Blog 1, Bonn
The plane ride over to Europe was pretty much how I expected. It was kind of cramped and hot on the plane, but after we got here and got out into the cold it was a lot better. The bus ride from Frankfurt to Bonn was fun; we got to see a lot of the countryside and all the snow that had recently fallen. The first night we walked around the market area in Bonn for awhile and then ate at a local brewery, which had great food and beer. The second day we went on a walking tour of Bonn where we walked down to the Rhine river and then all around town. We went inside the small cathedral, which is actually the first cathedral that I’ve been to. Later that day, we went through the German history museum, which looks at German history after World War Two through the present. This was a good trip, which touched on lots of the so called “coming to terms with the past” that the German people have had to work on through the last 60 years. That night we went to an Italian restaurant called Vapiano, where they served excellent Italian food. It was cool because we got to walk up to the counter and watch them make it, and tell them all of the different things we wanted in our pasta.
The third day started very early because we were going up to the university clinic a little bit outside of Bonn. The group split up into pairs and we watched surgeries. I got to watch arguably the most impressive one of all of them. The patient was put on hear lung ECMO, and then the surgeon performed a double bypass using two veins from the right leg, a mitral valve repair using a Dacron ring, a small repair to the tricuspid valve, and some ablation of tissue that was causing an atrial fibrillation. Watching this surgery was amazing. We got to see inside a human heart and watch several of the most common cardio repair techniques performed. It was especially cool looking at the ECG of the patient before being put on bypass, and noticing the obvious problems, even with the small amount of experience we’ve had learning how to read ECG. In addition, the anesthesiologist showed us exactly what the problem was on the mitral valve using a trans-esophogial 3D echo. We saw that there was a small hole on one of the leaflets of the valve which was causing the leak. Watching this surgery was an amazing experience and possibly my favorite portion of the trip so far. Later on the third day we went to an anesthesia museum at the same university clinic, which showed the progression from basic substances such as Ether and Chloroform to the more carefully measured and more complex substances used today.
The fourth day we went to Koln, where there is one of the biggest cathedrals in the world. It was the tallest building in the world for awhile before the Eifel Tower was built. As I am Catholic, it was particularly cool to see. The relic in the cathedral is the bones of the 3 wisemen, which are enclosed in a big gold triple coffin behind the altar. We only got to look around inside for a bit, but it is definitely the most beautiful building I have ever seen. It took over 600 years to build, if that is any testament to how amazing it looks. There were many other cool sights in Koln that we saw, including the town hall. Later we ate at a restaurant called The XII Apostles, which had amazing pizza and beer. At night, Nathan and I met up with a friend of his that went to elementary school with him named Finn. I didn’t actually know him because he moved back here to Germany but I know many of the same people he does so it was cool to talk with him about a lot of the people we know and what everyone is doing. It was also neat to hear a real German talk about some of the local things and about how people feel about different things. Today we’re on a train to Berlin, where we’ll go the Brandenburg Gate for the New Years Eve festival. This is a world famous thing, with probably over 1 million people going. Tomorrow morning we are waking up early to catch a train to Prague. We’ll stay there over the weekend and then come back to Berlin on Sunday night to continue with the planned program activities. So far the trip has been great and I’m excited for the rest of it.
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