Week One Over and Done

     What a whirlwind it has been since Thursday. Thursday we had our very first class day. We had 2 lectures of neurophysiology and boy was I not prepared for that. We talked about sound waves and properties of sound ways and different ideas that we will need to apply regarding acoustics at an opera house in Koblenz on Monday. That class sent my brain for a loop and after 2 lectures, I was definitely ready for lunch. We found a cute little cafe called Spitz, and it was so cute inside. There was a fake fireplace and wine cabinets everywhere. Almost all of us got pizza and we were expecting to get a personal-sized mini pizza...we were mistaken. We ended up with 6 full-sized pizzas so we had a lot to take home. We actually left the pizza in the AIB fridge and were able to warm up the pizza and eat it for lunch on Friday as well. In the afternoon, we had 2 lectures of history of medicine in Europe which was really interesting. We started at the beginning and worked our way through religion, medicine, and how the two were related back in the BCE time. They had some pretty different and interesting ideas when it came to medicine, definitely a lot different than what we practice now. During our first lectures learning about medicine, there weren't even any medical schools yet, people were talking by apprenticeships and just learning by doing. By the time we got home, it was almost dinner time and then I was ready for bed.
     Friday rolls around and I woke up extremely exhausted. I was so tired, I poured water into my cereal bowl...yeah that really happened. Friday was another lecture day with triple lectures of the history of medicine in Europe. I really got a brain-full of medicine history that day. We covered so much time that we reached from BCE to the 1300s. We had a qigong/tai chi break in between lectures and I am really starting to enjoy that. Having danced for so long, it is nice to found another outlet for stretching and de-stressing. I can't wait to learn more. After having leftover pizza for lunch, we treated ourselves to gelato...again. Yes I am absolutely obsessed with gelato now and I will be spending way more money than I should on gelato throughout this trip. Friday came and gone and Saturday was the best day of the trip by far. A group of us went to Cologne for the day! I got to ride the train for the first time and it was a blast. I have never been more exhausted but it was so worth it.
We started with a spur of the moment trip to the Cologne zoo! It was so huge but we somehow managed to walk almost all of it in 2 hours. We saw everything from monkeys to elephants, lions, giraffes, okapis, meerkats, hippos, and so much more. It was super cute cause when we got home, our host sister told us about her favorite animal and she acted out how they look and what they do because she didn't know the English word for it, and it turned out to be a meerkat that was her favorite and I happened to take a picture of it and I showed her and she loved it. Anyways, back to Cologne. After the zoo, we had bought tickets to have a guided tour at the Schokoladenmuseum Köln. Seeing it on its own little island on the Rhine River was gorgeous. Our tour started with the cocoa bean itself, and then as we traveled the museum, we learned every step of turning this little cocoa bean into real chocolate. We got to taste test a bunch of chocolate and it was delicious. It was one of my favorite chocolate brands, Lindt. We definitely got chocolate wasted in the cafe afterwards after chowing down on a delicious chocolate fondant cake. We then tried to go ride the cable cars but the line was waaaaay too long, so we went back to the zoo and checked out the aquarium since we didn't get a chance to see it in the morning. By this time we all were completely exhausted and ready to go home and go to bed. I slept great that night and now it is Sunday. It has been a chill day, I did my laundry for the week and made plans to see the Museum of Natural History and maybe even go swimming in the evening since it is quite hot outside. I can't wait for this week coming up cause we have a couple site visits and have another German class which I'm excited for. Until next time.