Last Post Till Back in the States

Alright, so the way things are laid out for me, I leave early Wednesday morning, which means after the weekend all I am left with is essay writing, turning the essay in, turning in the camera, the crackberry, etc. Berlin will only consist of me travelling there, and a bike tour and dinner, so hopefully not much to tell in that department, although it would be cool if something interesting/funny/exciting happened.

So this weekend has been nice to hang out and relax again. Flight to Venice, train to Florence, day and a half in Florence. Tomorrow back to Venice early to spend a good part of the day there and fly back to Dusseldorf. The art at the museums has been alright, but my concept of art is different: architecture and the female body (in all seriousness). Other than that Joey and I have just wandered around, enjoyed the sites, great food and shopping. Venice should have some handmade glass, or so I've heard and some markets, after which we'll head back to the airport. Of course all train/airplane rides entail me handwriting my paper until I can type it on Monday.

Unless anything interesting happens that was unexpected this will be my last post till we get back to the States. I have to say though, Europe has been interesting, travelling fun, but now that we've been gone so long I'm ready to go home. I'm not homesick or anything, but I love my family, my dog, my fish camp and Texas, and they all happen to be in the same place... and they are what I'm used to. Oh, that and my dog understands more English than some people here so it'll be a nice change to return to our normal.

At the beginning of this I said this would be the beginning of the new us, and for me at least I think that statement was correct. I have changed, not necessarily in the way anyone would have thought, but changed nonetheless. Adios.

Edit: Forgot to mention we met a random white guy from Japan with a Maroon Out 2001 t-shirt, no clue what Texas A&M or Maroon Out is. Sad day. Also we made pasta for about 5 and our guy at the hotel laughed at us. Good times.

ESSAY: Turned in, although I felt rushed at the end and it felt pretty crappy since the topic felt rushed too. Oh well, I'm figuring Musser/Wasser are looking that we actually did the research and we looked at a topic we had an interest in and went with it. We'll see what happens. So I guess this is it until I post back in the states.

Last Full Week

Alright, since I'm leaving Germany two days early the layout of things for me will be a little different.

This past week was sort of boring for me. The veterinary facilities were great, but I'm not pre-vet so it wasn't particulary my thing. The baby animals were cute though. Also, the fraternity finally gave me the opportunity to socialize with a larger group of younger, English-speaking Europeans and to actually get an insight into them and their lives.

Bayer was also interesting, but I got bored a bit because I like the biomedical engineering/chemistry idea, but in all likelihood I will probably end up working with biomedical engineers/chemists rather than develop a drug myself. I'm more into the finding out of what causes a disease and then working with those guys to cure it or treat it somehow.

Also, this week I naled out the research portion of my essay. Good deal.

Interlaken

So this post should be really short, not because Interlaken was lame, but because it was me. Simple. Great scenery and tons of outdoor activities.

We arrived and basically did this: Ate at Hooter's the first night and attempted to eat cheap at the grocery store (Coop) thereafter; signed up for white water rafting, tried to find the lakes before rafting, went rafting, went out both nights and had lots of fun, walked around tons and avoided Swiss Army knives, and then finally founds the lakes after rafting, hiked to some ruins we saw, and napped a few times.

I loved it so much. It was beautiful and fun, and made me realize how much I miss outdoor activities since I've been at college. I'm going home, buying an old Jeep to fix up, getting a nice kayak and travelling to rivers/coasts one weekends with my dog. I love it, and it made me realize Texas is just that awesome too.

Bavaria

A little behind, but late is better than never.. Bavaria was AWESOME. Monday we went through some ruins while it was lightly raining and it was interesting to see how such great architecture just slowly fades out into the nature around it. At Nurenburg the next day we had a walking tour culminating at an attempt to lecture at some restaurant tha took a while to get to, but it would have been too noisy for the locals. Instead a few of us took off witth Musser to a microbrewery where we tried four types of beers and had a truly authentic, but delicious Bavarian-German meal.

Next up on our week trip we went to Munich and toured around with an awesome tour guide, a genious to boot in Lederhosen named Marc. The tour of Dachau was amazing and moving, but was sort of ruined by a couple making out on the steps of the museum. I have to say though that it is a tragedy that people could ever be convinced to do such things.

For the weekend we headed off to Interlaken, Switzerland which will be another post of its own.

Last Weekend

Alright, update time!!!

So Bruges this weekend was awesome and a daz was just the right ammount of time to go there, visit, shop a bit, and not be in debt or bored afterward. Upon arrival we had breakfast in which I got orange juice, coffee, an egg, bacon, a waffle with sugar, a croissant, and two rolls all for 10.70. Joey somehow managed to get a waffle, coffee, and orange juice for 15 euro, weird.

After that we wandered around, bought some chocolate to snack on along the way, checked out the little markets which had nothing interesting or really expensive stuff. We went on our death march into the middle of nowhere until we realized we passed the brewery we were looking for, the beer was amazing once we got there.

THEN we had lunch in which Andrew and Joey nearlz cried because they got sick from a few bites whereas I at everything and a little bit of theirs and was great. We took a nice boat tour, bought Harry Potter (that last one ahhhhhhh), and then headed off home after picking up a ton of incredible Belgian chocolate.

Thats my weekend experience prettymuch in a nutshell. I'll update once this week is through and I have time to reflect.

Interesting Week/Weekend

So, this weekend I went to Rothenburg Ob Der Tauber which was an amazing little city. Unfortunately, going solo doesn't have the perks so I prettymuch ran out of stuff to do after the first full day there. I went to the beerfest on Friday and Saturday, and woke up super early on Sunda and made it back to Dusseldorf by noon. I ended up hanging out with Jacob Davis and Andrew Webster, going to a student worker at AIB's birthday party and passing out (low blood sugar). I then woke up at then hospital and went home.

Next day I had another diabetic problem because my insulin pump wasn't giving insulin, which means I showed up with Dr. Musser a little bit later, but had a wonderfully cool taxi ride. We saw the animal research center which was really interesting, particularly the holes in the sides of the cows. I got the impression that the cattle/dairy industry is not where you want to be if you want to make large amounts of money. unless you're doing it large scale of course.

Tuesday, we went to the North Rhine Westphalia Heart and Diabetes center which was just as interesting if not more because I saw an actual open heart surgery. I'm still not really sure if I want to be a surgeon, a researcher, or if I'd even want to go M.D./Ph.D. I guess I'll figure that out soon. Yesterday, we took a nice cruise on the Rhine, had schnitzel, went to the Marksburg castle, drank wine in a little wine cellar, and bought some wine for my older brother and parents. Now I just need to figure out a legal way to take it back to the states. I think I'll get Joey to pack it since he's 21 and just give them to my 22 year old brother at the airport. Who knows?

Anyway, a little tired and a week that started off kind of bad, but could have been worse. I'm looking forward to Harry Potter this weekend because I went ahead and reserved the British version even though I have the American version coming to my house. A day trip to Bruges, Belgium this weekend (Saturday) and a day of reading HP (Sunday). Good end to a week started off bad.

At AIB By Myself

Since I unfortunately did not plan for the fact that transportation would not be readily available back and forth between the Neanderthal Museum, I am still here at AIB doing nothing while you guys are out on a walking tour. I figured since I just got caught up on my e-mail/facebook/fish camp stuff right before you all left I'd make the best use of my time by giving a chronicle of what I have done this past week and then catch up everyone on my weekend on Monday.

This week has been pretty cool considering all the interesting places we've gone and the random things that seem to happen. Joey apparently has a stalker homeless man who appears everywhere he is at, but stopped asking Joey for money after the second day here. Monday as everyone knows, we did a walking tour of Dusseldorf and Tuesday we basically had a second tour by having the scavenger hunt. I must say though, next years group should have a limit on the numbers of bags, otherwise, if I came back next year I would just sit on the street getting bags the whole time, which kind of defeats the purpose of the scavenger hunt (finding out all the information about Dusseldorf). Oh well.

Wednesday we went to Bonn and saw the "pleasure palace" which sounds kind of bad. They should have left the palace the white primer color that it had in the painting, the "peach blossom" although its a good color, does not fit the definition of a "castle" in most peoples' minds and is kind of obnoxious. Other than that, it was interesting although I wish I could have wandered into the roped off areas and could have seen the mystery bathrooms they kept talking about (around roped off corners).

Thursday was interesting, a walking tour of Cologne (Koln), lunch whereever we could find it (a nice sandwich and another waffle) and then a tour of the Cathedral. The Cathedral tour was topped off with a shaky elevator ride to the roof of the Cathedral, a walk inside its attic and a walk up to the spire. The guide provided a lot of really cool facts about the whole area, but my feet were killing me just as for some other people.

And here we are at Friday, where I am sitting here at 1:37 PM and waiting to go to Dusseldorf Hauptbahnhof so I can get on my train at 4:26 and begin my journey to Rothenburg Ob Der Tauber. I'm excited about this weekend, and I can guarantee I am going to take tons of pictures so I'll get back to you all then.

So Far In Europe...

So a lot has happened since I've been here in Europe and I'll just break it down in the order it happened...

I arrived in Amsterdam last Thursday, greeted by police with thick bulletproof vests and machines guns. A little unnecessary, but I guess they will do what they want. I spent a day and a half in Amsterdam, going to the Rijks museum which was so-so, the Heineken experience which was pretty cool. I met some Australians that I went on a pub crawl with which was pretty lame since I wasn't aiming to get drunk and they definitely did, even though they weren't trying. I lead them back to the hostel in the rain and got on the train the next morning to Dusseldorf.

Friday, I met my host family and spent the night. They are pretty awesome and extremely on time. They said breakfast at 8:15 which ended up me finishing breakfast by that time... and they feed us tons and send us off with food everyday which is pretty awesome too. Saturday, Kaylee, Joey, Chris Michael, Braden and I all set out to Amsterdam again, but Braden ditched us on the way (BOO!! =P). We saw wandered for a long time trying to find Kaylee and Chris a place to stay, but ended up meeting some people from the US to split the cost with them and everything worked out. We then got waffles at the Museumplein, which Yyou MUST get, the best I've had yet (waiting for the real Belgian waffles on the 20-22). Direction: go to the Rijks museum, walk out into the Museumplein where the tents are and the first one on the right is the place.

Later, we went to the Damrak sex museum (there are two by the way) which was funny and interesting, and at times a little graphic. I won't go into details. Kaylee got freaked out by guys peeing in urinals out in the open in the street which I must admit was weird. The prostitutes in the red light district will bang on the window to get your attention if you make eye contact... so don't and they make jerky movements while trying to be attractive which is kind of awkward looking. Other than that since we weren't looking to get drunk or stoned like most everyone else in Amsterdam, we walked around after running out of stuff to do and took pictures of buildings that looked cool... but we had no idea what they were.

Since the weekends tend to be the most packed with stuff to talk about, I'll catch up on this week later and let you know about the weekend at the same time all on Monday.

The Beginning of the New Us

My first thoughts as I am looking over the blog is that its shocking for me to be in the same position that my brother was a year ago. I haven't taken the time to look for what his original feelings were about the trip, but I'm sure they are similar to the ones I am having now. We all know that we are about to experience something different than we ever have before. Sure, some of us have travelled internationally, but that's not the point. Here we are, adults in college, setting out to venture without our families on possibly one of the longest trips of our lives.

What I must say though, is that I am expecting nothing from this trip. Not that I doubt our program staff's abilities, but I don't think any of us can possibly know what we're going to feel when we get back. That "Eurotrip" image of Europe, angry and loud Germans, crazy Brits, weird French robots in front of the Louvre and hordes of people at nude beaches are clearly not what we should be expecting to see. Our preconceived, while hilarious, notions of what Europeans are like will be put into perspective and we'll realize that they probably think something ridiculous about us as well.

While we're in Europe, I think we're there to learn in many different ways even though it might not feel like it. Learning the history of medicine will be the "taught" part of the course while discovering other cultures, their people and the details of their history will be the things we pick up on the way as we immerse ourselves in their countries. Of course, getting to know the locals our age and indulging in the night life certainly will be an experience, but just remember to really talk to our European elders there, look at the scenery and the landmarks as you visit. The things you'll learn will hopefully invaluable, if not only interesting and it may be the only time you see the sights, so enjoy!

With that said, here's to the first post for our group, I'm extremely excited and looking forward to spending time with everyone in Europe and I hope everyone takes advantage of all the opportunities available on this trip.