Monday morning I woke up to a phone call saying that the weather was too bad for our bike ride, so instead we had a full day of class catching up on lecture. We learned about Medieval medicine and the importance of Avicenna and his books on humeral medicine. We also learned the effects of religion in the west against the advancement of medicine, although religion also helped the spread of hospitals and written medical works. We also talked a bit about bioethical topics like euthanasia and the sterilization laws of the Nazis.
Tuesday was a great day because we got to go to the University Clinics Bonn and watch orthopedic surgeries! I was able to see a spinal surgery where the patient’s vertebrae needed to be filled with a type of cement to keep her back from getting worse. I also saw part of a surgery where metal rods were being removed from inside a femur and then a cast be removed from a very young baby! It was a great experience that gave me a side of surgery I haven’t seen before since I’ve only seen a Cesarean section. I still don’t think I want to be a surgeon but at least I know I don’t get too squeamish. Later that day in preparation for a museum visit on Thursday we learned about Hildegard von Bingen. She wrote a book called “Physica” about methods to prevent and cure illnesses, she drew a picture similar to the famous “Vitruvian Man”, and she supposedly had heavenly visions that directed her to build and start her own monastery in Rupertsberg.
Wednesday was the start of our “athletic week” when we rode 44 km to and from Remagen!! I was very glad we did ride bikes along the Rhine but, man! I was exhausted afterwards! While we were in Remagen we were able to eat a picnic and relax next to the Rhine before going the a Peace Museum. The museum is inside one of the towers of the Bridge of Remagen so it was really cool to walk up an original stone tower. The tour guide was also really cool because he used to be the mayor of Remagen! He built the museum and now runs it and you can tell he is very excited to talk about the history of the city and the bridge during the wars and his own war history.
Then, to finish out our athletic week (before getting into our athletic weekend….) we went to the Hildegard Museum in Bingen that I mentioned earlier and then took a very relaxing Rhine River cruise back in the direction of Bonn again. I loved looking at all the medieval castles on the cruise and the group enjoyed picking out who would own which castle if we were the “real housewives of the Rhine” haha. Then, to our happiness, the cruise stopped at one of the very old castles that had just been diminished to ruins (which are my favorite kinds of castles to explore). We had a great time splitting into groups and coming up with a story for our section of the old castle. I would include this day as “athletic” because the hike up to the castle and then the running around that I did as an actor for our “tour guide” scene was pretty exhausting. But we had a lot of fun and once again I’m really glad we got to see something like that!
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