Only one week left??

(5/31/09)

Where does the time go? Last week in Hannover was awesome. It’s great that we got to go to so many places and see lots of things but I wish we’d had more time to explore the city. Staying with TiHo students was fun, my hosts Anna and Reike were amazing and get eternal props for getting up at 4am to see me off on my train Saturday morning!

The visit to the fish inspection lab in Cuxhaven was especially interesting because it was an opportunity to compare facilities and protocols to the U.S. military food safety facility I got to visit at the end of fall semester. I think microbiologists are the same everywhere – very excited about their little microorganisms and lab tests – for which we are thankful because they work hard to make sure what we eat is safe. Friday morning in the small animal clinic at TiHo was definitely one of my favorite parts of this trip. We got to spend time in the surgery room and watch three different procedures up close: one skin-pad graft thing (apologies for the utter lack of technical vocabulary but I don’t quite remember what the procedure was), a submandibular salivary gland and mucus-cyst removal, and a neuter/bladder stone/liver biopsy. One professor even took the time to explain to us in English exactly what he was doing so it made it easier to follow the procedure and technique. I was really happy because these were all procedures I hadn’t seen before.

Friday night was the opera, Carmen, which was amazing and another new experience. Having grown up with a lot of exposure to musical theatre I’d always been interested in opera but never had the chance before to go see one. The best part was recognizing so many songs from television or movies in their original form in the opera, but it’s two days later and I still have parts of it running through my head!