first thoughts

While I realize this is my first blog post since my arrival in Europe, I think it's safe to say it's due to techincal difficulties. My blogger account is not working, so what you are reading will be a copy/paste once I finally get things up and running. Normally, technical difficulties are one of my specialties, but when solving the problem relies on my host family's computer, which is not only slower than a turtle dressed as a sloth for halloween, but is entirely in german, things become a bit problematic. I would just use the AIB computer, but we are hardly there and by the time I actually get on one of the comps there, I have about 15 seconds until I'm being busseled to a museum or the train station. Complaints aside, I love Europe. So far, I've visited Athens, Mykonos, Santorini, Amsterdam, Dusseldorf, Koln, Bonn, Prague, and Paris this weekend. I don't think I could pick a favorite if I had to. Program wise- my favorite activities we have done so far are the Koln Cathedral or the Heart and Diabetes center. The cathedral was breath taking, plain unreal. The rooftop tour was above and beyond my expectations. I liked the health center because of the open heart surgery. Super cool. We actually saw the end of a valve replacement. We were lucky becuase our surgeon spoke good english and was able to walk us through some of the things he was doing. We later heard this was not the case in some of the other ORs. My least favorite, program wise, would have to be the museums. Not only do I basically dispise museums, the one's we have visited have all been boring and the guides have been painfully slow. I'm sure some of the students enjoyed them, but it's just not my thing. The worstt so far was the Benrath palace. Not only was the building empty and gaudy, the guided tour was near painful and we were allowed no time to enjoy the gardens. I think the gardens were probably more significant by a long shot compared to the house and on the first nice day in dusseldorf since our arrival we were stuck in that pink house. Maybe, I was just a little bit excited when I heard about how beautiful the gardens were and a little bit more heartbroken that we didnt have time to spend in them, so it ruined the whole experience for me. More to come now that I have figured out how to post!