Heart Surgery and Hamburger... not to be confused with the American favorite and Ritterfest

Bad Oeynhausen was awesome! My face was less than two feet away from a man's heart!  It definitely up there on my list of coolest things I've seen since I've been here.  I liked being able to see them prep our patient for surgery as well.  I saw an open heart surgery my junior year in high school for my AP biology course in Houston, but we didn't get to see how everything was prepared.  Our anesthesiologist at Bad Oeynhausen was very helpful as she explained all the machines that she was monitoring and it was awesome to apply what I've learned in physiology!  That Wiggers diagram!    The entire aortic valve replacement surgery was a complete experience, we got to be right there as they cut him open and you could smell everything.  Me and Drew could see absolutely everything from hooking up our patients heart to the heart machine, stopping his heart, and seeing the surgeon cut out his aortic valve.  And the entire time my tummy was rumbling cause I was sooo hungry.   I guess that's a good sign I may be in the right field if I can think about food while there is heart surgery going on right in front of me?  We also got the opportunity to visit transplant patients and it was a great feeling to see them doing so well.  It was very touching to hear them say they were given the gift of life again. :)

After our tour of the heart and diabetes center, Susan and I caught a bus to the Hauptbahnhof... very different.  Bad Oeynhausen is definitely a small city.  There were two platforms.. and that was it.  Our train ride to Hannover, our connection was gosh awful.  All the wagons didn't have air... I was sweating bullets.  The train ride was only one hour but it was one miserable one at that.  When we caught our train in Hannover to Hamburg, we jumped on any wagon, and guess what? no air, bleh!  So Susan and I kept moving down multiple wagons until we found one that was quite empty and amazingly cooler than any other wagon- jack pot!  When we arrived in Hamburg we met up with Susan's host brother's girlfriend, Catherine.  We got off the subway at Jungfernstieg and when we walked up the city took my breath away.  This was by far the prettiest place I've been to in Germany.  We were surrounded by water and white bridges and an incredible amount of swans in this little lake.  While Susan was trying to find Catherine, I sat on the steps near this lake and watched a man near me feed these beautiful swans while I took many pictures.  The city was illuminated- beautiful!  We finally found Catherine, or I should say they found me taking pictures of everything... and we went to dinner at a restaurant on the river.  After wards we went to the harbor and got to see huge cruise ships.  Susan and I got lucky because this weekend was cruise days 2008 and all the cruise ships were in the harbor.  I loved how they all lit up, so once again I was taking a ton of pictures.  The next morning we woke up at a very decent hour and headed to the harbor for breakfast and a harbor tour.  Then it was time for lunch!  We had really good fish and chips with homeade tartar sauce, strawberries with champagne, and delicious crepes.  Then headed back home later that afternoon.  All in all it was a very good day.  

Saturday our host family took us to Ritterfest in a town about 20mins from here.  We got to see another castle, eat delicious food again, and see a lot of medieval things.  My favorite was getting to buy my crepe for 2.50 with exactly 2.50 euros in change.  It was definitely meant to be.

I've really enjoyed this trip.  I feel that I would not have gotten the same experience if I was not living with a host family.  I'm not one to leave my comfort zone like I've said in a past post, and I think putting me with a host family made this trip much more memorable and helped me come out of my comfort zone.  I am really going to miss them.  I am flying Lufthansa and since they were on strike last week my host family keeps telling me that maybe it will happen again so that I can stay with them a little longer...  I would love to but I miss home.