"Boom Baden Baden" Day 1 I thought this place always has nice weather!?

Boom Baden Baden! (We wanted to make T-Shirts)

Pkay and I made it to Baden Baden. The journey here was quite comedic. The train was so full that we had to stand for the first 40 minutes. The AC broke down on the train so they handed out water for free. We get to Baden Baden and the people are all super unfriendly and pushy. We catch our first bus to the point we have to transfer. The next bus wasn't going to be there for another 20 minutes and so we decided to walk to the hospital. We are in southern Germany, which means basically everything is on a hill. I only had my purse and a weekend bag but PKay had a huge suitcase that needed to be transferred up the hill. We took turns pulling it up. We were exhausted by the time we got to the top. The reception gave us our keys and told us where our apartment was... down part of the way we had just walked up! The room is a nice size but there is no TV or Internet! However, we had coffee, tea, milk and cookies waiting for us.

We quickly got situated and headed into town on the bus. Sadly it was raining (which turns out isn't a rare thing for this week although my former roommate kept saying how wonderful the weather is in southern Germany....mmmhmmm.) We walked through the streets looking for a good restaurant. None seemed cheap... But we are in southern Germany so I don't know why we would expect anything else. We ended up in Le Bistro. A French style restaurant with French pricing. We had a small salad and a really delicious pumpkin soup. I couldn't even finish all of it so it was worth it in the end and not as expensive as I had feared it would be. We used their Wifi for a bit hoping it would be enough to download a movie for the night but we had to leave and catch the bus back.

We met the other student here for the course before heading to bed. I slept like a rock. I don't even think I dreamt anything because I was so exhausted from the weekend.

This morning we showed up in the radiology departed. The secretary greeted us. The chief came a few minutes later and welcomed us to the week long class. He is a very nice guy who clearly enjoys teaching. He showed us the facility, the colleagues and explained what to expect during the week. There is a private hospital nearby that we each will visit a day. Apparently it is run like a 5 star hotel. I will probably be going Thursday. G (the other student) went today. PKay and I stayed in the hospital with the chief.

The morning was spent looking at cases, doing a kidney puncture, swallowing diagnostic and mammography. About an hour into working, we were called to do a shock CAT scan. The man had fallen from 5 meters. We were told he was just found somewhere without a wallet or any form of identification. Just for this CAT scan, 13 people were standing behind the glass window. Doctors, MTAs, us students and the emergency crew. It's insane to see how much know-how from so many different people is used to save one life, everyone's full attention is on that one human being.

We had meetings with a few of the other departments to discuss their radiological findings and then were let go to have lunch. We get free lunch and the food is way better than the food in our hospital. Sadly, I am still not able to eat large amounts of food and therefore I always have a bad feeling leaving food on my plate. 

The second half of the day was spent doing ultrasounds on various patients and looking at other cases. PKay and I thought we would be out of there by 3pm at the latest. The chief had a meeting at 3 so PKay and I did ultrasounds on each other. I can say my liver looks good, my kidneys healthy and I am not pregnant. 

At 3:30 we went to see if the chief was back yet. The great thing about his secretaries, besides them being very nice, is that they make us fresh coffee and give us candy. Once chief was back, we went through a few more cases. He said we'd be done by 4 since he had an appointment but we were still looking at x rays at 4:10 until his appointment knocked at the door.

We had planned on going back into the city. The weather was crazy bad though. We walked down to the grocery store with the intention of going into town first but it started to rain so bad that my feet and pants up to my thighs were soaked. All we did was buy food and walked back to our room without tv and Internet. I personally could just lay down and sleep but understandably PKay would not be too amused about that. 

Tomorrow we don't have to show up until 8:30. Thankfully we don't have to sit in a dark room all day and I'll get enough sleep so that I don't feel like falling asleep all the time.

I'm going to try to download a movie with the hospital Internet (which I have to pay for!) for tonight. Sadly it tells me it'll take 250 minutes to download :(

Baci, V