Week 17: Finals Week

On Monday, we took a study trip to Bingen and Andernach. We went to the Hildegard von Bingen Museum and Hildegarten, ate lunch at a very traditional German restaurant, and went to the Johann-Winter Museum. After a long day, the BIMS students studied for our physiology exam. Friends came over to hangout and study on our Reading Day for finals. After finals were finished, we watched some of the LMU short films and the bird play! I spent my last weekend in Bonn hanging out with everyone and reminiscing on our time abroad. For our history of medicine final, we took a boat cruise down the Rhine for a beautiful end to the semester. I can't believe how fast this semester went by! I am looking forward to traveling with Jules, Nate, and Richard before I head back to Texas. 

Der Bastei!

On Sunday, we hiked the second stage (Malerweg 2) of the Sächsische-Schweiz Nationalpark, also known as Der Bastei. WOW. One of the most amazing hikes I’ve ever been on. If you haven’t seen it, you should Google pictures of Der Bastei – the rock formations are amazing. Strangely, the topography was kind of like northwestern Arkansas, just stretched high up into the sky. The first leg of the hike, around half an hour, was very steep, but we caught a brief respite at a small café at the top of a hill. The setting was cute, but my favorite part was a small sign that read “Hand in Hand zum Gluweinstand!” Adorable!! By the time we reached Der Bastei itself, the low-hung clouds had started to lightly snow – it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. We harassed a German couple into taking a polaroid picture of us and headed back down the forest floor. The trees were the greenest things I’d seen in months, and it stayed snowing – amazing. We walked through an adorable village, rolled down a field of frozen kale, and made it to the end of the Malerweg half an hour after sunset. Only, it wasn’t…the end? We’d stopped at a lookout point with views of a sweeping valley, but we couldn’t figure out how to down. It turns out that the only way to get off the mountain was to walk through it, meaning a winding jaunt down metal stairs in the pitch black, in a secluded forest with no one around. The mood was lightened, however, by Jules and Katie absolutely launching a banana peel down into the darkness and screaming. We made it to the real end of the hike, only to discover that Katie’s phone was missing (for the second time that day, I might add.) We scrambled to find it before the bus came, and did, but not before I realized that we were at the wrong bus stop. The right one was three minutes away…the bus was coming in two…and that was the last bus for more than an hour. So we sprinted – I mean really tear-assed it – to the next stop, just in time to see bus lights shining through the trees. The relief I felt and the snow falling around us made it feel really cinematic.

We made it back to Dresden, safe and sound, but not before making a new friend – a Brazilian man named Raphael! He heard us speaking English on the bus and told us that he was lost and totally devoid of any German-language skills – we invited him to come eat with us. However, that later proved to be my demise, as I'm pretty sure he gave me covid. My book for the week was Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, which I read in high school and loved. I had the same feeling this time around – it was great! I think the exploration of what makes a war story a good/true war story is fascinating, and I still am thinking about the chapter where Norman Bowker can’t escape his drive around a lake in Iowa. 9/10 book:

“I was a coward. I went to the war.”

-Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried

 

Beautiful Dresden

By far the best city I visited in Germany this trip was Dresden. I loved everything about the trip: the city’s Altstadt, the hiking, and the company! The start of the trip, however, was tough. I got up at 4:30 in the morning, missed my breakfast, and took a half-hour bus ride to Bonn Hauptbahnhof. I met Katie and Jules there for our seven-hour train ride to Dresden. After a very sleepy ride, we arrived at around 12:30 and headed to an Italian restaurant in the Altstadt, where I got to try limoncello for the first time. I love stupid, fruity drinks!

We spent the next few hours exploring the heart of Dresden. I was amazed at the architecture: the Katholischekirche, the Zwingerschloss, the Augustusbrucke, and (of course) the Frauenkirche were all beautiful. Next on our sightseeing tour was the iconic, the delectable, Pfund’s Molkerei, a dairy shop that opened in 1882. The shop was decorated floor-to-ceiling with Meissen porcelain, which was a slight to behold. Each of us picked out a cheese to get – mine was something pink and rose-infused – and headed back to the Altstadt to visit the Porzellensammlung, a museum showcasing a former Saxon king’s finest porcelain. It was one of the coolest museums I’ve ever seen! Absolutely exquisite: now I know what I’ll spend my money on when I’m rich and famous. We ended the day with another walk through the Altstadt before taking a tram to our Airbnb. We picked up wine on the way back, prepared a small charcuterie board, and watched the last episode of Love is Blind. The finale was a trainwreck – and so much fun!

Saturday started with a lovely brunch and a photoshoot in front of the Semperoper and Katholische Hofkirche. Then we bought tickets to the Altemeistergalerie, located in the beautiful Zwingerschloss. I love art, but good God am I tired of seeing the same handful of religious scenes in every painting before 1750. However, the museum had a sizable sculpture collection! My favorite was a sculpture depicting two putti – the little babies in Renaissance art – in some sort of conflict, with one savagely whipping the other. It sounds messed up when I put it into writing, but the sculpture was very comically done and a very welcome relief from an onslaught of Adoration of the Magi paintings. We left and headed to the adjacent Mathematical and Astronomical Instruments Salon, where we got a personal tour from a very kindly German guard. He was so excited to practice his English with us! We lunched in a small park near the Augustus Bridge and learned a fun fact from the graffiti on the bench: “Kapitalismus ist cringe.” Then we went to the city history museum. It was okay? I thought there would be a greater emphasis on the events surrounding the Dresden Firebombing, but the museum barely touched on it at all. We used the remaining daylight to visit three palaces (the Albrechtsberg, Lingner, and Eckberg), all about a ten-minute walk from each other. We had a blast! Katie, Jules, and I happened upon a frozen lake, which we promptly threw rocks at to shatter – very palatial, I know. After exploring, we went back to our Airbnb and unwound with the first episode of Dance Moms, a classic. A great day!

As for my book for the week, I read Augustus, by John Williams. The book is structured as an epistolary novel and belongs to the genre of historical fiction. It’s a retelling of the life of Augustus, the first emperor of Rome. The book was so well-crafted (in typical Williams fashion) and was an amazing look at the effects of power on a man and the divergence between people’s perceptions of the same event – 9.5/10. Here’s a quote from a book I really liked:

“Rome is not eternal; it does not matter. Rome will fall; it does not matter. The barbarian will conquer; it does not matter. There was a moment of Rome, and it will not wholly die; the barbarian will become the Rome he conquers; the language will smooth his rough tongue; the vision of what he destroys will flow in his blood. And in time that is ceaseless as this salt sea upon which I am so frailly suspended, the cost is nothing, less than nothing.”

-John Williams, Augustus 

Drachenfels and Vonnegut

 One of my favorite moments of the whole program was when I hiked Drachenfels with Katherine and Julia in mid-February! After spending a freezing six days in Berlin and Rostock, I was desperate to get some sun and jumped at the invitation to hike with them. We set out from the town of Königswinter and made it to the forest after almost getting clipped by a few passing cars. Then began the long ascent up, and though it might have taken a few hours to reach the top, the hike didn’t feel like a trudge at all. I’m used to speeding through hikes – I like to reach the top, fast – but Katie and Jules hike more slowly than me, which I found that I actually liked! We spent the time talking about anything and everything while we explored some caves, jumped streams, and frolicked in a Sound-of-Music field. I had a great time!!

When we got to the small café at the overlook, I was awestruck by the view: North-Rhine Westphalia had never looked so pretty. Texas-style clouds, clear blue skies, Germans in repose, and beautiful landscape in every direction – it was amazing! I got a coffee to reward myself for exercising before we reached the very top, the Drachenfels ruins. The ruins were pretty, and the view was gorgeous, again. After the hike down, we made our way to Brauhaus Bönnsch for beer and Spatzle. A great day! I only wish that I’d found the time to head back before the program ended – I wanted to see the Siebengebirge in full bloom!

My books for the second week of February were Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five. Cat’s Cradle was…interesting? I’m not sure how to put it but I got the feeling that the actual plot of the book was kind of unimportant – that the plot could have been something totally different and I would have gotten the point equally well. And that idea made for a strange experience because I couldn’t quite tell if the whole thing was a big joke on me. Maybe that’s the point? I don’t think I’ll ever get Vonnegut. That being said, I actually liked my second book of the week, Slaughterhouse-Five! I wanted to read it ever since I learned that part of the story of Billy Pilgrim – surviving the Dresden firebombing in a meat locker – was based on Vonnegut’s life. That section didn’t disappoint! It was truly moving to read. I even enjoyed the discontinuous narrative and the alien abduction sections. I just wish that someone else had written it – Vonnegut’s writing is so dry that everything feels like a farce. For the first book, 4/10; for the second, 8/10. Since both were short, I’ve included two quotes for this week of the program:

“God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close to mud as man sat up, looked around, and spoke. Man blinked. ‘What is the purpose of all this?’ he asked politely. ‘Everything must have a purpose?’ asked God. ‘Certainly,’ said man. ‘Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this,’ said God. And He went away.”

-Cat’s Cradle

 “Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.”

-Slaughterhouse-Five

The final days

 After the majority of the final exams were over we still had to finish out DHF's and I had to prepare for my Genetics final that I was having the same day as our final excursion. On Saturday night we went out for a final hurrah to ensure we ended on a high note in Bonn. I spent most of the weekend, studying, packing, and cleaning the apartment to prepare for our plane ride home, and yet I feel like I did not do enough in advance. Always clean and pack a week before a deadline if possible, because I was running off of no sleep most of the weekend. On Monday we had our final excursion where were going to take a boat up the river and then see a castle later on. We originally got on the wrong boat so then we had to sprint to the correct one just as it was about to take off. I am always sprinting to something in Germany. On the boat we had our history of medicine final exam where we all ended up passing the class by the skin of our teeth. The boat ride was beautiful and we saw several more castles along the way. The hike up to the castle was another battle of wills and once we got there we had to wait a long time before the tours started. The inside of the castle was historically accurate and very well displayed. But, since we had to wait so long to get the tour, we ended up SPRINTING AGAIN DOWNHILL to make our train. I nearly rolled my ankle twice but successfully made it. I sure felt it for the next two days though. On the last Sunday and Monday, our host family cooked for Camryn and I and even gave us some Bonn souvenirs to take home since we forgot to buy some for ourselves. It was a chaotic last day before the plane ride, but everything went well and now here we are, back in Texas again. 

A normal weekend in Bonn

 The second to last weekend was a pretty slow one. I debated taking a short day trip to Rothenburg ob der Tauber but the ride there and back would have added too many hours in the day and I really needed to study. In the last week I hade 4 exams to prepare for, and my Genetics exam was holding a lot of pressure. By this point in time all I could think about was how much I missed home. I didn't think that would be the case while over in Germany but all the stress from school and my future plans were making me crave simplicity and a well known support system. When thinking of home though, I didn't think of my childhood home in Ft. Worth but the hill country of Texas. I missed the rivers and birds and my grandparents and green hills and wild flowers. Germany had most of those, but not in the way that my family did, this slow life that was separate of a city. I really did not think I was as drawn to Texas as I thought. Which then sent me into another crisis of falling back in love with the state I come from and then having to move across the country to go to grad school. The ending of the program was bringing up a lot of extensional dread about my upcoming future and as the days progressed it got closer and closer. To combat this I went shopping one final time in Bonn and a distraction. One last look at the streets on a busy Saturday. 

Easter Weekend

 Finals week was coming up so the last weekend for fun was Easter. Therefore I made sure to spend that time in as many museums, cafés, and parks as possible. I also made sure to gather the rest of my souvenir gifts for family and friends. I had major exams coming up in the week and the encodes project as soon as we got back so it was hard to keep that from my mind the whole weekend. Between moments of fun and relaxation I tried to study as much as possible. When it came to the two days for the project, it was hell. I haven't done a project like that in my entire college career and I was in my final month of college. It was all about the details and the research and making sure you were informed enough to not sound like and idiot during the presentation. The day came around for our presentations and of course it was the one day the entire trip when I accidentally slept in and was almost late to the buses. The adrenaline allowed me to clear my head before the presentation and not think of anything else that would stress me out. In the end the presentations went well and the encodes people asked questions that kept all of us on our toes and really showed what we had learned over the past few months.