Days 2, 3, & 4

Location - Bonn, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Deutschland

Back in after a long, but throughly enjoyable three days in Bonn and Koln (Cologne). We have taken two city tours, witnessed surgeries at a local hospital, seen several museums, and eaten good German food. Bonn and Koln are two wonderful cities very near each other and with long-standing histories dating from as far back as the Roman Empire, but they have two different feels. Koln feels much more like a modern urban region with the massive Gothic architecture wonders and Roman ruins sprikled throughout; where as Bonn has much more of an older, easy going feel. That is probably a result of Koln being almost completely leveled in World War II while Bonn when relatively unharmed. Either way, both have fantastic brautwurst.

I have felt much like a Japanese tourist during this trip, taking pictures of everything, rapidly, multiple times. It has resulted in me starting at the front of the group and ending up far from the end, but I have gotten better. In Koln today, I think I took upwards of 200 pictures throughout the city, the Dom, and the Romanich-Germanich museum and was only the tail of the group four times.

One thing that we could not take pictues of was the surgeries. This is the big reason why I came on this trip, so I paid even closer attention to this than the minute details of the frescos in the Munster. Sure, this was a human hospital connected with the University of Bonn, and it was EMT (roughly the German version of Ear, Nose, Throat, specializing in tumors and cancer), I was still able to learn quite a bit. For instance, I have noticed that veterinarians in Texas used a special kind of loop to sew patients back up after a surgery. I was curious if this was a U.S. thing, an Aggie thing, or just a doctor thing. Turns out, it is simply a doctor thing. I also saw new technology that I did not know existed - a device called a "bipolar ___." Using electric pulses, it is able to carterize the tiny veins that are cut during a surgery. Facinating. This hospital watch was also the first time I had worn full scrubs. At the vet clinic where I worked, the most I ever did was change to a scrub shirt. Having now worn the full suit, I think I'll stick with just the shirt.