Apparently on Sundays, people in Germany just shut down everything. Everything that is except for the food places....Yay for food!! Now I get excited over any food cause I don't know when the next time will be before I get to eat! On the first day of the actual program, Stephanie and I got to get a tour of Bethoven's birth house. It was amazing to see some of his actual possessions and to learn that he was nearly deaf by his late 20s. When the majority of the rest of the group arrived, we quickly learned the word "Schnell," Olafs favorite word meaning hurry. It didn't take us long to learn that when Olaf tells us to shnell, we schnell!!! We then took a guided boat tour of the Rhine river and traveled up to the Drachenfels which was the castle ruins on top of one of the seven mountains.
Let me just say, I discovered muscles that I never knew I had that day after the "small" hike up the mountain. It was so rewarding though even in the rain and cold to see the sight we got to see at the top!! After the Drachenfels we went to dinner and I had my first German Schnitzel and it was love at first bite!! Since then I have had two more schnitzels prepared in different ways and might I say that I have yet to find a schnitzel that is bad.... The next day was a busy one. We got up early to hop on a train to go to Cologne, a nearby city, to get a historical city tour where we learned about the Cologne Cathedral, a magnificent masterpiece, and the history of how the city came to be. Once again seeing these monuments and realizing they are older than America was an amazing experience and really hard to take in.
We took a guided tour inside this majestic cathedral and I learned that even in WWII when bombs flattened everything around the cathedral, it remained standing with not one piece of stained glass that depicts the old and new testament from the 13th century was harmed. Towards the end of the day, we got a tour of the roof of this cathedral which stands over 60 meters tall. I don't think I have climbed that many stairs in my life and my hips agreed with me the next day! We also went to the cologne Zoo which was pretty much fantastic because I got to get up close and personal with an actual elephant. We got to go behind the scenes and actually touch the elephants when they came to greet us. That was an experience that I will never
forget! The zoo was amazing, all of the animals were so social and happy very unlike the ones in the state that usually hide where you can't see them. The landscape was gorgeous and peaceful too. I got to see a red panda, which was one of the cutest furry things I have every seen, and many others.
The night ended with dinner where I had yet another schnitzel. I could stay in Germany just for the food, but there is so much more. The next day we went to an organic city farm, which was very different from the ones back home. I saw a cold blood horse which was absolutely beautiful and also an attack horse that almost got Cosmo, Olaf's dog, which was rescued by the one and only SUPER OLAF!! He had this look like a mom has when her child is in danger but Cosmo lived and it became a great story. We did a lot of schnelling, a new word that I made up and is now commonly accepted amongst the group and even Olaf said he liked it, and then we had a lecture on Homeopathy which was very interesting.
After the lecture we got a historical city tour of Bonn by the AIB director and finally found out that the big yellow building was actually a university but not before a Prince Elector lived there. Later on Neilz took us to some pubs that are popular with the German students and we began to demonstrate how lame vet students
are when they are exhausted. Once we got on the tram to get home we quickly realized that after the first stop, it began going in the direction away from where we wanted to go. So what should have taken us 20 minutes or less to get home took us a little over an hour. I will say this, we did find our way back which was a huge accomplishment since the group relied on the most directionally challenged person to find the way back and guess what??? I actually did a pretty good job, at least I can say we did find our way!
The next day we traveled of to Utrecht University. Their equine facilities
were super impressive!! It was interesting to see that their school symbol arised from a myth that there was a slave man who had escaped and found refuge in a lions den. After he got comfortable there he realized that he wasn't alone. The lion that lived there was injured with a thorn in his paw so this man decided to help him. Since this man helped the lion, he decided to let him stay. Later on
the slave was caught and thrown into a lions ring or something they used to watch slaves get torn apart for their wrongdoings. It just so happened that the lion that was in there was the lion that he helped so he let him live yet again. This act is believed to be the first act of veterinary medicine by the Utrecht faculty. It was a very good visit, their anatomy lab was outstanding. We had a great party with some of the veterinary students there and I crashed a bicycle twice...I hadn't ridden since I was like 9.... I also learned how to sit properly on the back of a bicycle to avoid the painful postition I was sitting on it before.... It was a very successful trip to the Netherlands and who knows, I may try to get an internship there!!!! Until the next adventure...
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