Second to last week

This past week was our last week in Bonn. I'm really sad, the trip is flying by and I'm not ready to home just yet. Not only was it our last week, but I have to say it was probably our best week yet. Monday originally was our bike ride to Remagen but the weather was looking bad so it was rescheduled to Wednesday. That meant that Monday was just a day of class with the wonderful Dr. Wasser. There were also lectures on Tuesday so we got to hear about lots of interesting things like medieval medicine and the Nazi Extermination program, Hildegard von Bingen and Paracelcus. The Fullmetal Alchemist reference made the lecture that much more fun. Paracelcus seemed like an interesting guy. It was really inspiring that he was able to go against the normal view of medicine at the time and had the courage to say that it was wrong. I guess it shouldn't be that inspiring since it was done out of narcism, but then again being a raging narcissist seemed to be the only option at that point for making a difference. It makes me wonder what medicine would have been like had Paracelcus not being so revolutionary and forceful in his medical practice. Dr. Wasser keeps referencing a book called The Greatest Benefit to Mankind and now I feel like I should read it. I'm thinking about buying it on my nook in the near future if I can get some wifi. If they have it for the nook. The most interesting lecture of the day for me was the one on the Nazi Euthanasia Programs. I did not realize that the ideals they based their terrible actions on were ideas that were already circulating at that time. I thought the Nazi's made up the rationale for their actions, but come to find out their ideas were inspired by other people who were not Nazi's and were never associated with the Nazi's. Then learning about the T4 program was eye opening. That was something you never hear about and I had never heard about it. It was really disturbing that almost all the mental institutions went along with it and that so many people just kind of let it happen. I guess that demonstrates the power of propoganda and the detachment many people felt at that time. If it wasn't happening to them it didn't seem to be their problem. I think it was really sad that it was used a practice for concentration camps. That's just tragic. The idea of trying to perfect the mass murder of groups of people is disturbing to me. I feel like there should be more recognition for the victims of T4. I also think that it is fascinating to look at how the past affects the present. Sometimes we feel so removed from the past because it happened seemingly so long ago, but the ripples of it's affects can still be felt. I'm really excited for the lecture on the Nazi doctors' trial. I feel like that one will be really interesting as well. The lecture on Hildegard von Bingen was also interesting and was a very good precursor the the visit to the museum exhibit. For lunch on Monday we went to a burger place for lunch. It was pretty good, the burgers were huge. Still, American's do burgers better, but these were not bad at all. Tuesday has been my favorite day thus far. We got to go to the medical school in Bonn and watch orthopedic surgeries. It was my first time actually watching a surgery and I was really nervous but incredibly excited. We got to dress up in scrubs, and for the one I watched we had to also wear lead aprons because they took x rays at certain points. At first it was hard to see anything because I was at a bad angle. In the begining I had to sit down a couple times because I started to feel really hot. Once I got a better angle and could actually see what the doctors were doing I was fine and I got really into it. It was an 8 week old tibia and fibula fracture. It had originally penetrated the skin so that was repaired first with a skin graph and now they were going back in to repair the fractures. The tibia had several shards broken off, most of them were small and were removed but one was very large so the first thing they did was pin it back into place. The fibula was broken into 2 peices so they inserted a plate and screwed the peices back together. Then they screwed the shard of the tibia back on and placed a plate between the fibula and tibia and screwed them together. It was really cool to watch. I was surprised with how rough the surgeons were, but they were also very meticulous. I'm sure that person's leg will be in extreme pain when they wake up and I do not envy that at all. Ouchy. I'm really happy that I got to watch it and I can't wait to watch another one. Tuesday was also our predepature meeting for our trip to Berlin, it's so sad. It's our last excursion and week. After we were done for the day on Tuesday Morgan and I went shopping for Birkenstocks. I decided to get a pair of black ones and she got some turquoise ones for her sister. They really neat shoes, they're very light and they fit all the curves of your foot. It's definitely a change from my normal pairs of flip flops. Wednesday was our rescheduled bike trip to Remagen to go to the Remagen Peace Museum at the site of the Bridge of Remagen. The bikes we got were really nice to ride and we got to ride along the Rhine so the view was gorgeous. It was 22 kilometers there and 22 kilometers back. It was intense, that's like 28 miles of bike riding. Whoo! The town of Remagen was really pretty and the bridge towers looked really cool. Before we went to the museum we had a picnic lunch on the grass by the river and then pretty much everyone took a nap. The museum was amazing, the man who founded it gave us the tour and he was the most precious inspiring old man. I loved him. He was so passionate about the museum and the history behind it, it was really moving. The fact we were standing where American soldiers stood in World War 2, and that it was the place of an event that brought about a quicker end to the war was spine tingling. I love World War 2 history, especially the European part of the war so this was really interesting. It's just so heart wrenching the pure destruction that war caused but it really is amazing to see how Germany has bounced back. Honestly, having Mr. Kurten give us the tour made the museum visit. He was awesome. That was the only thing we did on Wednesday and once I got home I watched some more of the olympics and then took a nap before dinner. Thursday we took a train early in the morning to the town of Bingen. Dr. Wasser had lectured us about Hildegard von Bingen earlier in the week and now we were visiting her museum. The museum was not just for here but also about the history of the town of Bingen as well. One compeletly novel fact that I have learned on this trip was that many of the towns on the Rhine in Germany were founded by the Romans and their names come from the Roman names of the towns or military camps. The museum in Bingen had a collection of Roman doctor's tools, which I thought was really cool. They were surprisingly similar to the tools of modern doctors. My favorite part about the museum was the herb garden, they had many of the common herbs/plants that Hildegard mentioned in her writings. It was neat to walk through and be told what each plant was and what it was used for. We learned more about the medieval theory that like cures like. If the plant looked like a body part, it was used to treat diseases of that body part. I find it really amusing that to a certain extent that theory worked. I really wish we could have gone to visit the monastery ruins of Disembodenbeck, but the museum provided a really cool model of what it would have looked like and what the ruins look like now. I think it's really tragic that they knocked down what was left of the her monastery in Bingen. The museum did have a really wonderful exhibit on Hildegard though and I feel like I learned a lot, the tour guide was also really awesome. After the museum tour we ate lunch at a cute beirgarden on the Rhine and then we took a boat tour up the Rhine. We were in the middle of wine and castle country, so I was pretty much in heaven. There were vineyards lining the mountains on both sides and every so often there would be a castle or the remains of a castle. I was super excited. One day, when I'm a big girl and have lots and lots of money, I'll own a castle and a vineyard on the Rhine. I had no idea how many castles there were. I think we passed at least 10. I thought they were much rarer than that, but apparently not. After our cruise was over we got to hike up a mountain to the remains of a medieval castle. We missed the last tour so we had to make up our own which was fun. Honestly I could have spent all day there just exploring every nook and cranny. It was so amazing. I love the medival times and the whole idea of castles, so walking through the ruins of one was right up my alley and made me giddy. I wish we could have spent more time there and I was quite upset my camera died, but I guess you can't always get what you want. At least I got to spend a good couple hours there. After that we took a train back to Bonn. I had packed up the majority of my stuff earlier in the week and when I got home all I had to do was put some clothes in my backpack and I was ready for the trip to Switzerland.