The Hills are Alive...

This past weekend, Katie, Robin, and I went to Salzburg--the salt castle. This trip was by far the most relaxing of all our trips, but it may have been the most expensive. We bought the Salzburg card, which allowed us to see most of the tourist sites for free and have free public transportation. So, of course we tried to get our money's worth by seeing every site possible without rushing. We went up to see the fortress and went to a cool marionette museum up there. We really wanted to go see a marionette play, but there were none going on while we were there. We also saw the residence of the prince-bishops, the Dom cathedral, the Mirabell Gardens, Motzart's two houses (his birth house and the one he lived in after he was born), and St. Peter's cemetary and catacombs. When we went up to the fortress we took the funicular up because the walk would have been horrible. On the way down, however, we decided to walk across the mountain to the modern art museum and go down its elevator. The walk over there was really pretty and a lot of fun!! I really enjoyed the mirabell gardens also, especially the gnome garden!! The gnomes were funny looking, but what was even stranger was this bunch of guys having a picnic in drag!! They were weird!!

The thing I was most looking forward to on this trip was the Sound of Music tour! We went on Saturday morning after watching the movie Friday night at our hostel. The tour was so good and our tour guide was really funny! We all sang along to the songs in the movie while we were on the bus! The day we went, however, it was raining, but we managed to stay dry and still enjoyed ourselves! We got to see many different locations that were used in the movie and some that were made into hollywood sets. It will be so exciting now when I watch the movie because I will recognize places and be able to say that I was there!

The Salzburg festival was going on while we were there, and we decided to buy tickets to a concert in the fortress. The quartet played pieces by Motzart and Dvorak and the concert was wonderful!! I was so angry after I had to pay to take the funicular up to go to a concert I already paid for, but after the concert I didn't care any more because it was well worth it! Also while we were down in town we stopped and listened to this quartet of boys playing pieces by Motzart out in Motzart Platz. The other day, there was also a Canadian marching band out in the platz. Their uniforms consisted of cowboy hats, huge beltbuckles, and cowboy boots, but they were not from Texas! Listening to them play made me remember my highschool band years when I used to play the same songs they were playing! It made me miss those fun times!!

Another fun part of this trip was the hostel. We stayed in an 8 bed all girls dorm room, and we had the coolest roomates ever! It was funny because we all spoke English, but with different accents. There was a girl from Canada who was really nice, but was only there for a little bit. The people we talked to the most were these two girls from Australia, who went on the tour with us, and another two girls from England. They were all so nice and I had a great time talking with all of them and learning about where they are from. From a conversation we had, I had to figure out that a boot is the trunk of a car and an areial is an antennae! Also fannypack is not a good word in England!! We also talked to another girl from Australia who was living in England. Her name was Gabby and that name suited her so well! She loved to talk and she would talk so fast that it made it so much fun just to listen to her talk! She was hilarious in a sarcastic sort of way, and it was funny to hear her use the f word so casually in her conversations--it actually made them even more entertaining!! Anyways, I had a great time in Salzburg-it was definitely a good trip to save for last!!

Can't wait to get home to my Camaro

I mean Ford, oops. Though I've really enjoyed Düsseldorf, I decided this weekend that I was ready to go home.

I've really liked having public transportation - I mean, not having to drive everywhere, I haven't been using gas, and I don't really have to worry about getting lost on foreign roads, I just have to make sure I exit at the right stop. At the same time, it has been frustrating dealing with the transportation system without understanding German. It's unbelievably scary to hear an announcement in German and have no idea what it has said - is the train still going the right way, etc? I never really know, and that has come to be a problem more than once. I must have asked one of the conductors on the train this weekend about 5 different questions pertaining to am I on the right train, does this train stop in Dusseldorf, which stop in Dusseldorf will it make, etc. There is also the problem of promptness of the train. It is usually quite prompt, causing me to run to my stop or miss a train when I'm late. But it seems that invariably if it is important to arrive somewhere on time or make a connection, the train is late. The train that was supposed to pick me up at 1 in the morning this weekend didn't end up coming until 3:20. I was so scared, and cold at that point.

i love my host family to death - they've been really great, always making sure that I've got whatever I need. Alexander came in today and asked for something to the gist of a heart candy I figured out, at which point I promptly handed over my strawberry gummies that I had left from last week. It has been great interacting with small kids on a daily basis, even if we do have language problems. Kerstin has done my laundry twice - something I'm not at all used to at home or school. Then again, I'm tired of living out of a suitcase all the time, and also of feeling like a visitor, even as welcome as Kerstin and Max have made me feel. I'm ready to get back to my own bed, if only for about 5 days.

I'm also ready to get back to the dependably hot Texas weather. Here in Germany, it has been unbearably hot in the day time with bearably warm nights. But there is no AC, so even the Germans end up sweating a lot. Kerstin said its been the hottest summer since 1900 or something like that this morning. But then again, this weekend, the weather was drizzy and got cold. So now its really really nice, quite cool during the day, its just gorgeous! If only the change had happened 3 weeks ago.


I also can't wait to see my family and friends. I have a new cousin who is almost a month old by the time i get back, and I've never seen him. I get to return to a family reunion and then to school quite quickly so that will soon be resolved. And although I haven't been good about writing to my friends and family, I have really missed them this month.

I'll miss Germany, but at the same time, I am prepared to return to Texas in four days.

Roman Holiday

So this is definitely a little late, but I have to write about Rome! It was my favorite weekend trip by far even though it was exhausting! It started with a train ride that I was sure we were going to kicked off of, but we made it to Rome without any problems. The Colosseum was so cool, and we found the ATM carved in there...which we took pictures with. I think its funny that someone did that but at the same time I feel bad that they graffitied a historical monument. I guess everyone else carves their name in it too, but its still bad. Then we went to the Roman Forum and dwelt as the Romans did back in the day. That night we ate dinner at the best restaurant ever! We asked for lots of ice and they gave us an entire bowl full of it! We took pictures because we were so excited! The waiter thought we were crazy. The next day was the Vatican and all I can say is AMAZING! It was more beautiful than I ever imagined. Sunday we went to a beach in Rome with no towels or sunscreen...we were very unprepared. We had to lay out in the sand and I got burnt and also had to deal with sand in my hair all the way back to Dusseldorf. It was pretty gross, but the beach was definitely worth it. I really have to go back to Rome someday, hopefully someday soon.

I wish my life was a musical.....

ok its true. I really do wish my life was a musical because then at the exact right time the perfect song would come on and everyone would sing and dance to it. It sure would be exciting!
anyways, now that I am so close to the end of the trip my sadness has gone away and I am just anxious to get home. I have so much to do when I get back! I need to see my family, my boyfriend, my babies at church, plus I have to move into a new apt in College Station, go on medical school interviews, get prepared for work week, do recruitment, and then start classes. And in all of that I have to get furniture for my unfurnished apartment. I think I might be sleeping on the couch for a while :) Oh and for those of you following the suit drama, I did find a suit this weekend with my host mom. I think its pretty nice, now all I need are shoes and a blouse. Hopefully I will be able to find that this weekend for TAX FREE shopping in Texas!
So for our last lunch in Duesseldorf Kristen, Melissa, Stuart, Kit and I all decided to go to Eigelstein's (the nearby bar and eaterly with nice looking male German waiters) for lunch. Dr. Musser walked by and we asked him to eat with us and he did. He has really been a ton of fun on this trip. And he loves cows more than anyone I know. Derrick also walked by and we insisted that he sit and eat with us because he was 2 hours late to class so of course he had to tell us the story of why. I had a baked potato with Ranch like dressing and salmon. Yeah strange but it was really good anyway. Lunch was a ton of fun. I really do love this group. Unfortunately we had a girl waitress but she was nice and told us what the menu said because it was all German. Tomorrow we leave for Berlin, and though I will really miss my host family, I am ready to continue my journey. So Duesseldorf, untill we meet again.....Tschuss!!!!

Maybe put put's just not your game Stuart...I know, lets have a spelling contest.

Berchtesgaden...what can I say? I don't know whether I have ever experienced so much magnificent and natural beauty within the span of two days before. A tny little town tucked away in the Bavarian Alps and surrounded by clean air, majestic mountains that seem to reach to heaven, the clearest water that you've ever seen and beir gartens to content even the hardest core of drunkards.
When I arrived early on Saturday it was unfortunately rainy and cloudy throughout the skys. I went to visit the Eagle's Nest anyway and the ride up the mountain felt like ascending into heaven. I suppose that's a little ironic, but it is what it is. The spectacular views from the top were overwhelming and for the first time since I've been in Germany, I was not in want of an air conditioner. It was quite cool up there and from one point you could even see Salzburg from the top of that great mountain. I met a strange little man named Denny from Belgium on the way and we ended up spending our time at the Kehlstein house together. Both the interior and the exterior of the house seemed strikingly simple, but the manner in which the hous was built and the location marks it as an architectural triumph in my book. Riding in the golden elevator was exciting and the walk down the hillside to the bus parking lot was one of my favorite parts.
Later that night, I went to play put put all by myself (thank God) at an adoreable little outdoor course lit up with lamposts. There are some things to which I do not profess to be an expert, and golf is certainly one of them. I shot a hole in one and a hole in 51, which I thought kind of canceled each other out, but the lady working at the course was not of the same opinion. I asked her for a calculator and she asked me if my score card was a joke. She said "in Europe, we do not count the shots if we don't make the hole within six tries", to which I replied that I just don't like to give up.
Sunday was a beautiful day from start to finish and the first thing I did was catch a bus to Mount Jenner where I took a 30 minute gondola ride up to the top to see some of the most breath-taking scenery imaginable. Now I can say that I climbed a mountain (omiting some of the truth never hurt anybody).
After spending a few hours in the mountains I went to Lake Konigssee, the clearest, cleanest little body of water I ever saw. The shallow parts were like lookng into a mirror while the deeper parts were emerald green. I took a wonderful boat trip to the peninsula of Saint Bartholoma and peeked inside the church before drowning myself in beer. I went wading through the lake waters, bathing in the sun and just enjoyed every minute.

Random: Nicknames and Quotes

Nicknames:
Dr. Wasser-----Dr. Water (WITH GAS)
Dr. Musser-----Sparta
Karen---------Ice
Kellie---------M&M
Sarah---------Sugar lips
Erin----------Flasher
Becca--------Spicy 9
Derek--------Super Human
Stuart--------MIA
Robin--------Europause
Kathy--------Shelf
Kristen-------Heineken Experience
Regina-------GPS
Greg---------Bag Man

(if I missed any PLEASE let me know)

Quotes:

"I always feel short until I go to church" -Karen

"Do the rope! Do the rope!" -Erin

"Praha means Sun in Czech that's why it's so BLASTEN hot!" -unknown but accepted by all!!

so blasted many bagels

We found bagels in Prague for 9 Crowns each (about 30 Euro cents). It was at a place called Bohemia Bagels so we were all excited about a Bohemian place. And of course, our bike tour guide later suggests the place if we want an American breakfast. Go figure.

Sunday was all bagels all the time. Kellie bought a dozen of them. A couple of them were garlic so it made it seem like everything in Prague smelled like garlic and/or bagel.

Kellie and I left before everyone else because we had different train tickets. We ate some bagels, got sick of smelling bagels, took a nap, changed trains, and took pictures with the bagels.

By the way, there's more than just bagels in Prague.

My least favorite German word

Just got back from Dresden yesterday and I had a wonderful time. Still, I discovered my least favorite German word: verspatung. I left around 9 on Friday morning and arrived in Dresden around 4 on Friday afternoon. Iris, Harald, and Christine (their niece, who is my age) picked me up at the Hauptbahnhof and took me to their house. We sat down for cake and coffee, then looked at pictures for several hours. We had a huge dinner, then sat out on the back porch chatting. Harald and Iris knew German pretty well, but not quite as well as my host family, so we had the German/English dictionaries out. Christine didn't know English, so she and I logged onto the computer and used a translator to have a conversation. It was very strange to be having a conversation on the computer with someone sitting right next to me!

The next day, I got up to have a wonderful (and large!) breakfast. Then we went downtown and walked through the old town. Dresden was almost completely destroyed by firebombs during WWII, and after the war it was taken over by Russia. They did not have the funds to rebuild most of the city until after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. I think I was lucky to see the city as it is, because fifteen years ago the city was still in ruins. I saw the Zwinger, Opera, the Church of Our Lady (which was the only building left standing after the fire bomb, but melted the next day due to the heat), and several other buildings. After ice cream, Christine and I took a bus tour of the city. One part, the White Horse area, was absolutely gorgeous, but apparently its the most expensive area! After our bus tour, we walked back to the car and visited Harald's bistro and his cafe (where we stopped for ice cream!), and his pension (bed and breakfast). We returned to their house, watched MTV in German, and then went out to a Greek restaurant. Out came the dictionaries again, but they had English menus. Before we ordered, the waitress brought us all schnapps, and Iris was trying to translate it, but in English is was "greased spirits"...haha. She laughed when I told her that I knew what schnapps was. We had another very large (but very good) meal, then went back to their house. We stayed up late talking, and it was interesting for me to learn about pre-1989 Germany.

The next day, I woke up late, had a nice breakfast, and then they took me to the train station. I caught the train (verspatung), missed my train in Frankfurt, and caught a later train (verspatung). Still, I made it back to Duesseldorf, and it was raining! Good for the garden! Haha. My host family fixed me dinner, and we sat and chatted about Dresden and Germany vs. America. Overall, a lovely weekend.

Today is our last class day, and then we head to Berlin for the end of our trip. I'm sorry to leave Germany, as I've had a wonderful time, but I am looking forward to being home.

I know the Brussels train station like the back of my hand!

On the way home from Bruges we had to change trains in Brussels. We knew we had to hurry because we didn't have that much time. We walked up to the platform and the train hadn't left yet but the doors had already closed. Well...turns out they won't reopen the doors and I even looked the driver in the eyes and he just shook his head at me. The next train was only an hour later, but we were going to have to make a reservation because it was a Thalys train. It was just our luck that the train was completely full so we had to wait and get on the next train. We ended up have a 2 1/2 hour wait in the train station. We did the usual and walked around, sat at different places and people watched, checked out the grocery store, and ate some ice cream. The time went buy faster than I was expecting and we finally made it home at a much later arrival time than initially expected.

Biking to the beach

I went to Belgium this weekend and had an amazingly relaxing weekend. Shannon and I stayed in Bruges at a hostel and went to the beach on both Friday and Saturday. We had quite an interesting experience getting to the beach on Friday. Rick ( Steves that is) said it only takes 30 minutes to get to the beach from Bruges by bike, and our hostel reception lady told us it would take 45 minutes. Our thoughts about the matter were that a nice bike ride through Belgium to get to the beach would be a nice little experience. Well...let me tell you...Rick and the reception lady both lied. We road non-stop for two hours and had to ask for directions at least four times. We finally made it to the beach, which happened to be a different destination than what we were planning on, but we were just happy to see sand and water. We had it set in our minds that there was no way we were going to ride back to Bruges so we begged (literally) the bus driver to let us bring our bikes on the bus. I told him that my bike was broken and we had no idea how we were supposed to get back...which really wasn't a lie because the gears on my bike were a little screwed up. Anyway, we finally made it back to the hostel. We learned from our experience and took the train to Ostend on Saturday. It only took about 15 minutes and Ostend was a much nicer city and the beach was so great. So...a little word of advice...if you are not a skilled biker, say up to par with the Tour de France, then I would double the time anyone tells you it will take to get somewhere by bike. But...looking on the bright side, at least we got a good workout in. :)

Oh, the beaches of Belgium

I have returned from my final trip on my final weekend in Europe. It is so weird that we just have one week left. Dr. Wasser just came in to inform us that the weather in Berlin is going to be the typical European weather we should have been getting, so that will be a nice break. This weekend Leslie and I decided last minute to go to Brugge. We had originally planned to go to Nice or Barcelona for a relaxing time at the beach, but realized that overnight trains and constant traveling take away from the whole relaxing part. So, we took a nice, short 3 hour train ride to Brugge. We stayed in one of Europe's "famous hostels," although I'm still not quite sure what made it famous. The Hostel website said it was a 30 minute bike ride from the coast, so after taking their word (bad idea) we set off on our bike journey. We biked through the country side of Belgium until we reached the beach, and no it did not take us 30 minutes, but TWO HOURS. 20 KILOMETERS. We were dying/mad at the receptionist for the bad direction and lying about the time. We soon got over it once we saw the vast, sandy beaches. Very unexpected. We even got into the North Sea which was surprisingly not too cold, and had some nice waves. Due to the fact that we were certainly not going to ride our bikes back, we begged to get on the bus with our bikes and returned to Brugge about 20 minutes later. That night we relaxed at a restaurant in the main square, while being entertained by a rather weird concert and drinking wine. We went back to the hostel bar and drank some more (just because it helps us sleep) and headed up to our room that held a possibly Australlian couple, and a nice Asian lady. The next day we went to the Beach in Oostend (by train this time) and it was also spectacular. Just what we needed. Laying down peacefully on the beach, and not having to walk around a large city all day long. We got back to Dusseldorf late than expected last night due to a few missed trains, and were welcomed by the rain. Not the best thing to walk in while carrying luggage/gifts. This week...BERLIN. The Grand Finale.

Salzburg

Three years ago I had the opportunity to travel around Europe, and I had a ton of fun. We didn't, however, get to visit any site with musical history, which I love, music is my thing. Because of this, I planned for one of my weekend trips to be to Salzburg, and however hesitant I was to travel instead of taking a relaxing weekend, I am glad I went.

Katie, Kathy and I left on a night train for Salzburg on Thursday. We each had a couchette, mine was on top, and both of theirs were on bottom. So very little space, and a bit difficult to get up to with my foot being newly bandaged by an overly expensive but nice Orthopedist. The train ride there went fairly well, I even managed to get a bit of sleep, and we arrived around 5:30 to the Salzburg HBF. After sitting in the station for about 30 minutes, we walked to our hostel, which was on the other side of town and across the river. Regardless of that, we managed to get there quite easily in about 30 minutes. We checked in and paid, though we couldn't get in the room till1. The morning nap we took was quite welcome, although a bit awkward at a breakfast table at the hostel, and set us up for a busy day.

We visited the Residence in town and saw the different rooms, visited Mozarts birth house, explored the fortress, walked through the marionette museum, and hiked to the elevator from the fortress, about a 3-5 km hike. After eating lunch, we went to Mozartplatz and watched what we thought was a Texas high school marching band perform, only to find out at the end that they were from Canada. What were they doing in cowboy hats and boots then?! We also saw a string quartet of youngish boys perform after getting our tickets for a concert the next night. That all done, we went to an imbiss near the hostel and picked up a cheap dinner of sandwiches. Ein mas sandwich bitte? didn't get me very far, and we all had a laugh about that. I should try to stick to one language, we decided.

We met our roommates, all of whom seemed quite nice and spoke english, although from different areas of the world. We had 2 Aussies, 3 Americans, 2 Brits, and 1 Candian altogether, and anouther funny Aussie who often came in to chat. I was so tired that i didn't even make it through The Sound of Music that night, I only made it to their departure for the festival.

Our next day was quite full as well. We took the Sound of Music tour, and although it was raining, we still enjoyed seeing the sights. After eating some delicious apple strudel, we ate our sandwiches made at Breakfast on the bus on the way back into town. By the time we'd returned, it had stopped raining, so we were able to enjoy the beautiful Mirabell gardens. We also made our way through to the other Mozart house, which I enjoyed more than the Geburtshaus. It wasn't quite as odd. While Katie shoppped, Kathy and I enjoyed our Mozartkugeln - chocolate with nougat and marzipan inside - enven though they were a bit melted. we went shopping again - I swear we walked down one street over 6 times this weekend, just shopping.

The concert we went to that night was so much fun - definitely worth the extra 3.50€ we had to pay to take the funicular up to the fortress. It was another string quartet, and they played Mozart's Nachtmusic as the amateur one had the afternoon before, as well as a Trio with Piano accompaniment also by Mozart, and a piece by Dvorak. It was so great!

The night train back was a bit of a hassle, a story for another blog. But I got back safely.

Brugge is a nice, quiet little town, or is it?

So, Brugge is a nice, quiet, romantic little town...or at least that's what everyone else thinks. But no, if your name is Chrissy or Prissy, nothing is ever nice, little, and quiet. We'll leave it at....the tide rises really fast at the beach, flooded apartments make their owners mad, and apparently Belgium boys are really attracted to Texas girls.

We went to Brugge on Thursday, went to the bar immediately, and the fun began. We went to the chocolate factory, but apparently when you're hung over chocolate is not that appealing. We took a boat tour too, but mostly just walked around town and shopped alot. It's a very cute little quaint town that I would love to go back to sometime...with my boyfriend.

We woke up Saturday morning to find two roses waiting for us. We at first thought the two boys staying in our room gave them to us...but there is no telling where they came from, but we have our suspisions that it was a certain boy in the bar the night before who wouldn't stop staring at us while we ate our dinner. We went to bed early like good little girls around 10pm because we were tired, but apparently everybody else there wished we hadn't. I am sad to say though, our roses died on the 10 hour trip back that should have been a 4 hour trip.

I do have to say, CHERRY BEER IS AMAZING, waffles are amazing, and the chocolate is to die for. I wish we had cherry beer at home, I would drink nothing else.

Just a side note, if you ever ride the trains after midnight...do girls have Adams's apples? lol

Roses and cherry beer... I loved Belgium!

This weekend started off pretty relaxed. I came home after class was out and packed and my wonderful host mom cooked me a really good meal, then I was off to meet Chrissy to go to Brugge. A quiet place we had been told, good for relaxing... perfect for our last weekend in Europe. Every other travel adventure had ended in some pretty crazy stories in which if I had not myself lived them I do not know if I would believe they were true. So we were off for a nice relaxing weekend.......

When Chrissy and I arived at our hostel we checked in at a bar. How nice I though, wondering if the noise was going to keep me awake. Chrissy and I went to our rooms and noiced that the other three beds had boys clothes on them... mixed dorms are funny. We decided we were not ready for bed so we went down stairs. We meet a few guys that worked there and some guy named wave... well his name ment wave. The whole time I was thinking wow I am glad I have friend like Chrissy who is just as outgoing as I am. We like to make friends. There is a story in here about the North Sea, it is pretty funny, ask Chrissy about it.

The next moring we made friends with everyone in our room, a girl had come in who hung out with us all day. We went around town, it was very cute, did some shopping, ate a waffle. For dinner we ate our hostel and we came down stairs it was pretty late and people (the locals) had already started drinking for the night. Right when we entered the bar to eat this guy points at us yelling something not in English getting almost everyones attention stairing right at us... then says in English Sorry dont mind me. We ordered food and this yummy cherry beer (a must have and something I will search for the states, hopefully world market will have it!). Chris and I noticed EVERYONE of the guys at the bar were stairing at us while we ate... we were really confused and very nersous. We saw Wave again and talked to him then make our way to bed. As we rounded the corner this guy grabed my arm and pointed to his friend and said... You are the future mother of his childeren!... My responce was, o well thats nice good night. Slightly awarkward moment. Later that night the two guys in our room came home and woke me up giving me two white roses... yes two white roses. I was soo confused, he told me they were for me. I managed to say, you bought me roses??? After a few moments of total confusion I found out someone had placed them in the card lock of the door. I had remebered waking up to alot of noises early in the night but dismissed it as the people in the next room, I was wrong. I bet ur wondering how they knew which room to go to... well our card keys didnt work the second day and after dinner we had them reset them. Needless to say it was pretty funny weekend that was anything but low key and relaxing as we expected. I guess it is all about personalitly and enjoying life... which I do to the fullest!

O and we saw fireworks in Koln, that was cool. I finished reading Angels and Demons on the trian... it was really good, a must read! We were also wondering... women do not have atoms apples right??

SPEED PRAGUE BLOG

6 minutes of internet left in Prague. Tired of walking. Prague is beautiful, reasonably clean for a third world country. The money conversion is definitely hard to keep track of, spending hundreds or thousands of korunas at a time. Found a liquor that tastes like christmas, but didn't try absinthe. Didn't get to do everything I wanted to do, but still got to do a lot. Again, that just means I'll have to come back some time. Time's running out, will blog more later. Tschuss

Dusseldorf has more!!

I didn't realize..... Dusseldorf had more. I mean, here in Dusseldorf there are many historical architects that I didn't know about. This weekend I decided to stay here in Dusseldorf so that could work on my paper. Plus I could spend some time with my host family. ( I think they wanted that very much, they didn't like the fact that I was always gone.) Another good reason I stayed in was, I could catch up on sleep, this is always a good reason!! hahaha.
Well, Saturday(yesterday), my host father wanted to take me on a bike ride again... he said " I want to show you the historical part of Dusseldorf, and not the city" ... I thought I was a great idea, since I haven't been in Dusseldorf that much.. Well, we are here, for AIB, but after class and everything, well, you really cant go out and see stuff here in Dusseldorf. My host Father was telling me that Dusseldorf also has a good amount of history to it. So, my host Father and I went off to see these historical sites by bike.

We first head toward south of Dusseldorf, we went through the country side which is just next to the Rhine, I have never seen such landscape..... BEAUTIFUl!!! The area we went through was a natural preserved area. Just the area it self and how it looked was just wonderful, Dr.musser and Dr.Wasser, if you haven't been here, I highly suggest this place for relaxing, a nice walk, or a run might be nice as well. Anyway, we crossed to Rhine by a Ferry-boat, and arrived at the Mid-evil town called "ZONE"... the out walls of the city still show you the mid-evil structure, but inside of the city was a lot of beer gardens, restaurants, and shops. I thought this might be a nice place to show the whole group. But like I said it was full of beer gardens, so I don't know how such yall would Approve that, but it was a nice place to look at.

After we visited "ZONE", we head back to the other side of the Rhine and we went to the Dusseldorf palace , well it was for the emperor, and he used it as a hunting lodge , it was really beautiful, the structure was build more like a French-like palace, even the Garden for the palace was French like. The combination of the Palace made it look modern but, at the sametime it gave it a look of, 1500s, 1600s palace, castle look to it.

It was nice of my host Father to take my out like that, and show me around. I enjoyed very much!!! If anyone is interested in going to these places, please let me know, and I will get directions for you.

Prague

I love bike tours! In almost every city I've visited in Europe, I've done a bike tour. I love them! Today I'm in Prague with Derek, Kit, Kellie, Karen, and Erin. We're heading out to take city bike tour and I can hardly wait. So far Prague is amazing. When we stepped off the train at the main station, I will admit I had my doubts. The city was pretty dirty in that area and no one spoke English. However, soon we checked in to our 80 bed hostel and I was feeling better about the city. After a short walk to the square and amazing 2 hour lunch, where we just sat and people watched, I quickly fell in love with the city. It's so peaceful. The architecture is amazing. After a busy busy week, this is what I needed, a nice relaxing weekend. Oh and my favorite, Prague is crazy cheap. I love it.

25 Krowns per 1 euro... Dinner is how much?

We all got here to praha yesterday afternoon. I'll start the story with the train ride. Derek, Becca, Karen, Kellie and I all were jammed into one "harry potter" compartment for 12 hours. This car had the 3 seats that faced each other and could be closed off from the rest of the train (like the ones from the harry potter movie). Kellie and Derek slept on the floor where it smelled like feet. Karen and I were on the seats on either side in some weird yoga position with our heads hanging off the side. To top it off, Becca was sleeping sitting up with her face pressed against the glass so everyone could see as they walked by.

Once we got to praha we checked into our 80 bed hostel and went walking around. This is such a beautiful city. On our little mini walking tour guided by Derek, we stumbled upon a sign for a concert in one of the churches starting at 9. We all decided that we needed to get a little bit of fine arts in our lives and agreed to go. The concert was AMAZING and the church it was in was all beautifully lit. We got a little video clip of two of the pieces from the show and views from inside the church (Dr. Wasser - you're going to love it!).

This morning we woke up early to go get views of the city without tourists. Kellie and I got a sweet photo of us doing handstands on the bridge. Now, we are all getting ready to start our day, and I think a bike tour is an order.

p.s. I tried to speak chech with the waiter and ask him how his day was. However, I think my Chech is so bad that instead I asked him how rabbits "do it". Awkward

Prague

I will abmit Pruage is a beautiful place, but it seems so angry. Friday when I was using the metro my bag grazed the back of this lady, I mean it didn't even bump her, and she flipped out when the doors opened quickly wiping her back off and ran to the car next to mine. To bad I was exiting. I hope Saturday goes better.

It's almost over.......

Wow, I can't believe my time in Düsseldorf is almost over. I spent a lot of time two nights ago thinking about what a scared foreigner I felt like when I first got to Europe 6 weeks ago, and how much I have learned to loosen up and go with the flow. I think riding the train has been the best example of loosening up for me. In America, you almost alway fly, and you have to get to the airport 2-3 hours early to check in, go through security, get every little piece of everything you have searched and scanned and checked, you haul all your carry ons to the gate that is half a mile away because if you check your bags surely they will get lost, and then you wait for your plane that is never on time, and if its really bad you have to worry about making it to your connection on time. WHEW!! that sucks. But here in Europe, you can even buy your ticket last minute. You just go to the handy little automated ticket machine, buy the ticket, say oh what platform am I on? look up at the huge ever changing baord, find the train, walk to the platform, and get on the train as soon as it gets there. AND ladies and gents, you can do all of this about 10-15 minutes before the train leaves! AND it will almost ALWAYS be on time! Its amazing! plus no one searches you or questions you or harasses you about the size of your carry on. Its amazing. My first train ride was an overnight train from Paris to Berlin and I was convinced I had to be there super early (yeah I got there like 2 hours early cause people kept telling me to get there with plenty of time), and then I was terrified that somehow it would be late or I would miss it or I would be in the wrong car and get left in timbucktu and other such horrible things. What I've come to realizse is, if travelling in the U.S. were this easy, I'd do it much more! I have loved my Eurail pass and traveling on trains. It's a very interesting place to meet people, especially when you're travelling with people like Stuart and Kellie.

But enough rambling about things I'm sure no one cares about. All I really mean is that this trip has really helped me to relax and go with the flow, even if I'm not quite a fly by the seat of my pants kinda girl like others I know. I wish everyone was allowed to have the chance to travel to Europe and have the kind of adventure I've had and see and learn the things I have. Now that I am about to return to my home and so many of the things I love, I really do find myself sad that I will be leaving the comfort of my home in Düsseldorf and the public transportation and the Hauptbahnhof. (You can buy almost ANYTHING there!) Sure I still don't speak very good German, but I know more than I did, and I have definetly learned what it feels like to be the one that doesn't speak the language of the land, a feeling I know many of my future patients will have. And with all the traveling I have ahead of me for medical school interviews, I know that even with the stress I will still have a great time. So look out Texas.... Here I come!

Reflections from Dachau

This is the second time this month I've visited Dachau, the concentration camp located outside of Munich. For some reason, it wasn't boring. My tour on this occasion could serve as a foil for my first tour. We need look no further than the guides, the first an entertainer (in the most general terms because concentration camps are not entertaining) who learned stories about Dachau specifically and had had only sparse background knowledge of the war as a whole; the latter a PhD in eastern european history capable of speaking four languages with an a thorough understanding of every apsect of the war who presented his facts and arguments with the zealousness of a professor in a History 100 class. The first attempted to recreate the feeling of living under the harshest conditions while striving to make a connection utiilizing anecdotes of various inhabitants to really bring the starkness of the situation to life while the most recent allowed the gravity of the atmosphere and situation to speak for itself, taking an approach of formally educating us as to how this came about and what role it played (not Dachau but the holocaust in general) played in the overall scheme of Hitler's plan. Approaching Dr. Wasser about these differnces, he questioned which I thought was better. At first I hastily replied the former tour taken with my family (although acknowleding the usefulness of the other), but now I really find both to be comparable, Each serves its own purpose, and the best case scenario would be to do as I did, just go twice. Why not, it never gets old.

Vets heaven, Hannover.

Our group came back from Hannover last night. Well, Hannover, from my point of view, Hannover was veterinarians heaven!!. I have never in my life seen such a huge cattle clinic. They have every thing they ever need, a school and a clinic to study in, a Frat house to live in, close to the school, which is nice, and what's even better is, they go all the way, they have a place to party!!!. After Dr.Wasser and Dr. Musser left the building.... the party grew and exploded. Definitely, it looked like they knew how to loosen up a little. Also, the BBQ was great, it was the best thing to use, so we could loosen up and talk to the vet students. Oh, I have to tell this.... Greg, invented some thing amazing... if you mix ice-cream and red-wine together.... oh my G*d... It tastes sooo good. I was amazed at it how it actually tasted. If anyone is interested, you should try this.

OK, Now lets talk about the next day, we visited the vet school and the clinic. Which was a nice experience for me, since I am pre-med student, it was a different point of view of medicine. Also it reminded me that I glad I am going into human medicine and not veterinarian medicine. Well first, I really don't enjoy the animal smell, and I don't think I could ever " Cut open a small animal", don't get me wrong, I love animals in general, but I just think I could ever watch an animal die in my own hands..... so, this trip was a nice experience, but it made me sure that I glad that I am not in vet medicine.

Now I want to talk about some of the stuff we saw in the clinic. Definitely it was my first time watching a surgery on a cow. I was really amazed of how they operated on the cow. It was standing up, I didn't know that was possible, it still is kinda weird to me.. Oh well.
I also was really interested in the procedures they use in the operation.

Oh, By the way, Dr. Musser, Dr.Wasser, if you see me doing something weird on the student videos....ahhh please don't mind. HAHA. (Dancing....etc...)

Thunderbolts and Lightning, Very Very Frightening

Truman needed atomic bombs to create the "shock and awe," that destroyed Japan. Hitler needed lights, marches, and valiant speaches to create an army. The technique of presenting something that is much larger, much more glamorous, or much more apalling in order to gain the attention of others is not a unique or complicated tactic. We went to Dachau last week and I simply felt like I was walking around another museum filled with artifacts from some forgotten time. I don't mean to discredit our tour guide who was immensely knowledgeable and a very friendly man, but there was no "shock and awe," to his presentation of the atrocities committed during Holucast. My first tour guide made it very clear the prisoners were not living in anything similar to the camps we know today. 450 men slept in quarters desgined for only 60. The weakest prisoners lived at the back of the camp so they were forced to walk further to roll call and then back to the barracks for a shower. By the time they were ready, they didn't have any time for breakfast and were immediately sent to work. Eventually men slept on each other and were awoken at 3 a.m. so they could switch positions and avoid cutting off one another's circulation. Eventually after the men dropped below 100 lbs. and lost control of bodily functions they slept in large puddles of defecation. The conditions were beyond description. We haven't the slightest idea of what it felt like, what it smelled like, and how painful the experience must have been for all of them.

I think it is necessary for tourists to get a glimpse of this pain, otherwise, we take for granted what the prisoners were put through. We end up having picnic lunches on former barracks and taking family portraits for Christmas cards in the gas chambers. These places aren't museums filled with artifacts for our amusement. They are still there to remind us of a not so distant past that should be avoided at all costs in the future. I hope that even though our tour was not so grim that all of you realize the gravity of the situation the prisoners were in and are able to stand up to movements that have beginnings similar to that of the Nazi party. We may be facing a revival of these beliefs before we know it.

I'm rubber you're glue

Ok, so the title has nothing to do with what I am about to say other than that it rhymes with "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," which is the theme of this blog. Today children, we're practicing restraint. I know this may be a little difficult for many of you to fathom, but it's abolutely necessary to be considered a well-rounded and respectable individual. Restraint comes in many forms, but the type I'm talking about now is restraint from speaking when others are speaking. I thought it was clearly explained in kindergarten that you were to raise your hand, wait politely until called upon, and then once summoned express your opinions at that point and that point only. Because this value has been instilled in every one of us from the very beginning I am apalled that some cannot manage more than five seconds without opening our mouths only to let out sound with no particular poinancy. Dr. Musser has the theory down to the T, if someone is going to interrupt him in the middle of his sentence than obviously whatever it is they so urgently need to say MUST be tremendously more important than what he was talking about. So rather than battle this intruder, he backs down and doesn't say another word throughout the night. When he does this it's very apparent to me that he's pissed off, but it's funny that the "speaker of words with great importance," doesn't seem to realize the crime they have committed.

Anyway, enough of the overly dramatic language and sarcastic overtones. Basically, it sucks getting interrupted all the time and the people who do it most often usually don't realize they're doing it. I'm not completely innocent in this matter so I'm not pointing fingers, but if all of us would just listen more and talk less we'd be much smarter and more appreciated when we actually do speak. Look at Doug if you want an example; he stays quite most of the time but when he speaks people listen. If you enjoy speaking then you should appreciate the fact that others might enjoy speaking as well. To them, their stories are just as important as yours so give them the chance to get it out before you cut them off. Practice what you preach... "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you".

random thoughts

I think we all know that Kyle and Doug had an AWESOME time in Hannover. Having said that, I was amazed at how little trouble I had staying awake all day Wednesday, which was primarily possible because I found the excursions to be quite interesting. Seeing the cows being worked on was fascinating to see, once I was able to look at the cows hide without imagining a nice comfy leather couch. It emphasized the differences between surgery on animals and humans, and showed the difficulties that arise from the inability to simply tell a patient what you need them to do or have them lay a certain way as well as the care that vets must take in preventing infections as they are not performing in a sterile environment.
I feel like this study abroad has helped me realize that I am much more interested in veterinary medicine than in human medicine, not that I will necessarily be going to either vet or med school. As for now I think I am just going to graduate next summer and try to figure out what exactly interests me as I work for a few years. Right now I am interested in finding a job that deals with manipulating and/or redesigning implantable devices for humans so that they can be applied to aminals. However, I highly doubt there is a large market for such devices because they are so expensive and generally hard to justify in animals. So basically I have no idea what I am going to do when I get out of school.

Now, to go back to something I wrote about before, why have governments not made it manditory, or at least beneficial to the farmers, for cattle to have electronic chips that can be used to help verify the safety of the meat and milk. The paper passport system that has been described to me seems too easy to work around and be left with holes. Yes, the electronic system would have a greater cost, especially initially, but it would be very interesting to see a comparison of projected costs for such a program with the economic losses suffered due to the occassional outbreak of things like hoof and mouth disease and the resulting panic which drastically reduces the ability to export cattle products.

Finally! Things I understand...

On Monday we visited a local small animal clinic where Dr. Bartels gave us a tour and talked about her practice. It was interesting to me to here all the similarities and differences since I work in an animal clinic at home. The thing that was new to me was the fact that if any of her workers (Vets, technicians, or receptionists) got pregnant, they weren't allowed to work in the clinic at all. I have this theory that that is why a lot of women go into Veterinary Medicine-because it is a career that really suits working moms. Its kind of like being a lawyer because its really easy to leave and then come back and pick up right where you left off. After the tour we went back to the AIB where the vice president of Marburger Bund spoke about the German Health Care system. Its extremely different here than it is in America. Tuesday we left for Hannover to visit the Vet School. Our first stop was the Reproduktionsmedizin Mariensee where the coolest thing we saw was a cow calving. We didn't stay long enough to see the calf completely come out but you could definately see the hooves. All this vet med stuff is just reaffirming how much I want to go to Vet School AND how I still have to finish my application when I get home.

Hannover and such

Hannover was fun. Good food good conversation and good wine. Bad beds. I enjoyed the cow clinic much more than I expected and it was pretty cool to see a cow giving birth, even though we did not see much of it. I did not like the small vet clinic. It was hot and there were way too many of us and I felt like we were just in the way. Plus I could of seen the same thing if I took my cat to the vet. I do admit I have liked the vet stuff more than I ever though I would but I still wish we could do more medical things.

Now I know why Liechtenstein is so small....

Last weekend after Munich, Kristen and I took an early train to Salzburg. Right when we got there Kristen turns to me and says, "Sooo, what do you wanna do?" I had no clue. You get us together and we never have a city map, never know where we are going or what we are doing. We are just fly by the seat of our pants kinda gals. I didn't even have train tickets to our next stops or back to Duesseldorf. Nevertheless she knows about the Sound of Music tour which sounds awesome to me so we buy tickets. We decided to meet Sarah and Stuart at the train station since they took a later train so we went to the Mirabell Palace and Gardens. On the way there we PASS the BIG PALACE and GARDENS despite now having a city map, but when we got there it was AMAZING. We walked through a hedge tunnel together...how romantic:) We met up with the other two gals and got on "the most unique Sound of Music tour bus" where I found out that the Mirabell Gardens is actually where they sang Do-Re-Mi in the movie! The bus takes us to the Gazebo, the field Maria sang in, the lake the kids fell out of the boat in, and the wedding church. Stuart left her camera on the ground because we were busy skipping and singing "I have confidence in sunshine!!..." Luckily though she got it back. In the middle of the tour we went to a tobogan ride where me and Kristen flashed everyone in our skirts down at the bottom as the tobogan went up. It was neat to tobogan through the mountains. We went to eat at an Italian restaurant then just kind of hung around the river at night. Then Kristen and I took a 1am train to Liechtenstein where we got NO SLEEP, yelled at by drunk Austrian soldiers, and dropped my suitcase on sleeping passengers. It was great. We finally got to Feldkirch at 5am where we were supposed to take a bus to Liechtenstein but they didn't start running until 6am, so naturally I pass out on the hard metal benches at the train station in my pajamas. Kristen said everyone walking by were looking at me like I was crazy. Thats just how I do. So we finally got the bus that went to Liechtenstein where I realized that Liechtenstein is not any bigger than it is b/c there are no people to go out and conquer countries. I mean it was a ghost town...there were buildings and houses and all but NO PEOPLE. I followed Kristen down this long street in my pajamas lugging my big suitcase trying to find the castle. Im pretty sure she just wanted to try to walk across the country and no castle really even existed. Anyway we made it to the end of the road not accomplishing either but I bought some cool Liechtenstein postcards. Caught the train to Zurich that was 20 minutes late and we had to sprint through the train station to catch our train that was leaving in 2 minutes to Lucerne. Im sure it was a sight...as I was still in my pajamas...and it was noon. The first day in Lucerne (Saturday) we saw the large Lion statue, bought swiss army knives, and ate at an Austrian restaurant where we ate expensive fondue, Kristen yodeled on stage, and I hooked arms and sang an Austrain song with Carmello the Italian. By the end of the night all I had to say was never walk half way across town with a tour guide bus driver just to pay 14 swiss francs for a drink. Sunday we got up after the hostel fiasco (we only reserved one bed but somehow ended up getting two mattresses) and went up to Mt. Titlus. The ALPS are beautiful!! We clearly did not prepare for the cold weather though. We were both wearing flip flops and girly girl kristen is in a miniskirt. Once we got to the top though we rented ginormous hiking boots so we could walk around a little warmer. We took a ski lift thing over the glacier and then we walked into the glacier....yeah, ice=cold=natural AC=gooooooood. All in all, I had an amazing time in Salzburg, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland even if I did pay 10 swiss francs for a meal at McDonald's!

Shaking a leg at the german frat house

So this week was pretty wild...an eye infection, a frat house sleepover, cows, layers, and broilers. I never thought I would experience all that in 2 days, but I guess you never know what will happen in Germany. Sometimes I think I might be making the wrong decision and I should really be a vet. I wonder if there is time to do both...

I have to talk about the frat house first. At first I was a little mad that we paid so much money for this trip and they couldn't even put us in a hotel for one night, but after a few beers my anger was abated. I really did learn a lot that night, both about the german vet school system and how to open a beer with just about anything you have on hand. I would have never thought that a beer could be opened with a coke bottle or a cigarette lighter, but to my surprise and delight, it can be. Amazing. There was also a dance party in the bar, which was a lot of fun, but I couldn't look at Michael in the same way after I saw him breaking it down to "YMCA."

The vet school was really interesting. I really enjoyed the cow surgery. It was so odd to see this cow standing there, perfectly conscious, with a large incision in her side, and a vet digging around her internal organs. The farm we saw was great, but it was sad to know that all these animals will eventually be food for someone. They were really concerned about the welfare of the animals, which I thought was great. It's good to know that the animals will have a good life before being slaughtered.

This weekend I'm going to Rome and I couldn't be more excited. I've always wanted to go there and even though I won't have that much time, I know I'm going to thouroughly enjoy it!

Hannover

Hannover

Just got back from the vet school yesterday, and it was so cool! We had German class and then a presentation on German history on Tuesday morning. After lunch, we left around 1:30 for Hannover. We didn't arrive in Hannover until 6:30! We toured the research facilities off campus, and got to see a cow giving birth, but I hadn't been feeling well all day, so I had to go outside and sit down for a while. After some ibuprofen I was feeling a little better, and we went to a local vet fraternity, where there were lots of vet students waiting with a full BBQ. It was really nice. I went to bed early, hoping to feel better the next day. There weren't enough beds, so we were all on various mattresses on the floor. I slept on a couch cushion with a blanket or sheet. Haha. Well, the party went on all night, and I didn't get much sleep. After breakfast, we visited the pathology department and got to see their facilites. Their classrooms were huge! I guess if you have 250 students in each vet school class, you need large classrooms. We got to go into the necropsy lab, where they were disassembling a cow and a vulture. It was so bloody, but very neat. We also got to see a stillborn pig with one head and two sets of ears, fore legs, and back legs and a dog head with its rubber ball stuck in the back of its throat. Very cool.

After pathology, we headed over to the farm, where we saw the cows, calves, pigs, chicks, and layers. That meant lots of disenfecting with "ant acid" (no, not the stomach kind, but formic acid!) We had lunch at the student cafeteria (very cheap), and then went to the large animal clinic, which was definetely one of my favorites. We toured the facility, got a lecture on techniques on how to remove a dead fetus from a cow and how to repair a twisted abomasum, got to see the actual operation of untwisting the abomasum, and watched an ultrasound. It was really interesting, especially the operation. They just injected a local anesthetic into the cow and performed the operation while she was standing up, mooing! However, it was really hot, and the full body suits and plastic shoe covers didn't help much. The surgeons had one girl whose only job was to wipe the sweat from their faces!

After the large animal clinic, we went over to the small animal clinic, which was very cramped. The building was old, and all the rooms were tiny. However, it was still interesting. They had an MRI and a CAT scan for small animals! We also saw an ultrasound being done on a dog. We toured the clinic, ICU, looked in the surgery suite, oncology, and the MRI and CAT scan rooms. The vet told us that they do have an isolation unit, and although we couldn't go in, it is where they put all stray animals brought into the clinic. When I asked about common diseases that might land an animal in iso, she said that they get parvo, leptospirosis, and upper respiratory, so not much is different from the U.S. (although we don't see too much leptospirosis) After our tour, we climbed back on the bus and headed back to Dusseldorf. It was a pretty quiet ride home, as everyone was sleeping, and we finally got some much-needed rain. I reserved my seat for my trip to Dresden and got back to my host family in time to meet their dinner guests. I excused myself and retired to bed around 10.

Today we had cultural studies and German, then we got the rest of the afternoon off to work on our papers. That was a big relief, as I know that a lot of us were worried about finishing them. Hopefully I'll be able to finish mine today so that I can enjoy my last few days in Dusseldorf with my host family. Tchuss!

Missing the Bus

Today while riding the bus I came to the realization that soon I will have my last trip on public transportation in Dusseldorf. I'm going to miss it. Although it is usually like a hot oven and you can get the occasional smelly man (or woman) reeking body odor next to you, I can honestly say I will miss it. Riding the bus is like being enveloped by German culture. Everyday while riding the bus I feel a little more German. Im actually recognizing the bus drivers. The first time I ever rode the bus I was so nervous that I would miss the stop, but now I practically have the bus stop names memorized. I think I could even time my naping on the bus where I could wake up right before my stop. I think that by saying the names when they annouce them on the speaker has helped me learn German too. So now that I know the bus system so well I am completely at home when riding it. I also love that the public transportation system because it is on time, but wait.... that can also be bad because sometimes Ive had to run after the bus b/c it's so on time that my bus it's early. Yep! I like Germany and I'm going to miss the buses, how crazy does that sound!

Strange Realization

This'll be a short one. After visiting the Hannover hospitals, the Experimental farm at Gut Frankenforst, and seeing all of the experiments, I've realized that I've been more interested in the veterinary medicine and genetics than the human medicine. I can't quite explain why I'm drawn to it, except for maybe having grown up around family with cattle and animals, both my grandparents and aunt and uncle, and feeling some small connection to the rural aspect of it all. Dr. Musser has stirred an interest in the veterinary arts as well. I'm not sure if that's the direction I'll ultimately go in, but it's definitely giving me something to think about.

Thoughts by Erin

I don't know if anyone has posted about the city night life train story yet but let me just give a little cliff notes version. So, Becca Derek and I are coming back from Interlaken on our first overnight train. Our train gets into Dusselforf at 6 in the morning and we have to be at class at 9. To give a mental image of the seats we were in just think of an egg shaped pod. So in the middle of the night the train comes to a stop and when we wake up we realize that we are 2 hours behind. Becca and I go up about 4 cars to find a worker to figure out what is going on. All of our stuff is back at our egg pods. The worker tells us that, in very broken english, this is where the cars split and we are now going to amsterdam. So we run back because we think we have been separated from our stuff. Thankgoodness we were not split, but now we have to figure out where we are. Later we find out that we are on this other track that is going to be going through dusseldorf but we are not stopping there. so we go and talk to another personel to figure out how we can get off. Somehow, by the grace of god, the train stops just for us in koln. So we gather up all our stuff and try to get off the train. As i am slamming everyone in the head with my stuff trying to get off, I get caught in the door and can't move. But in the end, Becca, Derek and I get off in Koln and are back in dusseldorf only 1 hour behind schedule. I love city night life trains.

another story, I went running the other day and got lost. So I decided to back track because that was the only way i knew how to get home. I couldn't walk b/c it would take too long. I ended up running for over an hour. My legs are sore but I don't feel as bad about eating pastries.

Anyway, We are going to prague this weekend and staying in a 70 bed hostile... This is just a story waiting to happpen. Party on

Frat houses and lots of stinky cows

We got back from Hannover yesterday. Staying in a frat house was definately an experience, I'll have to say. We started out with only 3 beds for 6 people. But then Leslie and I stole a mattress, pillow, and blanket from the boys. Which turned out fine since certain members of our group never came home that night! So then we ended up with 4 mattresses on the floor, with not enough pillows and I think only one blanket. It was like the Funny Farm all over again!!! But we all slept just fine, for the few hours of sleep that we got. Everyone was definately exhausted the next day.

After the last two days in Hannover, I have seen enough cows to last me a lifetime. The places we went were much better than the other farms, but I still don't really care to look at any more smelly cows. We did get to see a cow beginning to give birth in the morning. I guess I'm a nerd, but I thought that was really cool, and I wanted to stay and watch. But of course, we had to run off to the next place so we wouldn't be late. Yesterday I was amazed by the cow being cut open on the table. The rumen was bigger than I am! It was definately bloody, but I am always amazed by stuff like that. I wanted to stay in the room, but we had to split into two groups again. It was sad to see the dog that had suffocated on a ball he swallowed. Later at the cattle clinic, seeing the surgery and the ultrasound was really cool. It was interesting how they use the needle and tube during the surgery to smell to find the organ, rather than seeing it.

I am kind of glad to be back in Dusseldorf today, because all the traveling makes you tired. But of course, I'm leaving again for the weekend today after school! We're going to Bruges for the weekend. I can't wait to get some real Belgium chocolate! And some Belgium waffles! Yum!

Speed Blogging

So I just got to the AIB and I'm trying to quickly post a blog in the 4 minutes Dr. Wasser said we have until class starts. I think I'm going to go with the 6 minutes I have on my watch. This week has gone so fast. We got back early Monday morning from Prague. On the train, we had a lady in our sleeper car that wouldn't let us open the window because air gives her headaches. The other girl that was in the car with Leslie and I was being the interpreter between us and the lady. I told her to ask the lady if she gets headaches just walking outside. She then put a blanket over her head in the 108 degree car and went to sleep. So we slightly got our way....a crack in the window! yay for sleeper cars straight from the Czech Republic. We got to the AIB quite tired, but ready for another week. On Tuesday we went to the great town of Hannover, and stayed in the vet student's fraternity house. At first we were all a little iffy about the situation (in our room there were about 3 mattresses for 7 girls) but we ended up having a great time. After they through us a lovely BBQ, the beer and wine started coming and it didn't stop until about 4 am. We sung and danced to Britney Spears and other songs of the American variety, and had fun watching the awesome moves of the vet students. Oh, and we made the most amazing thing, but no one can take this idea because we are already most likely patenting it. Here it is...a red wine and vanilla ice cream shake. One may think this just doesn't go, but it was the most glorious dessert we had ever tasted. Everyone should try it. Seriously. The next morning we got up early and went to the farm. We wore outfis that made us hot (what's new?), and I even created some major condensation with my feet in the plastic boots. Seeing the surgery done on the cow was so cool though. I love blood and guts. We also went into a big room where they were removing all of the organs of a freshly dead cow. There was a cute dog's head sitting in front of me that had been chopped off, and it had a ball that it had choked on in it's throat still. I hope the owner felt very very bad for not judging the size of the ball before purchasing it. I personally didn't know that Germany had clouds, but it rained on the bus ride back to Dusseldorf and we all had a pleasant nap. This weekend I am going to Brugge/Bruges with Leslie, because we just didn't have time to plan a big trip and frankly we don't care. We would much rather travel a short distance and relax in a small town. We are also going to go hang out on the Belgium coast because it is so close, and the "white sand beaches" actually look quite nice. Who would have thought? Well, the German teacher has arrived so I believe I must bring this to an end. Sorry for any grammar/punctuation errors.

The Familie Henselmann.

So the frat house was quite an experience: and yet another shared by all 22 of us, so I will let everyone else tell the story. Although, I'd like to metion that our room was so blasted hot - emphasis to be made on the "blasted."

The cat is back, and my laundry isn't done. That there is probably the story of my life at Familie Henselmann on Quadenhofstrasse 96h. It's like you're supposed to worry if your indoor-outdoor cat does not come home every night at exactly 21:47. And, you have to make a gigantic deal out of it when the cat comes back, as if the cat hadn't been doing the same thing for the past 3 years.

About the laundry: our host mom insists on doing it for us. Although, I'm pretty sure that it hasn't been done for a week and a half. I guess I was uninformed about the hierarchy of laundry-doing: all of their laundry has to be done before ours. I must be a dumm Amerikanerin. So this is why I couldn't even pack for the weekend. Nevertheless, 70 bed dorm hostel in Prague, here we come!

The Hannover Experience

Yesterday we all went to Hannover for an overnight trip. The trip over there was about 4 hours and of course everyone slept most of the way. We have discovered the important truth that a bus ride equals nap time. I know I needed that nap because I stayed up too late the night before. One reason was that we always stay up late talking with Gerd and Christa, but that night Katie and I also did a video journal and I called my boyfriend and my parents. I didn't get to bed until 2:45, so needless to say, I was very tired.

Anyways, when we got to Hannover, we went to the Reproduktionsmedizin Mariensee, which was a cool genetics and cloning exerimental farm. My two favorite parts of that tour was seeing a cow beginning to give birth to her baby and seeing a cloned cow. I thought it was cool because the cloned cow was made from a breed of cows that is going extinct. After this we went to the Vet school in Hannover for a barbecue with the vet students at a frat house. The barbecue was really good, and it was fun hanging out with and talking to all the students. I also loved playing with Carston's dog, Odin. He was this weimer who loved to play with his ball. We couldn't get him to let go of the ball at first and then we realized that he listens to German commands...of course!! Anyways, we learned that "aus" means drop, "sitz" means sit, "platz" means lay down, and "bleib" means stay. I had fun playing with him for a little bit that night!! Everyone was having a good time drinking and talking, but I was tired so I went to bed early. The party, however, continued for a few more hours, and apparently it involved some crazy dancing!

The next day in Hannover, everyone was really tired from the night before, and of course we had a packed day. First we toured the Institute for Pathology, in which we got to see a necropsy of a cow! It was really kinda disgusting, but it was neat to see how big the Rumen of a cow is. It was also funny because the guy who took out the liver, dropped it on the floor! The saddest part, though was seeing some dead siamese twin piglets and the head of a dog who choked on his toy (and the toy was still in the throat)!! Later, we went to another research farm where we got to see this robot they use to milk the cows, and the whole technology is simply amazing to me!! The cows come in on their own accord, and the robot finds the utters, milks her, and when she's done, it washes off the utters and the machine!! The last place we went was the clinic for small animals and the clinic for cattle. Of course we had to put on really hot clothes at each place!! At the cattle clinic we got to see a DA surgery and an ultrasound. They were both really neat, but it was so hot in there!!! Then when everyone was exhausted and hot, we got back on the bus to take a nap on the way back to Düsseldorf.

Frat House Extravaganza

These past two days in Hanover have been interesting. I really enjoyed everything that we did although I am extremely exhausted, and staying at the Frat house was most definitely an experience. I enjoyed sleeping on a mattress with only half of my body under the covers and no pillow although I think I had it better off than some from what I heard. I actually slept fairly well despite the loud music and lack of sleeping gear. I love it.

All the students were really nice, and I really enjoyed talking with them. It amazes me how well they speak English. I really want to learn how to speak German fluently when I return to the States. I feel like the Europeans are so much more cultured than we are. There are so many Europeans who are multilingual, and they all seem to be very well informed about issues in the world, which is something I think we too often put off as unimportant.

The farms were all really interesting. My favorite activity was the large animal clinic and seeing the Robert machine at the farm. I have a new appreciation for agricultural engineers who are able to build such devices. The machine seemed to do pretty much everything, and it amazes me that they have the system networked such that if anything bad were to happen, engineers from Sweden are able to access the network and fix the problem. I do wonder how they were able to establish such a secure system because it would seem that with every network you create, there is always someone capable of cracking into, and I wonder how they prevent such things from happening. Seeing the necropsy was also really interesting. I had no idea how large the rumen of a cow was. In fact, I have never seen a dissected cow before so that part of the tour was exciting. Watching the surgeries in the large animal clinic were amazing as well, and I was impressed that they are able to perform surgeries on the cow while they are standing up. Anywho, I am extremely exhausted, and I absolutely must go to sleep. Ich bin zehr müde. Bis später und tschüss!

I go to the toilet and bring you a beer...................

Yes, that is what Carstin (I'm not very sure how to spell his name, but I know how to say it!) told me, and after the very strange look I gave him he said oh no no! I mean I must use the toilet and then I will go get you a beer from the bar and bring it here. It was quite humerous. The language barrier has been very exciting to overcome and I have greatly enjoyed playing the English word guessing game. You know the one, they tell me the German word, then try to describe it with every strange English word they can think of, and then I guess the real word for it. Its quite a fun game :)
So yes, as I know we will all blog, we had a sleep over at a German veterinary fraterneity house, not quite the bedless adventure my host mom was afraid of. I had a bed in a room indoors and everything. Except a blanket, thank goodness my ever prepared host mother packed me with one. She is great :-D
I know I had said I really missed Southern hospitality, but I definetly feel like I got a taste of it in Hannover. The guys and girls were all so nice to us. They had a huge bbq with lots of potato salad and bread and cabbage. It wasn't quite a Texas bbq, but I definetly appreciated it. Plus they gave me ice cream. Oh! And I got to dance! I'm not sure if there is anything more fun than jumping around inside a German frat house to the YMCA. If there is, let me know and we'll start to compile a list. But after everything, I truly do appreciate everthing the people in Hannover did for us. It was way better than staying in a hotel, and I feel I learned so much more about Germans my age.
Today, after a refreshing 4 hours of sleep, we traveled around the vet school, and to a cattle and small animal clinic. I don't want to be a vet, but if I did, I would work with cows. They are so cute! And maybe cheeps too, but definetly cows. We watched part of a necropsy of a cow, we watched a surgery on a cow (it was awake!!!!!), and lots of other interesting cow related items. Plus we got to dress up in white coveralls that made me look like the Michelin man. Oh! and yesterday I got to see a baby cow try to be born. Strangely I think it was much more exciting than seeing a human baby born. And when you see the way Dr. Musser lights up when he's around cows, you just can't turn away. I hope when I am practicing medicine I will always have that light in my eyes.
Well, since that was just about the most random blog I have done so far, I will have to sign off for the night and get some real sleep in a nice quiet house :)
Only 8 more days til Texas!

Frat sleep over...

So I'm sure everyone has or eventually will blog about our overnight stay in Hannover. Even so I figure I might as well throw in my two cents. I had such a great time and I think most everyone else did as well. The barbeque was good and once Michael brought us some wine we were content. I am not a big beer drinker at all but I love any kind of wine...white, red, blush, you name it. One ineresting concoction that we decided to try was along the lines of a red wine ice cream float. Surprisingly it was really good and tasted just like raspberries. We let Greg do the honors of making it and not to mention be the first to try it. We used vanilla ice cream and red wine and it was amazing...maybe I'll go into the business or something. Anyway, I went to bed around 2 am and there were definitely still quite a few people up and going strong. We slept on mattresses and there were five of us on three mattresses that were all pushed together. I'm not complaining though because I slept great. So to sum it all up, I really enjoyed the mingle at the vet med students' fraternity house and think that it is something that should stay in the schedule for future programs.

Too Many Cows

After the past few weeks of our 'studies' I am not sure that I want to be a vet anymore. I still think that I could be a vet, but I really have no interest in learning about or having to constantly deal with cows. I don't know.

We have had so much interaction or just contact with cows this semester. I think this Wednesday was our fifth time. Although it was neat to see the vet student doing the ultrasound on the cow and to see the cow surgery right there in front of us, I don't know if I enjoy being around cows that much. However, I don't know whether I should let my inaffection for cows stop me.

Our trip to Hannover was fun - I particularly enjoyed getting to visit the necropsy lab. It was really cool to see the cow being dissected so soon after it had dies, I guess it was a completely new experience for me cause I have only dissected things after they've been preserved. The cat dissection in progress didn't bother me at all, as I've had the chance to do that myself, although it was interesting that its bowels had been displaced through its diapragm. The dog with the ball in its throat was sad though, cause I couldn't help but imagine that being Phoenix.

The night at the frat house was fun, although pretty much as usual I did not drink anything but cola light. It was nice to get to know Shannon and Leslie a bit better even though its getting towards the end of the trip. Dancing was fun, though hot. I think its the first time I've ever danced in shorts - an odd feeling. As bad as it might seem with us staying on mattresses and the sponsors heading to their hotel, sleeping went fine, although I did get a mattress to myself. I guess the entire situation would have been perfectly acceptable had there been a mattress for each student.

Munchen ist wunderbar!

Last Wednesday Munich got the Texan experience! We started with lunch at this cool internet cafe and then we headed to the bike tour. I think I was spoiled by Mike´s Bike Tours in Amsterdam. I enjoyed the Munich bike tour a lot but what kind of tour guide doesn´t carry a pump on him? We saw all the architecture around the city, went through the Englisch Garten, and ended with the Augusteiner Biergarten. I liked the Englisch Garten the best because the river that went through it and the Chinese Tea House was cool with all the beer stands and Bavarian Folk music. I love the Bavarians. Period. I don´t understand why they get such a bad rap in northern Germany, but the bike tour guide said the Bavarians live for beer, dancing, singing, and God. Whats not to love? I also feel like Germany parallels the United States. Up north, the people might not be so open and courteous especially to people they don´t know, but down in Texas its like you never meet a stranger. After we enjoyed a liter of beer at the Augusteiner, we went back to the hotel where we had our dance party. All I can say (beg, really), is that the footage of us dancing and falling off the bed hopefully makes the final editing cut. Thursday we went to Dachau to tour the concentration camp. I was expecting to cry and I almost wanted to cry but we learned more about how the camp was before the war and how it wasn´t an extermination camp despite the 40,000 who died by the end. Its almost as if it wasn´t so bad to be there, but I know it was. I just wasn´t as effected by it as I thought I would be, especially finding out that they never once used the gas chamber. Not that I wanted that to happen, but going to a concentration camp one expects certain feelings and emotions and I didn´t have them. Don´t get me wrong, it was extremely interesting and I´m glad we had the opportunity to be there. After Dachau a bunch of us gals hit up the Englisch Garten river where I had a near death experience and we TRIED to get Stuart to take in the FKK experience but she wasn´t looking for the life of her. I had an awesome time and got some awesome pictures. After the river we of course went to the Haufbrau Haus where we met a funny Aussie who schooled us on language differences and his thoughts on Americans. Kristen also almost got eaten by a German man sitting behind us and Stuart tried to set the Aussie´s $500 jeans on fire only after she stabbed the table with her knife. In a nutshell...I LOVE MUNICH, I LOVE BAVARIANS, and I LOVE BEER. I love the German experience.

Better late than never

I never wrote about last week in Munich, so I'm going to do it now even though its been a while since then. So I loved Munich. It might be one of my favorite cities. The English Garden was so much fun and seeing an old naked man running might be one of the funniest/grossest things I've ever seen! The night was so much fun too...the Hofbrauhaus was touristy, but still a blast. Stuart and I went on a quest to find a karaoke bar and ended up meeting an american, and 3 austrians in an irish pub. (I also spent 10 euros in that same pub buying a Jack and Coke. These Europeans need to realize that Jack Daniels is the best and not charge so much for it.) Anyways, we never found the karaoke, but we did find a crazy german man who looked very much like a cartoon man. I drew a very good likeness of him, but I couldn't quite capture the crazy look in his eyes. He wanted us to "go in this direction to the party" and also "go to the english gardens where we can be as we are." When I asked the Austrians what that meant they said, "I think that means he wants us to get naked." We left shortly after that. In spite of the crazy man, I had so much fun in Munich and I really want to go back someday. After Munich, we went to Salzburg and went on the Sound of Music tour. It was really cheesy, but fun. We also saw the Mirabell Gardens which were amazing, so I've decided that I'm getting married there. I hope my future husband doesn't mind flying to Austria for a wedding. From Salzburg, Melissa and I took a night train to Lichtenstein, which is the smallest country ever. We walked around for an hour and I think we made it through half the country. Melissa was quite a sight in the train station in her pajamas sleeping on this metal bench. She got quite a few looks...I think people thought she was homeless. Then we went to Lucerne in Switzerland. It was so beautiful there. I had to sneak into our hostel because we only booked one bed, but luckily it turned out ok. We went up to the Alps which were incredible. I was so scared going up the mountain though, but I made it up and down in one piece.

En Guard

Ok some of you remember me talking about certain fraternities that fence with real swords and were those weird goggles. Well it turns out that the frat we stayed in this week still does it. I noticed that a couple of the guys had scars on their faces and asked about it. Of course the whole thing is boys only but how cool is it. Anyway on a different note the vet hospital was amazing except I could have gone all day without knowing how the dog died. Oh well.

"You can use anything to open a beer."

Every once in a while in life, something completely unexpected and great comes your way for no apparent reason at all. Jitterbuggin' Germans, free beer, garlic butter, white wine, kiddie pools, a dance revolution and the balcony of love are what defined last nights' unexpected event...an overnight stay at a German frat house.
Our program for Tuesday took us to Hannover where we were told that we would visit the prestigious veterinary schools of that great city. Tuesday night slowly but surely unfolded into one of the best parties I've ever been to. Our cheap-skate professors wouldn't indulge in a hotel room for us, so we roomed the night in a frat house owned and run by some of Hannovers' most accomplished veterinary students. We had started with a great supper at which I discovered the great pleasures of garlic butter, afterwhich I channeled my consumptive energies toward shrivveling my kidneys with FREE BEER. I had the best time intermingling with the nice german boys (one of whom happened to be our tour guide for the next day) and there was one in particular, Karsten by name, who saw to it that a drink was indeed in both mine and Sarah's hands at all times. A perfect host. Too bad he found it neccessary to always announce his intentions for using the facilities while he went to fetch our cold ones. I think he was rather proud of his ability for killing two birds with one stone. One of the most frustrating problems that one is faced with in Germany is the absence of twist tops on beer bottles. However, our hosts were most solicitous in helping us to remove our beer caps in a variety of ways. Karsten took me under his wing and educated me as to the inumerable possibilities for performing the neccessary operation, saying that really anything can be used to open a beer. I am now certified to pop a top using another bottle, a cigarette lighter, a table or any flatwear of your choice. I knew I would learn something on this trip.
After singing a few Queen ballads, wading through a kiddie pool and sitting in a forsaken sail boat, I noticed the picturesque romance of the imposing balcony belonging to the house, and decided to climb up the wall to where Kristen awaited me. And then came a dance party at which I swing danced to Usher, Weezer and Offspring with my new found German buddies. Eventually the night trailed off with some small talk and I stumbled into bed around 3:45 in the morning. Everyone in the fraternity told us that the last group from A&M were boring.
Hannover boys, you have my heart.


zasdyhghr

Do As the Romans Do

So, traffic in Italy is absolutely haywire. They stop if the feel it is necessary to stop, and they honk their horns as if they were in New York. The best part though is that there are no green and red people to tell you whether it is safe or unsafe to walk across the road. Instead, you just have to step out into oncoming traffic and pray that you do not die in the process. Fun, huh? I was afraid Kathy and I were going to get killed in front of the Colosseum, but fortunately, cars do stop. We tried to keep up with the locals and only cross when they did, but that only works for a little while until you realize there are other places you need to go. People also dress up quite a bit more down there. It was hotter than Texas with no air conditioning, and the Italians are still dressed in full suits. Craziness. They seem to make it work for them though, and I did not see anyone passing out because of heatstroke, which to be quite honest was somewhat of a suprise to me. There are also fountains everywhere, and you can drink the water! And, it is free! Whoop! Free water! That is really good because the restaurants are horrendously expensive, and I think they enjoy ripping people off. I had to pay 5.20 for a coke at a shop. I would not have ordered it if I knew it was going to cost me so much, but I figured that it would not be any more than 3 euros. Apparently, I was wrong.

On a happier note, Rome is absolutely beautiful, and I think everyone should go there! It truly is a sight to see. The Vatican Museum was amazing. I could have stared at the School of Athens frescoe in one of the Raphael rooms for ages! It amazes me how much detail he was able to capture in a frescoe. One of the things I learned is that frescoes are quite different from paintings in the sense that the paint is mixed with the plaster, and therefore, the "painting" is actually apart of the wall. The artwork in the Sistine Chapel by Michaelangelo is also done as a frescoe. With frescoes, things have to be painted more quickly since the plaster dries rather quickly. In the Sistine Chapel Michaelangelo depicts the story of creation across the sealing, and on the main wall depicts his view of heaven and hell which is disturbing and amazing all in one.

St. Peter's Basilica was probably my absolute favorite place in Rome! It is absolutely magnificent, and the "paintings" are actually mosaicis. There are no paintings in the entire basilica, which is almost unbelievable until you look really really closely at the artwork on the wall. Bernini's dove in the center is gorgeous. Kathy and I went to mass there on Saturday night, and I spent the entire mass staring at it. Absolutely beautiful! All in all, everyone should go! Tschuss!

When in Rome...

This past weekend Katie and I went to Rome from Munich. This trip we did not have any trouble with trains like we did on our Prague trip. The train down there was a straight shot and the three we took on the way back had about 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours between them just in case one of the trains happened to be late! We made all the trains and got back when we wanted to!! Yeah!! In Rome we had a great time, even though is was super HOT!! It was like Texas weather (which we should be used to...right) but there was no airconditioning! The fist day we were there we went to the Colleseum, Roman Forum, and Palentine Hill. This was all outdoors, but it was cool seeing all the old Roman ruins right in the middle of this huge city. After being outside practically all day we were really tired, so we went back to the hotel and went to bed early. The next day we went to the Vatican early after buying this delicious peach in the market on the way to the train station! Even though we got to the Vatican museum 15 minutes after they opened there was still an enormously huge line that wrapped around 3 corners of the wall! It was miserable standing out there for 2 hours in the heat, but luckily about half of it was shaded! When we finally made it inside, it was such a relief to feel the airconditioning. The museum itself was great, and the Raphael rooms and the Sistine Chapel were especially amazing. The frescoes were gorgeous and they all told stories!! There were so many tour groups in the museum, though that it made it rather difficult to see things and to move on to the next room! We also went to St. Peter's Basilica, which impressed me much more than the Sistine Chapel. We took a self guided tour of the church with Rick Steve's as our guide. That was really cool because then we knew what we were looking at. I was amazed that there are no paintings in the Basilica-they are all mosaics, but they use such small tiles that they look like paintings! After going up into the dome, we attended a mass in the Basilica. It was so awesome!!!! The mass was all in Italian, but since Catholic masses are so structured, we could still tell what was going on. Later, we walked down to the Pantheon and got a three-scoop cone of delicious italian gellato!! We walked around some more and went shopping, and when it was darker we went to see Trevi Fountain at night. It was beautifull!!! And of course we tossed in some coins for good luck! From there we went to the Spanish steps, which were full of young people having a good time. That was the end of our sight-seeing adventure, but one more thing to add about Italy is the traffic. They don't have the green and red people to tell you when to cross the street. Instead everyone just walks out into oncoming traffic and they all stop!!! We could not get used to this idea, so we were always hesitant crossing! It just doesn't seem safe! Oh-also, the train we took down to Rome was quite old and the toilet was not a flush toilet-it just had a hole in the toilet that emptied out onto...guess where...the TRACKS!! That is so disgusting!!! I guess that's another good reason to not walk the tracks!!

I'm going on a bedless adventure

So my host mom is super sweet, and also very worried about my trip to Hannover. Miriam told us yesterday to see if our family had extra mattresses or sleeping mats becuase where we are staying may not have enough beds for all of us, and my host mom was just so upset. She didn't have a mat so she gave me a blow up pool float, and a blanket, and she wanted me to bring a pillow becuase she wanted to make sure I was taken care of. And then this morning, probably the funniest thing, she gave me a bag of gummy bears and told me "the bears told me this morning that they've never been to Hannover" so I told her I'd take them with me but that they would probably be eaten. She really is just such a great host mom! She even drives me to my bus stop!

Oh yeah, yesterday we got the talk about the German health care system. It was VERY interesting, probably one of the better speakers we have heard. The system seems to work for them, but I really don't see it as very applicable in the U.S. because German doctors get paid jack crap compared to U.S. physicians. I don't intend to become rich from being a physician, but I expect to live somewhat comfortably. I mean they said that they make around 45,000 euros a year, plus Germany takes out a bunch in taxes. U.S. Drs wouldn't sacrifice all their pay. And even with thier system they still have a lot of reforms that they go through every year and they make the co-pays higher every year, so no system is perfect. I definetly think the talk will help me with my med school interviews. :)

Back in Dusseldorf

It's nice to be back in Dusseldorf for most of this week. When I got back, my host family was like, 'we haven't seen you in a while', and they're right! I was back for Sunday night of last week after Barcelona, and not since Thursday night before then. Weird. Yesterday we had German class, then we went to a local veterinarian's office. The office itself was not at all different from an American vet's office, though a bit outdated. However, the practice was very different than what I am used to. Each doctor at that clinic sees 40-50 patients a day! Also, their clinical care did not seem quite as advanced as ours. Emergency clinics are few and far between, and this vet had 3/4 year vet students come to help her who couldn't take a temperature or listen to a heart. That was surprising. However, Dr. Wasser said that he thinks our grads are also unprepared for clinical practice, just not to the same degree. Also, they have "helpers" here, not technicians, and they are not legally allowed to take blood/urine samples or do other things that U.S. techs always do. They are not allowed to crop ears, dock tails, or declaw cats here due to animal welfare laws. (something that I'm not against!) Also, each vet school administers their own tests, and there is not national exam. It seems to me that clinical care here is much less advanced than our clinical care. Or maybe they just don't take it as seriously as we do. All their operations at this clinic are done on an outpatient basis. Very strange.

When we got back, we had a lecture on German health care by the CEO of the national doctors labor union. It was interesting to try and figure out exactly how their social health care system works, and it raised a lot of interesting questions. Basically, as the population ages, will Germany continue to be able to provide care to all citizens? Or will they be forced to pick and choose as far as procedures go. Also, I think the doctors union is a good institution. It enables the doctors to organize for better hours and pay. They recently had a strike, and the citizens were completely in support of it. I guess they understood that the people in charge of their health care should be treated well. It is an interesting system.

After that, I worked on my paper for three hours, then went back to have dinner with my host family. I'm about halfway done with my paper, and I think I should be able to finish it. I still have Thursday evening and Sunday evening, as well as Monday if I need it. Tschuss!

obsession with the cat

My host mom is completely obsessed with her cat. I pretty much live in BFE, away from all the public transportation. Therefore, the one bus that actually comes by stops running around 8 pm. Since I walk the last few stops home, I saw my host mom walking the dog last night. Of course, I never receive a normal greeting. It went something like this... "Hi Karen. The cat is gone. Where is it?"

I'm pretty sure I had left the house at 7 that morning and didn't get back until 11 at night. But then again, she's pretty sure that I, at all times, know where the cat is. Only three more days of this craziness...

WOW it just hit me...

I found something that jogged my memory and gave me the chills while looking up info for my paper. Here is my short story... you should read it!

So when I was in 3rd grade I had just moved in with my dad and step mom and started school in Alvin, Texas. It was my first day I was sitting next to this girl named Sara. We started to talk and she offered to show me around and introduce me to everyone. She was much smaller than all the other kids and you could tell she had some sort of health problem, but I did not know what it was. One day she got short of breath and feel down in the playground and the called 911. Sara was gone for a week but then came back just as lively as ever. That week our grade got a special talk from a doctor from Texas Childrens Hospital. We learned Sara was the longest living pediatric heart transplant patient. She had surgery when she was only 8 months old. They showed us some pictures and Sara proudly displayed her scar. Our school class was on the news. She sadly died in 8th grade and probably had the best outlook on life of anyone I have ever met. (Just a side note... just last year my aunt moved into Saras old house... it was werid to go in there because I used to play over there all the time.)

I always wondered where my interest in becoming a doctor came from and why I always though the heart was so cool. When I was doing research for my paper I came across an article about Sara and it clicked. I remembered telling her I wanted to be a "heart doctor" so babies could grow up and and play like normal kids.

I can not tell you what chills this gave me reading about her and remebering all this... it seems like yesterday, and now I know what started my interest in cardiology!