Continuing on!

I have been continuing to learn the most interesting things and living the most extraordinary experiences in this study abroad program... On January 3rd, while in Dresden, we visited the Deutches Hygiene Museum, where there was a room dedicated to the body, the mind, sexuality, and so on. It was very interesting, especially motion room! There was a balancing (on a beam) game where it was pretty much impossible to walk across the whole thing, but it was fun to watch people try. At the museum I also gave a short presentation about the 'Invisible Man.' At the museum however, the man was a woman.

A couple days later, coming back from Prague (whoop!) to Berlin, we had a guided tour at the Charite Museum by Tom Werner. The most interesting part by far was the specimen room, containing live samples of bones, brains, lungs, kidneys, digitals, and deformed babies. The last part was quite disturbing, seeing 'cyclops babies,' babies born with their brain outside their head, babies with severe deformities, and otherwise. Intriguing yet disgusting at the same time! Later in the day we recieved two lectures... The first being from Dr. Wasser about Rudolf Virchow, a doctor, antropologist and politician who is considered to be the father of pathology, and later in the day from Prof. Dr. Claudia M. Witt about complimentary medicine. Complimentary medicine consists of three main parts; naturopathy, homeopathy (which we learned about earlier in the semester), and acupuncture. What baffled me was that sham acupuncture was vastly more effective than standard treatment, at least when it comes to certain diseases or injuries in the body. From now on I will consider getting acupunture if I ever get migranes for sure!

The next day, in Hannover, we were split up into vet students and med students, and I went with the medical students to the Hannover Hospital Department of Nephrology. We received a lecture about the medical care in Germany, which I thought was very interesting... Everyone in Germany is required to have medical insurance (whether or not you have a job) and medical students in Germany pay slim to none to go to school, which is very different from America, where we have many uninsured and medical students leave with a more or less $200,000 debt. Amyways, we had a guided tour of the department, and we got to visit a few patients to learn about the machines they were on and the medicines they were perscribed. We then received another lecture about kidney diseases which was fun and interesting to learn.

After that, we went to the Hannover Zoo! We got to see hippos, rhinos, and gorillas close up which was so amazing. Makes me want to consider being a vet instead! The gorrillas were pretty cranky, and kept yelling and running around, which for us was actually a pretty good show. As for the rhinos, I got to feed one of the a banana! It was so cool. And there was a rhino in the cage next to the rhino that was getting fed bananas and it was getting pretty cranky as well! When we saw the hippos, it was so awesome because they thought that we were going to feed them, so they came really close to us and opened their mouths! They are so huge; both their bodies and their mouths. It was amazing to see.

I am so glad I decided to go to Germany! Never will I experience this anywhere else!