What Day Is It, Again? Oh Yeah- My Birthday. (Week 5)

I actually had this thought when I woke up Friday morning. Honestly, this entire week the days were blurring together. I was so exhausted from all the travel. Of course, I really enjoyed getting to be in four different countries over the last week and a half, but it really took a lot out of me. This week I just wanted to get back into some kind of routine.

As far as classes go, I was really focused on genetics, since we had our exam on Wednesday. Everyone back in Texas took it last Wednesday when we were in Vienna. But even though we had a full extra week before we had to take the exam, I really wasn't able to get much extra studying done because of all the traveling. I feel pretty good about the exam though. There were only a few questions I felt two answers could have worked, so I think I'll pull out a B. Something interesting from this week though, is that there was a pharmacology workshop for everyone on Monday and Tuesday. There are only a few people taking pharmacology, so it was a chance for the rest of us to learn more about how drugs are manufactured and we even got into a bit of toxicology. The toxicology was probably the most interesting part for me. I always thought it was interesting that dosage determines toxicity. The workshop was also interesting because of the fact that our enmodes project working with ECMO units can affect drug delivery in ECMO patients. The use of ECMO units actually results in drug sequestration very early on, which only gets worse over time and can make it difficult to determine the proper dosage for patients. It's a difficult problem to address but would be worth considering for the project, I think, since reducing drug sequestration would reduce the amount of monitoring a patient would need.

I got to watch another Harry Potter with Astrid on Thursday night. It was the third movie, The Prisoner of Azkaban. Honestly, I think Lupin as the name of the new teacher was too on-the-nose, but I liked his character. It was a bit surprising and disturbing that Ron's rat turned out to be Pettigrew. And I don't understand how Harry and Hermione could go back in time and not think about catching him since there was enough time between when Pettigrew got away and Lupin fought Sirius, but what do I know?

Friday was my birthday and it was a pretty relaxed day. In the morning, everyone sang "Happy Birthday" and I got a cake, which is always a plus. We only had a few classes, so I got to go home early and even went running. I even got an extra award on my Nike app because I ran on my birthday. Later in the evening, I went to Drachenfels castle with Sean to see the light show. It actually turned out to be an entire exhibit by one artist, with pieces all over the castle grounds and in the castle itself. Some of the displays were pretty weird, but it was a fun night overall. When I got home, it was even better because I could have some of the zucchini cake that Astrid and Naja made for me. It was so good and much sweeter than I expected.

Saturday, I went to Cologne with Sean. We originally planned to go around eight, but I woke up feeling really sick, so we pushed it back until ten. The first thing we did was go to the Ludwig Art Museum. They have one of the largest Picasso collections in Europe, which was pretty cool. I don't think that I'll ever really understand the finer points and meanings behind some art pieces. There was one display that was basically a big bundle of interwoven clothing tags with the artist's name on them. Apparently, the piece was supposed to question the value of goods and people. I didn't even realize that the little clothes were supposed to be clothes tags, so.... Anyway, after that, we went for lunch at Früh. I got their goulash and it was super tasty, as expected. The bread was really good too, especially with the goulash. Next, we stopped by the Fragrance Museum because we thought they actually sold the original Eau de Cologne that we were looking for. But they actually only sold the brand's more modern perfumes and colognes. They did have a tour about the history of the brand and cologne, but it was an hour long, so we decided to just head to our next and most important destination: the Chocolate Museum.

It was a bit of walk to get there, but we went along the Rhine and got to enjoy some scenery, so it wasn't bad at all. The Chocolate Museum was definitely my favorite place, for a number of reasons. First, they had a great layout for the museum that guided you through the process of making chocolate from the growing of the tree to the actual production of chocolate pieces. Second, part of the first area of the museum had a greenhouse area that was super warm and humid with beautiful tropical plants, including the cocoa tree. For a minute, it was like I was back home. Third, we got to see a lot of machinery that is actually used in the production of chocolate, like the roaster and mixer. Some of the machines were even being used so we could see melted chocolate be put into molds, shaken, cooled, and packaged. Fourth, not only could we watch little chocolate pieces be made, but we also got to take a piece directly off the production line! It was just like the Krispy Kreme by my grandparents' house that gives you a free donut off the line if you go in at certain times of the day. And the fifth reason the Chocolate Museum was my favorite place of the day is all of the free (re: included with the price of admission) chocolate! While we waited in line to get our free piece of chocolate off the line, we were given wafer cookies dipped in the chocolate of the museum's famous chocolate fountain and, my favorite, a truffle! We even got more pieces of chocolate when we left!

There was another cool area after the production line where they had a lot of old molds on display and you could watch a worker prepare molds by hand with different types of chocolate. Some of the old molds were much bigger than I expected and a lot of them were super intricate. There was a place where you could order a personalized chocolate bar and watch the chocolatier make it for you, which was pretty cool. I would have done it but the sign said that the service would take 45 minutes, and Sean and I thought we were pretty much done with the tour, so we decided to forgo the personalized chocolate bar. In retrospect, we probably could have ordered one without any issues but it's not a big deal to me since I don't have specialized tastes when it comes to chocolate. I don't need pistachio, strawberry, and marshmallow, which I saw someone else order; I'm happy with pretty basic flavors. Anyway, we probably could have gotten a personalized bar because there was another section of the museum that we didn't realize was as big as it was. This last part was basically all about the culture of chocolate from Meso- and South America to 17th century Europe up to today. I didn't realize that chocolate was available only as a drink for so long, or that ancient and Enlightenment-era people had dishes specifically devoted to chocolate. In fact, the museum mentioned a Prussian lord who had a chocolate service that had over 1,000 pieces!

After some time in the Chocolate Museum's gift shop, Sean and I went to the Lock Bridge. It's the main bridge in Cologne and it's like the lock bridge in Paris, where people place padlocks on the links of the fence along the bridge and throw the key in the water as a symbol of their- hopefully- lifelong long. The side that we were on had tons of locks- it was kind of crazy. The other side of the bridge had a lot, but not as much for some reason. Our last stop for the day was the 4711 Fragrance House, where we were finally able to buy little bottles of the Eau de Cologne. It smelled better than I expected, and there were even a few new scents that I really enjoyed. It's still hard to believe that people used to drink the stuff. Once we got the cologne, we decided to call it a day and headed back to Bonn. Once I was back home, I was just in time to have dinner with the others, which I was afraid I'd missed. Sunday I just slept in and then studied, so nothing too exciting. Overall, the week was fairly relaxed and just what I needed after the constant traveling we'd all been doing. I'm glad that I was able to take it easy and that I was able to see the castle lights before the display is taken down next week.