I can't believe we're already in the home stretch! It has been a whirlwind of a trip, but I will be ready to go home on Saturday. I realized yesterday just how homesick I really am when I talked to Dan and his family over Skype. Seeing all their faces and hearing him say how much he wishes I was back just made me realize that I would like to go home. I'm having an amazing time here, and I will right up until Saturday at 7AM when my plane leaves, but I won't be sorry to go home.
I left off in Munich, having a wonderful weekend to myself. On Sunday I did indeed get to the Deutches Museum of Science and Technology. I started the morning off by looking out the window to rain, which actually hasn't been as prevalent as I thought it might be since we've been in Europe. That being said, it was raining fairly heavily in the AM. I packed my day bag accordingly, then had the hotel hold my other luggage. I asked them about breakfast, though, and they just looked at me rather strangely and said that there basically wasn't anything open. It was 8AM, and even though it was Sunday I would have thought there would be some sort of breakfast place somewhere nearby. Apparently people in Munich do not eat before 10 or 11 on Sundays... I ended up at Burger King since it was literally the ONLY thing open nearby and I was starving. Sad day because they didn't even have a breakfast menu out, so I got a burger and fries. Breakfast of champions right there folks. After that I walked around the city center attempting to snap at least a couple pictures, since I had managed to get the battery charged overnight. Lesson #5321, pay attention to your camera warnings! As I wandered around, I came across a young boy. At first I thought he was just playing with the tree in the middle of the city center walkway... but I glanced again. ANNND he was actually peeing on the tree. In broad daylight, in the middle of one of the most historical public squares in the city. Granted it was early, but seriously! What topped it all off though, was that his dad was standing there with him helping. Very strange... After I took a few pictures I went in search of the correct subway train to take me to the museum. I searched... and searched... and I'm pretty sure I found every single subway line except the one I needed. Finally I realized I was wasting so much time that I wouldn't even have a chance to look at the museum. So I hailed a cab and sucked up the ridiculous fare. It was totally worth it though! I am pretty sure that everyone should go to the Deutches museum at least once. I could easily have spent days in there looking at everything. SIX FLOORS of exhibits on every topic imaginable, from astronomy to physics to ceramics to glassblowing to machinery. Sooo cool :) Unfortunately I was only able to visit two of the six floors, and even that was rushing things. I did get to see a guy blowing glass, and I was sorely tempted by a beautiful candle holder that he made, but it was so delicate I was positive it wouldn't make it back to the US in one piece. There was also an electricity show sort of like at the Boston museum of Science, which was suitably loud and impressive. I couldn't believe that such a diverse collection of things were all in one place, under one roof. Hands down the most interesting museum I've ever been to in my life.
After the museum I had to hurry back to the hotel to pick up my bags and catch my train to Basel. I actually managed the underground transportation on the way back, since the stop I needed was right outside the museum and it took me all the way to my hotel. The train ride was pretty standard from what I've been experiencing all along... which is to say much more complicated than expected. I managed to get a seat for the first leg of the journey, and had my suitcase in the seat next to me because I couldn't lift it into the overhead compartment (since it weighs over 50lbs). The train fills up, and a lady comes to sit in the seat where my luggage is. I wouldn't have minded her asking for the seat, except she was very rude and acted like I was the worst person in the world for not putting my luggage up top. I tried to explain that I physically couldn't lift it, so she pulls some poor random guy from halfway down the car to lift up my suitcase. He couldn't lift it either (which made me feel better about my failure to move it) so finally we found a little place at the back of the car. All the while she is glaring at me like I've mortally offended her. After all that fuss, she sits down in the newly vacated seat for a total of 1 stop. I wanted to throttle her. And I couldn't even ignore her with my iPod because it chose that exact moment to run out of batteries. AGAIN... CHARGE your electronic devices when you have a chance! The second leg of the train I didn't even have a seat because it was packed, so I stood for that hour and a half or so. At least the baby I was standing next to was laughing instead of screaming.
I did finally make it to Basel, and went to a cute little Italian restaurant with a couple other people. I must admit, I was pretty shocked about how expensive everything in Switzerland seems to be. My food cost me an arm and a leg! Kat and I went up to the bar on the 31st floor of the hotel to have a drink after dinner, which didn't help the hemorrhage of money either. The amaretto was worth it though, I needed to relax after that train ride! Besides, the view was spectacular from way up there! I crashed hard in my private hotel room, courtesy of Novartis!
Monday we spent the day with people from the Novartis Animal Health Division. In the morning we were in Basel looking at their labs there and getting an introduction to the company. I thought it was really interesting to see what an immensely complicated and frustrating process it is to bring even one drug to the market. I was also sort of surprised about how compartmentalized it was. The people we talked to basically said that they only deal with a very specific phase in development, and they may not even know whether or not it is successful later down the line because it isn't part of their particular job. I thought that was very strange, because I would want to know the outcome of all my hard work! My favorite part was looking at the shelf life testing rooms, and seeing how they keep drugs in there for YEARS to determine how long they last, etc. Very cool. In the afternoon we drove out to St. Aubin to look at the research facility there. It was kind of depressing seeing the testing animals. The poor cows were chained in such a small area that they could barely move, let alone turn around in their little stall. They looked pretty miserable, which made me want to cry. The dogs looked slightly better, but I still think it's a crappy life to be stuck in a kennel forever. The ride home was long and quiet, since mostly everyone was passed out from exhaustion. In the evening when we got back I did absolutely nothing except watch TV and talk to Dan. I couldn't sleep though, and ended up reading a book past midnight trying to become tired.
Today started out rather poorly. I woke up very early from nightmares, so I managed very little sleep last night in total. I also realized that I had lost the credit card Dan gave me... probably one of the worst feelings you can have on a trip. I searched every single pocket, crevice and bag I had to no avail. I finally had to give up and call Dan to tell him to cancel the card. SUCH a pain, and I felt sooo guilty about it. Lesson #3154: Keep track of your things at ALL TIMES! Otherwise you will regret it, because it will bite you in the butt. We did get a city tour of Basel from a very cute older lady. She knew her stuff though. We learned a LOT about Basel's history, but my favorite part was definitely the fountain outside the opera house. It was just so cool looking and fun, and I thought it was really neat that they had used pieces of the old opera house to build the fountain outside the new one. After that we spent some time shopping and looking around the market square of Basel. It was the first day we had free time in the middle of the day, and we basically didn't even know what to do with ourselves! We've been so focused on program activities and being busy busy busy all day that to have time without anything scheduled was disconcerting! We did well though, and found some shops to browse in and the best swiss chocolate ice cream I've ever eaten in my life, complete with little chocolate shavings IN the ice cream itself. After all that it was time to fly to Berlin, which was accomplished without incident. I also got to do some duty free chocolate shopping, which I'll enjoy later :) For now though, it's time to go to sleep. We have to leave the hotel at 6:30 tomorrow morning! Boo.
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