Week 2: Paris and Hannover

Hallo!

This trip has continued to be a wonderful experience.  We do so many different and interesting things each day that when I get back to the hotel each night and attempt to start another blog entry I somehow only manage a few sentences before falling a sleep. Even though I have been so tired I wouldn't trade this experience for the world. 

Eiffel Tower Selfie = Total Tourists

For the weekend Andrea and I traveled to Paris. I had mixed feelings about going there due to somethings I had been told by others that had been there before. However, I tried to keep an open mind and was really looking forward to all there was to see, knowing full well that two days was not enough. Sadly our first interaction with a local Parisian was not so nice. Andrea and I were in line to purchase our metro passes for the weekend and taking a little bit to make sure that we got the correct tickets when the man in line behind us literally grabbed our backpacks and moved us out of the way telling us if we didn't know what we were doing to get out of line and let others go. He was quite rude and it was a much different experience than I had with French when I visited Southern France a few years ago.

Louve Museum

This bad experience aside I enjoyed my time in Paris. Our first day there we visited the Eiffel Tower twice, both during the day and at night to see it all lit up. As well as visiting the Arc de Triumphe we spent the day just walking along the river and in the city center looking at all the amazing buildings and admiring the architecture. The following day was quite a bit busier, we managed to visit three different museums. Our first stop of the Louve, I was surprised at the sheer size of the museum. I had known before that it was large but even that didn't prepare me for how large it actually is. Of the three wings of the museum we only managed to see two of them before deciding that we didn't have the time if we hoped to see more places that day. However, before we left we did make sure to go see the Mona Lisa (such a small painting compared the the large floor to ceiling ones in the same gallery). Afterwards, we headed to the Musee d'Orsay and the Rodin sculpture garden (home of the famous 'The Thinker'). Overall, I enjoyed the last two museums better than the Louve just because the time period of the art is more in line with my tastes but the building of the Louve was a masterpiece in its own right. After the museums we took a walk through the Luxemburg gardens and visited Notre Dame. Overall, I really enjoyed Paris but there are still plenty of things I wish I'd had the time to see while there.
Monday we took a very early train from Paris back to Cologne where we met up with the rest of the group and then took another train to Hannover. When we arrived we checked into our hotel before heading to the Zoo for a tour. Our tour guide was a very nice man with quite the outfit; he was decked out in a safari vest and a hat with many feathers. He told us that the aim of the Zoo was to have as many different species of animals together in one exhibit as would be found together in the wild. Another thing that they try to do is to make the Zoo as interactive for both the guests and the animals as is possible as well as safe. For example, visitors are able to walk into the Pelican exhibit and interact directly with the birds, who if they didn't want to could cross the pond and go to the other side of the exhibit. I was surprised at how soft the pelican actually was. We also took a boat tour that allowed us to view the exhibits from a different perspective.

Jewish Holocaust War Memorial - Hannover

Tuesday morning we the Cattle Clinic that's a part of the Veterinary Medicine Department at the University of Hannover. We toured the entire facilty with one of the veterinarians that work there. The whole clinic was so large especially compared to what I am used to back home. I was also suprised and how little it cost owners to bring there cattle to the hospital. They would even go to the farms and pick up the cows and bring them into the clinic for free if they were within a certain distance from the clinic. I also really enjoyed getting to talk to the vet while we watch a hoof trimming on a dairy cow. It was cool to learn that the common lameness/hoof problems for dairy cattle in Germany is the same as that in the States. Afterwards we went to a Stallion Testing Center outside of Hannover. This was a really cool experience because we got to watch them collect a Stallion and then see how they would store the semen, check to make sure the quality was good and even determine how much they could dilute. The facities were very impressive and also had a lot of riding arneas where they would train also train the stallions. 

Wednesday morning we visited the Teaching and Research Farm associated with the University of Hannover. At this place they also do some stallion collection as well as a lot of reproduction research. Unlike the Stallion Testing Center they did a lot more work with mares as well. We were able to watch a few ultrasounds of some of the horses where they were doing estrus detection. Also they showed us a previous ultrasound on one of their mares that was 65 days pregnant and discussed how to sex the foal on ultrasound.  The entire area was absolutley beautiful and I didn't want to leave. We even walked through the woods afterwards to a restruant that was right on the lake for lunch. It was a gorgeous day outside and capped the end to a great time in Hannover.  

After lunch we had to head back to the hotel to pick up our bags and catch a train to Berlin. In my next blog I will talk all about our time in Berlin. Until then...

Bis Bald! 

~Rebecca