final destination...Berlin

The past week has been quite an experience traveling into a more modern, historically royal region of Germany. Over and over again I am taken back by the beauty of German cities and really how safe they are, contrary to what I believed to be true. Though rough, pretty rank men with makeshift guitars often wander into the S-bahn cars, they are respectful of personal space and never try to force contributions. I realized this the other day and felt pretty bad for stereotyping them as malicious people, so yes, I threw two euros in his cup.

The tour at the beginning of the week was interesting and I was proud of being one of the people that a few of my peers made bets on that would wreck bikes. Hmm...along with Peter of course who drew blood in the first five minutes we had them...but we all made it out okay, even Jamie who almost tipped with the tower of water bottles in her basket. Molecular medicine the next day was one of my favorite class days minus the part where we ended in a one-way philosophical discussion with the doctor in charge of the project. That night ended with a different kind of tour of Berlin which lasted until the next morning...I recommend doing a pub crawl at least once on a trip to Europe. Evan, Pete, Amanda, Madeline, Jamie and I all made friends with three Germans who were shocked to see Americans on a pub crawl that had a little self control. Props to us...Dr. Wasser, you'd be proud.

Dresden was by far one of my favorite German cities, and I wished that we had longer to explore the castle and culture of the city, as well as the Museum of Hygiene. I realized that day interactive museums are my favorite! The museum successfully intertwined the history of medicine as well as explaining medicine from various different aspects from the anatomy and physiology to the mere hygiene of a person...all affect how a physician should diagnose.

My last German museums, both on Friday, were quite different. One, the quiet history of medicine museum followed by a lecture, allowed us to understand the perspectives of some of the pioneers in vaccinations and finding cures for diseases over the past few centuries. The second was chosen by Pete's eagerness to see the dinosaurs, so Ashley, Pete, and I all ventured through the Natural Sciences Museum near the Hauptbanhof and ended up spending hours in there. I felt like an elementary student again but this time I wasn't being dragged through the museum. I'm pretty sure I read almost every informational post, even when I got to the mineral section...

The Potato Cellar...everyone stuffed their face, took great advantage of limitless free drinks, busted out some mean dragon-face skills, and shared prosts to our last night all together and of course to Dr. Water and Shleppie. Drew, Pete, Jordan and I rocked out at White Trash and lost our hearing for an amazing end to their last night in Berlin...the city that never sleeps.

Everyone has left Europe...
Amanda, Ashley and I ran around the Berlin Zoo and ended up at White Trash with Hannah for another night of F#$? U fries...and today Ashley and I visited Potsdam, a city previously known as the second most royal city in Germany. I'm pretty sure we walked for miles along rows of trees and every row we looked down was another beautiful castle. The whole city was fairy-tale like. In a tour we took through one of the castles, Ashley and I turned to walk down one of the stair cases and were yelled at in German YET AGAIN and the conversation went back and forth between her strong German accent and our laughter and mumbling 'ok thanks...yes ma'am..ok great I have no idea what youre saying..' I think I may be relieved the first time someone yells at me in America, it's way less scary. Ashley and I cut back on our spending until we got to the Dutch market area and busted out another 50 euros or so for some hand made Dutch ceramics. We 'needed' it, shlepp it!!

After making a last withdrawl for Euros, we had dinner at an Italian bistro and are looking forward to unwinding on our last full day in Europe tomorrow going back to the Chocolate Cafe to write and catch up on what we've gotten out of this amazing experience. It's honestly really nice to have an extra day without the noise and rush of the program or being back at home. It's kind of like time has frozen for the next few days and now we can fully appreciate the irreplacable journey we have had the opportunity to embark on. This was the most rewarding experience of my entire life because of an all-encompassing combination of the culture, the academic aspect, the historical aspect, allowing ourselves to try out of the ordinary excursions, and the outstanding group of people we had.

Genau.