Wow! I can't believe it's the end of the first week of the program! We have already seen and done so much! I don't even know where to begin. I'll try to keep it as short as possible.
First of all, Germany is beautiful!!! The countryside and the cities alike are absolutely gorgeous! And the amount of history here is amazing. I really got a sense of how young America really is in comparison.
Melissa and I had a wonderful time in Heidelberg. We climbed lots of hills and stairs, but we made it. :) We had some trouble with trains and such when we were travelling to Bonn, but we did our best to navigate, and everyone was really helpful when we asked them where we were supposed to go next.
I was glad we got to Bonn early so that we could see some of the city. One thing that I didn't realize (and I suppose I expected) is that we don't have time to enjoy the cities we go to. By that I mean, we don't really have free time to go around the city and be "tourists". At first I was a little disappointed by this, but then, of course, I realized that we are here to learn. This is a class, not a vacation. So, with that perspective, I take in as much as I can while we are being giving guided tours and soaking up a lot of European history along the way. It's been fascinating so far.
The first city we travelled to as a group was Cologne. They have an indescribable cathedral right outside the train station. I wish I had my own computer so that I could post a picture, but even that would not do it justice. We learned about the history of the city, the cathedral, and even got to take a rooftop tour of the cathedral. That was amazing! We also visited the Cologne Zoo and got a behind the scenes look at the elephant exhibit. Since I am interested in large exotic animal medicine, this was definitely a highlight. I think I got a little crazy with the picture taking. :)
The next day in Bonn, we spent pretty much the entire day learning about homeopathy. I had heard this term prior to this trip, but never really understood what it meant. I'm not even sure I could explain it now. It was difficult to wrap my mind around, but there is evidence that this approach to treatment of animals, and even in growing plants, is effective. Needless to say I learned a lot (even though I don't completely understand it).
So, moving on to Thursday when we travelled to Utrecht in the Netherlands to visit the vet school there. To my surprise, it was considerably more modern than the cities in Germany. Their campus seemed pretty small, but in comparison to A&M, most college campuses are. I was thoroughly impressed by their Equine hospital. It was huge! They had state of the art equipment, and innovative methods for teaching their students. For example, they had preserve horse limbs mounted to a table in different positions to allow their students to practice trimming feet and doing joint injections. In other parts of the campus we were introduced to their approach to veterinary public health, a research project they are doing on emotions and cognition in animals, and a history of veterinary medicine in The Netherlands. The Veterinary Student Association threw us a "barbecue" and we all stayed overnight with some of the students in their apartments. My host, Mathieu, was great! We found out we like the same music, so we had a bit to talk about. I wish we could have seen more of the city, but maybe some other time. I really do hope that they will be able to come over to the states and visit A&M. Now, I and 6 others are in Amsterdam for the weekend. I've heard only great things about this city, so I'm excited to see it the next couple of days.
That was just a brief summary of this past week. It's been a blast and I am really looking forward to the rest of the program. Hopefully I will have time to post before the end of next week. :)
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