Last days in Bonn

Today and tomorrow are the official last days in Bonn. I'm so sad that it has gone by so fast. Today was an excursion on the Rhine though which was really fun! We saw the oldest non conquered castle in Germany. It had some of the most interesting facts about how it was strategically located and how the cannons were placed. It was ruled by five different groups of people since the 11 century (or something like that). One of the most interesting facts was the way they situated the chapel in the castle. It was lower then the rest of the castle and had very few points of entry and those points being very small so if a knight was trying to rush into the room the defenders could defend it a lot better because the knight would get stuck. Other then that tomorrow is my last final Math 308 (please kill me) and reviews for everyone and a picnic I believe. May 2nd don't forget now!

Last full week in Bonn

What can I say, this trip has had so many adventures it's hard to believe it's almost over. I feel like just a few days ago I was being picked up by my host mom. Now she had to leave because of a family crisis and it happened in a rush I barely said bye. That and finals have made this week one of the longest weeks of my life but still appreciate all that has happened. Friday, was the going away party and that was super exciting and fun. That day also included a day at the bridge that was standing during WWII that helped shorten the war by a long shot. Saturday was a busy day at the AIB and Sunday was me studying for more finals so not much happened. Did great on most of my finals and still have to hear back on some others. But on an alternate note I can't wait to see my family and friends!! I'll be in the states as of May 2nd and will be looking for anyone and everyone so be ready! I will truly miss Germany though and have a funny feeling I will be coming back. See y'all soon (love how the Germans don't know what that means).

The week I learned how much I missed my mom

Emily, Katie, Madeline and I got back to Bonn during the early hours of the morning. I was happy to be able sleep in my own bed again. I slept for a few hours before I woke madeline up to meet my mom and her friend for breakfast. I was really lucky to have both my parents visit during my time in Germany. My parents and I have grown really close as I have aged. The minute I mentioned the idea of studying abroad, the both flooded me with support and promised they would visit. Madeline and I got off the tram and met her at her hotel. My heart leapt with excitement when I saw her open the hotel door. We walked to a restaurant for breakfast where we talked about everything that had happened over the months we were apart.

Monday was my birthday. Luckily we had an excursion to Bingen that day, so I did not have to spend the day in the classroom. I really enjoyed the excursion to Bingen. I learned a lot about Hildegard and how she developed herbal medicinal practices. I found it really interesting to look at the drawings of her visions. They stood out to me because they were so different from art during her time. They were rich in color and took on a psychedelic aura. After the museums tour we had a lunch at a restaurant along the rhine. It was a great way to spend my birthday. Afterwards I met up with my mom and we had a nice dinner at Tao before I went home to study for my 211 exam.

It was really difficult to balance my moms visit, my birthday, and school at the same time. Since my revelation at the uniklinik, I was becoming more serious about switching my major. Due to this, my priorities were heavily shifted toward spending time with my mom. I felt guilty at first for not devoting more time towards my schoolwork but spending time with my mom in Germany was a once in  a lifetime experience. During this week I was able to show her around both Bonn and Cologne. We explored different restaurants, shops, cafes, and museums in each.

I was really sad to see her go on Saturday. I could see that she was struggling just as much with leaving me in Germany. I had to reassure her that it was only a few weeks until I was back in the States.

The week I learned the virtue of patience

Four days of classes seemed like a lifetime with easter weekend and my moms visit approaching. After my experiences in the Uniklinik, I was seriously considering switching my major to BIMS. I wanted to refocus my education on my interests rather than job security. I started discussing this with my parents and looking into the coursework. I still had a lot of thinking to do but the more I looked into switching, the more it made sense for my situation.

Once the week was finally over, Madeline, Emily, Katie and I were ready for our next adventure. Katie was able to rent a car through her insurance company and we planned to drive to Copenhagen with a one night stop in Hamburg. She picked us up early Friday morning and we made our way to Hamburg. I had greatly missed road trips with friends since leaving the States so I was really excited for this trip. We listened to good music, sang along, talked, slept, ate junk food from gas stations and had the time of our lives. After about six hours of driving, we arrived in Hamburg. We walked around for a bit before settling into a brewery for dinner. This was probably the coolest Brewery I have been in. There was life size sculpture of a pink unicorn in the center of the dining area. Other art ornamented the room in a similar fashion. The food was just as tasteful as the decorations. After a wonderful meal and a full day of travel, we went back to the hotel.

Saturday we got up and left for Copenhagen. After a couple of hours we finally arrived. We checked into the hotel and decided to take a nap before going to dinner. After about two hours into our nap, Emily decided she really wanted to go sightseeing. We all woke up in a fit of panic and ran out the door to try to see some popular spots. By the time we got into town and parked, we were all starving. We stopped in a pub for dinner and live music. By the time the night ended, the only sightseeing we had done was from inside the pub. However, we promised to make it up the next day. We were up and out of bed by 8:00. We ran around Copenhagen visiting various churches, monuments, famous streets, and canals. Tired from a full day of tourism, we got back in the car to go to Bonn.

The week I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life

The only reason I was excited to go back to school was for the uniklinik excursion. I have dreamt of being a doctor since I was a little girl. I was so excited just putting on scrubs. During this excursion I watched three surgeries. The first was a vertebroplasty. This procedure is used to stabilize patients with spinal fractures. Next I had to opportunity to observe a hip replacement and nasal endoscopy. It was amazing to witness the surgical teams work together to heal their patients. This semester I have learned a lot about the evolution of medicine. There is an amazing amount of time, money, and research that goes into developing medicine. Knowing the amount of effort behind each surgery made me appreciate them even more. This day just further affirmed my love for medicine and desire to become a doctor.

The rest of the week was pretty routine. My days were filled with classes, studying and trying to fit in some exercise. Spending all day at the AIB made it difficult to find time to work out. One of my favorite ways to exercise was to run. Running allowed me to both exercise and see around Bonn. When the opportunity came up to run in a half marathon, I was excited to sign up. I had run in several 5 and 10 k but never a half marathon. The distance greatly intimidated me, but with my friend's encouragement, I signed up.

The week ended with an excursion to the anesthesia museum. Fortunately, we were able to meet the owner of the museum. While at the uniklinik earlier that week, I learned a lot about current anesthesia practices. The lecture at this museum complimented what I had learned very well. I had never been particularly interested in anesthesia but this week made me more curious about the practice.

Enmodes, Big Event, Marathon

Week 13

This week was one of the more chaotic weeks of the program because the enmodes presentation provided a time crunch. Every day, classes started at 8:45. On Wednesday, we stayed until around 8 pm and Thursday my group (Team Rafael) stayed until 11:30 pm. Within two days alone, we spent over 25 hours working solely on the project and the presentation. However, I felt really productive and my group worked really well together. We were able to nail our presentation first out of all of the groups. Also, we worked well to get some of the DHF done while working on the presentation. I even got a chance to learn solidworks and really begin to focus on learning that software. I was able to create a fairly complete model of our design and then proceed to animate the important portion of the insertion process. I am proud of my work and want to continue to learn more solidworks.

Overall the presentation went well. I felt like my group really nailed it down during our practice times. It was really rewarding to know that the effort that I put into the project and the presentation was not wasted and the presentation did indeed improve as a result. I will definitely take this lesson with me in the future as I look towards giving a lot more presentations in labs, meetings, classes, jobs, etc.

This weekend was one of my favorites. Big event was a blast! I volunteered with a volunteer fire department. I went to the station and painted the two garages and the inside walls white. It turned out pretty good. The whole time they served us beers and drinks. Afterwards, the chief took us on a ride around the city in the firetruck. I had a strange moment sitting in a firetruck, holding a beer, and looking down a the people we drove by, sitting about eight feet higher up than them. I never thought I would have that experience and it felt surreal. After the ride, the firemen made us a phenomenal BBQ dinner. We sat and ate and talked both in German and in English for almost two hours before we headed home. That night, I went out with Steffi and Bryan. I had a blast getting drinks with the two of them. I wish I had gotten to know them sooner, since I will be leaving in just two weeks.

The next day, I cheered on everyone who ran the Bonn Marathon. I made a big sign that said, "You're Killing It!" with everyone's names who ran written on it. I got a lot of compliments of my sign and I made a lot of people smile while they were running, not only my friends but others too. Some people on the streets stopped me to ask what my sign said. The most interesting was right at the beginning, not 15 minutes after I arrived to my spot for the start of the race across the bridge towards Konrad Adenauer Platz, a man with a camera came up to me and asked if he could take pictures of me with the sign. I agreed and he proceeded to tell me I had a lot of friends. He was a strange guy but seemed very nice. I was so proud of everyone who ran the half marathon and the legs of the full. It is an incredible feat and it made me want to do the equivalent in a biking race, a sport I can still do with my hip. I plan this summer to bike a half century (50 miles), or at least that is the goal. I have gotten tickets to go up to Denver to bike it, and my dad will be coming to cheer me on.

In other developments, I have decided to pursue an architecture minor if I can, specifically a minor in architectural fabrication and product design. I have contacted the advisors and am looking forward to this academic journey. I realized I want a creative outlet because I like visualization and art but in a practical design setting. I have a talent for seeing objects in 3-space and would like to develop this further and see where it can take me. I realized that this minor will provide me will another side of engineering as a more artsy and dynamic realm. This will add to my abilities as a designer and engineer.

Well, I have only a short time left but I have every intention of celebrating it all!

14. “I'll tell you what I've learned. One thing and one thing only. I fucking love Berlin!” (and Humboldt)

Allstadt is in full bloom, the cherry trees are blossoming and the tourists are everywhere. Deanna and I went to see the trees in all their glory on Tuesday morning, it took us a solid 20 minutes to get there, because of my hobbling. Pro Tip: When training for a ½ marathon always ALWAYS follow the 10% mileage rule. I did not and so I visited the doctor later on Tuesday to get an Xray of my foot. They didn’t find anything wrong, but it has been extremely painful. The doctor told me "no sports" and to stay off my foot as much as possible. Ha. I hate not being fully mobile but my goal is to rest it up before Berlin. Wednesday, Nicky and I went back to Allstadt to play tourists and take more pictures with the cherry blossoms.  

The weather has been amazing this week, we’ve been eating our dinners outside on the balcony. There are no mosquitos!! I don’t know why America doesn’t adopt biergartens. They are amazing. Now that the weather is nice, we frequent one on the Rhine. It is so relaxing to have a beer and a pretzel and just hang out with friends in the sunshine. 

Berlin. Where to begin? We rode the train in on Friday afternoon, I got a solid 4 hours of uninterrupted studying on the train, because we have our last phys test first thing Monday. But I have to admit it was extremely tempting to take advantage of the open container policy on the trip in, there was a bachelor party taking up one of the cars next to ours and they were doing it right.

We got in to Berlin and stopped by our hostel to drop off our stuff. Then we walked through the city to a little pizza place. I think it was definitely catering towards people tripping, because they were playing the weirdest music and had some really interesting artwork on the walls… oh and there was a weird hipster rave happening next door. Nicky and I took an L and ordered the weirdest pizza I have ever eaten in my life. It had sweet potato, really gross sun-dried tomatoes (and that’s really saying something because I love sun-dried tomatoes) that tasted more like dates, vegan cheese and no sauce. After dinner we went to a really cool club that was in an old train station and danced the night away!

We woke up bright and early on Saturday morning, made an essential stop at Backwerk for some brekky and then hopped on the train. We went and saw Checkpoint Charlie, the Brandenburg gate, the parliament building and the Tiergarten. After that we headed over to Kreuzberg to a little tattoo studio, Schwarz hande. Artavia and I had researched some places and wanted to get tattoos and Katie spontaneously decided to get one too! The owner Ivan was super cool and from Montenegro. He was really friendly and when he found out we were from Texas, he told me about his time living in Austin for 2 months. He was a guest artist at a shop during south by southwest and said they would have 600 people through the door a day and that it was an absolute mad house. He said they would be screaming to talk to the other artists even though they were only a few meters away. We also talked about the gentrification of Kreuzberg. Ivan had originally owned two shops at the same time but he had to sell one because rent had gotten so high they choked all the small businesses out. He moved all his artists to the second shop and stayed afloat. All in all, my tattoo took about 30 minutes. Nicky was the real MVP and held my hand but it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as I was expecting. After our tattoos, we got some delicious fruit sorbet popsicles and headed to our next stop, the East Side Gallery. The Gallery was amazing, it’s really hard to wrap your head around the idea that the wall used to run through the whole city. The artwork was spectacular. We also walked by this little park and everyone was out with their friends having little bbqs in the park. Berlin is kind of like mixing Austin and San Francisco together, I want to say Seattle and Portland too but I haven't been yet! Basically Hipster heaven, which I kind of love. The next stop was the espionage museum. This museum was really interesting and had a whole bunch of spy gadgets, there were glue stick cameras, bugged frying pans and an umbrella that shoots poison pellets. They also had an enigma machine from WW2, which was really cool to see in person after watching Imitation Game. But the most fun part of the museum was the laser room. You basically get to pretend to be James Bond and have to make it past all the lasers to get to the other side of the room. It was a blast, but I would not make a good spy. After the espionage museum we walked to what I think was a Russian tea restaurant. You had to take off your shoes and sit on the floor on cushions, the tea was delicious. 

Sunday morning Artavia and I went to the Berlin Zoo, while Katie, Nicky and Austin hit up the paddle boats in the Tiergarten. It was the perfect weather! We saw your typical animals, some pandas and even a polar bear. Most of the big cat area was under construction which was a little disappointing, but we also saw sloth bears and Humboldt penguins!!!!

(Please excuse me while I nerd out a bit)

Humboldt penguins were named after Alexander von Humboldt, a German polymath and explorer. He explored South America in the 1800s and was one of the most respected scientists of his time. He influenced Darwin, Thoreau, Haeckel, Muir and Marsh to name a few. And he is virtually unknown to Americans today, even though on the centennial of his birth he was celebrated worldwide, in cities all across the Americas and Europe, even Australia joined the celebration.  He was one of the first people to comment on the environmental degradation caused by humans, he encouraged the free exchange of information and communication across disciplines. Humboldt emphasized a bond between science and emotions and used the arts to make science appealing to the public, making his publications some of the most read of his time. This connection of art and knowledge, science and emotion, his wonder for nature can help us today to realize we will protect only what we love. (Oh you’re still reading? Thanks!)

***Condensed version: Humboldt is amazing. He is my hero. Seeing the Humboldt penguins in person: pretty fucking cool.***

Cons: We ended our weekend with a 9 hour bus ride home. There was no air conditioning. It was hotter inside the bus than it was outside. The allotted wifi ran out after 15 minutes. 

Pros: Being trapped in an oven with no internet to distract me meant I got a lot of phys studying done on the bus.

CHAPTER XVII

It's the last week. Crazy.

Naturally since classes are wrapping up, I've had a bunch of tests this week: a physiology midterm, FDA final, physiology final, take-home signals and systems final, and finishing up our design history final. My plan to finish everything by Thursday (so that once I took my physiology final I would be done) worked wonderfully.  Though, I did find a new coffee shop to mix-up the study location, and that is always fun. It's called Creme Coffee, and is only a five minute walk from the AiB. They have a wall full of colorful beakers that had caught my eye every other time I walked by, but I just hadn't been in. The coffee and waffles were perfect way to discuss the real life applications of renal and GI physiology, the perfect way to study!

On Thursday, I got to bake with Katharina! She is one of my favorites, always so kind and patient with my broken German speaking. We decided to bake some traditional German treats. They are usually a Karneval dessert. The Mutzenmandeln are kind of like donut-holes, but with lemon, crushed almonds, and covered in Cinnamon. We threw together they recipe without a scale, but nevertheless they tasted delicious! Katharina's parting words were a German saying, "man trifft sich immer zweimal in Leben" which means people always meet twice in life. I think I'll hold on to this phrase as I have to say some more goodbyes this week, and it does definitely hold some truth.  I like the optimism and emphasis on how even short relationships can be strong and long-lasting connections! It's always fun to see who I end up seeing sometime later. This trip was definitely full of some of those moments for me when I got to see my aunt's old exchange student and my European friends from high school.

Because of a mysterious bus shortage, our excursion on Friday involved a train/walk combo instead of a bike ride. I didn't mind too much. I'll take any chance I can to spend time along the Rhine. On Friday, we went to the Peace Museum at the old bridge of Remagen. The bridge was significant to World War 2. At one point in the war it was the only bridge across the Rhine left standing. The Germans had attempted to follow orders to destroy the bridge, but the explosives did not detonate. The bridge suffered minor damage, but its integrity was maintained. The American's crossing and capture of the bridge is estimated to have shortened the war by four weeks. Our tour guide knew so much about the history! The museum was set up in the old bridge tower, since the bridge is no longer standing today.

The AiB threw a farewell party for all of the programs. Regina came, and I got to introduce her to a few of my friends which was really nice! My favorite part of the whole thing was seeing some of the design projects from other programs on display. The A&M visualization students had made these clay figures on a spinning disc that made a short animation. They also had some documentaries of their semesters abroad. It was really neat to see what the other students have been doing during their semester in Bonn. I was amazed by some of the creativity! -- we could've presented our enmodes surgical procedure powerpoints, but that wouldn't have been quite as fun.

On Saturday, there was a craft fair in Munsterplatz. The tents were filled with handmade leather goods, painting of local sites in Bonn, unique and colorful jewelry, intricate quilted designs, and creative pottery. It was the highlight of my day! I loved enjoying the sunshine and seeing the many different creations. Lois and I also stopped by a Bonn souvenir shop to get some last-minute goods.

Random Takeaways

"That's so fun" has been coined as the Camella phrase. I also make facial expressions when I am thinking to myself...

I like Bonn and the Rhine. There's a peaceful sort of atmosphere with appreciation for the outdoors in this region.

Regina surprised Lois and I because she actually liked our American Velveeta box of mac-n-chees. "I don't know why I make homemade sauces when this is easy and tasty"

I´ve stayed in Germany for two weekends without traveling.... Am I feeling alright? (April 2nd-15th)

The week after Ireland was pretty rough, in that we had a BMEN 211 test that following Wednesday. The test actually turned out to be pretty manageable, as Romi gave us a very similar template to study from before the test.  Despite doing well on the test, the thing I hate the most about this class is I never know why we are doing what we are doing. If you have been keeping up with my previous blogs, I´m sure you can tell that I cannot wait for this class to be finished. Anyways, its finally beginning to feel like Spring in Bonn! I remember the first couple of months here were slightly depressing weather wise as it was cloudy/cold/rainy almost 24/7, so having solid sunshine for multiple days at a time has been quite a nice surprise. Need I also mention that the flowers and the leaves on the tree are starting to bloom, so dead old Bonn is really starting to come alive! After school on Friday, Shannon, Brynn, and I went on a nice long hike in "Siebengebirge", where we hiked up to the ruins of two castles. This is the same area that I hiked during Karneval, but a different path. At the top of the hill, the views of the Rhein River and Bonn off in the distance are gorgeous. The weekend after Ireland, I was planning on possibly going to Nuremburg or Luxembourg, but plans kind of fell through, so I ended up staying in Bonn. It turned out to be a very relaxing weekend- it is always fun getting to hang out with my host family and practice my German with them. My one regret from this trip is I have not gotten as close to my host brothers as I hoped I would have, but it has been hard as I usually have to go upstairs and do my homework when I get home from school. However, I still enjoy talking with them and my host parents every time we are together.  I have probably gotten the closest to my guest sister Mindel, as we both don´t speak German fluently, so we can have long conservations without either of us getting lost.

On Saturday, Corey and I decided to do our weekly (hahaha who am I kidding, bimonthly) "training" for the half marathon. We ended up running 14 miles along the Rhein River, which was pretty amazing considering how little we have run this semester, but I was definitely sore the next day. I wish I had more time to run over here, but with all my traveling and school til 6 or later every evening, I don´t usually have time before it gets dark. On Sunday, I slept in (which was nice because I have been exhausted lately) and then went to the Rheingauer Park with Madeline, Lauren, and Emily.  We ended up renting paddle boats and paddling around the pond in the middle of the park, and then playing volleyball with some local German guys. My hands were absolutely killing me by the end, cause we used a soccer ball that we had found in the pond for the volleyball, but it was really fun nonetheless.  After hanging in the park, Madeline and Lauren invited me over to their host family´s barbeque. At the barbeque, I met their host family, along with their two neighbors, who are surprisingly both Americans.

The following week was the week before our Enmodes presentation in Aachen. We had classes on Monday and Tuesday, and then came in all day Wednesday and Thursday to finalize our PowerPoint presentations. On both Wednesday and Thursday, we stayed at school for 13 and 16 hours respectively which was crazy long, but not all of that time was spent working on our project.  I probably played a hundred games of Pingpong this week. I´m not sure what kind of Heros´ Journey I´ve experienced here, but I sure know that Vijay, Harrison, Corey and I have all become ping pong gods in the time that we´ve been in Germany. On Thursday, Dr. Wasser made us present our powerpoints over and over again until they were perfect, so my group ended up staying at the AIB until 1 in the morning to finish. However, the AIB ordered Ethopian food for our dinner, and it was absolutely delicious.  I probably shouldn´t have had two plates, cause I could barely walk, but it was one of my favorite meals that I´ve had in Bonn nonetheless.

On Friday, we all headed to Aachen to present our projects to Enmodes.  I was a little bit nervous beforehand, but presenting was not near as intimidating as I thought it would be, as the engineers seemed quite impressed with our work.  After our presentations, we took a tour of the Aachen cardiovascular engineering institute, which completely renewed my interest in possibly pursuing a career as an actual biomedical engineer, instead of as a doctor. On the tour, they showed us various types of artificial heart valves and hearts, along with lung support devices. I think this tour was the icing on the cake after my cardiology unit in physiology and witnessing the open heart surgery, but I have decided that I definitely want to pursue cardiology. That night, we all went out to celebrate the end of our Enmodes projects, and Nicky´s big 21st birthday.

My second weekend staying in Bonn was jam packed with activities. On Saturday, I participated in a community service event organized by the AIB, where Corey, Vijay, Lexie, and I volunteered in a retirement home.  Corey and I ended up wearing some pretty sexy plastic full body protective gear while we power-washed the patio.  After I finished my job, I went inside and played a little piano for the retirement home residents.  I am horrified by how rusty I´ve gotten on the piano, but it was still fun getting to play bits and pieces of songs for the residents.  It definitely inspired me to pick it back up this summer.  After the volunteer work, we went out to an awesome Biergarten on the Rhein River with some of the German AIB student workers. I met some pretty awesome guys who I had not met before, as they don´t work in the same building that I go to school in, but I hope I will be able to keep in touch with them! I also found my favorite beer thus far in German- the Kristal hefeweißen.

On Sunday, Corey and I woke up early for the Bonn half-marathon. After arriving at the AIB to grab our shirts and timers, we walked to the start line and were off and running within a half hour. Although it was quite tiring (obviously), the course was beautiful, running along the Rhein river and through the Rheingauer Freizeit park. During the race, I ran past two guys running in beer costumes (yes, they ran 13 miles dressed up as a beer bottle) and a stand where they were giving out alcoholic beer and bratwurst. I have to say that there is nothing more German than that...  After finishing the race, I cramped up really badly, as I went from sprinting through the finish line to barely moving through the crowds at the finish line.  However, I slowly regained my strength in the after-party section, where I drank the German electrolyte of choice, alcoholic free beer. I ended up running the half marathon in an hour and 41 minutes- I could have definitely gone way faster, but it wasn´t terrible considering I had barely run over the past 3 months.  Anyways, I can finally officially say I´ve done a half marathon, and what better place to start than in Bonn, Germany!

Trier? I hardly know her! || March 25, 2018

The oldest city in Germany and the richest country in Europe? Yes, please! Early Saturday morning, Izzie and I left Bonn Hbf to head to Trier, but we had one change rather than a direct train. Usually I don't mention this but pulling into Koblenz Hbf at 8 am, my oh my it was beautiful. The train passed over the Rhine and the view was absolutely stunning. There was a layer of fog that covered the details of the buildings but left the silhouettes, including those of two sets of twin towers. It made me want to leave the station during our transfer but there wasn't nearly enough time for that. I may return another day, but it won't look the same. And now on to an update from the second train, first off the view is great here too. I'm not quite sure where "here" is, but I love the look of mountain villages and that's what I'm passing through right now. But really i just wanted to mention that I just got woken up by a train worker and was chastised for having my shoes on the seat. Whoops.

Since trains, busses, and planes are where I get most of my blogging done, it should be no surprise that I'm now writing while on the bus to Luxembourg. We're spending the night and tomorrow there, before we return back to Bonn tomorrow night. But yeah, here's a recap of the day:

Our first stop was for brunch and I absolutely loved the cafe we went to. As we were walking up we were talking about how much we wanted pancakes and then when we opened the menu I saw, for the first time in Europe, a section entitled Pfannkuchen and had a good laugh about how perfect it was that we stumbled into this particular place. Of course they weren't American style pancakes, it was a crepe, but I got it nonetheless along with an omelette. What a great start to the day! 

Next up we headed toward the city and went to the first bank we came across. This sparkesse had an interesting statue out front: a man with three pigs. And then right next to the door looking inside was yet another pig, this time alone. And then once you were inside there was yet another pig! Why? I do not know. Once we'd gotten money, we walked a little further and stumbled straight into what I'd come to see: the structure of Porta Nigra, or black gate. I didn't know much about the history of it going in, just that Trier is known for its ruins and buildings from Roman settlement and that this structure was the most iconic of them. Izzie and I learned a lot from the small pamphlet we received at the entrance as well as the short animated video we found projected onto the wall on the lowest level. The view from the top was quite nice along with all of the facade detailing on the outside and within the corridors. Definitely worth the 3 euro (yay for student discounts!).

After that we walked to the main market square, popping in and out of shops on the way. Can we just take a moment to stop and appreciate how cute all the buildings are?? The inner architect wannabe inside of me was having a BLAST walking along all of the streets. Going from the charm of the main shops and restaurants that populated the area to the contrasting Roman style ruins that popped up here and there, and then right back to the charm again made me really happy. Also the small palace we stumbled across may just have been the most beautiful building I've ever seen. I'm not quite sure exactly what color it was but it was a nice pink-y tone, along with white/grey marble and gold detailing. Also, there was a white railing and statues positioned perfectly in front, lining the stairs. The view of it was slightly ruined by the Huntsville-prison-esque red brick basilica behind it, which to me was just an eyesore more than anything else, but all of the components of the palace worked cohesively with each other to make it a really spectacular crib. And since we're already nerding out about cool buildings, St. Peter's Catheral may just have been my favorite of all the ones I've seen so far. The outside was a mixture of two styles that somehow worked SO well together. One half was gothic and the other baroque?, I'm not quite sure. The inside also had some unique features. One was the organ--it is one of very few I've seen that had any sort of design on it (plus it's a pretty rockin design), but most notable was the domed ceiling that was opposite the organ. It had a simple blue background with a white statuary coming out of it. While only a small portion of the church, it absolutely took my breath away. As for other places to visit, we also went to the old amphitheater. It was a short walk from the city center and it was pretty cool. There wasn't all that much to see, but I quite liked envisioning chariot races and spartan duels and whatnot taking place as we walked around it.

Iz and I also shopped around a lot today which was nice because I never seem to go when I'm in Bonn. All I ended up getting was a sweater (quelle surprise!), but I also have quite a few more shoes piling up on my list of things I'd buy if I were rich. I'm also still on the hunt for good running shoes, because my poor puma sneakers are just not meant for all the running I've been doing lately. 

And the last thing we did in Trier? Well, I've been wanting a haircut for a while. I even meant to cut it before coming to Germany in January, I just never got around to it. But today, I did. We both did. We didn't plan on it at all, the idea just kind of popped into our heads and we became determined to make it happen. We're both pretty happy with our cuts I think, although it seems Izzie wants hers slightly longer and I want mine slightly shorter. But opinions can change a lot after a new haircut, so we'll just have to wait and see how we feel about them tomorrow. We also decided not to tell anyone what we did/hide it in our snapchats and just wait for them to see for themselves, mostly because I want to see the surprise reaction of Ibk when I walk into the house tomorrow night with like 5 or so inches of my hair missing. I think she's going to flip and I'm excited! (Update: she did flip and the video I took of her reaction is adorable. Also, my cut is lopsided but I have no plans to fix it.)

Before

After

Luxembourg first impressions:

- General confusion / What the heck is going on? (There was a weird man screaming by the bus stop/outside the train station that really freaked me out.)

- Rode the loudest bus I've been on to date, apparently the normal don't-have-extensive-conversations-on-the-bus policy that we've encountered in the rest of Europe is not a thing, especially when you're surrounded by drunk people (at 8:40 pm) and rowdy middle/high schoolers

- Our hostel is legit

Luxembourg, although I didn't have many expectations for it, was kind of a bust in my opinion. In Trier, us not having a real plan of where we were going worked perfectly, but here it was a little different. While the city was still pretty walkable, it is somewhat divided into sub cities, each with different characteristics. We didn't find the one that had the vibe I wanted/was expecting from the city until just before we had to leave for our train. Nevertheless we still had a fun time together and saw some cool things along the way.

We started off with a killer climb to an overlook we could see from the breakfast area in our hostel, took a long breather, and hopped a small fence to get some pics with an old castle watchtower. From there we walked aimlessly and stumbled upon the largest, prettiest, most extra retirement home on the planet. Seriously, it looked like a palace. Next we walked toward the city center and were surprised to find literally everything closed. Even though we knew that in Europe it's more common for things to be closed on a Sunday, we'd never really encountered it on such a large scale. Because of the lack of restaurants and shops, the whole area was pretty deserted except for the other travelers who were visiting the city. We ended up picking up a map from the tourism information center, then pretty much disregarded the sights to see it listed and went to check out the Luxembourg City History Museum. It was free for students (woot!) and well worth the visit in my opinion. There was tons of information (provided in English, German, and French) and plenty of cool things to look at. My favorite part was the 360 panoramic mural of Luxembourg by the painter Antoine Fontaine. They also had a photography temporary exhibit that depicted Luxembourgers from the past up to the present which I quite enjoyed. 

Next up we went in search of the most beautiful balcony in all of Europe. Unfortunately when we found it we were quite disappointed with what we saw. It had an okay distance view, but when you were actually there most of your vision field was just full of dead or straggly trees. Not exactly the beautiful view I was expecting. BUT alles gut because we were totally at the wrong balcony! Once we left that one, we just walked around for a while and ended up stumbling upon the actual most beautiful balcony, which yes, was much nicer than the first, but I have a hard time believing it beats out ALL others in Europe.

Random things:

- The bus drivers all just waved us off and let us pass for free when we went up to buy a ticket from them, so we never paid for public transportation even though we fully intended to.

- My Urban Piano Luxembourg

- When you see a playground, you have to play on it. Right?

211 Test and Cologne

Week 12

This week was slightly less chaotic and stressful than the one before it. First, it was a shorter week because we got the Monday off . Also, the homework died down a little bit. Instead, the majority of my academic time was spent preparing for the 211 test. On Wednesday I took the test and I think I did well, knock on wood. This time around, I'm more caught up on my blogging so I haven't received the test grades back by the time I am writing this blog. That's a strange thing to celebrate but I will anyways.

Also, we took an excursion to Bingen. Here we visited the Hildegard von Bingen museum. This was pretty cool because I had previously done research on here while in high school. If I remember right, I even had to dress up like her for a school day, so it was cool to visit her hometown. The museum and history of her life and mission was interesting. She was a very strong-willed, determined woman who created a life that she believed in and enjoyed within the frame of her culture and expectations. One thing that remained with me from the experience was the moment she created her own convent. She and the other nuns were going to leave, an action that would be highly disadvantageous for the presiding monk of the monastery. So Hildegard said that it was God's will and left. This strong action made me wonder how much of the decisions she said were "God's will" or "visions from God" were her imparting her incredible knowledge upon the world. However, she was a strong believer so I guess it could be argued that her knowledge derived from God so anything she knew and believed and learned were all derivatives of God's knowledge, so her sharing it in fact imparted God's knowledge upon the world. It was an interesting thought exercise for me.

Illnesses have been running wild here and so many people are going to the doctor. Joseph got sick and went to the hospital. We found out he has appendicitis and had surgery to remove it. Also, Jack has been sick with different things that he has been going to the doctor for. I hope everyone remains healthy from here out; this is such an amazing experience to study abroad and we have only a limited time left. It would be a shame to miss any of it with sickness.

For my weekend travels, my friends and I decided we were a little bit tired of traveling in cars and trains so much and staying in places for such little time. So we stayed near Bonn by going up to Cologne, biking along the Rhine and visiting the Chocolate Museum. I had an amazing time biking. I realized that I really miss just biking and exploring. I want to do more of this back home. It was a wonderful sunny day to explore the paths along the Rhine. My favorite thing at the Chocolate Museum, I got to see how the chocolate is made in the factories. I got to see how the machines are created to ensure precision of wrapping and quality. I couldn't help but flash back to the freshmen marble project when I saw that a color sensor was being used to detect the small black rectangle at the edge of a wrapper to know when to cut the paper strip of wrappers. The system ran so efficiently and effectively. I enjoyed watching it and trying to figure out the technical aspect being it. I guess I am destined to work in a mechanical engineering aspect.

The following day was one of the first warm sunny days that I spent in Bonn, so Camella and I met some friends at the Hofgarten. We intended to have a picnic, but the stores were closed because it was Sunday. We made do with a burger from Uniburger and some Dominos to pass the time. I loved just being out in the sun and enjoying the warmth after the long winter. The grass field was packed with people who had similar ideas. There was even a huge swing, about 20 feet tall that adults were playing with. They would get enough momentum going to loop all the way around the top of the arc. I was impressed just watching them. I am loving the warmer weather!!

Where them Leprechauns at

I know it seems from my blog posts that all I do is travel, but again, school is too boring to write about, so I just skip over it and write about the fun things. After two weeks of hard work (including an insane differential equations test.... don´t even get me started), it was time to travel again for Easter break. I´ll let you guess where I went based off of the next two clues- I flew in a green plane with a four leaf clover painted on it, and my pilot´s name was Daryl O´Connor.

Yeah, if you guessed Ireland, you are right. On Thursday evening, I flew to from Frankfurt to Dublin and met up with Corey, Nicky, and Kate, who all took different flights there. Corey and I both arrived around the same time pretty late in the night, so we ended up heading to the youth hostel and hitting the hay so we could get up early the next morning and sightsee in our one day in Dublin. Of course, when we got to our room in the hostel, we were greeted by the most loud, disgusting snoring that I´ve ever heard in my life. When I looked over to see where the sound was coming from, I saw a old fat white guy wearing nothing but a speedo laying in the bottom bunk.  Needless to say, the ensuing night was pretty rough, and I was glad to leave the next morning. At around 9 the next morning, Corey and I set out into the town to sightsee. We visited all the must see locations in Dublin, like the Trinity college and St. Patrick´s cathedral.  Since it was good Friday, we were not able to do a tour of the cathedral, but we still went inside and sat in the pews, admiring the beautiful holy decorations. Afterwards, we walked over to the Temple Bar district to meet Kate and Nicky, and ate a traditional Irish meal in one of the pubs there. I ended up not getting a Guinness with my food, as I thought we were going to do the Guinness tour later in the day, but we found out afterwards that it was sold out. Thus, instead of doing the Guinness tour, we went to Dublinia, a highly rated museum about Dublin´s Viking and medieval history.  It was a very interactive museum, and I really enjoyed getting to learn a part of history that I knew close to nothing about.  After the museum, it was time to head back to the hostel to get our bags and head to the airport to grab the rental car. Dublin was fun, but I was most looking forward to the next couple of days of hiking.  That night we drove three hours north into Northern Ireland (which is actually apart of the UK), where we stayed the night in an Airbnb with a really nice lady named Louise.

We woke up on Saturday morning, and after having a traditional Irish breakfast with Louise, we drove on another 15 minutes to reach Giant´s Causeway, which is an area along the northern coast full of weird rock formations. For the entire morning and early afternoon, we explored this area, jumping between rocks in the coastal waters, and marveling at the unique rocks.




After we were finished exploring, we drove to the neighboring coastal town to eat lunch, before heading to another short hike.  The next hike we did was a short 1 km hike to this rope bridge, which connected the mainland to a little small island in the middle of bay.  The water in this area of the coast was crystal clear, with colors ranging from royal blue to turquoise to emerald green. After taking thousands of pictures in mine and Corey´s normal fashion, we ran back to the car, where the girls were waiting (they decided not to do the second hike).  We had to leave this area fairly early in the evening, as we had a 5 hour drive ahead of us down to Connemara National Park on the rugged west coast of Ireland.  It was a full moon the night we drove in, so I could see the outlines of the mountains and the lakes nestled in between- I could see just enough to wish we could have witnessed the drive during the day. We arrived to our hostel, which was located in the heart of the national park at around midnight. When we got there, the owner had already gone to bed, so we let ourselves in and picked a room to sleep in.  It was a little strange that anyone could just walk in and sleep, but hey, we were in the middle of a national park in the most uninhabited part of the Ireland.  What´s the worst that can happen right?

We woke up on Sunday morning to a very rare sight- sunshine!  To take advantage of the rarity of the occasion, we got ready as fast as we could so we could head out and hike Diamond Hill, a tall peak right out the back of our hostel. Staying in the hostel turned out to be a really neat experience (other than having to take cold showers), and we ended up meeting a lot of interesting people the next morning at breakfast! As I mentioned above, after breakfast, all 4 of us embarked on a 4 hour hike up to the top of Diamond Hill. The views from the hike were spectacular, and reminded me of pictures I have seen of the Scottish highlands.  When we reached the top, we were able to see both the ocean off to one side, and the foggy mountains off to the other side. We didn´t spend too long on top of the mountain as the wind almost blew all of us off the cliff, but the views from the top were definitely worth the climb.  Once back down the mountain, we hopped in the car (I know, we did a lot of driving this trip) and drove down to the Cliffs of Moher, the famous green cliffs that are a must see for anyone who visits Ireland. Unfortunately, we didn´t have much time to spend at the cliffs, since we had to be back to Dublin by 8 to drop off the rental car, but the views from the cliffs were spectacular.  I can see why these cliffs, which rise some 200 meters out of the deep blue ocean are such a famous landmark.

After a three hour drive back to Dublin, we dropped off our rental car and headed into the city once again to spend our last night.  Since we had such an early flight the next morning, we decided to just stay up all night instead of paying for a hotel, and go to a bar/ club. Before going to the club, we tried to grab fish and chips at one of the pubs, but all the pubs had already stopped serving food.  Thus, we ended up eating Subway and KFC as our last meal in Ireland. As disappointing as that was, I finally got to have my Guinness in Ireland at the club that we hung out at for the rest of the night.  I was exhausted the next morning on our plane ride back to Germany, but it turned out to be a fun way to spend our last night in Ireland.  I definitely want to come back and spend more time here (just like about every other place I´ve traveled to this semester), and maybe come in the summer time, when its a little warmer!

Dr. Ibkuh || March 23, 2018

The first week back from spring break was pretty eventful. I started up my running with Nicky again and we had several excursions, including the anesthesia museum. But the most notable one was probably to the teaching hospital in Bonn.

Uniklinik day two was much better than day one. I wasn't originally supposed to go both days, but on the first day my group got pushed onto a med student who simply gave us a tour of the department we were in and didn't actually let us into any surgeries. So, we returned the next day with the BIMS students. It still felt like the doctors were all just kind of tolerating my presence rather than welcoming it, but that's nothing I didn't expect. I saw two different procedures that day, which was a vast improvement from the first day. The first was a patient with an infected knee replacement. At this point it had been managed for several years and it was time to just let it go and take it out. However, the patient was not well enough for the procedure and his heart even stopped beating for a short time while they were prepping him, so the surgeon decided that he would just drain the area and return him to intensive care to receive antibiotics against his pneumonia. I watched this short procedure, but there really wasn't much to see outwardly. The surgeon did take me on a little tour of the inside of his knee via endoscope though which was pretty cool. After he was done he said goodbye and walked out so Lawrence and I figured it was time to find a new surgery to watch. Only problem, how do we do that? We walked up and down the halls a couple of times before I eventually stopped a man in the hall with an "Entschuldigung, sprechen Sie Englisch?" Thankfully, he did and he found both of us an OR to go into. I got suited up in some protective gear (against X-rays because they were using that for visualization) and walked into a spinal fusion procedure. The anesthesiologist in this room was super super nice and took the time to explain what was going on with the procedure and answer all the questions I had for him about the equipment he was using--what he was adjusting, why he was adjusting it, etc. 

I also went to the doctor this week. I'm usually not too keen on going, but seeing as I'd been sick since before we went to Paris, I thought it was about time. Toby, one of the AIB student workers, accompanied me and we got along pretty well so he made the wait a lot more enjoyable. The doctor was quite nice and although she didn't have a real answer as to why I'm perpetually sick she did provide me a prescription for some medication and that helped quite a bit with the cough and the head/throat/earache. The congestion never quite went away (does it ever??) but it did lessen so that's something.

Side note:

Ibk is honestly the sweetest person on the planet and tries very hard to be my resident mom! 

In class earlier when I laid my head down on the desk she passed me a note that asked if I ate lunch and took my medicine. And just now I fell asleep right after I came downstairs for dinner and she asked me if I wanted to be woken up, came and woke me up after an hour, after which I totally fell asleep again but I very much appreciated the gesture. And when I finally woke up from my nap pt 2 with a coughing fit she came in and asked if I wanted any tea. I'm a mess and she's a sweetheart!

Random things:

• transportation strike—mehr Geld, bitte
• bought some more concert tickets, stay tuned!

The best way to run is with a view.

The Saga Continues (Spring Break pt 2) || March 18, 2018

São Miguel Island March 13-15

São Miguel is quite possibly the most beautiful, most underrated island destination in the world. Okay, maybe not the MOST underrated, I don’t have much knowledge in the way of islands, but it was definitely a highlight of my entire experience in Europe. First off, I didn’t even know it existed until Mitchell mentioned it to us when we were trying to make spring break plans, but I can’t imagine never experiencing it now that I have. 

1) It’s beautiful. No, not beautiful. As many synonyms as you can think of for the word beautiful, all combined into one, and then multiplied by a thousand. 

2) It’s cheap. Trust me, there are definitely more expensive places you could be visiting over your spring break. (But should you be?? No! Go to São Miguel!) 

3) There is so much to do! Hiking? YES! Hot springs? Cheap! ATV tour? Do it! Paragliding? We didn’t do that, but that doesn’t mean you can’t!

4) Everything is GREEN! If green isn’t your favourite colour already it will be after one look at all of the foliage you’ve missed out on living in Bonn for three months. This is your chance to soak up the sun and soak up the chlorophyll.

5) Did I mention it was beautiful?? Mountains, beaches, cities, COWS—the island has it all.

Random Things:

• We reunited with Izzie in the airport in Porto and she joined us for the rest of Spring Break.
• Our rental car: Cheap, functional, and overall a real trooper! Seriously, that poor little car hauled us up and down the winding mountain roads rain or shine, light or dark without fail. It even made its own music for us to enhance the experience! (Wait, you mean a car shouldn’t be making clunking sounds? Oh…)
• I had the top bunk in the airbnb and it had a shelf next to it!!!! Perfect for my tissues :) (#itsthelittlethings)
• Apple maps sucks. Seriously, we almost drove down a staircase. Download Google maps, my friends.
• Having 4 people squeeze into the backseat of a tiny car gets a bit uncomfortable. But I was usually resident DJ which made it a much better experience.
• 5/6 people enjoyed my music and that made me really happy. (Can’t win ‘em all.)
• We also used the timer on my phone to take pics on the beach and that was a really good time.
• So. Many. Birds!

(And here begins the lamest blog in the history of blogs)

Lisbon March 16

Random Things:

• Alfama walking tour
• cheesy cod cakes—yum!
• many thanks to the lady that let us leave our bags at a hostel we weren’t even staying in so we didn’t have to carry them around
• Too. Many. Hills!

Madrid March 17-18

Random Things:

• really expansive (and crowded!) flea market
• Favorite purchase: lil bird whistle (it’s adorable!)
• the churros were no match for the cookie-topped milkshake I got
• the architecture—LOVE
• instead of a tooth fairy they believe in a tooth mouse and he’s pretty cute (Ratoncito Pérez)

(Feel free to check out the other kids’ blogs for more on what we actually did—shoutout to Mitchell’s cause he just posted as I’m writing this and his is pretty good. I may come back and add more detail to this blog later, but I wouldn’t count on it--a picture is worth a thousand words, so I don't actually have to write more. Right? :-) )

Heaven on Earth (Sao Miguel Island)

As sad as I was to leave Porto, I was absolutely ecstatic on our 2 hour flight to the tiny island of Sao Miguel in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Unfortunately, I sat on the wrong side of the plane, so I missed the view of the green volcanic island on our descent, but Jack showed me pictures of it after we landed and it was spectacular.  When we landed, we got our rental car (which was only 60 dollars for 3 days!!) and we drove 5 minutes into the town to our Airbnb. After checking in, we walked around the town and ended up eating at a delicious seafood restaurant out on the bay.  The fresh triggerfish, mashed chickpeas, and sangria were a great way to start our island adventure.

The next morning, we woke up early to drive to the far west coast of the island to visit Riberia Grande National Park. I could not believe how beautiful the drive was- everywhere I looked was green, with volcanos reaching far into the clouds and deep blue water stretching out as far as you could see. The last five minutes of the drive consisted of a steep decent into a lush canyon. When we arrived, we were greeted by waterfalls, palm trees, and pink flowers in every direction.  After parking the car, we hiked up along the main stream for about a mile past small waterfalls to reach a large waterfall, emptying out into a crystal clear pool.  For the next hour, we explored this area, wading our feet in the freezing cold water. Afterwards, we hiked back down the way we had come and then walked downstream, in the direction of the ocean. For the rest of the afternoon, we explored the dense forest, hiking up and down the canyon. Although we never reached the ocean, we climbed up the top of a cliff and were able to see the ocean off in the distance, along with tons of waterfalls gushing water towards the expansive forest in the valley below. We ended up arriving back at the car right as it started to rain. As the weather was supposed to get worse throughout the day, we decided to head to the hot springs in Furnas, a beautiful town encapsulated by mountains and volcanos. On the way there, my GPS tried to take me up an extremely narrow road which dead ended into a staircase.  Good thing I was paying attention to the road, or I would have totaled our rental car, and our 60 dollar rent would have turned into a 20,000 replacement fee. After a small detour, we reached the hot springs, which was a perfect way to spend a rainy evening.  The place consisted of 5 different naturally fed baths, nestled in the middle of a forest. Although the rain was a little chilly on our head and shoulders, the water was super relaxing. We ended up staying at the baths until late in the evening, so driving home down a volcano in the dark and the rain was a little stressful, but we made it home safely without careening off the side of the mountain.

We woke up to much better weather on Wednesday- the sun was shining and I could walk outside in shorts and a t-shirt!! We started out the day by driving up the Fogo Volcano in search of a hike around the Lagoa do Fogo, an emerald lake in the volcano crater. The drive up the mountain was the prettiest drive I have ever done, with the entire mountainous island and the blue water stretched out beneath us. Words cannot even attempt to describe how beautiful the drive/ following hike was so I will stop here and you can see for yourself in the pictures below.

We realized that the hike started at the bottom of the mountain on the coast, so we had to drive back down to reach the trailhead, but the views from the top were well worth the detour.  On our way to the trailhead, we stopped on a black sand beach, and hung out there for an hour or so, running along the sand and wading in the crystal clear ocean water. Unfortunately, we left the windows open in the car and in the hour that we were at the beach, someone reached in and stole Shannon´s wallet, but we soon forgot about it on our spectacular hike up the mountain. Again, I´m going to stop writing and just let the pictures speak for themselves.

We ended up staying on top of the mountain for too long, so we hiked down the last two hours in the pitch black.  We also got caught in a surprise rain storm, but it passed quickly, revealing the prettiest sky I have ever seen in my entire life, I saw Orion, the big dipper, and the little dipper all in one night. After almost having to carry Jack down the mountain, we finally made it down and drove to the supermarket to eat a late dinner.

Thursday was the prettiest day thus far, so it was a perfect day to go on an ATV tour around the island. Our guide, Miguel, led us along the coast through corn fields and different villages as we rode towards Sete Cidades, a crater lake on the eastern part of the island. On the way up, Jack and Izzie flipped their ATV, but luckily they were ok- however, I think it scared Izzie enough to not want to drive the rest of the tour. When we reached the lake, we stopped to take pictures and grab coffee in the town. Just when I thought the island couldn´t get anymore beautiful, it did.  We spent the next couple of hours driving along the bumpy ridge of the volcano, with 360 views of the emerald and blue lakes down below, and the ocean on the other side.  The tour guide took us to a few other secluded lakes around the area before sadly taking us back to the Ponta Delgada where we had started.  On the way back, we drove on the highway and ended up reaching about 50 mph, which seemed even faster on the low-riding ATV.  Shannon and I shared an ATV for the tour, and she almost flipped us on the way back, but she sure did not make the ride boring! After the tour, we headed back to the apartment for lunch, and then drove back over to the west side of the island to Ponta Ferraria, a point of the island with massive waves and large volcanic rocks. The waves here were absolutely gigantic, and I almost broke my phone trying to take a picture as a wave sprayed water all over me. When low tide came, we walked over to a warm water cove, which was heated by volcanic rock underneath.  I was the only one who hopped in at first, but I started a movement, and pretty soon, me along with 20 other people were in the water, getting bashed by cold waves from the ocean, and then warming up to the warm water leaving the cove.  After getting battered by the waves for about 30 minutes, we all hopped out and got in the car to head up to the top of the nearby volcano to watch the sunset over the ocean. The views from the top were unreal, and neither pictures nor words can describe how serenely spectacular it was. When the sun had fully set, we headed back to our apartment to get a quick bite to eat, before heading to bed early for our early morning flight the next morning. I wish we could have stayed at least a couple more days, as we barely scratched the surface of this beautiful island, but I guess I will just have to return again some day. Despite leaving the island, our spring break was still not over: we had the entire upcoming weekend to explore Lisbon and Madrid before returning to Germany!

I JUST WATCHED AN OPEN HEART SURGERY (also I will never know how to spell anesthesiologist)

The Tuesday after we flew back from Madrid, I along with the other biomedical engineering students got the incredible opportunity to shadow an anesthesiologist at the Uniklinik in Bonn. Although I was excited to observe a surgery, I was not expecting any thing that grand, and thus was completely caught off guard when Alwin and I witnessed an old lady´s chest get sliced open, revealing her beating heart and lungs. We soon found out that the surgeons were conducting a cardiopulmonary bypass surgery.  After learning about the cardiovascular system in my physiology class this semester, I have had an increasing interest in pursuing a career in this field, and this interest was only amplified by this experience. Watching the surgeons grab the patient´s beating heart with their hands and "not so gently" stab different arteries to connect an ECMO (artificial heart/ lunch device) was mind blowing. Unfortunately, our anesthesiologist did not speak very good English so Alwin and I had to figure out for ourselves what was going on.  Luckily, we had learned the basics of how this procedure worked, so we weren´t completely surprised when a second surgeon sliced open the patient´s leg and cut out a vein from her calf to connect to the heart (to bypass a blocked carotid artery). It was probably one of the wildest things I have ever witnessed, but I definitely want to shadow another surgery when I return back to the United States.

The rest of the week was fairly stressful getting back into the swing of things, and I quickly missed our carefree spring break.  I love Germany, but I dislike most of my engineering classes, so I am definitely ready to be done with the school part of this semester. Since there is not much to say about my classes without boring whoever actually reads this blog, I am going to skip to the weekend.  On Saturday, Corey, Shannon, Brynn, and I took a train down to Koblenz, where we rented bikes and biked 20 miles down the river to a little town on the Rhein called St. Goar. It was a beautiful sunny day, and thus a perfect day to go biking in what I consider one of the prettiest locations in Germany. This stretch of the Rhein is packed with medieval castles nestled into the sides of the tall cliffs, through which the Rhein flows through.  About a mile into the trip, I ended up switching bikes with Shannon, as hers was too small for her. I can´t say it was the nicest bike in the world, but I´m sure that my thighs would get massive if I rode it everyday. When we arrived in St. Goar, we attempted to bike up to Rheinfels castle which was on top of the cliff overlooking the town, but we quickly gave up after about 100 feet, and walked the rest of the way. I had visited Rheinfels castle when I lived in Wiesbaden back in middle school, and was excited to return and explore the underground tunnels beneath the castle ruins. Unfortunately, the tunnels were closed due to renovations, but we made our own adventure by illegally climbing all over the walls of the castle. At one point, I jumped up to a window sill inside of a tower with an eroded staircase and climbed through a rusty gate in order to explore an secluded part of the castle wall.  I´m sure I risked the chance of contracting tetanus from cutting myself on the rusty bars, but the adventure was definitely worth it. We explored the castle until it closed, and then we headed back down into the town to grab dinner at an Italian ice cafe. Due to an incredibly slow service, we had to rush to catch the train back to Koblenz, but we caught it just in time. All in all, it was a very fun relaxing day!  

Lisbon/ Madrid

After waking up at 4 am in the morning to fly from Ponta Delgada to Lisbon, I slept the entire plane ride.  When we arrived in Lisbon, we hopped on the busy subway and went into the city center, where we dropped off our bags in a luggage storage area. Unfortunately, the place closed at 6 pm, which was really unfortunate because we didn´t even get there until 12- however, we tried to make the most of the 6 hours that we had. We walked around the pretty city center along the bay and then ended up stopping for lunch in a local hole in the wall restaurant, where I ate traditional Portuguese cod.  After lunch, we joined a free walking tour of the Alfama District, which is the quaint artistic section of Lisbon, made up of a maze of small hilly cobble stone streets.  Yuri, our Portuguese/ Dutch tour guide, organized the best tour that I have been on thus far in Europe. In addition to telling us the history of the city, he really tried to immerse us in the culture of the city.  He introduced us to several locals along the tour, and we tried both green wine and homemade cherry liquor shots from local shops along the tour. At the end of the tour, he took us to the top of the hill on which Alfama is built to look over the rest of the city and the bay down below.  I wish we could have spent more than one day in Lisbon, because the city (as everywhere else we had been in Portugal) is absolutely beautiful, and the people there are some of the friendliest people I have ever met. After rushing to pick up our bags after the tour, we walked over to the bays edge to watch the sunset over the bridge, and then ate sandwiches in one of the city parks.  The day flew by quicker than I would have liked and it was time to head to bus station to catch our overnight Flixbus to Madrid. Despite getting there with plenty of time, we almost missed our bus, as we went to the wrong station.  However, we eventually made it on, and tried our hardest to get comfortable for the next 8 hours.  I slept fairly well other than waking up a few times with my leg asleep, but apparently everyone else in our group barely slept.  Thus, when we arrived in Madrid, we all napped until the afternoon.  

Being in Madrid was quite strange, as I was finally in a European country other than Germany where I could sort of understand what was being said. Despite taking Spanish in school for 3 years, I realized how much Spanish I had forgotten after learning German for 3 months.  However, I quickly started picking back up words as I read different signs and ordered food in restaurants.  Hopefully I will get to practice my Spanish even more by speaking with my guest sister from Mexico, Mindel. In the afternoon, after napping and grabbing lunch, we all headed into the city to join a free walking tour of the "new" part of the city, which covered the history of Madrid after 1700 and delved into Spanish culture.  Our tour guide, Louisa, took us past the Spanish government buildings and other pretty buildings and squares in the heart of the bustling capital city, and told us about all the places to go and foods to try while we were there. After the tour, we squeezed our way through the middle of a massive protest in the middle of the city to get to the subway. I haven´t seen that many people in one location since I was in times square along time ago, and I was glad to get out of there before it got dangerous. That night, we ate at an all you can eat Spanish buffet and then headed out to a bar to relax and partake in the nightlife that Madrid is so well known for. 

The next morning, I got up earlier than everyone else and took the metro into the city to visit the famous Sunday flee market.  After wandering around for a couple of hours and buying "Espana" underwear, I left to grab a tradition Spanish breakfast of chocolate con churros y Cafe con Leche.  I then met up with Madeline and Lauren, who were also in Madrid at the same time, and we walked around the downtown for a bit before they had to leave to catch their flight back to Germany. After grabbing lunch, I met up with the rest of the group and we went over to the Royal Palace.  I was the only one who actually went inside and did a tour, while the others waited outside. The palace was pretty, but it was very similar to the Palace of Versailles which I had just visited the week before. Nonetheless, it was interesting to learn about how the Royal family still uses this grand building for many large political events. Afterwards, all us of continued to explore the old part of Madrid, which was full of old buildings and churches. We attempted to go up inside the stock exchange to gain a vista of the city, but we did not realize that it was closed on Sundays.  While there was still a lot that we had not done in Madrid, our group (including I) was really tired after traveling for 2 weeks straight, so we ended up coming back fairly early to the Airbnb to pack up and get to bed early in preparation for our early flight back to Bonn. I would definitely enjoy going back to Spain and exploring more of Madrid, along with other cities when I have more time. Finally after 2 weeks, my spring break had come to an end. Although I had the trip of a lifetime, I was definitely surprisingly ready to return to Germany, which has definitely begun to feel like home.