Maggie works as a student worker at AIB (in addition to all her other jobs) so she took me to AIB with her on Monday morning so I wouldn’t have to try to find my way on my own. We had a historical city walk through Bonn which was pretty cool. It was nice to have someone lead us around and tell us the significance of everything around us. I think it also helped us to try to figure out how to get around the city a little bit too. Two of the main things they showed us were the church in the town center and the university building that used to be one of the prince electors palaces.
Then we went back to the AIB after lunch and had class with Dr. Wasser and a German workshop with Hilde. I’m really glad we’re having a few of these German workshops because I’d be pretty lost without them. Having Sebastian teach us some German while we were in the states helped quite a bit but I’m glad we’re doing it here too.
On Tuesday, we had a cultural studies discussion with Nils. It was pretty cool to sit there in a class and just be able to discuss different things. It was interesting to hear about all the things everyone else was expecting from Germany. Then we went to the Alexander Koenig Zoological Museum. It was interesting to see how people studied animals back when Koenig was alive compared to today. They killed animals and stuffed them while today most people try to observe animals alive or by dissection and genetic analysis.
On Wednesday, we travelled to Hannover. The country side is interesting to watch. In some ways everything here is really advanced and in others, it’s like stepping back in time. There are free range chickens instead of huge poultry houses and there are scattered dairy cattle here and there instead of massive dairy barns. They might have the big industrialized farming and ranching like I’m more used to but from what I’ve seen, it all looks much more traditional. Europeans are a lot more advanced when it comes to public transportation, recycling, and other things like that though. They are a lot greener (both ecologically and their scenery) and they seem to waste much less. We went to the axolotl research center and saw all the cute axolotls and then listened to a lecture about the type of research they are doing there and why they are doing it. I thought it was really interesting that axolotls can revert differentiated cells back into stem cells so that they can re-grow parts of their bodies.
We got up and travelled to Norderney on Thursday and went to an alternative medicine type of place where they mainly treat different sorts of lung problems with diet, exercise, and Norderney’s unique and awesome environment. We also learned a lot about Germany’s health care system. It was like a big gym/spa there. It was so nice. It seems more like a vacation instead of rehabilitation to me though.
After our program day was officially over, we went to the beach and went swimming in the North Sea. It was so cold but so much fun. Then we played a game of ultimate frisbee on the beach after we all decided we couldn’t handle the water anymore. It was so much fun. A bunch of us went and ate dinner together after we changed into some dry clothes back at the hostel and then we went back to the beach, sat on a dune and watch the sunset. It was so beautiful.
I got up at 4:30 on Friday to go out with the bird watching group. I wasn’t very interested in the birds themselves, honestly, I just love that part of the day and it was really cool to go on a hike like that and look at all the wildlife specific to the area. If for some crazy reason, I don’t end up in equine or large animal medicine then I would like to do something with Texas wildlife and it was really interesting for me to see some European coastal wildlife. Not to mention, I’m a country girl through and through so I love feeling like I’m out in the middle of nowhere and I got a bit of a sense of that in Norderney. It was really nice.
Then we got to go on our Wattwanderung through the Wassen Sea a few hours later. Before we actually started our wattwanderung, though, we hiked across the island and our guide showed us a lot of the protected habitat around there, why it’s important, and how it all works. He explained how the sand dunes for and how the grasses are what holds them together. He also showed us a couple examples of how the plants deal with all the salt water around them. Some adapt in ways that let them use the salt and others adapt so they can excrete all the excess salt.
It was really cool to see how unique it was that you could walk from the island to the mainland and even cooler that we actually got to do it ourselves. We got to eat oysters that we picked up along the way. We got to look at a bunch of worm poop and then dig up the worms and look at them. We got to pick up some muscles and then watch how they went back down under the sand. We also learned a little muscle/oyster anatomy. I guess I was wrong in Biology Lab when I thought I’d never see any of that stuff again.
And of course having an excuse to mess around in the mud is always fun. We may not be little kids anymore but we still like to act like we are from time to time.
When we finally got to the mainland, we had a chance to wash off our legs and shoes and try, in vain, to save our socks. Then they fed us. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see food. We had fish sandwiches with some seasoned fries that tasted sooooooo good. I’ve never been much of a fish person but these sandwiches were delicious.
Then it was off to the seal rehab clinic. They had two adult male seals there but the rest were all babies (or howlers) that were just getting taken care of until they were old enough to go off and fend for themselves. It was interesting to see the different stages of feeding and how it gradually teaches the babies how to get food for themselves. At first they are fed this milk/fish mush and are gradually fed more and more fish. Then they just shove the fish down the baby’s throat (because, apparently, if something goes far enough into their mouths, they have to swallow it). Then they just throw the fish into the pond to make the seals get their own food and to try and minimize human contact as much as possible. After that, we went to the Walloseum to finish off our bout of aquatic life education.
It was a great end to a great week. It was sort of weird having to leave my host family after only being there a few days but I’m really glad that we did so much traveling and saw so much on our first week here. I think it helped us a lot with trying to figure out how to get around on our first weekend on our own. Norderney was so beautiful and such a great experience. I’m so glad we went there for the program.
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