Miss Kolka

swineflu - what are we to think? | 13 août 2009

We had been waiting for this since early 1997- a human birdflu and something contagious enough to make alot of people sweat (literally) . Oh, and when I say "we" I mean the people in news media of course, which incendently Im not part of anymore, unless you count citizen journalism for anything.

The trick is now to filter the information. Apparently what everybody seems to agree about is that a pandemic (or alot of cases) is inevitable this autumn. It is going to affect socities worldwide but how important or dangerous this impact is going to be, is hard to say. If the H1N1 virus stays as it is, it is not that deadly, and actually less than the more common influenza we have known for years. There seems to be conflicting reports about how deadly exactly the swineflu is. There have been stories about "healthy young individuals" dying of the virus. These are normally not considered at risk with normal influenza where it is the very young, sick or very old that get gravely ill. But I could not give you any examples and in some cases it has come out that this or that person actually did have some other healthproblems exc. Its not very clear.

The French, always very up to date on medical progress and a huge pharmaceutical country report alot on the swineflu. The education minister has said he would not hesitate to close schools to stop the spreading of the virus. Doctors and researchers, often asked for their opinions say that more has to be done, transport systems might shut down and hospitals be under alot of pressure. Im not saying that these sometimes alarmist specialists are all linked to the big pharamceutical companies who happen to produce Tamiflu in enormous quantities (the wonder drug against the flu, which I thought was caused by a virus and so by definition there wasn't much you could do once you had it) - How much money are we talking about that governments are spending on the drug, billions of euros? But it is not to be forgotten when informing yourself on the disease.

Some say that the virus is bound to mutate and become more deadly and dangerous. What do we know? Until it happens, there is no way of knowing and by that time, if this strain of H1N1 is as contagious as it is said to be, almost half of the world will be immune to the new strain.

So is it worrying? Of course. Because the media tell us everyday. But they are also having a field day. Always a little story that can be found on a slow news day. And like me, manytv-producers like disaster scenarios. I just don't think that we realise that we are not all jake gyllenhal, the hero that survives the semi-end of the world. And frankly, the swineflu hasn't come to that, yet.

Publié par Kolka à 18:08:08 dans Miss Kolka | Commentaires (0) | Permaliens

Was it for an underwater Rock concert? | 11 août 2009

So it turns out this country isn't perfect. Although I might have praised the ultimate "motherland of maternity" as my friend calls it, the number of babies here is not always a good thing. As Pan experienced at 5. am this morning. This is why my man got up at this ungodly hour:

We live 100 meters from a very nice pool. Mr. F has shown with some impressive acrobatic moves for a 3 month old (at the time) that he likes going to the swimmingpool. So the parents thought that they could make this a weekly activity for the little one. One catch: there aren't so many classes in this swimmingpool and in the particular timeframe we were interrested in there were only 4 spots available. And they would "go on sale" this morning when the pool opened at 6 am. I did not believe Pan when he said he was going to get there a bit early, he even laughed at himself and thought he could propably joke with the other 3-4 loony toons about how crazy they were to turn up so early. At 5.10 sharp, imagine his disappointment when at least 60, perhaps 100 people were lying there all around, on the floor waiting for the sale to begin. Men, women and children, yes small children because some people turned up MANY hours earlier, to wait in queue, in the middle of the night, WITH THEIR BABIES!

Ok, we love our child, but so desperate for babyswimming we are not! We will just have to train Mr. F ourselves (and you'll see, he'll be a swimming olympic champion)

Publié par Kolka à 13:17:42 dans Miss baby blabla | Commentaires (0) | Permaliens

The city of the Happy People | 04 août 2009

So we are settled in our Mansion here in Copenhagen city. Queen Margrethe would be envious, well that is if she had lived in the 30 squaremeters in Paris before- on second thought, she has probably never lived in anything smaller that 1000 squaremeters if you dont count "lousy" hotel suites abroad. Our appartment is actually so big that it makes sense to have 2 telephones in it. Our appartment is so big that I can ignore the little man's cries if I want to (but who says I do?). Our appartment is so big that sometimes I just decide to take a walk, inside. Ok, I'll stop here.

Have to say that I have been very pleasently surprised by the Danes. Sometimes just plain surprised by their easy-going-ness. LIke the time we went to register at city hall. It was warm and alot of people waiting. The men working there were wearing shorts (!) but, why not? I noticed many mums with their young children but also many dads. Just before us, a woman with her child has her number coming up. At the same time her child is hungry. No problem. She just wips out her boob, latches the baby on and goes to the man at the desk to get her business done. Where else in the world would you see that? Certainly not in France!

Actually there are babies EVERYWHERE. A friend we met the other day who is working here for a few months actually said it, he said he didnt feel right somehow with ONLY a backpack, the baby was missing. To fit in you actually have to have a pram or a babybjorn (bags where you hang the baby on you). And Mr. F fits right in, with his new special bicycle unit!

In comparison with the sometimes (who am I kidding? all-the-time I shoud say) heavy beaurocratical world of France, basic registration seems pretty easy. Here are a few examples:

° I ordered my new cell number online and got it sent in the mail. If I run out of credit, they automatically charge the phone and let me know with a text.

° When asked if we had recieved any childcare benefits from France, we said no because our income had been too high. They asked if we had any papers about that, but we didnt. So they decided to trust us and actually went out of their way to make sure we got an earlier payment because a mistake had been made in the paperwork. We hadn't even asked for the correction, but how nice are they???

° When making a doctor's appointment they kindly ask you to do so on their website (of a private practice) and if you have any question, send an email and they will quickly reply to you. I was amazed when we took Mr. F to his first appointment and Pan laughed hard when we came out and I said we had forgotten to pay, or well at least sign some papers. Nono, everything was taken care of, directly with the health insurance card.

So my first impressions are good. It has even been sunny. We have met people in the park, drinking beer listening to some chillout music on a sunday afternoon. Its working out and somewhere in the back of my mind I remember the shouting and the stress vaguely, how very far the crazy world of France 24 seems right now..

Publié par Kolka à 20:14:43 dans Miss Kolka | Commentaires (1) | Permaliens

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