Hannover/Bad Oeynhausen (7/12/10-7/14/10)

On Monday, we hiked up the ruins at the top of the Drachenfels mountains with Nils. The hike was not too bad, and the view at the top was definately worth it. We ate a little bit of food that we had brought and rested. The ruins were over 800 years old, and although there isn't a whole lot of form left to the structure it was still really cool to be in a place with so much history. We had to run down the mountain to beat the rain and it only took us about 15 minutes to get down after hiking 45 minutes to reach the top. We got back to the train and went back into Bonn. We had a German lesson and a culture lesson. The culture lessons are very interesting to me and are one of my favorite parts of the experience because Ture has lived in the United States and is knowledgeable about both cultures. He is able to give an objective analysis of the differences and explain some of why they exist. I especially liked learning about the German view of Americans. After all of this, I ate dinner at my host family's house and talked to them as much as I could while they ran the restaurant.

On Tuesday we left Bonn to go to Bad Oeynhausen and tour a hostpital. It was a very nice hospital with a wing specifically designed for children. I was impressed with the thought that had been to put into the design of the section. There was a window in the ceiling so that small children could see their siblings through the floor if they were too young to visit them or if they were too sick. The doctor that gave the tour was very informative and was willing to answer any questions we had. The bioengineers got a presentation from the pump technicians about the various types of VADs that have been used over the years. These guys were extremely knowledgeable and made a lot of jokes with us about their work and stuff. I do research on VADs, and I found this part of the day to be the most interesting because I had more background on the subject.

On Wednesday we were in Hannover, and we went to tour the medical school. The first doctor we met was a head of a department, and he asked us about our system of medicine and our thoughts on the German/European system. He brought up some interesting questions about healthcare and exposed some of the weaknesses in both systems. The next doctor was one of my favorite guides of the trip. He was a nephrologist, and he really involved us in his lecture by quizzing us and making us consider many different situations. We then walked through the hospital and met a patient undergoing dialysis. He explained the dialysis machine's parts and functions and questioned us about why certain aspects were important to its function. That night in Hannover some of us went out to a club called "Zazzy" and met some German people our age. It was a lot of fun, and I wish we could have stayed a little longer to meet more people.