The Best or the Worst?

This past week has been one of the best weeks and one of the worst weeks at the same time. It was full of tests and projects and homework and everyday consisted of studying or working on something from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep. What people have been calling "hell week" really was awful, but it is over now and everyone can breathe again. Besides the stress and exhaustion that accompanied hell week, some really great things happened this past week as well.

On Tuesday I got to see a little glimpse of my (hopefully) future when we put on scrubs and went into the operating theaters, as the Germans call them, to see surgeries. I loved it. Although I did not get to see a knee or other joint replacement like I had hoped, I did get to see some other interesting things. I got to see someone's colon get removed, and even though that sounds kinda gross, it was actually really interesting. They did it partly laparoscopically and they opened the abdomen for a different part. After that surgery was finished, I joined Reagan and we saw the beginning of the removal of a tumor from the front of the tibia bone, but we had to leave before it was over. The second one was more interesting to me because I like things related to the musculoskeletal system. The whole hospital experience was a little bit of positive in the middle of a rough week.

The next great thing that happened was over the weekend. On Saturday I made a day trip to Brugge, Belgium with a few of the girls. It was the cutest little town that I have visited over the whole trip. The waffles were amazing and there was chocolate everywhere.  In the tea room we picked to get waffles there was a British woman in line who told us she makes a trip twice a year to Brugge just for the waffles at that particular place, so we knew we made the right decision. I think I spent 40 euros on chocolate alone from a few different shops. We took a canal cruise and got to see the majority of the town, it isn't very big. We visited the only brewery in town as well. The whole place was just so cute. On Sunday I went for a walk on a huge hill that overlooked Bonn and the Rhine with my host parents and another family that is hosting one of the TAMU visualization students. We visited the family's horse and then we had tea and cake afterwards. It was a very nice, relaxed day, and the perfect end to the week.