I’m sick and stuck at the hotel all day today, so it’s probably a good time for me to get caught up on blogging. We arrived in Austria via night train this morning and we’re staying in the Hotel Lenas which is very nice. I can’t believe that we’re not going back to Germany, and I hate thinking about how few days we have left!
A group of us went to Munich last weekend and that was a lot of fun. Katie and Nicole and I got our own room at our hostel and it had its own bathroom. It was the Euro Youth Hostel, I think, and I would definitely recommend it for future students because it was relatively inexpensive, it was clean, it was in a really awesome old building, it had wi-fi, breakfast was good, and it was only about a block away from the train station. On Saturday morning, we took a train out to a town called Fussen to see the Neuschwanstein Castle. The train ride passed through the country and it was finally starting to be sunny out, so we got some awesome views of the mountains covered in snow as we passed by. The town that the castle was in was also in the mountains, and it was gorgeous. While we were waiting for our tour, Katie and I walked to the edge of town and saw this lake that was surrounded by trees and had a couple of swans swimming in it so it looked just like a picture that would be in a nature calendar. The hike up to the castle was about a half hour long, but it’s not very steep at all (and the road is paved) so the trip is totally worth it. The castle looked so awesome nestled in the mountain, especially with the sun and the snow. The tour of the castle was pretty short because the king who was building it (King Ludwig) died before it was completed, so only a few rooms are completed. The rooms that are done are super ornate and filled with wood carvings and paintings. The king’s bedroom also had running water which is pretty impressive considering when it was built.
There was also another castle that we didn’t get the chance to tour, but it was called Schloss Hohenschwangau. I think from the outside that I liked this castle even better than Neuschwangau because it reminded me of Spanish architecture and looked like something you’d see on the coast of the Mediterranean (except that it was surrounded by snow.)
When we got back to Munich, we explored the city for a bit and went to dinner at a beer garden called the Augustiner which had really good pretzels. We slept in on Sunday morning and had breakfast/brunch at the hostel and then we went to the Hofbrauhaus where they serve beer in 1 liter glasses. All of the people working there were dressed in the traditional German clothing, which was neat to see (even though Katie and I never got a chance to try on those dresses for ourselves.) After lunch we got gelato (which wasn’t as good as the place in Cologne, but was still pretty tasty) and then we explored Munich some more and took some pictures until it was time to catch our train to Hannover.
On Monday, we went to the Hannover Medical School and even though the morning didn’t go quite according to plan, we still had a really interesting talk with the chief doctor about the German medical system. In the afternoon we went to the cattle clinics which weren’t exactly the sort of place I’d enjoy going to, but at least I didn’t have to stick my hand in a cow, so it all turned out okay.
Yesterday we went to the Heart and Diabetes Center in Bad Oeynhausen where we all got to watch different types of heart surgery. Katie and I got to watch a triple bypass surgery, and got to stand really close to the patient so we could see exactly what was going on. It was so amazing because they didn’t stop the patient’s heart so we could see it beating and moving the entire time, and when they moved the patient, we could also see the lungs and the diaphragm working. For the bypass, they removed a vein from the leg and it amazed me how long the piece of vein they removed was. The incision went from down by the ankle all the way up his calf. It was neat watching the surgeon test each section of the vein before implanting it by squirting water through it to check for leaks. It was also amazing watching him use a tiny needle to fix those leaks which I couldn’t even see because they were so small. When they attached the tissue to the heart, they loaded the vein into the tube like device which sort of “punched” the vessel into place in the heart. Watching them re-close the sternum was also really cool. The doctors threaded a bunch of wire through both sides and then they all pulled at once on the crossed ends of the wire to bring the two sides back together.
After lunch we learned about the different models of artificial hearts. I really wish that I could re-live this tour because I was already starting to feel sick at this time and I was having trouble focusing, but what we were hearing was really cool. It amazed me how large some of the implants were and I can’t imagine having all that extra weight put in my chest. It also surprised me when we saw some patients with the different artificial hearts and they had to carry around such large external equipment. I guess I had never really thought about what it takes to power one of those hearts, but it must be really cumbersome to be attached to something like that all day and night.
In the evening we had our last meal in Germany which was really fun, but sad at the same time. The night train was pretty miserable for me, but it probably would have been okay if I hadn’t been feeling so bad. This morning, Dr. Zack took Nicole and me to the hospital in Vienna, so I guess we got a real insider’s view of how the Austrian medical system works. I have some medicine now, and hopefully after resting today, I’ll feel better and get to go back out with the group tomorrow!
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