Catarina (ESR8) realized her 1st secondment from 02/04/17 to 27/05/17. She left Dijon in France to Odense in Denmark.

I have never been in Denmark before and I arrived knowing only one word of Danish “tak”, which means thank you. I though I would find a language barrier similar to what I’ve found in France but in fact I was remarkably wrong: in Denmark everyone speaks English quite fluently, so my integration was very smooth! In order to have a full Danish living experience I rented a bicycle and it was my only mean of transportation during those 2 months in Odense. It turned out to be a great decision since I was spending long periods of time on the lab so I had no time to spare to do any sports. At the end, I enjoyed the freedom of riding a bike everywhere so much that by it was sad to leave my bicycle behind. Denmark in its all, is very well organized and Danes are generally reserved but kind people. The Biochemistry and Molecular Biology lab at SDU was the biggest I’ve ever work, with several benches on its three floors, and though it were many researchers and students sharing the space it was always very tidy. For the first time I had to work with radioactivity in order to label probes for northern blotting so I had an introduction to the isotope lab to learn how to work securely during my stay. Odense is a cozy city and I got the chance of visiting the island and see its famous Zoo and the Hans Christian Anderson Museum. Summarizing, my stay in Denmark had many positive sides, not only enabled me to adapt to a different country with a different life style and develop my social skills, it also offered me the experience of working in another lab, trying new techniques, interacting with new peers and broad my networking.

 

 

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska Curie grant agreement n° 641984