The past couple of weeks have been extremely crazy... We watched the Leverkusen vs. Freiburg soccer game the weekend before we left for spring break and it was so much fun! It definitely made me like soccer more and I'm glad we got to experience that. But even more exciting: I watched a total thyroidectomy! I learned that the smell of burning flesh is highly unpleasant the hard way.The surgeon let me hold the right lobe and showed me nerves, blood vessels, and other things while the patient was still on the table. It was such an amazing first surgery and I learned so much!
After a week of tests and projects, we finally started spring break in Rome! It ended up being pretty anticlimactic when we spent the first night hunting down police stations after a little pickpocketing incident. The worst part is that we spent an hour trying to find one when there was one just down the street from us (who puts a police station in a secluded corner next to the highway?!). The highlights of Rome were hearing Pope Francis speak about Women's Day, watching a part of the new James Bond movie being filmed in Trastevere, and roaming around Rome (hehe) with Ana and Hazel! We saw so many amazing things like St. Peter's Basilica (and the view from the top of the dome), the Colosseum and a few of the seven hills of Rome, the chariot racing arena (which is just a stretch of dirt now), the Vatican museums (which are cray), and sooooo many basilicas. We entered every church and just stood there in awe. Every church was different and so beautiful in its own way. We also saw a few of the catacombs! Specifically, the ones that Popes used to be buried in before they were moved to the Vatican Grottoes and where Saint Cecilia is buried. Seeing them was probably the coolest thing on this trip and it was so interesting to learn about Roman burial practices. The craziest part was that no matter where you went, you would see ruins. There was history literally everywhere and being in the middle of it was breathtaking/humbling/awesome. In a sentence: Rome was beautiful, filled with so much history, and required way more walking than my feet could survive.
Barcelona was so different from any city we've seen on this trip. I loved it. It's definitely my favourite city and I hope so much that I get the chance to go back one day. We relaxed a lot and cooked dinner together after spending our days out walking around the city. We saw all the Gaudi things: Park Guell, Sagrada Familia, La Pedrera, and Casa Batllo. the Sagrada Familia was WOW. W O W. It's insane how much thought Gaudi put into every last detail and how even after his death, every addition has made it so much more beautiful. The stained glass is amazing and the light at 4:30 pm (thank you tour guide) struck the windows in a way that lit up the entire church. It's so stunning and so completely different from any other basilica we saw in Rome. It will be completed in 2026 and we joked (or was it serious?) that we would come back for its opening as our Biosciences 2015 reunion. No lie, I would definitely go back for that. We also went to the Picasso museum and it really changed my view on art. Seeing his progression from his early works to his pretty crazy later works was interesting and the collection from his work on Las Meninas was so cool. It showed how he practiced every part of the painting in different styles until he understood what he wanted. Just viewing his life through his art was so completely different and I thoroughly enjoyed it. One of the last things we did in Barcelona was go up Montjuic to the castle on top. We saw an amazing view of the city (even the clouds and rain approaching us) and learned a little about its history, which I didn't know much about. My favourite part of the city was just everything around us. I loved the street music that was everywhere, the hordes of people skateboarding, the dancers practicing in front of the Arc de Triomf, the beautiful parks, and the way people lived around us. I really wish we could have spent more time there - five days was not even close to enough.
All in all, spring break was insane. I'm never going to forget it and I will probably never be able to top wandering through the ruins of Ancient Rome or enjoying the musical and artistic culture of Barcelona.
After a week of tests and projects, we finally started spring break in Rome! It ended up being pretty anticlimactic when we spent the first night hunting down police stations after a little pickpocketing incident. The worst part is that we spent an hour trying to find one when there was one just down the street from us (who puts a police station in a secluded corner next to the highway?!). The highlights of Rome were hearing Pope Francis speak about Women's Day, watching a part of the new James Bond movie being filmed in Trastevere, and roaming around Rome (hehe) with Ana and Hazel! We saw so many amazing things like St. Peter's Basilica (and the view from the top of the dome), the Colosseum and a few of the seven hills of Rome, the chariot racing arena (which is just a stretch of dirt now), the Vatican museums (which are cray), and sooooo many basilicas. We entered every church and just stood there in awe. Every church was different and so beautiful in its own way. We also saw a few of the catacombs! Specifically, the ones that Popes used to be buried in before they were moved to the Vatican Grottoes and where Saint Cecilia is buried. Seeing them was probably the coolest thing on this trip and it was so interesting to learn about Roman burial practices. The craziest part was that no matter where you went, you would see ruins. There was history literally everywhere and being in the middle of it was breathtaking/humbling/awesome. In a sentence: Rome was beautiful, filled with so much history, and required way more walking than my feet could survive.
Barcelona was so different from any city we've seen on this trip. I loved it. It's definitely my favourite city and I hope so much that I get the chance to go back one day. We relaxed a lot and cooked dinner together after spending our days out walking around the city. We saw all the Gaudi things: Park Guell, Sagrada Familia, La Pedrera, and Casa Batllo. the Sagrada Familia was WOW. W O W. It's insane how much thought Gaudi put into every last detail and how even after his death, every addition has made it so much more beautiful. The stained glass is amazing and the light at 4:30 pm (thank you tour guide) struck the windows in a way that lit up the entire church. It's so stunning and so completely different from any other basilica we saw in Rome. It will be completed in 2026 and we joked (or was it serious?) that we would come back for its opening as our Biosciences 2015 reunion. No lie, I would definitely go back for that. We also went to the Picasso museum and it really changed my view on art. Seeing his progression from his early works to his pretty crazy later works was interesting and the collection from his work on Las Meninas was so cool. It showed how he practiced every part of the painting in different styles until he understood what he wanted. Just viewing his life through his art was so completely different and I thoroughly enjoyed it. One of the last things we did in Barcelona was go up Montjuic to the castle on top. We saw an amazing view of the city (even the clouds and rain approaching us) and learned a little about its history, which I didn't know much about. My favourite part of the city was just everything around us. I loved the street music that was everywhere, the hordes of people skateboarding, the dancers practicing in front of the Arc de Triomf, the beautiful parks, and the way people lived around us. I really wish we could have spent more time there - five days was not even close to enough.
All in all, spring break was insane. I'm never going to forget it and I will probably never be able to top wandering through the ruins of Ancient Rome or enjoying the musical and artistic culture of Barcelona.
No comments:
Post a Comment