Finding islands late in the game

So, we’ve made it to the last full week in Bonn. I’ve figured out the trains, trams, buses, some of the language, my classes, flights, and what to do when any number of those other things goes wrong. Still, it feels like it’s too early to think about leaving. Everyone said I would finish the 5 week program and wish I had longer, and I’m afraid they may be right after all. At any rate, I might as well dive in to week 5, including a visit to an organ factory, a Rhine cruise, a castle, and some shadowing at the university hospital.

              Monday started things off with class in neurophysiology, which literally everyone was late to. Somehow the schedule had been changed without any of us seeing it, and we weren’t notified of the change. We thought class was scheduled to start at 11:45, but it turns out it had been rescheduled to start at 10:15. So at 10:17 when Professor Waltz emailed us asking us where everyone was, I had to admit I was a little worried. We scrambled as a class to try to get to AIB as fast as we could and ended up starting class closer to 11:40, so we just had to go over a little bit on class time. This ended up being fine though, since I wasn’t planning on going home before the organ factory tour anyways. We made the short walk to the factory, for some reason located in Bonn which doesn’t really seem like the place to have one of the biggest organ manufacturers in the world if you ask me, and met up with some of the employees. Our guide then walked us through the process of making the organ, a tour I was actually surprised to find as interesting as I did. She was super interesting to listen too, not to mention it was cool to hear about the instrument and how crazy they are to make. After we finished hearing all about organs we were free for the day, and I had a nice dinner with host family before calling it a night.

              Tuesday the group was split for the first time as half went to the university clinic to shadow while the other half had a normal day of class. I was part of the half that had class, so I went to a double lecture by Dr. Wasser which covered Nazi euthanasia programs and topics like Hildegard von Bingen until around 4 in the afternoon. That being said, class hadn’t started until 11:45 so it wasn’t like I had been forced to get up early and have a long day of classes. Once again the day was pretty normal, so not too much to report, and I had dinner with host family again before going to sleep to get ready for the Rhine cruise.

              Wednesday was a miniature excursion to Rheinfels castle with a river cruise and stop at the Hildegard von Bingen museum. At the museum, we heard a lecture from Dr. Wasser where we also got to see the world’s largest collection of Roman surgical instruments that were stored in the grave of a Roman doctor and thus incredibly preserved. It was strange to see such an impressive collection in Bingen, a relatively small town in the middle of nowhere. At any rate, the collection was something to see and quite impressive. W grabbed lunch afterwards before getting on our Rhine cruise, which probably would have been more fun had it not been 9375029374017347 degrees in the sun. That may be a slight exaggeration, but it was definitely warm if you went into the sun. So we hid in the shade as we passed by a ludicrous number of castles moving down the Rhine. Seriously, it’s not okay how many of these things there are. Some were separated by maybe 200 or 300 yards, and they were all beautiful and historical looking. I’m not sure how they all managed to exist so close together for any length of time, but I guess they were fighting fairly often so it all works out. Eventually we made it to our stop and got off the boat to hike up to Rheinfels castle, a decent trip up the side of a hill that was worth it. The castle was not particularly large but somehow had held 4,000 inhabitants at one point and apparently had been quite the problem to conquer. Our guide took us through foxholes in the castle and showed us all around before we were left with a little bit of free time which we used to take photos as always. We climbed to the top of the castle tower and snagged as many photos as we could manage in the limited time before we went down to get some soup at a restaurant on the same site as the castle. We then loaded up in the bus to head back to Bonn, and by 9:30 I was back at home to snag some dinner and go to sleep before my turn at the university hospital.

              Thursday was an early morning since I had to make my way to the university clinic, and so I was up and out the door earlier than I would have liked. We all met at the Hbf to catch a bus out to the clinic where we met with one of the doctors to go to changing rooms and switch into scrubs, caps, masks and some clogs. Clogs are a must because how else are you going to pull of the awkward doctor look if you don’t have the weird clogs? (Turns out they’re super comfortable and I think I get it) After changing we were split into pairs and sent to different departments. I ended up in orthopedic surgery and was pretty excited at the thought of seeing a total knee or hip replacement. I met up with the anesthesiologist, Andreas, who would be taking care of me for the day. He was an incredibly nice guy, far into his residency, who spoke nearly perfect English as a result of his South African wife. Unfortunately, he also informed me that the surgery we were in for was just an endoscopic spinal surgery to correct some joint pain a man was having in some of his lumbar vertebrae. While it was cool to see the camera as the probe made its way to the spine to clear out some of the joint, I really couldn’t see much and the incision was only two or three inches. While I was slightly disappointed in the surgery, Andreas made up for it by keeping me on my toes and asking me questions about what to look for in the monitors. He also asked me any questions he could come up with about biochem bits that related to his work, and even let me do some work in the room myself (which I’m sure was probably not totally legal), making for a pretty great experience. The second patient was also not too spectacular, a woman who had already had a total knee replacement. Her wound couldn’t be closed all the way for reasons that were not very clear, but because of the small opening left behind the wound had to be debrided every few days. So I watched as a surgeon opened up stitches to clean out the wound before sewing it all back up. Not exactly gripping but it’s still surgery, and Andreas was still fun. After this surgery Andreas dropped me off at a more visually interesting ENT surgery since he was leaving for lunch. While the surgery certainly looked fascinating, with the patient opened from the lower portion of their neck to the ear as the surgeon looked for tumors, it was slow-paced. I watched for around 40 minutes as the surgeon slowly moved up the nerves and vessels of the neck, prodding around and searching for tumor. Eventually I had to quit and leave from a mix of extreme hunger and the fact that I couldn’t watch a lot more of the slow crawl up the neck. The surgeon even told us the surgery was no good, and apologized to us for not having something cooler to show us before we left. I left with a funny impression of the German hospitals. Despite the common stereotype of Germans as these efficient, sterile people, the hospital rooms were really rather relaxed. I was not required to wash my hands before I went in, and like I said I was able to help with the patient even though I didn’t work there. People also came and went from the OR more frequently than they do in the states. That being said, they certainly still do everything with the same skill I would see in America, and apparently they get good results so I suppose it doesn’t really matter that much. After leaving the hospital, we went back to Bonn and grabbed a late lunch before heading home to escape the heat. I ate dinner with my host family and went to bed ready for the trip to the zoo the next day.

              Friday we started out with a normal class day, with a morning lecture in history of medicine. After the lecture though, we got to make our way to the Cologne zoo to get a guided tour. Before we got here though, I had to have some sort of problem. Turns out at some point we had decided to just bring all of our things for the weekend to class that day and I was the only one who had missed it, thinking I would just go home after the zoo to get stuff then head back. Instead, I ended up rushing home during lunch to grab all of my stuff, and got back to the Hbf with ten minutes to spare. Crisis averted, I was glad to go to the zoo. That being said, it was once again 80087986 degrees, so burning up in the sun wasn’t exactly the greatest, but I was still glad to see the animals. Besides, things got really interesting once Dennis arrived on the scene to show us the elephants. On top of just being an incredibly nice guy who spoke perfect English, he let us feed the elephants and touch their trunks while we were there and heard from him more about their lives. All in all I’d say a pretty good experience, especially considering I’m not sure I’ll ever get to pet another elephant in my life. After all of this, most of the class left for their weekends, and we had some time to kill before we needed to head to the airport for ours. So we wasted an hour or so at the zoo looking at some of the aquarium life before heading to the airport. This weekend was a trip to Palma de Mallorca, Spain. Don’t ask me how we had managed to pull this off from like Tuesday in the week going forward, because I’m not even sure how we did. At any rate, we got to the airport to hop on our Ryanair flight, and what a trip that was. Jules said it right when she described it as the “taxi of the skies” for Europe. We had to try four times to do the safety briefing because people wouldn’t sit or be quiet. Then, once we were in the air and the fasten seatbelt sign went off, everyone immediately stood up and hung out like it was a party on board. They even had to announce you couldn’t drink your own alcohol on board the plane at one point. I was pretty amused to say the least, although explaining it later to my mom, she didn’t share my laughter. Oh well. We got to the island just fine anyways and took a cab to the Airbnb we had pulled together for the weekend. It was too late to see anything that night, so it wouldn’t be until the next day that we would get to see this incredible place. Instead, we all took showers and called it a night by around 2.

              There was only really one plan when it came to Palma: go to the beach. Saturday we got moving at around 10:30 and got ready for the beach immediately. Sun screen on, we grabbed some late lunch at a nearby restaurant and made our way to the closest beach where we were greeted with unbelievable beauty. The water was clear and turquoise blue, with some mountains and cliffs of the island in the far often distance. Yachts were anchored in the view off the beach, and the sand was bright white. Once again, how did we manage to pull this off? We found a spot, dropped our stuff, and immediately got in the water. We soaked it all in (especially the sun, RIP Kathryn) and couldn’t help think that we probably looked like those crazy Americans you see on TV that do stuff like go to Palma for the weekend on their yacht with all their friends. Somehow we were those 20 year olds who had managed to get to an island in Spain, and now we were swimming in the freaking Mediterranean Sea. All this being said, there isn’t actually much to write about for the time we were there since all we did was swim and laze at the beach with snacks all day. By dinner time, we made our way to a restaurant on the beach (why leave right?) and had an amazing meal while watching the sun set over this gorgeous place. We then went back down to the beach again (at this point might as well sleep there) to get some photos and just spend as much time there as possible. Finally at 11 when it seemed like there was really no light left in the sky, we made our way back home for the night. We stayed up for a while, eating Cosmic Brownies and listening to various slow jams in the condo before finally calling it a night.

              Sunday, our flight didn’t leave until around 6:30, meaning we really had another full day. What did we do? Tough question, we went to the beach. We did almost the exact same thing again, swimming in the blue waters, soaking up (less) sun, avoiding topless old people, and trying to spend as much time on this beautiful island as possible. It was another one of those special times I have to say, swimming in the Mediterranean with some of your closest friends on an island of Spain in Europe. That’s not a sentence most people probably get to say. We squeezed every last second out of our beach time before finally calling it quits to get ready to leave. We all rinsed off, found cabs, and made our way back to the airport to head to Cologne. The flight back was much less exciting than the one there, and after the bus ride back to Bonn Hbf and my tram home, I got in and went to bed at around 11:30. What a blur it had been, and all of a sudden I was down to the last week of this program, with just one more full day in Bonn. Going to sleep, I was definitely a little sad. It was a place that had been home for over a month now, and it was almost time to say goodbye. I’m not sure there could ever be enough time here though if you’re having as good a time as I’ve been blessed enough to have. Next stop, and the last stop, Berlin.