5 weeks? More like 5 minutes.

The final hours of the trip have arrived. My favorite part of the day was Body Worlds or Körperwelten, of course, because I had seen the first two exhibitions in Houston and was looking forward to yet another outstanding collection. I normally enjoy looking at the bodies preserved by plastination and positioned differently to highlight various usages of our muscles the most but this exhibition included other interesting sections that I had never seen before. The most eye-catching was the horizontal body sections of a giraffe that were displayed laterally in the form of the animal. This was especially interesting because of its size but the ability to see each section of the body from head to toe was amazing. I also learned about Situs Inversus from one of the models, which is a condition that features the major visceral organs reversed or mirrored from their normal positions. Although I had never heard of this condition before, the exhibit said that it occurs in roughly 1 in 20,000 of the general population. Although much of the information in the audio guides were repetitive of what I have learned in Dr. Wasser's class and other courses, it was nice to know that these concepts are easily accessible by the general population for learning about the human body.

Thursday evening was the farewell dinner at a Moroccan restaurant. The restaurant was beautiful, the food was delicious, and the atmosphere was lovely but the best part of the evening was when we shared our personal favorites of the trip. At this point we realized just how close our group had actually gotten. Dr. Wasser even said that the expression of feelings in such a way was unique to our group when compared to study abroad groups of the past. I could not help but cry when thinking of how much I was going to miss everyone. We all attend the same university and will definitely be seeing each other again but our memories and our experiences here in Europe can never be replicated in the same way. I love each and every person that made this trip with me and miss them already.

A few of us, Caitlin, Justin, Matt, Roger, and me stayed the weekend in Berlin. Friday morning we said our goodbyes to those in the group that were to travel to other destinations, made our way to the hostel, and walked around the city once again. We decided to go back to the Holocaust Memorial for a closer look and a walk through the information center underneath. We also made our way back to the Brandenburg Gate and to Checkpoint Charlie before ending our evening with the most amazing entertainment ever: The Blue Man Group. The show was mind blowing especially from the second row! There was laughter, shock, awe, dancing, and banana. It was seriously one of the best things I have ever seen. Saturday we went to the International Beer Festival, which just happened to be going on in Berlin this weekend. The beer stands extended over 2.2 kilometers with 300 breweries from 86 countries selling over 2000 brands of beer. My favorite was the African mango beer. There was also live music and food everywhere. It was neat to see how one substance can bring so many cultures together.

It was 5 of the most amazing weeks of my life. I made best friends and had the best time and took the best pictures and have the best memories ever. Thank you to Dr. Wasser and Olaf and Steffi and Rainer and the AIB and my host mom, Eva. I loved every minute of it. To the group: I better see y'all in College Station. Like really, really soon.

Brittany