BONN aka my future home

Geez I don't even know where to begin! First of all, as you can tell from the title of this blog that I'm completely in love with the city of Bonn. There are too many reasons why this place is so perfect but I'll give you just a few of them. First off, the size of the city is perfect. There are enough people here where you feel like you're in a big city, but it's not intimidating by any means. I've only been here 4 days and I already know how to take a train to Cologne and back and take the metro in Bonn back to my dorm. That leads to my second point: transportation. I've been to Europe before so the wonderful transportation system was no surprise to me, but coming from a place where I have to drive to get to anything and everything, metros and trains are a pleasant perk to this town. Thirdly, everyone is very friendly here. I clearly can't speak German even though I'm trying my best to learn some key phrases. Right now I know how to say: please, thank you, excuse me, hello, goodybye, my name is, and rude. Oh and also how to say, "you're breakfast is the best in the world". This is a story for another time :) I honestly can't say enough good things about this place. Out of all the cities I've been to in Europe, I have never felt so comfortable so quickly. Normally I'm a little intimidated at the beginning of my trips to Europe but Bonn was the perfect place to start. I'm already trying to figure out how I can live here for the rest of my life. No joke. The German will just come naturally to me right???

Anyways, I've been very busy the past few days! I arrived in Frankfurt on Tuesday and met up with the group and our program coordinator, Nils, where we then took a bus to Bonn. Tuesday was pretty low key, due to our jet lag. We arrived at AIB, where we've had a few lectures from Dr. Wasser, and then had a traditional German dinner of schnitzel and my first German beer. Nom.

Wednesday was a bit more packed. The group started early with an excursion to the University Clinics on the outskirts of Bonn. There, I was lucky enough to watch my first surgery! The surgeons provided me with a stool so I could watch the surgery from about 3 feet away. It was pretty amazing. The surgeons were trying to remove a tumor from the kidney, which even after 4 hours was not accomplished. After this we grabbed a quick lunch on the Rhine and started on our city tour of Bonn. During this tour we saw the main cathedral, the wonderful views of the Rhine, Bonn University and the town center. After a quick cup of coffee (which I'm now drinking because I'm already exhausted), we had our first lecture with Dr. Wasser over health care comparisons between different countries. To finish off the day, Nils introduced us to feuerzangenbowle, which is a basically hot wine, rum, and sugar. Obviously extremely delicious.

Thursday, our last full day in Bonn was another wonderful day in the city! The day started with lecture and then a visit and tour to the Museum of the History of Anesthesia. The tour was given by the creator of the museum himself, Dr. Stoeckel. It was home to an amazing collection of items all describing the evolution of anesthesia. Then, we made our way across town to the House of German History Museum where Dr. Wasser and Nils gave us the history of Germany starting from the end of World War II, which I always find extremely fascinating! The group was supposed to go ice skating, but we all agreed a good German beer would be better on our feet than the ice.

So as you can see, it's only been four days and I've already done more in Germany than I've done on most trips! I absolutely love it here, more than I thought I would and I hope to travel to Bonn again in the very near future! My dorm room already feels like a home, so leaving for Berlin tomorrow will be bittersweet. But I'm positive I will be back in Bonn very soon :)

Until next time!