Since this week was like one long
stream highs and lows, I’m going to pack both posts into this one. The pain all
started with the homework. While Dr. Moore has been an excellent professor so
far (and that’s honestly, not brown nosing), the addition of his classes has
been a real game changer for me. The time that I didn’t notice I spent doing
useless things like watching tv shows and sleeping, I now fill with work,
studying, and worrying about working and studying. I may be exaggerating, but
the difference in tension this week brought in comparison to last week really
was almost palpable. However, the brunt of the blame for this cannot be laid on
Dr. Moore, not when there was a patented Dr. Wasser physiology test on Wednesday.
Needless to say we studied a lot and we needed to. I think it’s funny that
after it was over I simultaneously wished I would have studied more and less at
the same time. The relief at its completion lasted about twenty-four hours
before I was off to complete the homework I’d neglected due to the exam. Dr.
Moore assured us that it’d be fun, so I guess there’s been a kind of fun I hadn’t
known about all this time. Note: over the four days just described, I took zero
naps and at no point got more than five and a half consecutive hours of sleep. Call
it college life at its finest. Sleep when you’re dead.
Thursday,
there was a bright spot when we got an opportunity to tour the Beethoven-Haus.
Getting a chance to see the way an artistic genius like Beethoven grew up and
the things that influenced his life is always interesting. This probably
exposes my ignorance of this type of history, but I had no idea the house would
be so small, and was really surprised by the hard beginnings Beethoven had
working as a child. The authentic instruments and other pieces, such as the
hearing devices he needed later in his life, were awesome to see as well.
Though it happened long ago, I still felt remorse at hearing of his rather
early death and was impressed by the amount of people who were so affected by
the things he did that they attended his funeral.
Friday
represents the turning point in this story. After a morning lecture and short
meeting about a project that I’m actually excited to get started on for BMEN
485, four of us grabbed lunch at the Bonn Hauptbahnhof as we prepared to board
our train to AMSTERDAM. The relief of making it into the city and temporarily
forgetting about everything else was just what the doctor ordered. The first day we did a lot of walking as we
took in the city and got a taste for the atmosphere in Amsterdam. If you can
look past all the other tourists (which really is a challenge) and avoid getting
mowed down by the thousands of bikers it really is a pretty city and has enough
interesting parts to even keep locals interested I think. We stayed out and
enjoyed the night life and then made our way back to Botel Zebra to get a
little rest for the long day ahead.
After getting some good sleep we
had to amend our motto to something like: sleep when you can. We worked for
about an hour to figure out our train and bus situation for the day, and believe
it or not did some homework for a bit before heading out again. We got a taste
for the great fries and mouthwatering dessert waffles on our way to the Van Gogh
museum and Rijksmuseum which definitely did not disappoint. Even more so than
Beethoven, I found Van Gogh to be an ultra-inspiring character and really got a
new appreciation for the things he did as an artist. We stopped by a grand park
and watched some embarrassing street basketball before heading back to our boat
to prepare for the night. We went to an amazing concert/rave called Energy in a
city just outside of Amsterdam. The lineup was impressive, the crowd was great, the
merchandise was overpriced, and the lights shined bright; it was everything I
could have expected and more. Most of us returned in time to sleep for about
three hours before we packed up boarded a train back to good old Bonn midday
Sunday. Call it college life at its finest.