Catching up on sleep...

The reason for my sporadic posts is due to the fact i probably haven't sat down in the past week. Starting with last thursday's visit to the hospital which entailed a meeting with a doctor involved in research and care of patients reagarding artificial hearts. This subject piqued my interest as I and the other biomedical engineers bombarded him with questions. This sparked an interest into further research into either this or related subjects (such as LVADs), and a few of us boimedical engineers have brought up the possibility of forming a research team next semester to design a self regulating heart/LVAD. Friday's trip to Cologne was incredible. We were given a behind the scenes (and on top of the building) tour of one of the most beautiful churches in the world. We were allowed to walk around the roof next to the gargoyles, and the view of the city was breathtaking from those heights. Friday afternoon, Doug and I boarded a train for Amsterdam. After getting a free upgrade to an apartment (they had not reserved us a room in spite of our reservations), we set out to experience the night life. Saturday was spent touring the Van Gogh museum and just walking around the beautiful city. After an exciting Saturday night and long Sunday, doug and I finally settled in to a bar to watch the world cup finals. We arrived more than an hour early to eat some food and get a table and were not surprised when we grabbed the last available table. By kickoff, the whole place was packed with singing frenchman and shouting italiains (although the french outnumbered the italians 2:1). The game exceeded expectations and kept everyone glued to their seats until past 10:00 our time. This presented us with the challenge of reaching the train station in about an hour and a half. We arrived in plenty of time to catch the first of three connections that would land us in Dusseldorf. A new part of life was presented to me when Doug and I slept for four hours in the tunnels of the train station (the wind was freezing upstairs) in a town in the middle of nowhere. we stepped foot into the Dusseldorf train station at 8 in the morning, allowing plenty of time to reach the classroom by nine. Although sleep deprived and smelling of train station floors, we managed to make it through the day and came out alive and kicking, excited to have spent the ideal college weekend in Amsterdam.