I arrived in Basel only 10 days ago, and we have done so much since then. We traveled from Basel to Leipzig and to Prague for our free weekend to Berlin in less than a week. I have been trying to take notes to remember everything we have seen, but even a mind tailored for vet school practices selective recall. Basel is a beautiful city, and I enjoyed our city tour. All the fun quirks and stories about the city's history enriched the sights around us. I particularly enjoyed the New Year's tradition of letting wine flow through one of the main fountains. The tour of Novartis was interesting as well. We learned about research and development in pharmacology this past fall semester, and it was nice to see how that is applied in the pharmaceutical industry. Our last in Basel we dipped our toes in the Rhine and enjoyed the beautiful sights around us. The tours of the pharmaceutical and cultures museum jam packed the next morning, but the busy morning was with it to learn that adorned enteroliths can be used to detect poison and walk through the make-up exhibit.
We arrived in Leipzig later that night and met our hosts at the train station. I was able to grab a quick bite to eat before we went to Bergfest. Nicole, my host, is in her sixth semester, and therefore it was her Bergfest. That night at midnight they revealed their animal to be the kirshe - or stag - and performed their class dance and songs. It was so much fun, and the party continued on for the next few nights. On our first day, we took a tour of Leipzig in the morning and saw the beautiful church of St. Nicholas. That afternoon, we attended an anatomy lab (where I actually remembered some of the canine hind limb) and visited a research facility on campus and got to feed marmosets! They were so adorable, and it was definitely an exciting experience. The next day we toured the historical collections, which featured unique medical artifacts like a horse gas mask, a crank centrifuge, and a chicken anesthesia table. (It was so tiny!) Later Dr. Bernard took us around the Leipzig zoo, which impressed me with it's breeding program. Of all the baby animals we saw, the baby black rhino was definitely the cutest. She got stuck on a rock and made the sweetest sound trying to call out to her mom. Our last day in Leipzig we toured parts of the large animal clinic - surgery and internal med The equipment in the large animal hospital was amazing - they had every kind of imaging machinery and were definitely a high tech hospital compared to the historical outside of the building. It was fun to walk through internal med and talk through some do the cases they had in true clinic as well. We ended our day at the clinic games before jetting off to our free weekend. I loved that everyone was in on it - professors, clinicians, and students. It was quite entertaining, and the dogs running across the games made it even better. I really loved Leipzig and staying with Nicole, and I'm looking forward to staying with the host stay dents in Coppenhagen.
On our free weekend, we toured Prague castle and the city itself and walked through the zoo. The history of Prague is incredible. The city has gone through so much in the past century alone, and it is still standing strong (and apparently is featured in many Hollywood films - note to self: rewatch Vin Diesel's XXX). The zoo was spectacular! The exhibits were so lush and vibrant, and we got there in time to see the big cats fed and see a trio of baby leopards playing. They were the absolute cutest!
We are in Berlin to start another week of the program. I am looking forward to shadowing a private clinic this week. It should be exciting!
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