My posts keep growing in length

So in traditional fashion this post is about to be an unreasonable length, but maybe you have too much time on your hands or you think these are really fun to read. At any rate, to pick things up from where I left off at the end of my last post (where we got a train cancelled and had to flounder our way back home from Brussels), I woke up very early on Monday morning to head to the train station and go to Hannover. This of course means I didn’t see my host family at all over the weekend, and I wouldn’t be back again until the next Sunday night after Paris. A little awkward, and I felt pretty bad about the fact that I was just stopping in for the night essentially, but I just hoped they would understand. I got to the train station on time (a miracle really) and got on the train to Hannover. After arriving, we made our way to the hotel we would be staying for the night and dropped off all of our stuff. We grabbed a quick lunch, consisting of some doner in my case (I can’t find the o with an umlaut so that’ll have to do) and grabbed the tram to the axolotl research facility. We split ourselves into two groups, and I made my way into the facility with the first group, excited to see these rather adorable little creatures. After a lecture by one of the faculty members of the facility covering the curiosity that is an axolotl, how it regenerates, what all it’s capable of, and what they’re working on now, we made our way into the axolotl room. All around us were relatively small aquarium looking tanks with around 5 or so axolotl (axolotls?) each, and they are definitely as cute as advertised. Admittedly they also look kind of weird with their strange gill things sticking out to the side, but they do also grin at all times which is a sight to behold. After making our way around the room for a bit, taking a bunch of photos of smiling axolotls, and asking some questions about how they live, we switched with the second group as we went outside. On a side note, I’m slightly disappointed that we didn’t get to see the spider room that had been so talked up because I was pretty pumped for some spiders, but oh well. We spent our time out in the field hanging out on some chairs, talking to Jane (Dr. Wasser’s wife who is super cool by the way), and making flower crowns for Carter. After about an hour the other group had finished and we all met up again to go to the Hannover Medical School hospital. We met up with a cardio resident (the doctor was in surgery but it’s not like that’s really a surprise) who spent at least an hour talking over various aspects of cardiothoracic surgery, including what kind of surgeries they do the most there, what the craziest things he’d done were, etc. He also brought along a little collection of old ventricular assist devices (VADs) so we could see the evolution of the device over the years from these contraptions that were anything but mobile all the way to rather modern systems that have a battery that allows the patient to live a relatively normal life. Following his explanations and a short Q&A with all of us about random facts we wanted to know, we got to go talk to a patient who was currently in the hospital with his VAD. The man spoke no English but was still incredibly nice, telling us (through Dr. Wasser’s translations) all about how he had been a reporter all his life and how he had gotten to the point of needing the VAD. He was really jovial throughout the whole process, even showing us his machine and the wires leading into his stomach without hesitation. After we had pestered him for some time about living with his VAD, we finally left the hospital to head back to the hotel. From there, we left to go get some dinner, and ended up at an Italian restaurant where I had some pretty freaking good pizza for not a lot of Euros (always a plus) despite the fact that the waitress couldn’t speak any English, making things interesting. After the dinner we grabbed some gelato at the local grocery store to take back to the rooms since we all decided we wanted ice cream, and we all gathered in one room to work on our blogs and eat some ice cream. This of course turned into us all talking instead, and so not much blogging got done until the very end when we all decided we might want to do some actual work at some point. After working for a short period to complete my last blog post (of course about a week behind where we actually were), I submitted it and made my way to bed to get some sleep for our early start to Norderney the next day.

              We woke up early and enjoyed a good breakfast made early specifically for us, but it didn’t change the fact that we were late as usual. After hurrying to catch the tram, we made our way to the Hauptbanhof and grabbed our train to Nordreich-Mole. I, of course, went to sleep on the train because what else are you supposed to do for four or so hours when you could be trying to catch up on the sleep that you never get enough of? After arriving to Nordreich we crossed the street to catch our hour long ferry ride to the actual island of Norderney. The boat was actually a fairly decent size and clearly a number of people travel to the island on a regular basis. We grabbed a quick snack in the lower deck before moving up top to try to get a view of the water as we made the short trip across the North Sea. This was made slightly more difficult by the fact that it was extremely windy on the day we needed to get across, so the ship was tossing quite a bit and causing everyone to sort of slide across the deck of the ship and stumble all over the place. We drunkenly made our way to the side of the ship, snapped some photos, and before we knew it we were on the island. We grabbed our stuff and managed to get a hundred yards away from the ferry before we stopped again to wait for the bikes we were going to rent for the time we were there. I managed to get mine first somehow, an awkward little thing with the basket on back and a bell to complete the whole picture. Of course we all started riding them around as soon as we got them (some with more success than others) and pretty soon everyone was feeling pretty good on the bikes. After we all had one, we rode to our hostel for the week and our stuff was transferred in a van from the bike shop. We had just a minute at the hostel to unload everything and go grab a (very) quick lunch before we needed to meet up again to go on our bike tour of the island. I had some schnitzel that was delicious, not to mention it was actually enough food for once, and it wasn’t horribly expensive. Dr. Wasser then started our bike tour, a disaster waiting to happen really when you have 25 kids all trying to ride a bike together at the same time. This is particularly true when we all set off, since moving slowly is of course the hardest part and nobody is farther than 4 feet away while we’re standing. We all got off without too many problems, and even managed to get some distance before the first person fell *cough Carter*. We made some pit stops along the way so Dr. Wasser could tell us what we were looking at, and it was the first time we actually got to get a good look at the island. It truly is a beautiful place that isn’t like anywhere else I’ve been in my life. Sure, it’s really just an island on a sea that isn’t particularly pretty, but there’s something special about it. It’s relatively untouched in most areas as it is now a world heritage site, and wildlife roams everywhere. Hundreds of birds from a number of species were flying around constantly, and the whole atmosphere was one I can’t say I’ve been in often. We made our way to a lighthouse at the end of one stretch of the island before finally turning back to start home. When we got back to the hostel, besides being pretty worn out, we had a number of hours to do what we wanted until our group BBQ at around 6:30. The weather was perfect, and so we ended up playing some basketball at first in a grass area behind the hostel. Turns out the whole place is commonly used by school kids, especially toward the end of the year, so the backside was a lot like a playground at a school. Soon enough, everyone was outside, and after basketball we played a great game of soccer on the same field. The sun was setting, it was cool with a breeze without being cold, and I was having one of the best days I’ve had in a long time. After soccer we decided we should probably get the BBQ going, so we grabbed the bear, sausages and side dishes and got started. Everyone gathered around the fire pit for a toast, and it felt like we were just having a backyard BBQ with close friends, but on a beautiful island in the North Sea in Germany. We sat on swings, played with ziplines (sorry Hailey), told stories, talked, and ate. To make things better, some in the group went out and got s’mores stuff on their own and so we all made s’mores over the coals from the BBQ as a desert. The dinner must have gone on for at least 3 hours, and I don’t think I stopped smiling for more than a few minutes during the span. As the sun really started to sit low, we decided we needed to swim in the North Sea, because how often in your life would you get the chance to say that you had done that? We donned swimsuits and made our way to the beach all under a sunset that was getting more beautiful by the second. It was cold at this point, especially in swim trunks, but it was so worth it. We all ran into the water, and while it was freezing (something like 15 degrees Celsius), we stayed out in the water for probably 15 minutes. We splashed around, dove through waves, and at least in my case, simply stared at the beautiful and spectacular place I had somehow found myself in. Eventually we came in, took some great photos of the group as a whole on the beach, and everyone tried to soak up as much of the sunset as they could. Finally I made my way back (pretty freezing at this point) to the room to shower and go to bed. I don’t really know how to articulate why it was that this day was so great. The things we did were not particularly spectacular, but the feeling was indescribable. It truly was bliss, and many of us (myself included) chalked it up as one of the best days in our life. I can only try to explain what was going through my head. I think it was a mix of everything in the moment for me: great people, a beautiful place, perfect weather, happiness all around, and not a care in the world. I was with friends that I hadn’t known for the most part just 5 weeks earlier, and yet we were already become best friends in a place that seemed like it was separate from the rest of the world or its problems. However you want to define the moment or try to explain why it was so great, the best way to put it was that it was simply the best day I have had on this trip, and I’m not sure how many days you get in life to be as perfectly happy and content as I was for that whole afternoon. It was a day I was sad to see end, but considering it had been so good, I figured the rest of Norderney would probably be pretty excellent (spoiler: it was).

              The second day in Norderney was our day at the spa, and so we all rode our bikes back into town to the Badehaus. We received a lecture from the staff covering all of the actual science behind the spa and sauna, ranging from vasodilation studies to asthma research and more. This went on for maybe an hour before we made our way to the changing rooms to enter the spa for ourselves. The Badehaus (bath house for those non-german speakers) is hard to place in an American setting. It is a spa, but it also has two pools, one large warm one that is for adults, but also one that includes a water slide and wave pool for kids and their families. They were separated well such that it wasn’t loud in the quiet, calm side of the spa, but it also makes it harder to define what the place really was without just going there (which I would recommend). At any rate, we changed into swimsuits again and set up our groups for the mud treatment before getting let loose in the place. We (again Hailey, Jules, Carter, Kathryn, Alana, Emily, and I) of course made our way straight to the kids pool to try the water slide, and stayed on that side for maybe 30 minutes, enjoying a round in the wave pool to close things. We then went back across and got in the heated pool for a brief period before deciding to try the extremely hot hot tub. From there you were supposed to go straight into a standing pool that was the same temperature as the North Sea, an interesting experience since it was cold initially, but after you got in and stood still it really did feel good. Plus, after I got out, my legs felt strangely good, and tingled everywhere that had been exposed to the drastic temperature change. From here we moved to the high salinity pool, which sat at around 20% saline (I think?) and allowed you to simply float. It was covered in slate on the inside and barely lit, truly creating a cave-like place that was relatively easy to fall asleep in. So I did. Of course, this presents challenges since as I started to fall asleep I kept trying to let my eyes open a little bit, which would end up with me getting salt water in my eyes and waking up fully. Anyways, it was unbelievably peaceful and we spent at least 20 or 30 minutes in there before it was time for the guy’s mud treatment. To be honest, I was slightly apprehensive since everyone has to be nude to do it, and you never know how well that’s going to go when you get a bunch of guys together, but it ended up being an incredible experience with no problems. After getting undressed, you showered in a large room outside the steam room to clean yourself off before applying the mud. The mud comes from the Wattenwerd (hopefully I spelled that right), the mudflats that are created when the tide drops around Norderney, and a critical piece of its ecological diversity. More on that later though. So, you took the mud and put it all over your face before mixing in the salt and applying the mixture over your entire body, and I mean everywhere. I was fully coated (back excluded) in the dark paste before I was done. We then went into the steam room, where you sat on slate benches with a few other guys in one of three little stall areas. Again, everything was made of slate and the room is dim, creating a calming atmosphere. Steam is pumped in rather quickly, and soon enough you really could barely see the person across the stall area from you, even though they weren’t more than 6 feet away. The mud slowly began to thin out too, but it felt really amazing. Finally, a hot shower turned on to start the processes of cleaning all the mud off. It started out extremely hot, slowly cooling to a comfortable heat as you attempted to scrub all of the mud off of yourself. After getting most of it off, we went back into the large shower room to finish getting the rest of the mud off before redressing and leaving the treatment. It really was a unique experience, and I came out feeling both extremely refreshed and baby smooth. From the mud treatment, I went with Carter to some of the different saunas, thinking that would be a good thing to do with just a guy so someone could watch the halls when we needed to shower after each sauna. We started with the 90 Celsius sauna, thinking we might as well start hot and cool down. It was definitely warm, but it actually wasn’t too bad. I couldn’t breathe through my nose though to be fair, since it burned to try. Still, we lasted around 10 minutes in there before deciding that was plenty of scalding temperatures. We moved from that sauna to a sauna at 65 degrees that was also scented. It was actually rather pleasant to sit in, and we would end up spending most of our time there. After this, we decided to meet Dr. Wasser in the sauna on the roof of the building for a session with the sauna meister. He added scented water to the rocks and used various fans and towels to move and blast the air in our direction. It really was a cool experience, and you could tell it was the real way to experience the sauna. We stayed the full 15 minutes in that sauna, capped off by a near disaster when Alana, Hailey, Jules and Kathryn tried to come into the sauna since they didn’t see the sign saying not to come in. With a nude Dr. Wasser and Drake (me too at one point but I thought I saw Jules’ bun and immediately toweled back up just 30 seconds before they tried to come in), things certainly would have been awkward, but alas. We then laid out on the rooftop in the cool air for a bit before making our way back down to try a darkened room that was filled with chairs and swings that you could lounge in. Unfortunately, almost the entire group had almost the same plan, so it was full of our peers when we tried. We sat outside instead, and the chairs were probably equally comfortable. After nearly falling asleep, we decided to have one more go in the 65 degree scented sauna followed by a dunk in the dipping pool, also set at North Sea temperatures. This too was a very refreshing event, although it required slightly more watching out for the girls since it really was a little square shaped pool that you had to dunk in naked. Following this we were essentially out of time, so we made our way back to the changing rooms to get back into normal clothes and head out. It was an incredible experience and really reasons enough to make a trip to Norderney if you ever get the chance. We ate a fairly American lunch afterwards (strange considering there are really almost no Americans that visit the island – 99.9% of the visitors come from Northern Germany) before going back to the hostel. We had most of the afternoon off after this, and we all went down to the beach to play some volleyball. Again, I had an incredible time filled with some decent volleyball and even some good matches before we all had to meet up to head out to the mudflats with our guide. We ventured out into the mud, a fine material that was extremely soft under your feet. Our guide stopped every hundred meters or so in order to tell us a little bit of information about the life that lived both in the mud and off of it. She talked to us about the birds (millions of them) that use the island as a stopover on the way to Africa in order to feast for two weeks. They have to nearly double their normal bodyweight in order to make it the rest of the flight and the mud is so full of food that they essentially sleep and eat for two weeks (what a life right). From the flats we witnessed yet another beautiful sunsets as Jules snapped about 80346923975023 photos while we all yelled “golden hour!” at her. To be fair the pictures are also incredible, so I guess I should shut it. Once we finished on the flats, we went back to the hostel and made our way back out to the beach to enjoy the last of the sunset and the start of the night. We ended up staying on the beach just chatting, taking pictures, doing massage trains (Carter doesn’t like those), and goofing around until around 1:00. Most of the group had also made their way to the beach along with Henning (program director) and we finished things around a fire just talking some more. Finally around 1:30 I called it a night, and went back to go to bed.

              Our last day in Norderney was a rather short one, and was really just a visit to a museum about the bath house on Norderney and the island itself. The tour was actually really interesting and then woman was thoroughly ecstatic about the topic and a chance to give it in English. After the tour we rode our bikes back to the bike shop to drop them off and said goodbye to Dr. Wasser and Jane who were staying on the island for the weekend. We were officially free for our long weekend, and after using the ferry to cross again to Norddreich-Mole we grabbed some lunch before our train. Jules wasn’t continuing to Paris with us, so we also said bye to her before getting on our train. Luckily, these train rides were rather uneventful, and we simply connected in Cologne to our Thalys train to Paris. Finally, by around 11 we made it to our hostel in Paris, The Generator. The place was really like a hotel for young people, and even had a bar/restaurant on the bottom floor. We didn’t check it out, instead just going to the rooms and calling it a night since we had a lot to do in Paris.

              Day one (Friday) in Paris we started with the Louvre. While I had been before, I still think you’d be crazy not to take the chance to see all of that art if you’re already there. We hit all of the highlights, including a selfie with Mona Lisa in my case. We perused the museum for a few hours before getting hungry and deciding to head out for lunch. We got food at an excellent little café near the Louvre with the nicest waitress in the entire world. She brought us bread which was free, and kept bringing us more as we finished it at no charge. She brought us all the cold tap water we could drink for free, and even offered to refill Carter and I’s water bottles since our water might not be fresh anymore. She then gave us some tips about Paris and told us to watch out for pickpockets before sending us on our way. We walked over to Notre Dame at this point and made our way inside. I got caught up reading the history of the building for a while so I kind of missed everyone else leaving (sorry friends) and ended up meeting them at the exit when they were all tired of looking around. This next section was rather specific and a must for me on the trip, but it has a backstory that I’ll try to make quick. When I was a senior in high school I did a trip through educational foundation tours over Spring Break to London, Paris and Madrid. It was kind of like a mini study abroad in high school with some of my classmates, my chemistry teacher and his wife, and some moms (mine included). Kathryn had also gone on this trip, and it was how we actually became good friends, and so this story kind of applies to her too. During that trip we had a guide that went with us to each city, and in Paris we had quite the lasting memory with him. After looking at a famous fountain near Notre Dame (the name escapes me), he asked if anyone wanted to get some of the best coffee he had ever had during a short break we had. Kathryn and I along with others said yes before the guide took off through people down a side street at quite a pace. Some struggled to keep up but Kathryn, Maisen (not related to this current trip), and I made it to the coffee shop with him, where I had the best coffee of my life. After that visit, I had vowed that if I made it back to Paris I would get coffee at the same place. So, back to our trip. We were back, and Kathryn and I were deadest on finding this place again and getting coffee. It was surprisingly easy to get back to, and soon enough we were enjoying some more excellent coffee at the same place we had been three and a half years prior. After enjoying our delicious coffee and the moment to reminisce, we left to head to Saint Chappell (maybe that’s how it’s spelled). Unfortunately that cost money and we’re poor, so that ended that idea pretty quickly. So we moved on to the next plan, which was to gather up some bread, meats, cheeses, and wines to go to the Eiffel tower and sit on the lawn. After getting all of our supplies, we trekked over to the lawn, and quickly found a perfect patch of grass in front of the tower to plop down. Once again, the weather was beautiful, I was surrounded by friends, and I was in a state of real happiness. We ate, drank our wine, and even got some additional food from some Americans living abroad who needed help with data to find a restaurant their friend was at. The few hours we were there flew by, and unfortunately (I guess) we sat for slightly too long on the grounds in front of the tower, as we had planned to go up that night. By the time we got to the ticket counters, all you could do was go to the second floor. We still went up briefly, but we knew we would have to make a return trip the next day. After our disappointing climb, we started the return to the hostel. We got back and spent some time trying to plan for the next weekend (to no avail) before calling it a night and going to bed.

              Saturday we started things off by going to the Sacre-Coeur, hoping the view would be as good as the one Kathryn and I had seen on our trip in high school. Unfortunately, turns out this view is immensely better at night, the way we had seen it, as in the day it kind of just looked like a big city. After this slight let down, the girls shopped for a bit in the streets around the church and picked up some paintings. From there we went to the Musee d’Orsay, something I had my apprehensions about considering I’m not a huge art person. Of course, once we were in, I realized I was wrong to be worried, because it turns out I like impressionist art. We wandered for quite a while, looking at some Van Gogh paintings they had along with some classic Monet works. After spending some time there looking through all the art our brains could handle, we left to head back to the hostel to change for dinner. The plan had been to wear some nice clothes in order to have a nicer dinner since we were in Paris before going back up the Eiffel tower. Of course, this didn’t go quite to plan. We had asked the front desk where we could go for a good dinner in the area, but the place he sent us ended up being in a less than nice part of town. We gave up on his suggestion almost immediately and decided we’d just see what we could get closer to the Eiffel tower. Unfortunately, by the time we got there we really needed to head up or face the same problems from the night before, and we couldn’t miss it again. So dinner was pushed back to after the Eiffel tower (RIP stomach) so we could get up in time. It ended up being a good idea since it took an hour to get to the ticket window and we didn’t get up to the top until around 9. We took tons and tons of photos, made a little cooler by the fact that Paris has up all of its promotional material for its bid for the 2024 summer Olympics. The Eiffel tower is always incredible, and I really believe it’s something everyone should try to do in their life. I was worried that it wouldn’t be as good a view in the day time either, but luckily I was wrong. We had a clear view of the city at the perfect time of sunset, and yet again I was surrounded by unbelievable beauty. I couldn’t help think what a lucky life I (and really all of us there) have, that this was the second time I was at the top of the Eiffel tower. It’s a site that most people will probably go their whole life without seeing, and here I was on top of it for the second time and I’m still pretty much a kid. It was both a moment of appreciation and reflection for sure. Because of this, I essentially never wanted to come down from the top and instead just wanted to stare at the city forever. I couldn’t help but ask myself “how many times do you really get to do this in one life?” I was already at two, and at some point you have to wonder how many more chances in your life you’ll have to stand at the top of the Eiffel tower and look out over Paris. Never mind the fact that the chances of me getting to do it under the same circumstances with such a great group of friends are incredibly low. Enough sappy introspection though. With these thoughts in mind, I did stay up on top of the tower with Hailey and Alana for an extra 15 minutes or so after the others had gone down to soak up as much of the view as I could, and finally we took the elevator down to meet them at the bottom. We went back out on to the lawn so that we could watch the sparkling lights, another site we had missed the night before. We also happened to run into the rest of our group in Paris, so we all sat together and watched as the Eiffel tower glittered like a giant jewel. We didn’t stay long though considering we were starving and unsure how long things would stay open since it was already 11 or so. Surprisingly, we quickly found a place that looked good and was still very open, so we sat down to eat. The meal was really incredible, and everyone even tried some escargot, which was excellent, since we were in France. We all laughed and talked through another incredible dinner and eventually started the long trek home. We finally got back to the hostel at around 1 and called it a night pretty quickly after that, knowing we had to leave in the morning.

              Sunday we ate breakfast at the hostel before making our way out to the bus stop we needed to get to in order to catch our BUS back to Cologne. We made it with plenty of time and Hailey and Alana ended up surprising us all with drinks, including a Dr. Pepper for me (bless up). We then got on the bus, which was going to Brussels funnily enough, and settled in for the ride. The ride to Brussels was rather uneventful, as was the one from there back to Cologne, and I managed to make it home at a semi reasonable hour for once. It was a whirlwind of a week, and as a whole it definitely took the cake as the best time during this program, including some individual days and moments I think I’ll remember for the rest of my life.

So, if you made it this far and through all of that, I congratulate you. I would say this is my longest post but frankly I’m not sure I can actually promise that. It should be though, since the last week in Bonn is one with a few excursions but nothing quite like Norderney or Paris. Crazy to think that I’m already to the point where I can talk about my last full week in Bonn. People weren’t kidding when they tried to warn us that this all goes by faster than you can explain. Just have to hold on tight to the last bit of time we have.