background on the museum, especially regarding the nomination and awarding process. Afterwards, I talked with her a bit. She has been working for the museum for many years and has a lot of inside knowledge. She said that most people do not know that laureates in the sciences are nominated for an average of 10 consecutive years before they ever win. They are also generally older and fall into the 50+ age category. I know there is some statistic floating around about the likelihood of a high school football player making it to the NFL (it’s less than 1%). I would be interested to hear what the likelihood of a scientist becoming a Nobel Prize laureate is, but I would guess that it is even more rare. A Nobel Prize is certainly only achieved with a high level of commitment. That is what it takes to go down in history as the Francis Crick’s and Linus Pauling’s of the world.

Last semester, I took a course with Dr. Whitworth titled “Sustainability: Economic, Environmental, and Social Justice.” We covered a whole array of topics from food systems to consumer habits to housing and urban development. During our discussion of the latter topic, Hammarby Sjöstad, an urban residential development in Stockholm, was put forth as an example of progressive, sustainable housing. As such, I planned to visit the neighborhood while in Stockholm to see if it really lived up to what we had discussed.

I chose to analyze Hammarby Sjöstad as my cultural artifact for the trip because, upon asking the concierge how to get there, I was bombarded by a rant on how the “greenness” of the neighborhood is a “myth.” She told me it wasn’t worth it to go there, an opinion seconded by the receptionist who also told me it was “all BS” (his words, not mine). On the other hand, Dr. Whitworth had commended this development as an advancement in sustainable living, and the advertisements for the neighborhood touted how eco-friendly it was supposed to be. Naturally, my interest was piqued by the two conflicting views I had been given of Hammarby Sjöstad.

So, I decided to venture out there anyways with a few of my wonderfully obliging peers to see what it was like for myself! There had to be a reason for this discrepancy in perceptions, and I wanted to see what the reality was.

My conclusion was this: Hammarby Sjöstad indeed has many sustainable aspects to it, but for some Swedes, it’s simply not enough. Brooke and I spoke with a resident of the neighborhood who was out watching his daughter play in the community sandbox. He had been living there for three months and had chosen to move out there to be closer to nature (the neighborhood is roughly three miles from the city center). He told us that he had six different waste bins for sorting trash, which he takes to the pneumatic disposal tubes that transport it to the on-site recycling and composting facilities. His residence is equipped with water- and energy-efficient features, he has easy access to multiple public transport options with a new Metro station opening across the street soon, and he is able to work out in the local outdoor gym or go hiking in the nearby parks if he so wishes. Moreover, the neighborhood was built on a site that was formerly an industrial area, reclaiming land that might have sat unused for years. Yet, as we plied him with questions about the neighborhood, I got the sense that while each of these eco-friendly aspects are good and helpful, to some they may seem like small drops in the bucket of solving our Earth’s environmental issues.

(Pneumatic disposal system.)

The concierge I spoke with had a great number of concerns about the environmental well-being of Sweden and the planet as a whole. She lamented that people could no longer safely swim in the waters off of Stockholm due to pollution; the daily Stockholm newspaper now includes a Water Quality Index to publicize how good or bad the water is each day. She also claimed that environmentalism was limited to the middle class because of its extra costs. What I sensed from her complaints was that Swedes desire a deeper, more systemic change to advance toward a cleaner, greener future. While Hammarby Sjöstad is a step in the right direction, perhaps they feel that it is too highly lauded given the small impact it has compared to bigger issues like ocean pollution or nonrenewable energy consumption.

In reality, both the little and the big changes are important. The “greenness” of Hammarby Sjöstad is not a myth, and I would love to see similar developments pop up in the U.S. because these neighborhoods have the potential to improve the environment and people’s quality of life. However, we can’t get so caught up in the small improvements that we fail to address the larger, more complex environmental issues as well. The tension that Hammarby Sjöstad has apparently created in Swedish dialogue demonstrates this clearly.

We arrived in Stockholm a few days ago after a sleepy five hour train ride from Copenhagen through the Swedish countryside. 

I have to say, one of my favorite aspects of this trip is that we’ve used pretty much every means of transportation to get around: plane, train, boat, bus, metro, taxi and tram. I usually only use a car to get around, so it’s been a new and fun experience to navigate the system.

Sweden definitely has a different vibe than both Copenhagen and Oslo. After all, it has a population of about 10 million people with 2 million of them in Stockholm, making the area feel much more metropolitan.

On our first full day, we explored the palace and watched the changing of the guard. I was struck with the notion that Royal palaces like the one I was standing in are places where tradition and contemporary culture collide. 

On our tour of the grandiose palace, we learned how the King and Queen welcome dignitaries in the same room that they host raves for the people. Each room was classically decorated but had a modern function in today’s environment.

All of the cities we went to had a royal family with a palace at the center of the city. For such an egalitarian society, this symbol of wealth and power felt out of place. That is, until a local girl in Oslo explained to us how she felt about it.

She said that the Royal family is a symbol of dignity and tradition for the country and that they don’t really think of them as the elite or wealthy.

This feedback confirmed the fact that prestige and influence doesn’t necessarily equate with privilege and elitism.

Additionally, if I’ve learned anything from this trip, it’s that Scandinavian governments operate completely differently than American government, but both systems are ruled by democracy. For these countries, I appreciate the relatively peaceful transition from monarchy to democracy through the balance of both tradition and the will of the people. 

Personally, I have always been a huge fan of all things Disney, which of course means that I am obsessed with Disney princesses. I even bought a tiara at the palace in Copenhagen to prove it. I’d like to think that the benevolence and compassion demonstrated by royalty in Disney movies might be inspired by the Scandinavian monarchs. 

2 weeks in Scandinavia has given me a glimpse into the lives and cultures of a population of people raised very differently from me. One of the tasks set before us as a group was to individually find a cultural artifact in one (or all) of the cities with which you identify. As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, LGBT culture is something deeply important to me as a member of that community and something I tend to observe when I travel. Therefore, I decided to pick that as my cultural artifact. 

Coincidentally, the few days we were in Stockholm overlapped with the city’s gay pride festival. This wasn’t something I was expecting at all, mostly because the majority of pride festivals are in June. When we stepped off the train from Copenhagen I noticed the rainbow decorations in the station and was curious as to why the city seemed to be decked out for something LGBT-related. Lo and behold, once we got to the hotel I was informed the city’s Pride was going on all that week and weekend.Now, I’ve been to a few Prides in America, but those pale in comparison to what I saw in Stockholm. I’ve never seen a city embrace LBGT culture so intensely the way this Swedish city did – everywhere you looked there were rainbow flags and posters and stickers. Every business seemed to have a flag posted outside its doors and there were even huge flags next to the Swedish flags located around the city. I’ve never seen anything like it. 

America doesn’t have the same track record with LGBT rights as Scandinavian cultures. Same-sex marriage was legalized in Sweden in 2009, in Denmark in 2012 and in 2009 in Norway, while America didn’t get around to legalizing it until last summer. That speed is represented in the approval rankings in the countries. According to various polls, 79% of Danes, 71% of Swedes and 78% of Norwegians support the legalization of same-sex marriage, but in America that number sinks to only 63% of the population supporting gay marriage.

That difference in approval is evident when you compare the cultures of America and Scandinavia. Just seeing the sheer amount of rainbow decorations in the city from a huge range of people and businesses made me feel so appreciated and accepted in Stockholm, while I’ve personally never seen support to that extent in America.

Perhaps that difference is derived from the difference in religiosity in the 2 regions. Scandinavia is a much less religious area than America, and that may have a hand in the acceptance of same-sex marriage and LGBT individuals.

Regardless, it was a really special experience to be in Stockholm at the same time as its Pride Week. It was very interesting to see the increased support for the LGBT community, and it made me realize just how far America has to go in terms of human rights work. This aspect of Scandinavian life gave me an insight into the differing cultures between our country and this region, which was definitely a broadening experience. 

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More on Stockholm later! – Joce 

I first considered a hospital as I am Pre-medicine, interested in the differences between healthcare, and talked to Mrs. Hertzberg, a Norwegian nurse, about her positive outlook on Norway’s system. I also considered a university as I find it fascinating how Europe’s higher education system of paid schooling works, its surprising quality, and got to discuss with a tour guide, a student at the University of Copenhagen, about her positive experience.

But what ended up impressing me the most were the skeletons from the Vasa museum.

The Vasa museum was amazing starting with the fact that I love experiencing what everyday life was like in the past. The museum centers around an over 30 year-old ship (one of the largest restoration projects in our history) that was one of the largest, most daunting ships of its time. The ship made it just out of port before a wind gust easily tipped it over because the four stories of height above the water alone was too much for the rock weight in the hull. Thirty crew members died and the ship sunk in minutes.

Anyway, I was walking around the section where they displayed the more complete skeletons recovered from the wreckage. I enjoy learning about human anatomy, human history, and these skeletons interested me. I examined each. Some had longer bones; others had shorter. Some had ribs nearly completing an entire chest; others were missing ribs entirely. And yet some still had their full set of teeth; others, well, needed dentures. After realizing it might be getting creepy how long I was looking at these skeletons, I decided to move on. I looked back to reflect, proud of all the detailed comparisons and expert examinations I had just performed. They all, then, looked remarkably similar. Like a bunch of off-white, browning bones arranged into about twenty incomplete skeletons. Worrying I just wasted a bunch of valuable museum time on these jumbled bones, I began walking away and saw there were names and passages on the wall across from the show cases.

They were stories.

Not only were these random stories with names, I now noticed the skeletons each had name plates above them connected to the life histories. I immediately returned to the beginning of the crypt to start all over. For each, I read the passage and went back to the skeleton to reexamine–sometimes taking a few trips. Some left behind families. Some left behind enormous wealth. And yet some left behind alternative deaths from various illnesses, disease, or malnutrition.

Two people stood out to me. The first, supposedly the captain, Jonsson [left]. The second, an unknown teenager [right].

 

The captain was found with high quality clothes and gold. The teenager was found with no possessions and evidence of malnutrition. Reading these and the other twenty accounts, each had unique stories in life. Whether or not they came with status, riches, or diseases, they all ended up in the same place as a collection of bones at a museum.

This exhibit let me experience their lives but also reminded me of world culture today. On the trip, we toured sprawling palaces, ate with the Oslo chief accountant, and experienced the Pride parade. Each of us have different privileges, different niches, and different stories. But regardless of what those are, we can see the sameness we all share when the layers decay away.

Time. We never seem to have enough of it. While visiting the Royal Palace in Stockholm, I learned that the keeping of time signifies much more than numbers and two ticking hands. 

The handful of palaces I have visited are exquisite. There are hundreds of rooms, thousands of chandeliers, and lavish furniture. But in Stockholm there was one additional thing that stood out from the others. There were two rooms entirely dedicated to clocks. Clocks seem like a peculiar choice for a cultural artifact. I mean, we have them back home after all? The clocks were ornate and beautiful, larges and small. But it’s wasn’t their intricacies that caught my attention. It was the explanation of their purpose in the palace. They described the important history of clocks, their significance to society, and their peacemaking capabilities.   

Many of the clocks on display were given to Sweden as gifts. They were meant to signify friendship, gratitude, and good and friendly relationships between countries. They were cultural and characteristic of the donor country, offering a little taste of the world to the palace. 

Additionally one sign read: “When the striking of the clocks began to mark out the days, it was largely because of changes in society: a newfound faith in progress gave time an absolute authority, because it measured people’s advance to a better world.” 

Upon reading this, the true weight of time’s significance really hit me. The fact that the systematic keeping of time was not always a standard became obvious. Where did time come from? How did it begin? Regardless, the introduction of the clock had an immense impact on society. 

Measured time allowed for an increase in demand for discipline in daily life. “Early industrialism was heavily reliant on fixed working hours and routines”, read another display. It was incredible the social progress that was made due to clocks. 

Then I couldn’t help but think how far we’ve come since then, and what time means to us now. We complain we don’t have enough. We are running from place to place, constantly battling measured time. Society is entirely driven by the discipline that clocks brought hundreds of years ago. It reminded me that time is bigger than a sequence of numbers or a point in the day. Time is an incredible gift. By measuring time via clocks, we have harnessed an aspect of nature to something we can count. Like the generous clock gifts, I was reminded that time should be appreciated instead of wasted. We should spend our time on friendship, gratitude, and fostering good and friendly relationships.