British Madeline

Week 15—Finals, Remagen, Farewell Party

Welp. The last full week of my time here in Germany. I am so excited to see my family. But I am so not ready to be back in America. Of course there are some things I miss—my friends, my car, my bed. But I’m not ready for all the distractions. I believe life over here is much simpler, and a simpler life is a better one. 

But here I am.. an American student only studying abroad in Germany. Meaning the ending will come, and with it finals. Fortunately I’m in like -2 hours this semester, so my final schedule is hardly a schedule at all. Romi prepared us well for the 253 exam. It was a bit harder than I thought, but not awful. I couldn’t remember what FDA stood for, and that was probably one of the most embarrassing parts of this trip. The whole class is about the FDA, and I literally could not remember what the acronym stood for. Oh well. Physiology was a bit more difficult—I definitely could’ve studied more, but the past few days have been so pretty that I was rarely inside. All of Germany seemed to come alive during the summer—Biergartens were opening, everyone was outside. The last thing I wanted to do was sit inside and study my life away (even though I definitely should’ve). All in all, finals “week” came and went. Friday we had an excursion to Remagen, another little town on the Rhine river. We were supposed to bike along the Rhine, but they couldn’t rent enough bikes for our group, so we walked. We reached the peace museum at the bridge of Remagen and took a tour, then had lunch. We then all headed home, only to meet up an hour or so later at the old AIB for the farewell party. 

Saturday consisted of a much needed spa day. We went to the Thermal Baths in Cologne, which was a lot of fun. Dr. Wasser had recently given a lecture over Finnish saunas, so we actually kind of knew what we were doing when we went. Definitely recommend going, although I would definitely talk to Dr. Wasser before doing so. 

Sunday was spent hanging around Bonn and enjoying our last few days here. 

Monday we had another excursion—the final one. It was the Rhein cruise, where we also had our History of Medicine final as a group. Lets just say Hufflepuff aced it. We hiked and toured a castle before busing back to Bonn. 

Tuesday we met at the old AIB and did course evaluations and exit interviews. At this point, it was just beginning to hit me—we were leaving the next day, and I was so not ready.