Auf weidersehen, goodbye! (written on 6/6/09)

So long, farewell, Auf Weidersehen, goodbye!Just like the Von Trap family would sing, I hate to go and leave this pretty sight. This whole experience has been amazing. I was interested in the talk Dr. Wasser had given during orientation explaining the program, but had done nothing about registering for the program. Good thing I happened to work PetFare with Allison, who convinced me I should definately go. It's really been a great life experience! I'm sitting at my gate, waiting to leave Berlin for Houston and it's a bit sad.

I'd love to stay a few more days in Europe. I'm not sure i'm ready for it to be all over! This past week, we got a behind-the-scenes tour of the Berlin zoo! It was probably one of my favorite activities for the entire trip. I mean, who wouldn't get excited about hand feeding rhinos and hippos! We got to tour the hospital, which was strangely placed on the 2nd floor. I mean, what if the tiger they sedated to treat woke up and they were stuck in the elevator! ahhhh! We learned about how certain animals were medicaly trained so the Vet could treat them. Trainers taught the elephants and apes to show their hands or feet through a special gate, present their chest for auscultation, even turning around so the vet could take a temperature! how cool is that! could you imagine target training a chimpanzee so you could evaluate gait for a lameness exam? So cool. As an added bonus, it seemed like almost every animal had a baby so I got to fawn over the baby elephants, baby giraffes, baby hippos...it was too cute.

I got to pet a rhino!

That pill the Dr. is showing us is birth control for hippos.

We also got to do Berlin On Bike. That was really great because we got to see a few of the historic sites and learn a little history. Unfortunately, we started running out of time and didn't get to see quite as many things as I'd wish we'd had. I mean, Berlin has so many things and we really didn't get to spend enough time there or have enough free time to enjoy more than 1 or 2 sites in full.

Our B.O.B. guide at the "Berlin Wall"

Jessia looking through what would've been the west side of the Berlin Wall

The Brandernburg Gate

The visit to the FU clinics were really cool because I went to go see small animal surgeries and it was my first time to fully scrub in and watch inside of the room. I mean, besides helping out with a few dentals and smaller procedures, i'd never been in a surgery room for cool stuff like what we got to see: repairing a dog's fractured femoral head, a totally blown knee on a cat (pretty much every ligament was in bits when they opened up the joint capsule..it wasn't pretty), and fixing a growth plate on a puppy's femur. It was pretty awesome. I wish we'd gotten to take some pictures so i will remember it better.

For our free time in Berlin, we were able to go see the richstag/congress house and that was super pretty since the dome is made out of glass and you can pretty much see the entire city from the top. We also checked out Olaf's favorite discotech from his 20s when he lived in Berlin and unfortunately, it was a flop because it was closed on thursday and the bar wasn't anything to write home about. I also went to Checkpoint Charlie with Mis and Rachel. The museum was information overload city. I mean, every single nook and corner had text or pictures or sculptures. Half-way through I had to give up on reading everything and went through the rest of the museum looking and the ingenious contraptions people came up with to get through the 'death zone' and reading some of the stories of successful and sadly, some unsuccesful berlin wall hoppers.

At the Checkpoint Charlie Museum

Well, they're calling for us to board our plane now. Tschüs!

Berlin fades to Paris....

Berlin was such an interesting city… full of history and turmoil… a struggle for freedom that we take for granted every day here in America. I think it’s difficult for the most recent American generations to grasp the struggle that we faced as a country to have the freedoms that we use every day. Just 20 years ago, Berlin struggled with an East v. West separation and the remnants of this past can still be seen today in the city structures, pedestrian lights and of course historical museums.

How do you know when you are in East Berlin today? My favorite East Berlin-ism is the pedestrian crossing man that remains from pre-reunification. He has a hat and an attitude. A picture is worth a thousand words.

We stayed in the super cute Hotel Alex and enjoyed the excellent public transportation that allowed you to be in the heart of Berlin in minutes. A city excursion would be incomplete without a bike tour, so we headed out with a guide who showed us the remains of the Berlin wall, the soccer stadium of East Berlin, Reichstag building, Brandenburg gate, glances at all most of the museums in town, and historical points along the way. It was interesting to see the changes in architecture as you moved from East to West Berlin… We had a great 360o degree view near the Berlin Hauptbanhof (main train station) where we could see almost the whole skyline of government buildings, statues, the river and museums. The Germans built their government buildings all out of glass to symbolize their attention to the people they were serving and to let the world look into their daily proceedings- no secrets!

Later that afternoon, we were fortunate to get a behind-the-scenes tour of the Berlin Zoo led by one of the veterinarians. He took us to the elephant exhibit, let us feed rhinos by hand and then toss bread to hippos from a bridge overlooking their enclosure. He also had a high power water gun to give them massages! They LOVED it. For dinner, Olaf took us on a winding tour of Berlin to arrive at a fantastic little restaurant called Der Kartoffelkellar (basically a “Potato Shack”) where every dish was made from potatoes… soup, casseroles, desserts…

The last day Kati and I went to Check Point Charlie Museum and walked around Berlin. I can’t believe the lengths that people went to cross the wall! Crazy! We boarded a train for 13 hours over night. Unfortunately we didn’t have sleeper seats so it was bit uncomfortable but we managed… Lots of snacks and cat naps. We woke up this morning to the beautiful scenery of PARIS.

Here we are. In our awesome hostel, St. Christophers… ON THE RIVER! We can’t check in until 2pm, so we will run around the city and then the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame and the Louvre! Love love!

6/3/09

They do seem to like their orange stuff...
We went to visit Novartis in Basel and they just launched a new product in New Zealand. It's orange. It was everywhere. Well, at least pictures and demonstrations and the like. Zolvox (an AAD class drug) to fight sheep parasite. It was the first new class of action drug in about 5 years so Novartis went all out and made it their color (orange), created new, more egernomaically-designed dredging packaging for it, and even had cute little sheep plush toys to demonstrate. First, we went to the "sciency" building and we were shown how they create the pills, test solutions, and test shelf-life. It was neat to go into the rooms where they simulate all the temperature conditions and humidities the products must endure and cool to see how all the technical-looking machines worked. Then we went to the St.Auben facility and checked out all the flies and bugs they raise, looked at dog kennels, and sheep and all kinds of fun things. The researchers were really informative and told us all about how everything worked. it was great. An added bonus was the hotel rooms care of Novartis. It was great to have your own room for two days. Basel is a really great city and we went on a short tour the next day.
Now I'm in the airport waiting to fly back to germany! Here we come Berline!

And down the stretch they fly...

This one is a bit long, but hey, gotta go out with a bang!

After we got to Berlin, we were first impacted by something strange. It was rain! We have had fantastic weather and haven’t even seen the stuff on this entire trip! Fortunately, it blew over in about 10 minutes, so nothing to worry about. From the airport we headed to our hotel, which is located in East Berlin. It is remarkably obvious the difference in the architectural styles of East and West Berlin. The east screams communism, with square buildings that have square windows placed at even intervals, all topped off with the fantastic concrete building décor – all gray. The west on the other hand shows an architectural development, with the styles of the times showing as West Berlin was able to choose and then change with the times.

We started off the next chilly day with a bike tour of Berlin. This was very good, giving a quick overview of the city and some of its rich history (albeit some dark parts). We also visited the renovation of the wall of Berlin, which shows a roughly scale size of the how the wall was constructed to keep the people in East Berlin. We unfortunately were unable to visit Checkpoint Charlie, but another task for another time. Despite another quick little rain shower, the weather actually warmed up and improved for our visit to the zoo. This by far was the highlight of the day. It was a “behind the scenes” tour of the Berlin Zoo and how it works.

This meant we first got a tour of the empty elephant house to show how they trained the elephants to make it easier and safer for the veterinarians and how they house their elephants during the winter. The next stop was the rhino exhibit. There, the vet kindly took us behind so that we could pet and feed the rhinos. They really were just like big dogs, except a bit scalier and a lot dirtier. Next we stopped at the clinic for the animals and talked about the process for figuring out what treatment should be given to such exotic animals, how to radiograph, and where they do the procedures. Then we quickly went through the zoo to the hippo exhibit. We first started at the viewing area, but soon went once again back behind it all to see their cages and the birthing pool. From there we went to a balcony overlooking their main pool and were able to feed them bread. This is done by banging on the rail, so the hippos come over and open their mouths so that you can loft it in there. Absolutely amazing!

Finally, we finished the program with a visit to the Berlin vet school clinics. I worked in small animal exams, so just the routine day to day work. The most striking difference, is that the exam contained five to six tables, and these were all filled with a variety of cats and dogs with a separate vet on each case. It was like organized and unorganized mass chaos! After this, we had a bit of free time to collect our things together, and then out to dinner one last time as a group. We ate at Kasbah, some absolutely amazing Moroccan food. I had lamb in a cinnamon honey sauce with prunes and almonds covered in sesame seeds. And look at that, there you go starting to drool.

That pretty much is it. I am finishing up this blog and then have to leave for the airport in four hours, so we’ll see how much sleep I get. Thanks for reading and have a good one!

I Wasn't Kidding About Catching Up

See, I told you I had them saved up. It's like I did all of my trip in about fifteen minutes of the last night i was here ;).

Seriously, we are just flying through this trip! Our next leg took us to Basel, to visit the animal health portion of Novartis, who graciously put us up in a very nice hotel near old city of Basel. A couple things that instantly stand out are the fantastic scenery and ridiculous prices. Weird? I think not. Also our hotel was the tallest inhabitable building in Basel, a mere 103 meters tall, with a bar and lounge at the top. We got in with not much time to spare in the evening, so we really just hung out at the lounge and took an easy evening. We traveled to Novartis, which is based in Basel, to learn about and have some great tours of a couple of their facilities. In Basel itself, we learned about what goes into making a pill, how to actually create the tablet (which turns out it like a super packed snow-ball), how to test shelf life, and how to market their product. Trust me, actually a whole lot more interesting than it sounds. After that, we traveled to St. Auben (which I may be spelling wrong), to see their flea and tick facility. This is about an hour and a half outside of Basel, and here is where you really start to get into the rolling, beautiful countryside. At the flea and tick center, the researchers develop preventative treatments against these parasites. Turns out to test the products, you have to breed these parasites. I have never seen a room with so many fleas before. There was enough that their wings almost sounds like an air conditioner. Crazy, but awesome.

We finished up Basel the next day with a tour of the old town. Once again, more history, art, and great views than you can imagine, and every town and city has their own library of this stuff! Also, had pear gelato. Just absolutely amazing. You should try it sometime, but only from Movenpick ice creams. Then we got to the airport, and flew off to Berlin! Seriously, these long days just never end!

Bye Bye Berlin!

I get the feeling that I’m definitely going to have to make it back to Berlin sometime in the future because a few days here just isn’t enough. This place definitely gets two thumbs up and a score of 10/10 because a) our hotel is fabulous, b) they have a very nice vet school (Freie Universdad), and c) we got to feed a rhinoceros – two, actually. So how do you beat that?

First off I’m glad to say I survived the bike tour, which was actually a lot of fun and a good way for us to see some of the more important places around the city we didn’t have time to see later on. The Berlin Zoo afterwards was definitely one of the main highlights of this entire trip. Like I said, we got to feed rhinos! The veterinarian who guided us through the zoo was extremely friendly and informative. He obviously remembers what it was like to be a student though because he was ready with some special treats and interesting things to show us. Not only did we get to feed rhinos up close, we also got to feed the hippos, which was hilarious. Then we all learned a lovely tidbit of random anatomical weirdness: Moray eels apparently have two complete sets of jaws. The front set feeds into a rear set that goes into the esophagus. Looks wicked cool on radiographs. Even if you don’t get to go behind the scenes, the Berlin Zoo is great. Their large cat house is crazy – you can literally get about 3 feet away from lions and leopards and all those other big scary predators to see them up close. SO much fun!

This morning was also a treat because we got to go around the clinics at the vet school here. In surgery we got to see a cruciate ligament repair on a cat and hip surgery on a very young puppy that had damaged growth plates on her femur that had to be pinned to keep from sliding around. The students there were very welcoming and interested in learning about our vet school system. They were also nice enough to take the time to translate what their professor was teaching them about the surgeries so we could have some idea of what was going on!

It’s sad to be going home tomorrow (especially because it means it’s time to figure out how to pack up everything I’ve accumulated over the trip) but I know I’ll come back to Germany and the rest of Europe sometime in the future.

Because Sometimes, We Do What We Want

Again, I apologize for the tardiness, but I mainly blame the internet :)

As our last day in Hannover, our program had us going to visit the various clinics of TiHo. I chose to go to the cattle clinic, and had a blast. The veterinarians there were kind enough to allow us to sit in on a couple surgeries, one involving a bone infection of the medial coffin bone of both thoracic limbs and the other dealing with hardware’s disease. This allowed us to view some of the different facilities, approaches, and how they handled the animals themselves. First off, the animal handling caught me off guard. In the area of Texas that we are in, there are mostly meat cattle. These are more or less wild and precautions as such need to be taken. In Germany though, most of the cattle are dairy cattle. The are constantly handled, haltered, and rather compliant. This means that in the entirety of the clinic, there exists about two chutes to control them. Most of the time you just walk into the pen and poke on it like it’s a big dog. And most of them are. It’s rather ridiculous.

After the clinic visits, we had some free time before heading to the opera! This was my first time to attend an opera and I ran into some difficulties. The opera was “Carmen”, which is sung in French. Being in Germany, the supertitles were in German. So that left me just watching and trying to figure out exactly what is going on not by the words, but really the actions and facial expressions. Let’s just say that it was more a “visual” experience than anything else. Still, it was good and very interesting, hopefully the next one that I get to see will have a language that I understand involved in some way. ;)

And that leaves us with our second free weekend! Some of us decided to take it slow and stay in Hannover for an extra couple days, letting us sleep in on Saturday and Sunday to finally catch up on some of the little sleep we’ve been getting. We did a couple mundane things like run to the grocery store, etc, but then some of us went to help out with evening rounds at the cattle clinic. It was a great experience! We got to really handle some of the animals (remember the no chute thing) and get an insight on a lot of the different practices. Also, there were near 40 patients there at the time, and way too many of them needed drenches. This is where you pump 30L of water with some medicine directly into the rumen. By the end of the evening, all of us were tired of using the hand pump to push it in there.

Finally, on Sunday, we took a walking tour of Hannover itself. More than 50% of Hannover city limits is green space, so that definitely allowed for some great scenery. We also traveled to the top of the Hannover city hall for some spectacular views. To get up there though, you have to take an elevator that travels along the curve of the dome. That means lateral movement! One of the oddest feelings ever! Then we topped off the day with a visit to a beach bar, an area on top of a parking garage where they truck in tons of sand to create a fake beach 100 feet in the air. Most random bar ever. Quickly, on to Basel!