wir suchen dich!

         I started off this week tired. After the week in Norderney, I spent the long weekend in Dublin. I drank a lot of beer and ate a lot of potatoes. I got back to Bonn at 1:30 Monday night, and I had to be up and at the bus station by 7:15 the next morning. As we prepared to go to the teaching hospital that morning, I tried to calm my nerves. I have gotten to watch a lot procedures involving animals, but I hadn’t seen anything with humans yet. Even watching medical tv shows I would always have to close my eyes and look away from the screen. So, a huge part of me was worried I would faint in the operating room. Luckily, that didn’t happen. Initially, I was supposed to be sent to the trauma department, but there wasn’t anything going on in there so I was sent to the orthopedic department. The first procedure I saw was a laparoscopic meniscus repair. It was really interesting to watch the screen of what was going on inside the patient; it did give me some phantom knee pain just watching it because I’ve had a laparoscopic procedure on my knee before, so it was interesting seeing what was done to me being done on another patient. After observing that procedure, I took a break in the break room because it was so difficult to breathe under the surgical mask. The next procedure I went in to observe was a removal of scar tissue from a patients hip. It was interesting to see them just cut out the scar tissue and throw it away like it was nothing. So weird. The procedure was a little harder for me to watch closely because I could see the layers of fat and muscle when they cut into the patient, but the surgeons were super friendly and had a pretty good playlist in the background. After that procedure, I got to look at a few minutes of two separate open heart surgeries. I actually wasn’t grossed out at all by them, and they were super interesting to see. I wish I had gotten to watch the entire procedure, but there was limited viewing space and I didn’t want to be selfish with it. For lunch that day, I went to Tacos in Bonn and had some amazing enchiladas that reminded me of home. 

me and the gang

           The next day, I went to class in the morning and then got to visit an organ maker. It was really cool getting to see where the instrument was made, how much they cost, and all the different places they are sent to. The next day, we visited the anesthesiology museum. The museum is run by a super cute old man, he was really friendly. It was really cool getting to see how anesthesia has evolved throughout time. I also really liked seeing the iron lung, it was crazy to think about how some people had to spend a majority of their lives in one before vaccines. Thursday night I went back to Tacos with some friends. We relaxed, ate nachos, and had a really good time hanging out together on one of our last nights in Bonn. Friday we got to visit the Hildegard Museum. It was really interesting getting to go in the garden of the museum and seeing all the plants that she used for medications. After the museum, we took a river boat cruise along the Rhine. There was a castle every couple hundred meters. It’s crazy to think about how many different kingdoms of Germany there used to be, and it made me think of how irritating it would have been to try to travel along the Rhine back in the day. The boat dropped us off in Braubach where we did a short hike to the castle there. I love history, so this tour was super interesting to me. The view was magnificent.

the view from the castle

 The next morning, I woke up at 4 am to catch my plane to Zurich. After arriving in Zurich, we caught a train to Interlaken. While I had been apprehensive  about traveling this weekend after the long day we had on Friday, I am so glad I decided to come. Interlaken is the most beautiful place I have ever been. No matter where you are in the town, you always have an amazing view. After arriving in Interlaken, we took a tram up to see Heidi Klum (or as the locals call it, Harder Kulm). It’s a famous viewpoint and it was worth every penny. Once at the top, we ordered fondue and traditional Swiss food. We stayed up there for a couple of hours and just enjoyed the view. Afterwards, we went to a wildlife park where we attempted to pet some goats. We spent that night at a biergarten and hookah bar before we returned to our hostel. This morning, we went souvenir shopping and Madison and I went on a hunt to four different stores to get the Swiss army knives we bought for our families engraved. Luckily, we found a place that would do it. Today on our journey back to Bonn, we had to switch trains four times as opposed to our planned single train ride. It was horrible and I sat on the floor a lot. Moral of the story, don’t trust the European railway system.  Despite the horrible train rides back to Bonn, this weekend was probably my favorite one yet. A tip: visit Interlaken before you die, you'll never want to leave.