Goodbye Amsterdam, Hello Vienna!!

And it WAS an early one! We arrived in Vienna this morning, leaving Hannover sadly behind just as it seemed to be warming up a little bit. Even though it was an overcast day, Vienna is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen to date. We had a guided tour of the Vienna Museum, the Stephensdom today, learning about the history of the city, all the way back to Midevil times. The city used to be surrouded by a stone wall, which was knocked down many years ago, and is now a street called Ring Strasse. Very interesting city. We also visited the Catacombs of the Stephensdom, which holds the cript of Duke Rudolph IV (with his wife and family), and many of the past Cardinals. We also saw a few cripts (sort of 'community' cripts), that hold the bones of up to 11,000 civilians. It was really cool. I didn't think it was too creepy, but don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want to be down there in the catacombs alone!

This past weekend has also been pretty eventful. 14 of us went to Amsterdam for the second free weekend. We ended up staying in the Downtown Flying Pig Hostel (instead of the Uptown one like originally planned, because of renovations and such), which is located in the Red District. I'm not sure about everyone else, but I really didn't know what to expect. The room ended up being alright, but the atmosphere was just as crazy as I expected. When you get out of the dowtown area, though, Amsterdam is one of the nicest looking cities anywhere. There are canals running through it everywhere and the buildings are quaint and gorgeous. You can be walking in the Red Light District and then literally one minute later be on the most beautiful street in town. It's very strange.

I was very happy to have gone to the Anne Frank House. That was one of the most surreal places I have been on this trip, and the most moving. She was such an amazing girl at her young age, and under those kinds of circumstances. The saddest part of the entire museum was towards the end when there was a video of Otto Frank (her father), talking about surviving the war, finding out that his children were not coming home, and finally mustering the strength the read Anne's diary. It was heart breaking. No parent should ever have to go before their children. But that family's story is incredible to see and experience 'first hand.'

On a less serious note, a few of us had the Heineken Experience at the original brewery there is Amsterdam. It was a LOT of fun; very interactive, and free beer a couple of times throughout. Doesn't get much better than that.

After we returned to Hannover again, we visited Bad Oeynhausen for the day at the Heart and Diabetes Center there. Since I had already seen a surgery last friday, the other 12 students spent the morning at various types of heart surgeries. Me, Sarah, and Lauren Lewis had a couple of lectures and tours. First, we heard from a biologist about the effects that immunosupressive drugs can have on patients, specifically patients undergoing heart transplant surgeries. Sometimes the drugs can result in raised levels of serum creatine in the patients, which then causes kidney and liver failure. Very interesting stuff. Then we visited the transfusion part of the hospital, and got to see many centrifuges and other cool equipment that they use to test the blood, plasma, platelets, etc. The most interesting part of the day in my opinion, though, was the MRI lecture. Since my specialty within Biomedical Engineering will be Medical Imaging, seeing the machine up close and learning about how it works (breifly) was fascinating to me. It also got me thinking about Radiology again. For years I dreamed of going to Medical school and specializing in radiology, but over the past couple of years, I've kind of slipped away from that idea. Maybe this trip was just what I needed to get back to that mind set. :)