Week 4- Halfway Done?

It's hard to believe that half of our study abroad is finished. This week we sadly finished our class with Dr. Fajt. In our short time with her, we were able to learn so much and have many discussions on pharmacology. We ended the class evaluating research studies and learning how to determine how reliable they are. We gave our hugs and said our thanks to Dr. Fajt, and then she was back off to the United States. The class took our second trip to Cologne in order to switch activities. Since I went on the rooftop tour at the Cologne Cathedral before, it was my turn to go to the zoo. The first thing I noticed when I walked in was the lack of fencing. Most exhibits were enclosed by a knee-high fence. This did not seem safe at all. At the meerkat exhibit, Kylie dropped her phone in the enclosure, and a meerkat had a great time scratching away at the case. Our guide was pretty upset, but it was one of the funniest things that happened on the trip. Robert has able to lean in and get it fortunately. Next, we saw the cheetahs, which again had the knee-high fencing. We expressed our concern to our guide, and she told us, "The cheetahs can technically get out, but they won't try because they won't want to venture over the ditch." She then went on to say that the zoo was very surprised when one of the cheetahs started climbing a tree in the exhibit, because cheetahs typically don't do that unless they're taught to. This was enough to be very skeptical that the cheetahs would actually choose to stay in their enclosure at all times. This certainly wouldn't fly in America. The tour guide led our group to the elephants for the remainder of our trip. There were some new baby elephants which excited everybody, and we were able to go behind the scenes to the zookeeper zone. A zookeeper showed us how they use the cameras in the elephant exhibit, how they open and close different gates to guide the elephants around, and of course, zoomed in on one of the baby elephants playing with a deflated ball. We were able to see the area where the elephants receive veterinary care, then we went into one of the elephant stalls and excitedly took pictures and videos as a zookeeper fed the elephants. The tour went by pretty quickly, but it was nice. Afterwards, a few girls and I had dinner in Cologne next to the Rhein (where we also watched a soccer game of course) and enjoyed our last evening visiting Cologne. Random tid bit: a guy sitting across from us on the train heading to Cologne said that he thought Cologne was the ugliest city... UMMMM, have you seen Houston?? Sorry, it just amazes me that there are people can see such a beautiful city and think it's so ugly.

Anyways, on Friday I left for Milan, Italy with Deniz. We only had a day there, but a 6 hour guided walking tour allowed me to see The Last Supper painting, the Duomo (including the inside), the Galleria, the Scala opera house, a castle where Michelangelo's last sculpture is, and many more neat parts of the city. We had a really nice Airbnb in the middle of the city, and the best part was that when we arrived, homemade chocolate cake was waiting for us!! Our taxi from the airport to our place was a huge rip off though... HUGE.

The next day, we caught a bus to head to our next stop: Zurich, Switzerland. I dozed off pretty quickly but woke up when my phone began buzzing when we hit Switzerland. My draw literally dropped when I opened my eyes. Literally. We were driving over a huge blue lake and mountains... maybe hills... were everywhere. It looked so unrealistic. I felt like someone dropped me inside of a movie with crazy computerized scenery. No picture could do it justice. We got to our next Airbnb fairly late, but we decided that we at least had time to go out and grab gelato. We were a little disappointed when we woke up the next day (Sunday), because we realized that the ONE day we had in Zurich was the day that all the shops are closed. We walked around a lot along the canal, which was very nice. Swans swam throughout it, and the entire town almost had a beach town-like feel to it. We had a beer at a beer garden where a band was performing. I went absolutely insane when they began singing songs by the Beach Boys. By the end of the day, it was time to catch our overnight bus back to Bonn in order to be ready for our class trip to Vienna in the morning. Tip: don't do it.