Week 5, Vienna and Prague!!

The week started with class, and once again, we were tired as ever. We had just spent the previous day trying to get from Interlaken to Bonn as quickly as possible but came to find that trains don't work in Europe. Monday we had a class where we learned more about both the history of medicine and the neuroscience behind the music. We ended the day with a pre-departure meeting and headed back home to pack. I spent the afternoon with my host mom and got to relax a bit before the following morning. Around three have I heard my alarm go off and I knew I had to get up. I barely got any sleep because I was nervous; I would miss my alarm clock. Luckily I was awake and able to finish all my packing to get into the taxi around 3:40 am, where we departed for the airport. Our flight was pretty quick, and before we knew it, we were in Vienna! Our train ride was comfortable, too, and we finally made it to the hotel. The breakfast was pretty traditional, and we all enjoyed some more bread, meat, and cheese. Once we finished breakfast, we headed to our first tour with Dr. Schnabel. While we were waiting, we realized how hot it was outside, and all ran to grab water. Once we got back, we weren't paying attention, and Dr. Schnabel appeared and scared all of us half to death. Dr. Schnabel was wearing traditional doctors clothes that were worn during the plague, so his appearance was not what we were expecting.We then got a full tour of the town and tried all sorts of medications from seeds to "little boy pee" to prevent ourselves from getting the plague. After lunch, we then got to go to the catacombs, which were unbelievable. The tombs and mummies left over were so exciting but also quite scary. We spent a long time learning the importance to each part of the catacombs, including its history as to how it was made. Once we finished the tour, we headed to dinner at the Goulashmuseum where we got to have traditional goulash. The entire meal was terrific and distracted us from the fact we had little to no sleep. After dinner, we headed straight back to the hotel and went straight to bed. The air-conditioned room was probably the most fantastic thing I had ever experienced. The next day we woke up pretty early and went to the Drogistenmuseum. Drogistenmuseum was a pharmacy museum where we learned the early types of pharmaceuticals and how people used them before medications were widely available. After the tour, we had a free day, so a few people and I headed to the grocery store where we picked up some snack and water. We then headed to the river and ended up listening to music, laying out, and swimming in the river. We then headed back to the hotel where we changed and then headed to dinner. We ended up at some random Italian food place, and we got fantastic truffle ravioli. After dinner, we headed to the Prater amusement park where we took many rides and felt that the rides were not up to American standards but were so much fun. After the park, we walked around the city a bit longer before heading to bed. Then the next day, we woke up early and went to the Narrenturm, which was an old mental asylum. The entire museum was filled with amazing sculptures of different types of diseases that were popular during their time. The museum also held many jars of different parts of the human body and showed rare cases of genetically mutated or diseased patients. After the museum, we headed to the Wiener Dewann, which was a Turkish food place with amazing beef and chicken curry. We stayed at lunch for awhile and got to try all sorts of middle eastern food and then headed to the Sigmund Freud lecture and tour where we learned about his past life. We also learned about his research on human dreams and consciousness and how it influenced the medical community today. We eventually headed back to the hotel and napped until we got ready for our concert. After getting dressed and taking the subway, we made our way to a church where we were lucky to hear a quartet play a bunch of classical songs. The entire church was absolutely beautiful and it was such an amazing experience to immerse yourself into an entirely different place and just focus on the music. The final day in Vienna we headed to the Haus der Musik, where we learned about different composers thourhgout time and got to interact with various exhibits. The entire museum was innovated to not only hold the old music but introduce the ideas of future music as well. For lunch, we headed to a tradional resturant where we got to get Schnitzel and split it between four people because it was so massive. After lunch, we headed to the Natural History Museum, where we further got to see more amazing exhibits that Vienna had collected over the years. The exhibits varied from birds and animals to gems and meteorites. We then finished our tour by learned about medically and historically essential items in the museum and headed back to the hotel. We then all checked out and headed to Prague! Once we got to Prague we immediately realized it was not Vienna... there were a million people out even though it was already pretty late. We then went to the hostel and checked in, after struggling to figure out the payment and went straight to bed. The next day I was lucky enough to meet up with my friend Lucy who grew up in Czech Republic and got to meet her boyfriend. She then took us to the Natural Histoty Museum and then to get tradional food after the museum. They considered dumplings just sweet bread, which was very interesting. After lunch, we headed to multiple historical places and climbed up the castle. We ended our tour with a walk along the river and got to learn more about the history of the Czech Republic. We then said our goodbyes and that night we got to explore the city some more. Sunday morning though we spent over 12 hours trying to get back to Bonn which we finally were successful to do at 11 pm after leaving Prague at 11 am. Once back in Bonn I ate dinner and went straight to sleep in order to wake up for class the next day before our last week in Bonn!