Don't Forget to Say Rabbit(New Year's Weekend)

(As written on the train ride from Praha to Berlin and the night after)
Rabbit! It's time for a New Year and what better way to usher in the New Year with luck than by saying "rabbit!". If only the New Year's weekend was only that...

Friday: What a stay in Bonn we had, but now it was time for the fun to start. The five hour train ride(the calm before the storm of a weekend), was rather uneventful, as train rides usually are. It was just 5 hours of reading. When we got to Berlin, I was amazed at the number of people that were just in the train station. The story was no different outside. Now that we were in a new city, it was time to learn a new train system. A much more intricate system, that turned out to be extremely useful to get around Berlin the following week. When we arrived to our hotel, we had a short time to rest-up for the upcoming night, so I ate a place that was near the hotel(I would later come back to this place at least 5 more times in our stay in Berlin). Once the time arrived for us to move out, we set off to the train station. Upon arrival at the train station, and once again the sheer number of people left me awe-struck. We managed to cram into a train cart to go to the Festmile stop. I can honestly say i have never been in a more crammed situation than I was on this train. When we arrived to the Festmile location, I was amazed again by the sheer number of people. I realize its Berlin, on New Year’s but seeing that many people is just astounding. There was hardly any room in the front towards the stage so we made our way to the back of the crowd.

We spent the majority of our time here, visiting stalls, getting food, and walking around. The 4 hours till midnight seemed to fly by quick, because before i knew it, it was time to usher in the New Years. By this point the crowd of people had grown and spilled all the way back towards where we were. We watched the New Year’s ceremonies on a large screen behind a Ferris wheel. We followed up the countdown by doing a group Aggie War Hymn. This had to be one of the most fun experiences I have had in Germany, as everyone was enjoying themselves and the atmosphere around us was perfect for it. After a couple more hours of enjoying ourselves at the Festmile, the bitter cold started to take its toll on us and we remembered we had to catch an early train to Prague the next morning for our free weekend. We managed to find the way back to the hotel amidst all the congestion, ice and emotion that was that night. By the time we arrived it was three in the morning and we had to leave the hotel by five thirty. Despite the hour, I was not feeling tired, but I still tried to fall asleep, and only managed to fall asleep at four, knowing well that I would have to wake up in thirty minutes to pack and prepare for the weekend trip.

Saturday-Flash forward thirty short minutes later. I prepared myself and my small backpack for our weekend trip. We caught the tram to the train station in time, and barely managed to catch our S-Bahn train to the Haupbahnhof in time. When we arrived, it was still a good hour before our train would leave, so we scattered to look for food at the train station. Still feeling sluggish after the short night of sleep I had a coffee, and a Coke. Before we knew it the train had arrived and it was time to board. I took the opportunity when we passed a small shop to get another coffee before we boarded the train. By this point I had the level of caffeine only present in college students around finals time. Expecting a lot of people traveling on New Year’s, we were met with an almost abandoned train. This gave our group the opportunity to spread out and try to get more sleep after the short slept night. Unfortunately for me, the caffeine in my system began to take its effect. I took this chance to be the lookout for our arrival in Prague while others slept, and to read more. Another five hour train ride flew by, only this time when we looked out the window we were not greeted by a city scape like Berlin, but a cityscape of a very Eastern European variety. It looked like something straight out of the movies, and not in the incredibly charming way. However, once we embarked at the train station, it was a different sight all together. As soon as we were the tiniest bit familiar with the German language and the German train station, we were thrust back into the world of the unknown Czech language and train station. It was also time to have experience with a new currency. Our experience with the Euro was not as foreign to us as the Euro conversion rate was similar to the US, so judging prices was easy. Enter the Kroner. Meet the Euro's "25 of me equals a Euro" sibling. This threw me off throughout the whole weekend when it came to paying for food and souvenirs. We also had to navigate a new city extensively for the first time since our arrival to Bonn.

We managed to make it from the train station to the Old Town Square and to our hostel. Unfortunately for us, the hostel lost our reservation and we were forced to split into two rooms. The hostel also didn't allow check in until 2, so we had to spend some time in the city before we settled our belongs in Prague. This proved to be no inconvenience as the Hostel has a locker for us to store our belongings and as we had plans to explore the city. We headed straight for the Old Town Square and got some food from a stand. A bratwurst and coke. Incredibly delicious. We explored some of the Old Town Square but we had a small agenda on what we wanted to do in Prague. We tried to purchase a train pass, but the pass machine only took coins, and the only Kroner we had were large bills. There was no change machine nearby so we spent a good amount of time looking around the area for a way to make change. In the end some of us managed to make change at a McDonalds (I took the opportunity to get another coffee), and our group split into groups of five, two and six. The group of five, the one I was in, traversed our way through a new rail system to go explore the palace and cathedral that sat on a hill overlooking the city. The cathedral was another awe-striking cathedral and the palace was no different. This was another city which history was everywhere. After exploring the city we went and took a look at the city from on top of the hill. Seeing the cityscape from the hill is one of the visions that will stay with me a lifetime, as it was one of prettiest sights I saw in Europe.

Instead of taking the train back to the Old Town Square to meet up with our other group members for dinner, we walked down the hill and took the chance to cross Charles Bridge. Our walk through Charles Bridge and the sights we saw from Charles bridge were again another atheistically awesome experience. After we crossed the bridge, we were near were we needed to be to meet with the others, but we still had an hour to kill. We took the opportunity to go see a concert at the church titled “The Four Seasons". While the playing wasn't anything grand, it gave us time to rest and just decompress after a long day. By this point in the day we were cold, tired and hungry, and being somewhere were no thinking or walking needed to be done was ideal. We finally made our way back to our hostel and moved our belongings to our hostel rooms. No one else was in the rooms so we still hadn't met our hostel roommates. We met up with everyone again and went to an Italian place near old town square. By this point, my three coffees and cokes had worn their stay and extreme tiredness had hit me like a bus. By this point in time, I had only slept 30 minutes in the past 38 hours. I barely made it through dinner awake. Dinner consisted of a Hawaiian pizza and tiramisu. I was glad to get back to the hostel after dinner, as I needed some much needed sleep. We had another long day ahead of us the next day which included travel back to Berlin.

Sunday: We woke up later than we normally would have, and ate a quick breakfast before we made our way to our next point of interest. Today’s excursion was dedicated to the Jewish Quarter . This day ended up being an incredibly educational day as we not only found out more about Jewish life in Prague before and after WWII, but we also had the opportunity to visit various synagogues. Two synagogues stuck out to me. The first one was a synagogue converted into a memorial to the Czech Jews who had died as a result of the Holocaust and WWII. The synagogue had walls and wall of names inscribed with the victims, their home location and the dates of their birth and date. There must have been at least 20 walls covered with names. This was an incredibly somber sight to behold, as the sheer quantity of names hit a nerve. It gave me a much better understanding to just how many victims there were as a result of the atrocities from 1933-1945. The next synagogue that stuck out was one called “The Old Spanish Synagogue”. Apparently this is one of the few Moorish inspired ornate synagogues. It reminded me of how some cathedrals we visited looked, minus all the Christianity artifacts.

We finished our tour of the quarter at around lunch time, so we took this opportunity to head back to the old town square and get some lunch and do some last minute souvenir shopping. I ate some sort of fire roasted ham and a bratwurst stuffed in a mini baguette. Another great meal. After lunch we did some last minute souvenir shopping. This was incredibly stressful as the conversion rate made choosing what to buy a little difficult. During our shopping we realized we had fifteen minutes to make our way back to the train station and catch a train back to Berlin. So we powerwalked the 1.5Km to the train station and made it with three minutes to spare. However, once we arrived at the platform we realized that the train was standing room only, and we did not feel like having to stand for the five hours back. We decided to make seat reservations for the next train, and have a little bit of “decompression” time. This however, was not the case.

When we arrived at the ticket office we tried to make a reservation for five people, only to be met by a woman speaking a Czech-English garbled mix. She kept repeating that train reservations “were not necessary”. “Not necessary”. She also kept saying “Two, no problem. Three no problem - Five problem.” She sent us three counters down because “English was perfect” at that counter and we could find some help there. We made our way to the counter only to be met with the same Czech-English garbled mix, telling us to go down one counter. When we got to the right counter we were met with “Sorry I cannot help you. I cannot do reservations here. Reservations over there”, pointing to the counter were we initially were. Defeated and frustrated, we decided we would try our luck and get on the train without a seat reservation. We camped out near the screen which told us the platform which our train would arrive, as our platform was not set yet. After an hour and a half, our platform number appeared and we quickly rushed towards the platform, to make sure we were assured a spot on the train. We boarded the train with no problem and set our course towards Berlin on yet another five hour train ride. Once we arrived back in Berlin, the feeling that hit us was a feeling like being home. Although we had only spent a night Berlin, being back in a German speaking city, with a semi-familiar train system, was a sigh of relief. Once we arrived back at our hotel, we took some time to rest up and headed out to the restaurant near our hotel to eat and just relax after a taxing day and weekend.

Three five hour train rides, one amazing New Year’s Party, five cups of coffee and 3500 Kroner later, our weekend had come to a close. It was a weekend that would be one to remember for ages to come. Although I had forgotten to say rabbit with all the excitement of the Festmile, I say, who needs luck when you can have adventures like we’ve had this past weekend.I'll gladly take a year of average luck to have another New Year's weekend like this.

"You've Got a Friend In Me": Vienna

Top to bottom: Kunsthistorisches (art) Museum. The Irish Elk at the Natural History Museum. David admiring art in the Vienna History Museum. St. Stephen's Cathedral.

Thursday in Vienna: I went back to the general hospital again...but this time as part of the program. We learned about the medical education system in Austria, which in a nutshell has a more focused curriculum as you begin medical school when you graduate from high school. After 6 years, you then have another 6 years of education in what would be called a residency here. They have an integrated course approach with participatory learning, and pay very little (or none) - a stark contrast to the American med school system. I don't intend on applying for medical school, but I still found the comparison interesting. I remember looking at one slide of the presentation where it detailed the courses that you'd take, and I realized how much information there is to learn as a med student - no wonder it takes so long, and you must keep learning throughout your career.

We headed to the Josephinum, a medical museum, where we saw a large collection of anatomical wax models. Not all of the models were completely correct, with some liberties afforded to the artist, but they were realistic enough for us to imagine their usefulness to a medical student.

For lunch, we hit up a serve-yourself place full of students and young people, complete with multiple levels and a carpeted area we dubbed "the hippie corner". We eventually found enough spots for the group after attracting a lot of attention for being a giant group of American students. The food was good, though, and we finally got to have some free water. During my conversation with the young Austrians accompanying us, I learned more about Austria and added "Achterbahn" to my vocabulary: rollercoaster.

After lunch, we toured the anatomy museum. Like most of our other tours, it was long - but this time I noticed less because the museum is horribly fascinating. Some of the diseases displayed manifest themselves quite graphically (skin diseases, syphilis, cancer, and ichthyosis are disturbing). Also, interestingly enough, we began in a room with a lot of preserved lung specimens, which was a little disturbing given my current poor lung function.

That night, we went to the operetta, "The Count of Luxembourg". I was excited about going to experience something new, although the word "opera" put me off. However, it turned out to be more like a musical than anything I would conceive as an operetta, which I thought would be a mini-version of an opera. The set was fantastic and would rotate so that the stage could change with a character's movement: as someone went from one room to another, the set could rotate so that you felt as though you'd followed the character to the new location without having to wait for a scene change. I couldn't understand too much, but I'd pick up words here and there, and Rainer's briefing on the plot allowed me to be on the lookout for certain events. We got rewarded for our diligent German studies when we recognized "stinktier" in the final minutes. Giddy, we trailed Rainer for drinks and dessert to the Austrian place across the street. I'd heard that Vienna was famous for its apple strudel, and of the three or four that I had while I was in Austria, the one there was to die for.

On Friday morning, we went to the Spanish Hofreitschule (Riding School) to observe the famous Lipizzaner horses put through their morning exercises. They're beautiful horses, somehow regal - they just seem to know what they're doing. Admittedly, I couldn't tell what they were supposed to be doing or how the exercises were helping them. A selection of classical music played in the background. It was all in the same time, most of it the same key...it could have looped and we wouldn't have noticed. Sitting and observing was a nice change in pace from the hectic schedule we usually have in the morning. The building itself is spectacular. Unfortunately, they asked that photos not be taken, so I have none from that day. Only memories.

We enjoyed lunch at a cafe close to Josephsplatz. I have a confession to make: I'm not overly fond of schnitzel. I think it's good, but almost bland. Maybe I just have bad taste.

After lunch, we paid a visit to the Freud museum, located in what was formerly his house. I keep a dream journal myself - I wonder what Freud would think it says? Our tour guide did an excellent job of finding new information to share with us and humanized the famous Freud, somehow allowing him to become excusably imperfect. There's something special about standing in the rooms where science or history made notable steps. We shouldn't become numb to that feeling, but sometimes I think it takes extra effort to acknowledge it.

And finally, we toured the Vienna History Museum. It was a brief tour, but probably all we could have handled at that point. The Lego table, by the way, should be equipped with real-person sized chairs - not just kiddie chairs.

That night, we went for pizza at a trendy place near the Hotel Lenas. We were fortunately not in a hurry, because the service was impressively slow. That didn't stop us from having a "who can eat a slice of pizza the fastest" contest. (I wrecked Luis.)

We hung out and tried to get our things packed away for Saturday. I stepped outside to take a phone call from home, then came back in and forgot to lock the door. I'd generally say it was a mistake, but I'm kind of glad that it happened, because the little nighttime visitor who came looking for his mom in our room at least found supervision. Kelli and I were both asleep, lights off and room dark, and I heard someone padding across the floor. I assumed it was Kelli coming back from using our bathroom, but then it stopped and turned back around. I heard the person cough or gasp for a breath, and I kicked myself for having gotten Kelli sick as well (I thought I wasn't contagious!) - but then it came over to my bedside and tried to climb in. At that point, I shot out of bed and probably accidentally cussed (in English), but I realized that it was the little boy from down the hall. I'd seen him and his mother, and I knew that room wasn't ours. It became apparent that he was upset, and I swear that he spoke to me in English first. He did at least say "Mom", but then figured out that I was the wrong person. He started to cry again, so I took his hand and went out to the hallway, afraid of what it'd look like to find a kid crying in our room. I calmed him down, but he didn't speak enough English to tell me what was happening. He was very small, too. I had no idea what time it was. I ran through the worst scenarios in my head: maybe someone had taken her from the room forcibly and left him, maybe she hadn't come back from the night before, maybe she just stepped outside and he didn't know she was gone. As he trailed me holding my hand, I peeked in the room, but decided I couldn't do much there. I didn't want to leave him alone, but I needed to see if she was in the hotel or find someone who knew. We started down the stairs - he got down about five before he wanted to turn around - then tried the elevator (no good). I froze in the hallway. I was somehow stuck in Vienna with a child looking for his mother who didn't speak my language, and chances were that she wouldn't either. I realized that I had a perfectly competent female roommate, so Kelli started to watch him while I started down the stairs to Dr. Wasser's room. I ran into the mother on the staircase, who looked like she was coming back from the store of some kind. Needless to say, we locked our door after that.

On our last day in Vienna, we went to the natural history museum. The building itself is way cool - it had a giant lobby or foyer, with rooms branching off of it, as well as a stairs leading to other levels. I got the feeling that you simply couldn't see everything there. We were like kids in a candy store, running around taking silly pictures with all the exhibits (except I guess we were nerds in a museum). Then we spent a good deal of time in the gift shop upstairs before we finally left to take pictures with the elephant statue outside.

With the afternoon to ourselves, most of us chose to find lunch first, then track down some last-minute souvenirs and try to spend the last of our money. At Cafe Englander, I had a small sausage plate and some juice. I got really tired of having to spend so much money on drinks - it was usually just as cheap to order something other than water. We saw our second mops, stopped in a tea shop, browsed a clothing store, found a hat for Kelli, and a got a bottle opener for Luis.

We had our farewell dinner that evening at the 7-Stern Brau and decided not to hold anything back by way of food and drinks. I got the house specialty, a rich cheese, gnocchi, and meat dish, as well as some fried potatoes (my favorite!) and beer. I had to stop myself from getting the same old plate of schnitzel or sausages. Many of my pictures tell this story, but we definitely enjoyed ourselves, particularly as the evening went on.

As sad as it is that school is starting, I was ready to leave Europe and come home. I wish I could have stayed, and I hope that I can return, but I wasn't ready at that time to extend my visit. There's some business back here that I have to tend to, some growing that I need to do, some German that I need to learn, before I want to return.

And I really miss getting to pee, free of charge.



"When the road looks rough ahead,
And you're miles and miles from your nice warm bed
You just remember what your old pal said,
Boy, you've got a friend in me
Yeah, you've got a friend in me"
- "You've Got a Friend In Me", Toy Story

To all the boys that had to carry my pack around while I was hurt

"Part of Your World": Hannover , Bad Oeyenhausen, and Vienna General Hospital

Nürnberger Rostbratwurst at Pfefferkorn and New Town Hall (Hannover).

I made it through the night after getting back from Munich and fending off Katie rolling on top of me, and started my time in Hannover at the doctor's. Nils took me to a practice a block or two away from our hotel first thing in the morning, where we sat and waited and people-watched for a bit. As people walked in, they'd greet or be greeted with a dreary "Morgen", which I thought was funny since Americans in waiting rooms generally ignore each other unless someone steals your magazine or catches on fire. I felt like I was in an authentic German scene for the first time on the trip - it's hard to get a feel for some of the smaller aspects of daily life when all you're doing is touring, eating (drinking?), and staying in a hotel. And when we travel, it's typically in a conspicuously large American group, which sort of deters normal interaction. There were all types of people in the room with us: young and old, punk and hipster, flirty, scary, and what have you. Your typical waiting room collection.

When I went in to see the doctor, I skipped the nurse step - I gathered that was normal, though, unlike my experiences with American places that send in a nurse to see you first. No vitals, no bonus wait-to-see-the-doctor time in between. The doctor I saw spoke English, and I think he spoke it well enough, but he obviously preferred German since that's what he ended up talking in for most of my visit. I felt comfortable enough having a translator that I trusted, but it was certainly different needing someone else to speak for me. Also, his office was half examination room and half ... office, complete with his desk and computer and everything.

At the pharmacy (apotheke), it once again would have been helpful to speak more German. I got instructions on when to take everything and the basic idea of what I was taking, and for the first time in awhile didn't know exactly what I was taking, but just followed instructions. I guess that had been the case with the over-the-counter drugs from Göttingen as well.

I met up with the rest of the group at the cattle clinic after lunch, and I think that was the first time I'd had to navigate completely alone during the whole trip. Barring the couple of times I checked my rail map, I felt a lot less conspicuous than when I was with the entire group. Aside from the fact that I obviously don't look German, maybe other people noticed me a little less.

The cattle clinic was interesting, if a tad smelly, but it wasn't my cup of tea. (And I had a lot of those during the time I was sick.) I'm glad I got the chance to go. For one, now I know one of the ways they get cattle to ... make more cattle, shall we say.

Afterwards, I trailed Dr. Wasser and Lina back to the hotel. I made a stop in the Leibniz store for cookies and such, then popped in the grocery store for tea. In a weird way, I really like going to foreign grocery stores. It's like seeing a cross section of their daily consumer lifestyles. What would it be like to actually live in Germany and have to shop for groceries? We were too mobile on our trip to make any grocery runs; we just ate out every day.

The next day, we made a trip to Bad Oeyenhausen to the heart center. As badly as I wished I could have seen a heart surgery - and they were surprisingly going to let me - I took both tours instead, which was probably the wiser choice as I wasn't far from passing out even in the absence of a bloody OR. I guess it speaks volumes for my biomedical engineering aspirations that I didn't know artificial hearts even existed. I honestly got a little lost during some of the tours/lectures because I don't know much about hearts yet, but Physio II will fix that.

Sadly, that night we had say our goodbyes to Nils and Lina, since they were returning to Bonn. I think it's fairly obvious on our part that we adored them both and were disappointed to see them go before our program finished. It was a blessing to have young people to help us during our experience in Germany, and I owe it to Nils for putting up with us for two weeks and letting us follow him around somewhat cluelessly.

We took a night train to Vienna...an experience in itself. As crammed as we were, I thought it was comical. Our group got three compartments, each with six beds and maybe five square feet of floor space, which was a physical struggle with our giant packs. If it hadn't hurt me so badly to sit up and down, it would have been loads more entertaining and restful. We got breakfast in the morning before we arrived in Vienna. On a related note, European breakfast just doesn't do it for me. I'm looking forward to American breakfast when we get back. Bring on the coronary artery disease.

So that brings us to Wednesday morning in Vienna. Kate and I dropped our stuff at the hotel and went off with Rainer to a hospital. (I hadn't been improving as I should have and was in a lot of pain and wound up in the Viennese ER.) As there was only one of Rainer, I fended for myself for the first bit. Although the doctors spoke good English, but the receptionists, technicians, and nurses didn't, and surprise, they don't take foreign insurance. I'm glad I had a credit card on me; my debit wouldn't have been close to covering my costs. Having HTH is great, but I had to have the money to spot it.

I was actually scared, sitting there by myself in a Viennese hospital on a pain drip with a needle stuck in my arm, waiting on x-ray and EKG and blood results. I got my first CT scan and experienced some of the contrast dye reactions that we'd talked about in Physio I last semester when learning about coronary angiograms. Also, I couldn't put my finger on it at first, but it was weird that I didn't put on a single gown during either of my medical visits. You remove some of your clothing, but you don't get any bonus clothing, either. I have a funny feeling that Europeans are more comfortable with that than we prudish Americans are. Nude beaches still a nay over here.

I used to get some of the imaging techniques mixed up (although I was able to successfully tell Rainer what CT stood for...woohoo), but that's one I won't forget. In fact, going to the hospital was one of the most relevant non-program activities I could have been doing, especially given that I'm a biomedical engineering major. I watched the busy Austrian Red Cross bring people in and noticed that some of them were quite young. Later, some of our Austrian acquaintances, Robert and Christian, told me that it was an alternative to the military time required of young men. Also, since I was there from 10 to 4, I noticed that the ER traffic spiked around the afternoon. Probably not unique to Vienna, but I've never been in the ER so long and had the chance to watch the ebb and flow of people. I saw two men greet each other with kisses on the cheek - something I'd always heard about but never really seen, and definitely don't think I'd see in the States. I also saw a group of students collecting in our area. I'm not sure if they were medical or not; they looked like they could have been students like us (not in medical school yet, but in the field).

I missed the city tour, regretfully, but I feel like I sort of subbed the experience for something else. The unique experiences of a few days - the doctor, the hospital, the grocery store, the pharmacy - and having to get myself from point A to B gave me a little sample of things that a native German or Austrian might do.

To digress: I have a completely different perspective on the language barrier as a barrier to healthcare. In my Health 236 (Racial and Ethnic Health) class last fall, we learned about the health status of various minority groups. For several of them, such as Asian/Pacific Islander and Hispanic, the language barrier negatively impacted overall group health. This was all understandable in theory, but I truly empathize now. I felt like I didn't know what was going on even when the doctor spoke perfect English to me, because the other technicians, nurses, and receptionists barely know enough to do their jobs without moving me around themselves. I think I put more blind faith in than usual as it was just too difficult to be totally informed. I'll be more understanding when people struggle with English, as it's been humbling to know my ineffective communication wasn't simply due to a lack of intelligence. I probably seemed more lost than I normally would have been in an American hospital or radiology center; because I was having to devote so much of my energy and attention to communicating, I did other absent-minded things, like take five minutes to figure out the credit card machine.

Within our particular program, we 're more sheltered than I realized from true culture shock. The illness wasn't fun, but I count the experience as a bit of a blessing after some of the feelings it put me through.

"And ready to know what the people know
Ask 'em my questions and get some answers...
...Wish I could be
Part of that world."
- "Part of Your World", The Little Mermaid

"Skumps/The Drinking Song": Füssen and Munich

Top to bottom: The menu and the dark beer; the oompah band at Hofbrauhaus. The maypole in the Viktualienmarkt. Neuschwanstein castle exterior. Bavaria snowballs.

Oh, Bavaria....We simply had to visit you to round out our experience in Germany. Six of us - Andy, Daniel, Luis, Kate, Katie, and I - had to see your oompah bands, pretzels, beer, and castles stuck in the countryside.

We took off from Göttingen on Friday night after visiting Otto Bock, and whizzed through the countryside on an ICE. It was a good idea to reserve the seats, and the multi-lingual kiosk made that process really easy. Normally I'd think that a three and a half hour ride was long, but somehow, it's nothing on a train when you're with friends and frantically trying to catch up on either sleep or journaling.

Five of us had reserved at the same hostel, Euro Youth Hostel, just south of the station. (It's recommended that you use the map and not use the "S-bahn" signs to point yourself south.) I'm definitely going to recommend this place to future students, and I'm kicking myself for not taking any pictures of the interior. It's a cool pre-WWII building with an awesome bar and lounge area downstairs, of the comfy flavor as opposed to some of the trendy places we'd been to. Lots of couches and tables and a bar that we assumed was plenty big enough for late-night shenanigans. The check-in process was easy this time, and they actually gave us the rooms that they said they would. We girls opted for a private room, and got our own room and bathroom for 23€, including the breakfast buffet that you had to pay for if you didn't get a private room. Plus, we were right next to the tram and the S- and U-bahns of Munich. Because we got a private room, it was more like a hotel this time.

Kate tried to find a way to watch the Cotton Bowl, but all we could get was updates, and we were all so exhausted that no one actually stayed up from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. keeping with the game like we said we would. We were well-rested the next day when we went to Fussen.

After an easy walk to the station, we took the second train to Fussen that put us in town a little before ten, when the tours started. We then took a bus for ten minutes to the ticketing area. It sounds complex, but with a guidebook and so many signs, all you had to do was follow the crowd, really. I get the feeling that people don't go to Fussen just to see the town. We got tickets on the English tour for Neuschwanstein only and then had some time on our hands, so we decided to walk up to the castle. Normally there would be a shuttle, but the only other way via horse-drawn carriage. I'm glad we walked, actually. It was the closest we'd been to nature in ages, and it was a nice hike up to the top.

The area around the castle offers spectacular views, which kept us busy until our tour time came up. On the tour itself, it was difficult to be impressed by the guide, who only talked for about five minutes in any given room, herding us from place to place. I hadn't appreciated the quality of our tour guides, both on city tours and in museums, until that point. The interior rooms that had actually been completed before Ludwig's death (which are few in number) were ornately decorated, but somehow seemed fake compared to the older buildings we'd seen on the trip. There was a very modern feel about the castle, which I should have foreseen given it's only from the 19th century. I was fond of the blue and gold coloring and the porcelain swans, though.

The tour didn't last long, in part probably because there aren't that many rooms that are finished. Overall, I was somewhat unimpressed - it was smaller than I'd previously pictured, the tour was quick, and I realized that it was a relatively modern castle that never saw power, only play. I'm glad we went, but I was expecting something completely different.

If you want impressive, walk down the hill on the way back to the bus stop and buy yourself some 2€ "Bavarian snow balls". They're essentially large, puffy, fried donut balls rolled in powdered sugar. Next to schnitzel, sausages, sauerkraut, pretzels, and potatoes, I'd honestly say they were the best food I'd had. Certainly some of the best value. I'd have had more, but my heart might have stopped.

We timed our return a little poorly - actually, I'll blame it on the fact that the train goes back to Munich every hour...except at 2:00. So we'd finished our tour and had to wait around before we went back since there wouldn't have been a train for us to take.

When we got back to Munich, we took the U-bahn to Marienplatz, where we tried to do some sightseeing in the dark. We made it to the Viktualienmarkt where a couple of stalls were still open, but it was mostly too dark to see much anyway. Hofbrauhaus was a short walk away. Our initial goal was to have a beer before dinner, but we had to abort when it was too packed for us to find a table. Following Dr. Wasser's recommendation, we went to the Augustiner Keller for dinner, which was wonderful - the best food I'd had on the whole trip, to be rivaled only by the first night. The Augustiner Keller was more like a restaurant, but the room we were in was still small enough to offer a bright, cozy atmosphere. Their beer was great, their food was great, the pretzels were warm and fresh. (But don't try to cancel your pretzel order, because "you order, you eat".) For the first time in awhile, I felt like we got to relax and take all the time we wanted to enjoy dinner together. We'd been grabbing food on the fly week, rushing through dinner to hurry to a bar, or trying to eat cheaply.

We got another good night's sleep and a late start the next day after as much breakfast as we could stand. Obviously, the best way to start a Sunday is with a liter of beer while everyone else is at church...so we headed back to Hofbrauhaus and beer and pretzels. A fair bit happier, we walked Munich, got ice cream, and did some sightseeing, but didn't go on any tours or museums, which was refreshing. A couple of us secured bier steins for souvenirs (although as a warning to other students, you should do your shopping before Sunday when everything will be closed). Once again, it was a good choice to reserve seats on the train, because it was packed. We made it back to Hannover in time for it to be determined that I needed to see a doctor the next day.

"Let me fill up your glass
that glass was all foam
Skumps! Skumps! Skumps!"
- "Skumps/The Drinking Song", Sleeping Beauty

Vienna and the End of the Program

Dr. Wasser lectured to us about several important people in medical history as we toured Vienna on Wednesday morning. We also got see the birthplace of Mozart. Lunch that day was amazing. I had veal schnitzel, lightly fried, and with a little lemon on top, it was perfect. Wednesday afternoon, we toured the city more and got to see St. Stephan’s cathedral and took a guided tour of the cathedral’s catacombs, which were awesome. We got to see the old part which had recently been restored and looked modern, and then got to see the “new” part, which is actually several hundred years old, and is the epitome of a creepy catacomb. Low lighting, low archways, thin corridors, and rooms literally filled with bones. In one of the rooms, the bones had been stacked like firewood to make room for more bones. I felt like I was on a movie set, and had to remind myself that this was actually real. Afterwards, we visited the Café Demel, one of Vienna’s famous bakeries, for cake and drinks.

Thursday morning we visited the Vienna medical school and were given a presentation about medical school systems in Vienna vs. the United States. Afterwards, we visited the Josephinum, a medical museum which houses one of the most impressive anatomical and obstetric wax figure collections in the world. It was amazing to see the detail that went into these models (which were from the 1700s). They looked incredibly life like, and the ones that had skin on them (which were used to showcase the internal organs) even had real hair implanted into them. The ones without skin were used to showcase the human musculature and cardiovascular systems. While not 100% accurate, these models served as a testimony to how dedicated the makers were to producing an accurate model that could be used for study by the medical students of the time.

For lunch that day, one of the Viennese medical students who was touring the Josephinum with us took us to a Pay-As-You-Wish restaurant. The food was mostly white rice and beef and chicken, and it was amazing. There was even a hippie section of the restaurant which had blankets all over it and you had to take your shoes off and sit on the blankets to eat. Obviously, I ate there.

That afternoon we visited the Pathologic Anatomy Museum. It contains one of the largest collections of organs in the world, some healthy, most are definitely not. We saw cysts that were literally the size of beach balls, all sorts of skin conditions, fractured skulls, and scoliosis (among other things). It was all very interesting, though some of it was pretty nasty.

That night we went to the operetta house in Vienna to see The Count from Luxembourg. It was a light-hearted comedic love story, and even though it was in German, it was still enjoyable to watch, and try to pick out phrases that we had learned. The music was also really good. Coming from a classical music background made the music even more enjoyable.

Friday morning we visited the famous “Spanische Hofreitschule,” the Spanish Riding School in Vienna which is home to the famous Lipizzaner stallions. It is the oldest riding school in the world, and is a significant part of Austria’s cultural heritage. The winter riding school building was incredible. It was completed in 1735, and when I walked in I felt like I had taken a few steps back in time. We got to sit down for a couple hours and watch as the riders trained their horses and were accompanied by waltz music. It was really neat, and also relaxing, which made for a nice break from our usual fast-paced mornings.

Friday afternoon, we visited the Sigmund Freud museum, which is located in his actual apartment where he lived and worked for the majority of his adult life. Dr. Wasser gave us an on-site lecture about Freud while we were in the museum, which I found to be very interesting. When most people think of Freud, they think of sex. This isn’t really all that wrong, but it was interesting to hear a more complete picture of who Freud was and where he got some of his ideas. I didn’t realize it before, but he actually led a more difficult life than I had imagined. After the lecture, we were given a short tour of the museum which included seeing some of his original furniture, sculpture collection, hat, and one of his ashtrays. Afterwards, we took a brief tour of the Wien Museum and learned about the history of Vienna.

Saturday was the best last day I could have asked for. After breakfast, we went to Vienna’s Natural History Museum. They had the typical history museum stuff: arrowheads, pottery, statues, dinosaur skeletons, and fossils. But what I really wanted to see was the Body Worlds exhibit. This wasn’t just a human Body Worlds though, this exhibit was almost exclusively devoted to showing animals. It was awesome. In the first room there were various display cases showing the nervous system of a cat, as well as various other organs from different animals. The second room was the small animal room which contained sheep, goats, and reindeer (there were others, but I can’t specifically remember them). The next room was for larger animals and the one human in the exhibit. This room contained a gorilla, a cow, and an ostrich, among others. The final room was for the two large animals in the exhibit: the elephant and the giraffe. The elephant had been expanded to allow for better viewing and the giraffe towered over everything else in the room. It was amazing to see the musculature on many of the animals, as well as their circulatory systems. It was also really neat because I knew what all of the organs were and what they did, so it was really neat to see how they are different and similar to human organs.

We had the afternoon off, so we did a little souvenir shopping and ate lunch at a wonderful Greek restaurant. The rest of the afternoon was spent packing and relaxing at the hotel and getting ready for our big farewell banquet at the 7 Stern Brau. The 7 Stern Brau was some of the best food we had on the trip. I had a pork skewer, apple strudel and the holiday beer which was quite good. That dinner is one I’ll remember for a long time. Afterwards, all of us got together in a circle right outside the restaurant and sang the Aggie War Hymn, which was another very memorable experience. Once back at the hotel, a few of us went outside to the courtyard to hang out and enjoy a cigar on the last night of the trip.

The next day we grabbed our bags, checked out of the hotel, returned our cell phones, hopped on a train, then a bus, then a plane to Frankfurt, and from there crossed the pond back to Houston. I’m back in the states now, but I know I won’t be here forever. I will definitely be going back.

Hannover, Bad Oeynhausen, and the Night Train

Tuesday morning we ate an early breakfast, checked out of our hotel in Hannover, stored our luggage at the train station, and made off for our day visit to the Bad Oeynhausen heart and diabetes center. After a quick welcome meeting, the group split into two. My group went with one of the scientists who worked at the hospital doing genetic research. He took us to a conference room where he had a presentation prepared for us about research and ARVC, which is Arrythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy. It was fascinating to hear him talk because he was so open about how little we really know about the body and what causes a certain mutation that could manifest itself as ARVC. It was awesome to hear about how persistent his team had been when trying to identify the cause of the disease before they pinned it down to the one mutation.

After the presentation, we had a quick lunch at the hospital’s café, and then my group got suited up for what we still had to see at Bad Oeynhausen: the open heart surgeries. After changing into scrubs and dividing into groups, my friend Luis and I thought that we were going to see a LVAD put into a patient. But when we arrived at the operating theatre, we were informed that the patient had a dilated cardiomyopathy and would be receiving an entirely artificial heart!

Once again, we missed the initial cracking open of the chest, but when we got there, the surgeons were busily cutting away at the man’s heart, making light-hearted jokes about how it was too big and “We don’t need it anymore!” And this man’s heart really was way too big. When the surgeons were done cutting, one of them reached in and grabbed it, pulling it straight out of his chest. It was literally 4 times the size of a normal heart!

After that, the surgeons began sewing in the Dacron grafts which would form the interface between the blood vessels and the artificial heart. This was sadly an extremely long process, as each graft (there were four of them) had to be sewn on meticulously and painstakingly. It was sad because we had a train to catch and ran out of time and didn’t get to see the surgeons actually put the device into the patient and start it up. But I guess I can’t complain too much. I got to see two open heart surgeries on this trip!

After the train ride back to Hannover, we ate at one of the nice local restaurants, and said our farewells to Nils, our program coordinator, who was heading back to Bonn to begin another program.

Tuesday night was our night train to Vienna. Our group had several compartments reserved for sleeping, each with 6 beds; two stacks of 3 beds, almost military style. The compartment was tiny, and fitting all of our luggage in comfortably was definitely a challenge. Then with all 6 of us at such close quarters, the tiny room began to heat up like a furnace, and the AC could barely keep up. But somehow we all managed to get a decent amount of sleep. We arrived in Vienna the next morning, and after a quick break to get settled in to the hotel, we were off on our medical tour of the city.

Goodbye . . . For now

It’s time to go back home, these past three weeks have been so jam packed with history, tours, hospitals, museums, restaurants and lots of fun of course. I think I’m ready to go back, but at the same time I don’t want to go. There’s still so many more things left see!! I’ve made new friends and new experiences, I’ve learned about medicine and its history. Well, I guess all good things must come to an end, but now I’m ready to go back to school mentally refreshed and ready to tackle a new semester.

I want to say thank you to everybody, but I can’t seem to find the right words, I guess what I’m trying to say is thank you to everybody for being themselves and making this trip a success.

Spanish Riding School “Horse Ballet”

We must be a lucky bunch of students. We actually got to see the Lipizzaner stallions during morning training. It was like seeing a ballet with classical music and prancing horses. There gait was so smooth they seemed to be floating across the arena. It was very soothing and relaxing. I’m so happy I got to see this.

Vienna Medical School Presentation

Once again it struck me how much more I like the school system in the US (minus the whole having to pay tuition and fees). We had a presentation on the differences between the educational systems in Europe and the US. It’s not that I don’t like the European system; the only thing I don’t like is the fact that children are expected to make a huge decision at the age of about 10 in regards to their future career choice! That’s scary; I mean 10 is so young. Over here in the US we graduate from high school, enter undergraduate university and hopefully by then we know what we want our careers to be, but even if we don’t, we still have time to think about it by choosing a General Studies major.

Catacombs in St. Stephens Cathedral in Vienna

I was truly scared. Just the thought that I was seeing the bones of people who had died gruesome deaths by the “pest” (black plague) was enough to make me not want to go down and see the remains. At first it wasn’t so bad, but soon the corridor got dark, gloomy, and cold. That’s when I really didn’t want to be down in the catacombs anymore I was really scared!! I think Luis might have noticed and he was nice enough to lag behind with me. I think it’s obvious but let me just make it clear, I’ve seen enough catacombs to last me a life time, so I’m going to make a note of it not to see anymore!!

On the flip side, later that day we went to an amazing cake house where I had hot chocolate and chocolate cake with caramelized sugar. It was so Yummy!!! That really put a smile back on my face.

Heart and Diabetes Center

We got a lecture on how scientists and doctors working together under the same hospital make a huge difference in the dynamics of patient and family care. It was intriguing, the thought that by genetically screening patients and family members, doctors can find cures, or better treatments, or preventative methods can be taken. This is a truly wonderful thing. It is a truly innovative and great idea that can help families who have hereditary genetic disorders find some comfort by knowing the facts, that way they can start taking precautions before disaster strikes.
It’s topics such as using genetics, and biochemistry in conjunction with medical procedures that make me think twice about becoming a vet, these kinds of things make me want to become a medical doctor for people!!

Later on it the day I got to see an open heart surgery. They where replacing the ascending aorta of a patient with a synthetic material made especially for this kind of surgery. I was fascinated by the whole procedure. The patient was in cardiac arrest while the doctor worked on her heart, so her blood was being circulated though her body by pumps. Wow!
Something I thought was funny was the fact that the doctors and the nurses all seemed extremely relaxed, and even made jokes occasionally.

Hannover

I’m so glad that me and Paul where able to get a tour of the Horse clinic in Hannover. We got to see a horse het a CAT scan, another horse was being examined to make sure that his large intestine was back in it’s normal place because it had had colic. We were able to listen to the heart beats of a healthy horse and a sick horse and compare them. Plus we got to tag along for the morning rounds, which is where the vet students give an oral report over the horses they were looking after over the weekend to everybody else. I didn’t understand what the students were saying because they spoke in German, but none the less it was a great experience just being able to be there.

The cattle clinic was also great. We also got a guided tour of the facility and got to meet the cows. They kind of reminded me of over grown dogs, they were so sweet and curious. What struck me the most about the cattle clinic was the huge difference from the horse clinic. The horse clinic was so clean, organized and odorless, I was impressed, whereas, the cow clinic smelled like a barn and was very chaotic looking and noisy. They where two completely different atmospheres.

Copenhagen

The start to our second free weekend was great. We got upgraded to private cabins on the night train. Yay!! The rooms where small but the beds where pretty darn nice. Way better than sitting in a chair that’s for sure. Point being, I slept like a baby. My favorite part of Copenhagen was being able to walk around a large part of the city, on our quest to see the world famous little mermaid. The scenery wasn’t always as beautiful as I had hoped, but I’m sure in the summer it must be absolutely gorgeous.

The Hills Are Alive

Austria looked absolutely beautiful as we passed thorugh the country side. Vienna itself seemed very well organized. The subway system was easy to navigate. This may be due to our experience navigating subways, but I think it was more that they had detailed maps at every station. Going through the catacombs was really interesting. It was neat to see a place that had bones that were hundreds of years old, and just to see and amazing underground structure like that. The cake at Café Demel was outstanding, some of the best that I have ever had.

Hearing how medical education worked in Vienna and Austria was interesting. I really like the idea of going straight into professional school. I have known what I wanted to do “when I grow up” since I entered college and would love to be in my third year of medical school instead of my junior year of college. I know that not everyone likes this aspect, but I really like it. The Operetta was fun to go watch. It was a nice cultural experience, and it was cool to hear them use all of the German words that our group had learned up to this point.

Visiting Sigmund Freud’s house was eye-opening for me. The only context that I had heard of Freud before this was from my sophomore religion teacher who is best described as a radical Catholic. He told us that Freud was evil and only wrote about sex and tried to destroy Catholicism. I never really believed him because I knew he was bigoted against anyone whose views do not strictly align with the Catechism, but I know now that he was very far from the truth. I was glad to hear about all of Freud’s other accomplishments and gain a true appreciation for him as a scientist and doctor.

The Natural History Museum was really cool. I liked seeing all of the fossils and artifacts from ancient history. The animal Body Works was neat. I had seen the human one before, but it was cool to see the variety of animals and amazing to see the detail put in, even on the huge animals.

No Snow in Hannover

We arrived in Hannover late on Sunday night and had to walk down the street for several minutes before we realized a key difference from every other city we had been in, there was no snow. There was actually grass to be seen. It took us a little while to find the hotel, though in hindsight it might not have been that long, just the walk with forty pounds of luggage made it seem long.

The visit to the Hannover medical school was very interesting. Hearing the differences between the U.S. and German systems was very informative. I enjoyed hearing the opinion of someone who knew each system so well. The cattle clinic was also fun. I did not like the smell of some of the areas, but the cows were fun to see, the it was disappointing that I did not get to shove my hand inside of one.

The visit to Bad Oeynhausen was really cool. I was interested in the presentation we saw in the morning on the genetics of AVRC. I thought it was really cool because it was what I had learned in my classes in a practical setting. Open heart surgery was very interesting to see. I had never seen a human heart beating inside of someone, and that was really neat to see. The overnight train to Vienna was different to say the least. The compartments were really cramped, but that was expected. I was able to sleep well but had to adjust my posture because I could not spread out like I do on a normal bed. Nonetheless, we arrived in Vienna well rested to take on the day.

Otto Bock and Copenhagen

The concentration camp on Thursday was extremely interesting. I had never been to one before, I had only heard of the horrors that had occurred there. It was moving to be in the same place that all these atrocities had occurred, and seeing a clinic where they had basically tortured people was interesting. I would be very interested to visit another camp such as Auschwitz, were even more people had been killed.

Otto Bock was really cool. I think that my perspective on it will probably be a little bit different than the vast majority of the group simply because I am not a biomedical engineering major. I was very interested by the surgery that could possibly be required to assist the transition into one of the more advanced prosthetics. I also wonder if it is now common practice in an amputation surgery to re-route the nerves so that prosthetics like theirs couple be easier to adapt to.

The second weekend we went to Copenhagen, Denmark which is another amazing city. While it was expensive, more so than I had expected even, my only major complaint is that it was winter. The city would be incredible to visit during the summer, when the water isn’t frozen and you can go for a swim. The walk by the river is really cool with all the different colored houses and little shops to run into. A lot of the food we ate in Copenhagen was from bakeries, primarily because it was cheap, but also because the food served there was excellent. I really hope that I can come back one day when I have a bit more money, and when the weather is warmer.

Welcome to Prague

On our first free weekend we went to Prague in the Czech Republic. Prague is a beautiful city with some older buildings. The first thing that we visited in Prague was Prague Castle. It was not as much of a “castle” as I expected it to be, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t interesting. The view from just outside the castle is astounding. You can look down over the whole city and see absolutely everything. Karl’s Bridge was also another site we visited on the first day. It was very ornate with sculptures everywhere, and the view up and down the river was impressive. On the second day in Prague, we went to the Jewish Museum. The thing that was most breathe taking was a couple rooms with names of the victims of the holocaust and where the people were from. Even though the list was only from the Czech Republic it still took up all of three or four medium sized rooms from wall to ceiling. We also saw an exhibit on Terezin, the concentration camp just outside of Prague.

The skills training lab in Berlin has been one of my favorite course related activities so far. It was very interesting to hear from current German medical students and learn how to do basic procedures such as CPR and intubations. I was very pleased that I was able to successfully do the intubation on the first try. I have heard that this is one of the hardest skills to learn, and I know that doing it on a real person will be different than the dummy, but non the less it was good to know I could at least do it on the dummy.

On Tuesday we went to Dresden, which I was not all that impressed with. The city was nice and small, but I was not as impressed with the buildings as much as I had been in previous cities. I think one of the things that I didn’t really like was that the buildings were relatively new. I just think it takes some of the value of a church being ornate and impressive inside when modern equipment and fake marble were used to build it.

The hygiene museum was very interesting, and not at all what I expected. I was thinking that we were going to see displays on soap, but there was much much more than that. One thing that I found most interesting about the museum and Europe in general is the level of censorship. You would never find a museum in the U.S. that used the word “fuck” in a display, even for educational purposes. This to me has been one of the major cultural differences between the U.S. and Europe.