What a busy and fun week it has been!! We started this week on the island of Norderney. Stepping off the bus, immediately you could breathe in the fresh North Sea air. Because the island is so small most of the people there use bikes to get around. I loved biking and exploring the island. The beach was beautiful and the dunes looked like rolling hills. It was so serene and peaceful.
Monday was my favorite day. We went to the bade museum in the morning. This was very interesting because I had no idea the history of Norderney as a spa island. It’s so cool that we were able to go to a place that in the past had only been for royals and the extremely wealthy. After lunch we got to spend the afternoon in the bade haus. This was the best experience of the trip and something I’ll remember forever. The first level of the bade haus is the water level where there are many different types of pools. The main pool was so nice and when you put your head under water you could faintly hear music which was really cool. My favorite, though, was the pool that had the same salinity as the Dead Sea. The room was all dark except for the green lights and because of the salt concentration you could float with no effort. The water was also just warm enough that I could have floated in there forever. In that room I was able to reach a point where I had no thoughts and I felt like I was floating through space. The second level was the fire level. We started off on this level with the Schlick, which is mud taken from the mud flats and salt for exfoliating. After putting this Schlick on we sat in a steam bath for 10 minutes before the water turned on to wash away the mud. Afterwards my skin felt smoother than ever. Next, we went into the sauna. I loved the sauna and being able to sweat out all of my problems. I will say though, in the hotter rooms it got so hot that it hurt my nose when I breathed in. After the base haus I felt completely rejuvenated. I would 100% go back. Monday evening, we had a bbq with everyone in our program where Rike, Reagan, and Dr. Wasser grilled for us. This was such a fun bonding experience for all of us! There was music and everyone was singing and having a great time. I am so glad that I have become friends with everyone on the trip.
On Tuesday, first we visited the fishing museum. That was really cool because we were able to get an insight on what life was like for the original fishermen on the island. I was so surprised when the guide told us that something like 10-15 people would live in that house. I also loved the old maps of the island. They were so detailed despite their technology being from the 1500s. After the fishing museum we were able to experience an authentic tea party with oostfriesentee which is popular on the island. It was so cool to have tea the same way that many women before us have gotten together. Tuesday night we went on a hike on the mudflats of the island. This was a very unique experience. I am very afraid of worms and bugs and so on this hike I had to kind of face my fears. The whole mud flat is formed from the poop of the watt worm and you can see their poop mounds all over the watt. This gave me a little anxiety but I had to continue on. It was interesting and a little sad to learn that the global warming crisis is having such an effect on the clams and worms that live in the watt. It was also freezing on the watt and it took me a whole day to warm back up.
Wednesday, we left Norderney and me and a couple of the girls on the trip made our way to Amsterdam. On the first train we were on, the train broke down causing us to be around 40 minutes delayed, meaning we would miss our second train. This was stressful, but in the end we were able to speak to the DB representative and figure out an alternative connection. One thing that I thought was interesting was that the border crossing was so anticlimactic. I didn’t even know we had crossed the border into Amsterdam until at the next station all of the signs were in Dutch.
Traveling around Amsterdam was amazing. The city is beautiful. The canals and the buildings are stunning and walking around taking in the sights was awesome. One thing I noticed about Amsterdam is that it is very expensive most of our meals were more than 10 euros. We visited both the Rijks museum and the Van Gogh museum. Both were filled with beautiful works of art that brought me to tears. The Rijks museum also had some works of art that we had discussed in our history of medicine class, so that was so cool to make that connection and understand how that artwork helps us understand history and medicine better. We also took a cruise of the canal. It was stunning and getting to see the city via canal is definitely one of the best ways to do it.
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