Miniatur Wunderland

We arrived in Berlin Monday morning and took a city tour that afternoon. Our tour guide was funny and informative, and the amount of history in the city was unbelievable. I learned many things about the background of Berlin, the events of World War II, and that German pride is strong around the World Cup. The next day we visited the IZW Leibniz Institute. They had a number of research and conservation projects they were working on, one of which involved the stargazing syndrome of lions in captivity. It was interesting to compare the CTs of affected and healthy lions. We also were able to watch a CT in real time of an ape skull, my first time watching a CT scan in action. Later that day we traveled to Auschwitz, the first concentration camp I have visited since we started our trip. It was an emotional experience.

We left for Busum Wednesday and visited a seehundstation and Multimar Wattforum, a museum connected to the national park on the North Sea. The seals at the station were absolutely adorable! They had grey and harbor seals playing in an on-site pool. We learned about the mission of the station and the howler seals and the sea hunters. The national park was beautiful, and the models they had depicting the ecosystem under the mud were really cool. The biologist told us about the sealife and explained the challenges of the park with acoustic pollution and overfishing.

We performed necropsies on a seal and a harbor porpoise the following day. It was awesome! After a morning lecture, we cut into a seal that had been shot by a sea hunter and a porpoise that had washed up on shore. The first showed signs of sepsis and the second suffocated on his dinner. The little guy had a crazy amount of fish in his stomach! I loved that we were able to get hands on and be a part of the necropsies. A local sea hunter and chef, Karl-Heinz Kolle, made us dinner at his restaurant. His stories were fascinating, and I loved listening about his choice to become a seal hunter and what he volunteers to do to help the seals. 

W walked on the mudflats on our last day in Busum. There were so many jellyfish that had been left during low ride, and you had to make sure that watched your step. The mud and seawater felt surprisingly warm. We saw tracks and worms and crabs everywhere. I had so much fun on the mud walk; it would definitely be amazing to get the chance to do it again.

The majority if us spent our last free weekend in Hamburg. We walked around town and visited Miniatur Wunderland, the world's largest miniature railroad. It was awesome! We went on our first boat tour, which was nice and relaxing, as was most of our weekend. I cannot believe that this is the last week of the program! I've had a great time and some sleep would be nice, but I'm not ready to go home just yet.