"It just hit me that we are going home soon, right now, 11:25 am on July 31st, while reading The Fault in Our Stars. Lately I had been feeling excited to go home but suddenly i'm overwhelmed with sadness at the thought that it might be a very long time until I see Germany again. At these moments, however, I like to recall how much I have seen and how lucky I am to be seeing it. But i'm still sitting here thinking that this is the last train that we will ride to the last destination. This depressive thought process isn't helped by reading The Fault in Our Stars"
Btw I finished that book on the plane ride home, and I hate everyone who recommended it to me. It was gloriously sad and i'm pretty sure the guy who sat next to me on the way home thought I was insane, because I cried like a baby.
Anyway!, after the nostalgic train ride to Berlin we checked into our hotel and went on a bike tour. Which was not a screaming horror fest that I had come to know with bike tours. It was actually really nice and calm and not frightening like biking in NYC. The bikes also had names on them and like the utter nerd that I am I got a bike named after a show called "Doctor Who". Its name was River Song. The day just got better after that. Some of my favorite sites were the gigantic Lutheran Church and also the site where the book burning took place. The entire town was blanketed in history everywhere we biked. However, when we saw the Brandenburg Gate I wrote this down for my blog. . .
"So we finally got to the gate and it was incredible. I finally got that 'oh wow' feeling, and was all like 'oh wow i'm in Germany', which I am embarrassed to say it took awhile to feel. This trip has been amazing. No picture can give it justice and words can't capture how wonderful it is. I am coming back. That is a promise"
It truly was incredible. The next day we visited the Memorial and Museum Sachsenhausen (some context- it was a concentration camp near Berlin) and it was chilling. I had no words to speak while I was walking around there because it was just so horrifying. I did take photos but I only have been posting the main building, the gate and the Soviet statue because I just didn't feel comfortable sharing them. It was a very heart wrenching experience, especially when we saw the foundations of the building where they killed prisoners. However, even though it was very sad I am glad to be able to experience it. It is something that I will remember forever.
After that we went to the East Side Gallery for some not-super-depressing entertainment. It was beautiful. I have been a fan of artistic graffiti since middle school and, while the towns we visited had nice ones, this was the cream of the crop! It was awesome seeing the different messages and styles that were all together on this wall. Even though it was super crowded, we still were able to get some awesome photos! Here are some of my favorites!
The next day we visited the Charité learning center and museum. The learning center was awesome because the medical students get such hands on experience thanks to all the practice scenarios that they can set up. Also I found a medical tool that had one of my family's names on it. Schulte! and I don't know how to change the orientation, sorry.
Then that afternoon we went to the museum which had one of the largest collection of anatomical specimens and I loved our tour guide (I can't remember if his name was tiny tim or tom?). What made him great was that he was uninhibited in his explanation of the horrors of early medical practices. Good thing we were all pre-medical, pharmaceutical, and veterinary students or we would have had some fainters. My favorite specimens were the different bodily stones that were there. All sorts! Gall bladder, kidney and bladder stones of all shapes, sizes and colors. Then came our last lecture with Dr. Wasser which was very bittersweet. It was about Rudol Virschow who had the quote "Omnis cellula e cellula" (all cells come from cells). SideNote: this quote was also in The Fault in Our Stars, just so ya know. The actual lecture took place in an old gigantic lecture hall which had been partially destroyed and is now used for different groups to use.
Something I left out, the entire time we were in Berlin there was a festival going on near where we were and it was awesome! There were hundreds of food and beer stands and also different variety shows that were going on. Some were really, really terrible and others were actually entertaining. Anyway, we spent alot of time there and saw and drank awesome things. Two things I saw were really cool. 1) a chalk drawing of ET and 2) A mechanical dragon.
Okay, back to business, the day after the Charité we got to visit the Reichstag! The entire building was a historical landmark and it was awesome! The walls had signatures of USSR soldiers who had written down where they were from and how long they were there. The actual Bundestag met was set up much like the US Senate but it was more modern. Natural light filtered through the sky via the clear dome above the room and the multitude of mirrors that reflected the sky down onto the room. Also the eagle was incredible but I really loved that the architect put his own design of the eagle on the back of the original. And then it was there. . . Angela Merkel's office. Ever since I saw a parody of her on SNL I have been a fan of her, much like Leslie Knope. So when I saw her office I was super duper excited!
When our tour ended we were able to look around the top of the Reichstag and WOW! what a view. It was beautiful. We then went inside the clear dome and that was incredible too! No words can describe, so here are some photos.
Our last site was the Otto Bock institute which had some really cool prosthetics. There were a ton of interactive things to use and my favorite was the pendulums. From the ceiling there were 3 giant pendulums that each had 3 screens on them that would change color and also show hands that would push and pull the bars. You could also make it so that your hands appeared on the screens, which I did.
Then came our final dinner together as a group. We went to an awesome Turkish restaurant and our supervisors had 2 surprises in store for us. The food was amazing and my favorites were a beef stuffed eggplant and a cheese tube (which sounds gross but was really good). Our first surprise was a pianist who played some incredible music while we ate. Our second surprise was a bellydancer! And she was really great at getting everyone up and moving, and we saw that Dr. Wasser got moves. Our third unexpected surprise was an anise dessert drink that was terrible. But overall it was a great ending to an amazing trip.
I will never forget this experience or the people I met. Peace out Germany, hope to see you again.
No comments:
Post a Comment