Highlights

*This post was written on Saturday, August 2nd*

I got to feed elephants!

The activities of this past week have gotten better and better with each passing day. On Tuesday, we had a guided tour at the Cologne Zoo and had a behind-the-scenes look at the elephant care facility which included getting to feed elephants! Despite being focused on human medicine, I enjoyed learning about how the animals are cared for. An important concept that I've been exposed to as a Biomedical Sciences major is that of One Health, which suggests that human, animal, and environmental health are all affected by their interactions with each other. Some of my questions about disease spread were answered and we also talked a little bit about organic and sustainable agriculture.

Chocolate as medicine? Sounds about right...

That afternoon we were free to explore the city, so a couple of us visited the Imhoff Chocolate Museum on the Rhine where we learned about the history of chocolate making and how it affects all aspects of culture including its uses in medicine. After our self-guided tour, I had the best hot chocolate ("Aztec"-style with Tabasco and spices) and cake (raspberry Tiramisu) of my life at the café with Katherine and Angelica. Afterwards, we went on a mad hunt for Deutschland World Cup jerseys with little success. All in all, the day was pretty fantastic and I was a bit sad to be leaving such a beautiful historical city. I wonder when I'll be back again and I hope it's soon!

Lovely morning at the Bonn UniClinics!

I'll err on the side of being rather informal and say that WEDNESDAY WAS PRETTY FREAKIN' AWESOME! We all met at the Bonn central train station bright and early around 7 am and took a tram over to the Bonn University Clinics to shadow surgeries all morning long. I was in on one surgery all morning which was the removal of a stage T3 carcinoma from an 84-year-old man's colon. I stood by the attending anesthesiologist and medical student administering anesthesia the whole time and helped out a little with getting materials. Once the tumor was removed, I got to hold the mass of tissue and that was SO STINKIN' COOL!!! You could feel on the piece of colon where it was very hard because of the tumor and the surrounding healthy tissue was quite squishy. I was glad to have all my answers questioned by the attending anesthesiologist about German healthcare and we had a nice conversation about the comparisons to American healthcare.

Me and Angela at the top of Rheinfels Castle

On Thursday, we all took a train together to the town of Bingen, where Hildegard von Bingen was born. We visited the Museum am Strom to view exhibits on her life and afterwards we walked through the attached garden and each student talked about his or her assigned plant that Hildegard had written about in Physica. My plant is the meadow cranesbill, which a pretty purple geranium that Hildegard suggested could be used to treat melancholy and bladder stones. Today it is more commonly used for inflammations, fevers, excessive bleeding, and a variety of conditions. In the afternoon, we went for a boat ride down the Rhine to St. Goar and just about everyone in the group fell asleep in the exhausting heat! We still saw numerous sights along the way including a 1000-year-old castle. When we arrived in St. Goar, we hiked up to Rheinfels Castle and our tour guide took us through the mines underneath which involved a bit of crawling through pitch black dark with the aid of candlelight or cell phone flashlights. That was a neat experience because we experienced a bit of how the castle dwellers would defend themselves centuries ago. 

Obligatory selfie with Beethoven's statue in his hometown!

Yesterday we had a late start and had back-to-back lectures as well as our pre-departure meeting for Berlin. It was bittersweet to realize that it was my last day in Bonn and that these were my last moments at the AIB and with my host family. At the end of the day I had a lovely hot chocolate outing at a café close to the AIB with Nishah, Edward, and Sean and afterwards we got this selfie with Beethoven's statue.

I'd just like to take a moment to say tschüss to my host family and vielen dank for taking care of Nishah and me to the point that I didn't feel homesick at all!

As promised, next week you'll hear about my experiences in Berlin!

Elisa Vengalil '16