Time has really managed to fly by at a rate that I find hard to believe. It seems like just yesterday I was riding the tram to AIB for my first day, confused as to where I was going and desperately relying on Google maps. Now it's been over 5 weeks and I've done more with the greatest people than I think I've done at any other point in my life. So, for the last time in this program, I’ll jot down a week's worth of activities in a few lengthy paragraphs.
The last week of the program consisted of one day in Bonn before leaving for Berlin to close out our trip. Monday was a strange day since it was the last day with our host families in the city we had gotten to call home for the past month. We started the day with our last neurophyisiology class for the program, leaving us with just the final essay for that class. After that came the pre departure meeting for Berlin, lunch and a history of medicine lecture. Just like that, our time at the AIB building was done, and we made our way back out towards the hospital we had been the week before to visit the anesthesia museum, one of only a few in the world. The exhibit was fascinating, led by Dr. Wasser and filled with equipment that documented the timeline for anesthesia and it's development. We got to see another iron lung here, something find strangely interesting and creepy. After we finished there, I made my last trip from Bonn to home to have dinner. Dan had made tacos as a treat for our goodbye dinner, and Aenne had helped make guacamole to go with chips they had bought. Not gonna lie, it was pretty darn close, and really made me feel a bit like I was at home again. There was even salsa and shredded cheese to go with a dos Equis Dan had somehow picked up for everyone. After a great meal, I went upstairs to pack everything up and head to bed for an early start to Tuesday.
I woke up and got ready for the last time at my host home on Tuesday, taking some time to take photos of all the areas I had lived in for the past month. I had a quick breakfast with Aenne, Andreas and even Johanna before grabbing a photo of all of us so I could have a picture of them to save. Then we said our goodbyes and shared some hugs before Andreas drove us to the train station to say goodbye. It was strange to leave after what felt like such a short time, and I really do hope that if I make it back to Bonn that I could see them again. We made our way to Cologne as I said my final goodbye to Bonn, and in typical fashion the train was late, making us miss our connection in Cologne to Berlin. All was well though, and we simply got on the next train out only 30 minutes or so later, and so we were still in Berlin by around 1:30. We went to the hotel to drop off our things then made our way back to the city to have a bike tour. Ryan lead our group and did an excellent job, pointing out all the highlights of the city and giving us a ton of information. The tour lasted for a couple of hours, and afterwards we were free for the evening. We grabbed dinner and made our way back to the hotel fully intending to work on that essay I talked about, but instead dos gymnastics and talked until about 12 then decided the essay would have to wait another day, and we went to bed. Whoops…
Wednesday started out relatively early as we made our way to Sachsenhausen concentration camp for another tour from Ryan. Even after seeing Dachau, Sachsenhausen was an amazing sight to see. I really do believe everyone should see a concentration camp at some point in their life if they are able to. It's such a haunting place and the feelings you get there are indescribable. We spent a few hours in the camp before taking the tram back to town for our group lunch at this restaurant that had potatoes in just about every single dish. It was pretty freaking delicious if not a little late in the day, and afterwards we had free time for the rest of the day, but by the time we got back to the hotel at around 5:30 or 6 we really just felt like we needed to work on the essays. So instead we dyed Carter’s hair, something we had talked about the whole trip. After a couple of boxes of the dye Carter had some nice, bright hair that was pretty freaking blond. The whole process took a couple of hours, so around 10:30 I actually stated on my essay as everyone outside our usual group went out with Henning to actually go have fun (yay essays and procrastination). We worked for a few hours, finally calling it quits at around 1:30 when I had finished most of my essay.
Thursday was a bit of a later start before we left to the alchemy exhibit, a cool concept that took art and alchemy and combined the two, choosing art pieces that were in some way related to the practice of alchemy. It was a really interesting exhibit even for someone who usually doesn't like art like myself, and some of the pictures were pretty amazing. After the exhibits we went to the Otto Bock exhibition center where we learned a bit about prosthetics and played with a bunch of interactive pieces of the exhibit. I learned that having a robotic leg would be 1) extremely difficult to live with even with the advancements we've made and that 2) they look really cool and you would look like a cyborg with one. Apparently people nowadays like to show them off and customize them with designs on the cuffs and all sorts of stuff. After messing around there for a while, we headed back to the hotel, where I hurriedly finished most of the rest of my paper, leaving just the references, before the Blink-182 concert. The rain was coming down pretty well but we didn't let it stop us from having one heck of a time at the concert. I went more to be with my friends there than for blink, whom I know but not all that well. This led to me just yelling out words like “watermelon” and “squirrel" to the melody of whatever song was playing. At any rate, I got to see blink live which is a pretty cool thing to say, and I always love being with everyone. Post concert we made our way back home and pretty much went straight to bed, ending a bit of a wet and sloppy night.
Friday. It was already the last day of the program. We started the morning with our last history of medicine lecture (complete with a shout-out to Jules for her birthday) over Virchow. From there we went to the Charité Berlin, an exhibit housing more anatomical specimens from hundreds of years ago. They had yet another iron lung which I probably find way too cool, along with all sorts of other instruments and specimens. We left from there to meet a medical student at the nearby university, who talked to us a little bit about the medical school in Germany before showing us around the buildings. We were even able to try out some of the simulation labs, including doing chest compressions on a dummy who we were trying to shock back to “life". It was a blast and our guide was incredibly nice, giving us a fun final program activity. The rest of the day after this was ours until the group dinner at 7, but what that really meant was there was just enough time to go home and change for the group dinner and get back in time. I submitted my paper in the chaos, and we changed and left the hotel in around 10 minutes. It was raining hard once again as we made our way to our farewell dinner at kasbah, a Moroccan place. The food was incredible and I got to have some excellent conversation with Jules over at our end of the table (sorry everyone we were sitting around). We gave Dr. Wasser, professor Waltz and Henning our gift to them from us and heard some speeches from both Henning and Dr. Wasser to close out the evening. Henning then gave everyone signed copies of his band’s CD (rock on Henning), and we prepped for the massive amounts of photos that were destined to occur. Everyone took photos with everyone, taking in our last chance to see Henning and Dr. Wasser, at least for a little while. The tears started and hugs were shared for another 30 minutes before we all made our way back to the hotel in groups. For us (again, as usual, Hailey, Kathryn, Emily, Carter, Jules, Alana, and myself) the thought of going to bed was a little odd since Carter would need to leave with Alana at 5 am anyways, so we decided to just stay up as long as we could and enjoy the time. We watched Spirit and Shrek in Hailey and Kathryn’s room until about 3:15 when Carter needed to head back to start packing and getting ready. We said our own goodbyes and gave out our hugs, and I went back to the room with Carter. I semi stayed up with him until his departure, walking out with him and Alana to bid one more farewell to these great friends I had made. I then caught a few hours of sleep before getting up and getting ready myself to meet my mom in Berlin. After breakfast with Hailey and Jules, we had our last goodbyes to each other as I started to pack my things to go. I know I'll see them all soon enough in cstat, but that doesn't mean this isn't sad. We probably won't ever get to do this with each other again, and it was truly a special experience. After all of the goodbyes, I gathered my things and made the trip downtown to my mom's hotel, taking some time on the tram to just think about everything I had just gone through over the past month as my experience officially came to a close.
This program has meant more to me than I think I could ever write down in a blog. The people I've met, the places I've been, and the experiences I've had are ones that most people go their lives without experiencing and our ones I'll treasure for the rest of mine. To anyone that is thinking about doing an abroad program but is worried, let me join the mass of voices telling you to do it without thinking, because it's the best decision you'll make in college. It really was a hero's journey, and I got to take the journey with some incredible people as I learned quite a bit about myself in the process. Thank you to Dr. Wasser for the wealth of knowledge you bestowed upon all of us, and for pushing us along this hero's journey. Thanks Henning for putting up with all of us being annoying Americans for the past month, we'll miss you big man. To professor Waltz, thanks for giving us some laughs to break up some of the seriousness from time to time, and for always being willing to sit with us and have great conversations at meals. It was a trip I'm sure I'll tell my kids about one day, and I'm sad it has to end, but happy with the way it all went. To everyone else in the group, it's been one hell of a trip and I loved getting to experience it with all of you. For now, I've got a couple more weeks with my mom in Europe, then back to the states. Just a couple more blog posts at most, and even those won't be any more about program activities. If you've read any of these, thanks for dealing with my long posts and over-detailed descriptions. See you soon America.
No comments:
Post a Comment