Time has really flown the past week, but in a weird way, it seems that it’s been forever since I left the states. So much has happened in the past week and since my last blog post that it’s difficult to remember, but I’ll give it a shot.
Wednesday morning was awesome. We took a public bus up to one of the clinics in Bonn to observe the surgeries that were going on. After a brief moment of panic when we realized that there had been some miscommunication and the clinic didn’t know that we were coming that morning, myself and Chris and Andy were admitted to one of the operating rooms thanks to one of the nurses being really cool and accommodating all of us. The operation that we got to see was an open heart valve replacement surgery. It was incredible. We missed the initial cracking open of the man’s chest, but we got to see the heart beating as the surgeons prepared it for the valve replacement. We also got to see them slow the heart down to a stop, put the blood on a bypass machine, clamp off the aorta, cut out the valve, and sew in the replacement. I was amazed by how calm and nonchalant the atmosphere was in the room. Both of the surgeons as well as the anesthesiologist were very welcoming and invited us to ask any questions we had.
That afternoon, we took a guided tour of the anesthesia museum in Bonn. We learned about the history of anesthesia and saw the largest collection of anesthesia instruments in the world. It was interesting to see how the technology has progressed throughout the years, and I didn’t know that anesthetics had been used for so long (since the 1850s if I remember correctly).
Thursday was our visit to Cologne. The train ride over there was pretty quick, and once there, we stopped at the train station to get some coffee. Next came my first mind-blowing unexpected experience in Germany. I knew cathedrals were big and I knew that we were visiting the cathedral in Cologne. What I didn’t know was that the cathedral is about 100 meters from the train station. As we were walking out of the train station, a friend and I were making small talk about something and I wasn’t paying attention and then when I looked up, BAM, there it was. 157 meters tall. I literally couldn’t talk for the first few seconds, and I didn’t want to either. I just wanted to take it in. I was awestruck by the size and scale of the cathedral and how ornate it was. Pictures will be coming soon on Facebook.
After that, we took a guided tour of Cologne, at the end of which we went inside the cathedral and saw the relic of the wise men. That afternoon was a tour of the German and Roman history of Cologne, which was also quite interesting. Friday was the train trip to Berlin and New Year’s Eve at the Brandenburg Gate, which is Germany’s Times Square equivalent. It was, in a word, crazy. Tons of drinks, rides, and over a million people from all over the world.
We all had a few drinks, a few of us enjoyed some Cuban cigars, and the one thing which was really cool was when all of us were together and we got into a circle and sang the Aggie war hymn as loud as we could. It definitely caught the attention of everyone around us, and several people there were even getting video footage of it.
The next day was our long, early morning train ride to Prague for our first free weekend. We arrived a little before noon, and after a brief hiccup at the hostel which involved our reservations being lost and them having to split us up in different rooms, we were on our way to explore the city.
Prague is beautiful. That’s the easiest way to put it. There is not much organization to the city, and many of the buildings have probably been there for centuries. Walking around the city makes you feel as though you’ve literally stepped back in time several hundred years. Of course there are many souvenir shops and cars and trams and other indicators of modern times, but the overall feel of the city is very old and intriguing. There are old Catholic churches, lots of statues, the famous bridge that is lined with statues, and of course, the famous Old Castle. Several of us explored the castle the first day, with its cathedral, chapels, throne room, and my favorite: the huge hall which was used for, among other things, jousting.
That night was our first hostel experience. It was different than I thought. I thought hotels were kind of like a Motel 6. Turns out it’s just a bunch of bunks stuffed into each room and it truly feels like you’re at a summer camp. There were two people from California, one from Colorado, and two from Brazil (who spoke English) in our room, so it was fun hanging out with them for a while and hearing a bit of their stories and how they had ended up in Prague. Then on Sunday, a few of us went to the Jewish quarter museum, where we saw several synagogues and the old Jewish cemetery.
The first synagogue that we went to is worth describing. It is not used as a synagogue anymore, but has instead been converted into a memorial to all of the Jews from Prague who were killed during WWII. 80,000 of them. Each one of their names has been inscribed into to walls of the synagogue, which are about 20 feet high. When you walk in, it looks like black lines covering the walls. When you get closer though, you start seeing individual names, and when you’re right next to the wall and look up, you can’t read the names at the top because they’re too small to see. It was pretty haunting actually, because every wall was covered with names from top to bottom.
Once back in Berlin, we were all really wiped and ready for a good night’s sleep in preparation for Monday.
Monday we visited the Charite medical school where we were given a tour of the facilities and then go to actually practice some medical skills. We learned how to do an ear exam and even practiced on each other, did some CPR, and also tried at our hand at putting breathing tube down into the trachea of one of their dummies.
That afternoon we took a walking/bus tour of Berlin, where we learned some about the history of Berlin and also got to see Berlin’s monument to the Jews who were killed during WWII. It was quite intriguing as it is simply some 2700 concrete blocks arranged in grid pattern covering the area of probably 3 or 4 football fields. The are very dark colored, of varying heights (between 1 and probably 10 feet tall) and are each about a meter apart, which allows people to walk through it. It is an abstract piece of art, and has no signs to mark what it is. We spent about 10 minutes walking through it, and I personally found it to be a fitting memorial. Walking through it, especially during winter time, feels very cold and hard. You feel trapped and surrounded. I felt that the designer was acknowledging the atrocity of the holocaust and trying to capture the mood and feel of what it would have been like to be a Jew in Nazi Germany.
After our city tour we visited a very cool and modern building which is a part of the Otto Bock medical device company. We were given a tour, which was mostly geared towards identifying what different body parts (such as feet and knees) do and how these functions are emulated by medical devices. It was not in depth by any means, but it was highly interactive, which made it a lot of fun. We will be visiting their device factory later this week, which I am very excited about.
Yesterday we visited Dresden, which is probably the most beautiful city we’ve visited in Germany. We took a guided tour, learned about its history, and saw the Church of our Lady, which was quite amazing. That afternoon, we toured the hygiene museum in Dresden, which addressed different areas of life such as birth and death, eating and drinking, sexuality, movement, skin, hair, and beauty.
Today, we toured one of the history museums in Berlin, where among other things, we discussed some of the propaganda that was used by the Nazis to further their war effort. It was really quite interesting to see what they viewed as the model Aryan family, with the tall blonde father and his sons looking forward, while the mother was holding a child in the same way that Mary held Jesus. We also got to see Napoleon’s original hat, sword, and spurs, which I though was pretty cool.
This afternoon we visited a small museum dedicated to Robert Koch, a German physician who isolated the bacteria that causes tuberculosis. Afterward, we received a lecture about the Nuremberg Trials and the practices of some of the SS doctors in Germany during WWII. It was another one of those dark yet interesting topics.
And that brings me to the end of this post. I know it was super long, thanks for reading!
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