Another Whirlwind Week...

     Alright let me start off with this whole train situation coming back from Switzerland. We were supposed to have a direct shot from Interlaken to Bonn. Our train announces it has reached its termination early and it wasn't going to Germany anymore. So we had to get off at Basel Hbf and got rerouted onto another train that was 100% booked. So it was so fun sitting on the floor of a crowded train for 2 hours. We got off at our next stop in Mannheim and got on the next train to Bonn...only to have the train reach its termination again in Frankfurt and we have to get off and get rerouted again. We got onto another train and dashed to the restaurant car to have comfortable room to sit on the floor. We then arrived and got on our final tram to Bonn. That was hands down the most stressful transportation experience I have had yet. We had a short lecture day on Monday with one neurophysiology class and two history of medicine classes. We got to finish up the auditory circuit and in medicine we learned more about the Nuremberg trials and code. We had our pre-departure meeting for Vienna and we were free for the rest of the day. My group went out and shopped for a little and had more delicious chicken enchiladas from Tacos Bonn. I headed home and packed for the next extremely early morning trip to Vienna.

I had to get up at 3:30 am to be at the bus stop at 4:30 am. We got to the airport and everything seemed to go off without a hitch. We arrived in Vienna and took the CAT to the main part of the city. We dropped our bags off at the hotel and immediately began our history of medicine walking tour around the city. Our tour was given by Dr. Schnabel, a Black Plague doctor that was a mysterious "colleague" of Dr. Wasser. We got to drink "little boy pee" as an antidote to protect from the plague. We got to see the big St. Stephen's Cathedral. We walked all around the shopping city center before breaking for an individual lunch. We had cheesy wieners and then I had a Viennese chocolate cake for dessert. We then had a tour of one of the catacombs in Vienna. It was so freaking cool. We got to see mummies that were so cleanly preserved and they preserved that way on their own due to the environmental conditions in the crypt. All the coffins were wooden with gorgeous paintings on it. There were some with broken candles with the light burned out and some were flowers. We then rounded off the night with a group dinner at the Gulaschmuseum. We tried some delicious wines and I had a heaping plate of fresh beef goulash with potatoes. By the time we made it back to the hotel, we were all ready for bed, so we showered and went straight to sleep.

In the morning, we had a tour of the pharmacy and drug museum. I was hesitant about this as first, but I really loved it once we got there. We got to see some pressed flowers that they used to make herbal medicine. I then learned that people used to ingest mummified remains and crushed up bones as a way to cure ailments and protect themselves. I also got to see what contraception looked like in the olden days. It looked like a large puff ball that went up and was supposed to prevent sperm from getting around and into the uterus. The rest of the day was free time for us. My crew went and had lunch at the Naschmarkt. We wandered up and down the little market and it had tons of souvenir stores, dessert places, and markets. It was so adorable it made me forget for a split second that I wasn't melting like a popsicle out in the heat. We then went shopping in the main shopping square before heading back to the hotel to relax for a bit. We then went back out for authentic wiener schnitzel for dinner before heading to the Prater. I thought it was just going to be a big Ferris wheel and maybe another couple of rides...boy was I wrong. This ended up being a whole amusement park and we didn't have nearly enough time to walk through it all. I went back to the hotel to get a restful night's sleep.

Thursday morning, we had a tour of the Narrenturm. This was an old insane asylum and it had a huge exhibit of preserved lungs and skeletons. They also had a large collection of wax figures of different ailments and diseases on people. The wax figures weren't real, but they took casts from real people and diseases and then painted the figures to model the real disease state. We had a group lunch at the Wiener Deewan where had an Indo-Pakistani lunch buffet and it was so delicious and different. I definitely ate way too much. We then had a great lecture from Dr. Wasser on Sigmund Freud and his life. We then went over to the Moving Freud Museum since his apartment is currently under construction. We then went back to the hotel and got ready for the string concert in the St. Anna Church. We arrived much earlier than we thought so everyone went over to the Burger King next door and got dinner. It was the most elegant, largest, and ornate Burger King I have ever seen. The concert was really good, I just had so much trouble sitting still and just listening to music. I am so used to always moving or doing something while listening to music so this was difficult for me. We then were free for the rest of the evening and my group went out for some drinks at this cute little bar by the hotel. The weirdest thing there was that children were "working" there! All they were doing was picking up empty glasses and stuff but that just completely shocked me. I had a fruity strawberry drink and then I was ready to head back to the hotel and go to sleep.

We had an early Friday morning packing and locking our luggage up before heading out for the last day. We went to the Haus Der Musik where we got a tour of the music museum. We got to learn about the Philharmonic symphony and about the three most prominent composers Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. We even got to compose our own Waltz using an interactive dice game. Dr. Wasser then took us to the Stadtpark where we got to see a few statues, and then unwind with a bit of Tai Chi in the park. We got to learn some new moves like the tiger. We then broke for individual lunch where we had more Wiener schnitzel and got some boba tea. The group them met back up at the Museum of Natural History. Half of us went with Dr. Wasser on a tour of the birds, mammals, and human evolution portion of the museum. One of my favorites was the elephant seal. It is freaking massive! Then we switched groups and got a highlights tour of the rest of the museum from Peter, a worker at the museum. We got to see precious gemstones, minerals, dinosaurs, and sea creatures. This was one of my favorite tours so far because I love animals and we had our quietvox on so I could wander and look at everything in the room, and still hear Peter or Dr. Wasser highlighting some of the more important features of the museum. This was our last stop and we headed back to the hotel before getting released for the weekend. Jackson and I flew back to Bonn with the professors, Brian, Alexa, Nick, and Annabelle. This was actually so much fun getting to talk and cut up with the professors and superiors. We gossiped and joked about everything, we got so delirious once we landed in Bonn at 11 pm. I even snake/chicken walked back over to my bag after going to my vending machine for no reason and that provided great entertainment. It was past midnight by the time I actually got home. I immediately went to sleep. I slept in Saturday and got my neurophysiology paper finished and turned in. I just chilled at my host house and battled a pounding headache the entire time. It is now Sunday, I am working on laundry and writing this blog post. I ordered gourmet Dominos pizza to be delivered and I plan on continuing to relax and continue rehydrating to try to get rid of this headache. I have had this headache for over 24 hours now nonstop with medicine not working at all. So, let's see how these last 2 days before Berlin go. I can't believe there's only 5 days left of this trip. This is my second to last blog post about my weekly adventures.