Day 8(1/10/18) *Atlanta/Geneva*

The Villa!


One of the house cats:)


Day 8! Our last morning in Atlanta was bittersweet. I’m excited to go on  to study the public health overseas at the WHO in Geneva and then the WHO Euro in Copenhagen, but I will certainly miss the CDC and the Villa International. (They even have in-house cats here…what better way to make guests feel welcome than with pets? 😊  Upon reflecting with Maureen (the Villa director) this morning as I was turning in my key, she generously told me that I could always come back to stay at the Villa even if it wasn’t CDC-related. Since Lily (my high school friend) goes to school in Savannah, perhaps I may take Maureen up on that kind offer one day when I come to visit Lily, or even if I come back to the CDC!

My group, the social/behavioral group, was in charge of examining three chapters in the textbooks, relating to Alcohol, Exercise, and Cultural Impacts on health. It was a great process to get to know each other when we made the presentation, as we all came from slightly different backgrounds at St.Olaf-I’m glad we could all come together to get to know each other and learn about the topics in which we all had a shared interest. Fun fact: according to a study, sitting is worse for you than lacking physical activity…the recommended maximum hours of waking time spent sitting is 3 or less! (how that’s possible I’m not sure…perhaps with standing desks, pedal bikes, and exercise balls). The book cited a study that said that by properly following the guidelines for being active, one can add up to 1 year onto his/her life. But I wonder…how many hours does one spend being active in his/her life when they wish they were doing something else? I wonder how much time that adds up to in years, and if it’s less than 1 year…if so, is it worth it to put in all that time exercising, since technically you’re losing more than you’d gain in terms of years of life?

So after my group did our presentation on Alcohol, Exercise, and Cultural Health Impacts, we all packed up and headed to the airport to catch the 8 hour flight to Amsterdam. So I’m a huge fan of any sort of great deal or if something is free I’m even more excited…so I discovered that in the duty free store, they had free samples of Lindt truffles! So I went back to the duty free store several times with different people from the trip before our flight took off-only to stretch our legs of course 😉

So now I’m in the flight, and when we arrive in Amsterdam it’ll be the 11th, so I guess I’ll sign off for now!

Goodnight,

-Anna

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