Things I should have known two weeks ago...

Hmm, Dr. Endocrine-lecturer is really nice.

I don't learn pathophys by osmosis, as much as I want to.

I don't learn pharmacology by any means necessary, as much as I've stopped caring.

Anesthesia is now running neck and neck with oncology in "I would rather take a shotgun blast full of rock salt to the face every morning than do". Anesthesia drugs suck, pulmonary physiology sucks, and lungs are only fun when they're breaking, which tends to not be the goal of an anesthesiologist.

There's enough of medicine that's actually interesting and varied and all that I'm not not so much trying to pick an eventual direction as I'm trying to eliminate those that would drive me to heavier drinking if I actually stumbled into them as career choices.

I should have invented a dying fiance who was taking care of my emotionally fragile war scarred twin boys and their adopted labrador puppy in Green Park if I wanted to score Brooklyn hospital. I'm guessing they're going to send me to the corner of John Deere and Crystal Meth for failing to jump back to California, which is where my currently missing driver's license shows my residency.

Speaking of that driver's license, if anyone somewhere between Dublin, Berlin, Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Venice, Bologna, Verona, Cinque Terre, Zurich, Bern, Engleberg, Dijon, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Orleans, Calais, Dover, Canterbury, or London happens to spot a California driver's license with a clueless looking blonde chick on it, please pop it to Grenada. Sigh.

Dear SeaFrance

6 hours for a 1.5 hour crossing without apology. Well done!

Speaking of irritation, not only do we suddenly have mystery clickers with the school, but there's yet another mishap with my loans, which I found out today, so no money for Ishie until I fax something from a youth hostel! Woo hoo!!!

ONNN the other hand, Canterbury, and my current hostel, rocks. More later!

Titlis ho!

Yeah, I wasn't going to make the requisite Mt. Titlis joke, but I'm only human, and an immature human at that, so deal with it.

I went to the Alps today! It's weird to type that. Got on the wrong train at first but transferred quickly so no real delay and headed to Engelberg, largely on the advice of a travel magazine we picked up for free in Basel, a town we'd only discovered because there were no hostels in Bern, so we booked the first night in Basel and the second night in Zurich.

Of course, once we got to Zurich, instead of seeing this famed and fabulous city, we immediately booked it into the mountains, though before heading to Zurich to drop off our stuff at the hostel, we did manage to see the Rathaus in Basel and cross the river on a ferry. The ride from Luzerne up to Engelberg and back was amazing: a three car red train through the Alps, punctuated by alpine streams, cows with big traditional bells around their necks, and all the other Heidi stuff. I kept feeling like none of it was real due to the sheer magnitude of the scenes, all with mountains jutting up sheer around it. We walked around, saw the base of Titlis, though no time to take the cable car to the top, and then on the way back, got a thunder and lightning show at dark as the train regularly whistled through the towns. Surreal.

Dijon tomorrow, and we've booked our hostel in London on the 14th, so the only question is what to do between Dijon and London. These are the difficult sorts of decisions that consume us in life... that and "how am I going to pass my 5/6th term classes while being a week late getting back?"

Completion Bonus

Woo hoo! Got through all five villages and just as the sun was setting with some village eating, sightseeing, and of course, a mandatory dip in the Mediterranean.

Cinque Terre is amazing, as mentioned previously, and I'd never heard of it before Lori told me just how amazing it is, and it still is difficult to be believed until you're here. It's the sort of Italy I've always thought about, the people are wonderful, and the scenery is endlessly breathtaking. I'm really sorry to leave.

We're catching a train to Basel today, which is on a three country border. Our initial goal was Bern, but we couldn't book a hostel, nor could we find one in Zurich until tomorrow night, so fortunately, Switzerland is small enough to train around it, because I needs me some COLD. Italy is great, but predictably hot, and I am by nature, a cold weather creature.

In other news, my apartment is flooded but at least they let me know, so I'm just crossing my fingers that everything's okay, but in the interim, wooooo Switzerland!

Hallo from Hungary

And having left Kate's keyboard behind in Prague, I'm back to mixing my z's and y's and typing extremely slowly. It's like being a kid again learning to type.

Yesterday was my last day in Prague, so na shledanou to the Czech Republic and děkuji for your hospitality. We checked out the Cathedral of Sts Peter and Paul, the St Vitus cathedral, and the tower of the Charles Bridge before racing back to pack up a month's worth of clothes from every corner of the apartment. I also got to experience the Czech postal service in Wenceslas Square, and I'm really hoping my doctor clothes make it to Grenada, because the clerk had no idea where it was even after a drawn map as well as a Pirates of the Caribbean reference, since that worked during my neurosurgery rotation... "Caribbean? Jack Sparrow, yes?" Apparently Johnny Depp is pancultural.

So I got to ride my first night train (insert music) and ride in a couchette, which is like people-storage. But with sleeping pills, a night shade, and earplugs, it's no problem. The number of stars is quite incredible. Unfortunately, when we booked the tickets, our brilliant ticket agent booked our tickets on the 9:53 train and our couchette on the midnight train... not really sure how that was supposed to work, and despite checking our tickets when we boarded, the conductor rousted us at 5 in the morning to charge us 40 euros for being "on the wrong train". So that was fun.

Now, I'm waiting to check into my hostel in Budapest and then go sightseeing. Hard to imagine how fast everything's going. But train is now officially my favorite way to travel. Cramped or not.

Deck of picture cards

I have two cameras, and I'm using up enough space on their respective cards, of which I have multiple, that I'm going to end up with a sufficient deck of them to play blackjack.

Kutna Hora was awesome. The bone church is incredible, particularly the chandelier and the coat of arms, but the entire experience is pretty breathtaking, though the location is small. The smell is odd... very stale, very cryptlike, yet as Slappy pointed out (yes, she's here now!), then you see children skipping and singing through the smell and the sight, which creates a pretty cool juxtaposition. I thought about having a series of photographs on "Children in odd places in the Czech Republic", featuring all the kids playing in the Piss sculpture, the toddler on his dad's shoulders in the sex museum, and now kids singing in the bone church.

The town itself is beautiful too, with churches rising up, though by the time we did the full walk in, St. Barbara's cathedral was closed to inside tours, but the outside is breathtaking, and per usual, I took a ton of pictures.

The train ride back was really peaceful, and I tried to learn to be functional at braiding my own hair. Between this and actually regularly wearing make up this trip, this is the most girly I've been since I dressed up when I was 6.

It's been a whole interesting experience though, though I am becoming wary of Wenceslas Square. On my language lessons, I thought it was weird that the tutor took two places at seemingly random, namely Vodichcova ulitse and Voclavske Namesti (sp?) otherwise known as Wenceslas Square, and kept using including them in phrases.

So I tried to go out to a club there with some friends on Friday... first, the club was 200 crown cover to play what seemed like flashy boring house music, so I passed, though that was the reason we'd gone out. Then we ended up with a homeless guy threatening us with, of all things, his cane. "Polizie" and reaching for my cell phone made him eventually go away. Then, after all this, ended up with a guy acting pretty inappropriately to one member of our party, necessitating a call to the police. As another friend asked me where we were, I looked up at the bus station and realized we were, of all places, at the Voclavske Namesti stop, just like in the language tutorial, so apparently, knowing the phrase is useful. It also necessitating to translate the entire incident through a fourth party into German at the police station (And to think I promised myself to stay out of them abroad). Gods. So fun night, eh?

So not dissuaded by all of this, we'd found a cool sculpture that somewhat mirrors the main horse sculpture in the center courtyard that features a man sitting astride a dead upside horse and went back yesterday to take a picture of it (none of us had a camera at the time), only to find it surrounded by firefighters, news media and so forth, because apparently part of the building had caught on fire.

I think I'm sticking to the Charles Bridge. Though I won't have to, because we've got a night train to Budapest tomorrow night.

Last night (what, you want this in order?), we toured around Vyserad (sp? Again), which is a really nice place, and allegedly the site where Prague was founded, and at least the two times I've been there, isn't half as packed as many of the other popular sites, yet has a wonderful church, great views, nice courtyards with statues, so it was really peaceful. The night was topped off by a trip to U Sadlu, an excellent, if pretty darn expensive medieval restaurant. Huge portions though, so we offset some of the cost by eating leftovers throughout our day in Kutna Hora.

So disjointed, yes, but it's an update!

Wiener!

Europe is awesome and yet, exhausting. Today, I feel like I'm gonna die, but it's such a good death that I can't help by try and make it out to a punk club tonight just to show that I can. What medical selective?

Got back from Vienna at about midnight last night, crashed and burned and headed out to my first round in dermatovenerology this morning.

Vienna... Vienna. The train ride is very nice, though not anything like Dresden to Prague. We got a second class cabin, which is surprisingly cozy, and cozy in a "cozy" way, rather than being cozy in a "crammed into coach class" way, though I did get stuck across from the overly affectionate couple where the girl insisted on "play kissing" her boyfriend's cheek for four hours, making a 'smacksmacksmack' noise. Ahhhh, twu wuv.

The hostel was awesome. Very different than the one I stayed in when I was in Berlin with smaller rooms, but cozier. They had free instruments in the common room, and really pretty gardens/courtyards with a giant chess set and an all access BBQ grill, which was a nice touch. According to my top bunkie, some people around 4 in the morning were using the garden for more than a stroll, which is freaking hilarious.

On Friday, we checked into the hostel and headed out for Wienerschnitzel and local beer, which was excellent, and we dealt with an exceedingly patient waitress in the process. I was going to go out Friday night, but got held up, so wound up sending Grace off and heading hostel bound with Neeta to hit the bike tour the next morning, which we missed, but rented bikes nonetheless and headed to the flea market/farmer's market to see some real Vienna.

NICE bikes too. When I saw the "if you destroy or lose our bike, we're charging your credit card 500 euros" thing, I balked a bit, but they were really nice, curb hopping, light frame bikes and they got the job done. Definitely the way to travel, and I should have rented one in Berlin. Prague is not as much of a bike city.

At the market, Grace managed to get yelled at by an Austrian vendor, and then we found far nicer ones to sustain us with candied fruit, fresh mango juice, and goat-cheese stuffed olives while I got myself a nice all-over burn due to leaving my sunscreen at the hostel like a complete dumbass.

Then, we joined up for the afternoon's Viennese death cycle... holy crap, what an awful tour. At first, despite the guide's speaking German for five minutes to every one minute of English on a 'bilingual' tour, we were goofing off, having fun, playing bike tag (dangerous, but awesome), hurtling through the woods, seeing the brown polluted portion of the Danube (the guide said when you look perpendicularly down at it, that's when it looks blue, which is not true in the slightest). We crossed a giant bridge that ended in an incredibly fun fast spiral down, at which point one guy on our tour skidded out and had to have his bleeding shoulder tended to by fellow cyclers rather than the guide, who has never heard of the concept of "no man left behind".

Speaking of which, due to the guide's insistence on seeing all of greater Vienna at top speed, we took a wrong turn and got lost for a half hour, during which we saw the blue portion of the Danube with a really cool sort of wakeboarding "ring" going on, during which we also stayed in contact with a friend that had managed to stay with the group, who was also the one that had to come get us, since our guide, while making everyone else stay and wait, wouldn't look for us, despite telling us by phone to stay where we were and he would, all the while telling the group that we were irresponsible, etc. Blech. Then, another member of the group (not ours) had her bike that she rented through the tour (not our shop) break, nope, no helping her, and we continued whipping through the Vienna outskirts without really knowing what we were seeing or seeing the main sites. Blech.

BUT, riding bikes is fun! And we got a good story out of it.

That night, due to missing the previous night, I HAD to go out, so headed to the Gurdel (I think) club district and found an awesome little no-cover grunge place that had really nice music and danced the night away as much as I could.

Next day was really awesome. We took pictures of ourselves doing handstands in the castle gardens, then headed for a walking tour arranged through our hostel. Our guide was wonderful, lingered, showed us all the main sites, and ran the tour as long as we wanted it, and he just enjoyed hanging out with us, so we finally had to leave because we had a train to catch, but it was just fantastic, and I got a ton of pictures, including one with our guide. He also did a bilingual tour (in English and Portuguese!) but it was much more even, and he made sure that both groups got a full appreciation of each place, and while he was doing the other language part, the other group was free to wander around without fear of getting left and buy water, see the sites, take pictures, use the toilets, or whatever. Oh, he also told us that during the World Cup, they put an Austria t-shirt on the giant statue of Anubis that's near the Natural History museum. Oh, to have seen that!

The one thing we were missing was Sachertorte, which we managed to get AT the train station, though according to others that had it at real places, ours was a highly inferior version. We spent the train ride with five of us in a car laughing, dressing up Grace like a ninja and so forth, and one Austrian student who told us a ton about the program she was studying in Czech, her town in Austrian, a Vienna perspective, so that was really cool.

And now, back in Prague! Whew!

Going to Vienna!

It's a whirlwind, eh??

Sorry not to write, but I'm never in my apartment! Helped largely by the stairs, but also the amazement that is Prague!!! So there'll be an expanded version of events once I'm sleeping off the Europe back in Grenada, but for now... uhh...

Got to be REALLY close to a neck dissection surgery where since I was the only one hanging out for it, the surgeons just chatted with me while showing me everything, including the pulsing jugular vein. Freaking incredible.

Had a talk given by the American ambassador to the Czech Republic in the basement of Dr. S's nightclub. Odd.

Wandered around as much of the city as humanly possible between selective stuff.

Have endured the bite of the green fairy AND have briefly set my pants on fire with it. Yes, only a small spot, and no, it didn't burn me or the pants... which is kind of cool when you think about it. Hmm... holding flaming alcohol on a spoon, which technically is already supposed to be slotted, generally either held over oneself, a wooden counter, a drink napkin, or best of all, an entire glass of potentially highly flammable alcohol. Who came up with this idea?

Have seen a concert in the National Museum where they absolutely celebrated music and have suffered through a concert in the St Salvador church where they murdered Pachelbel and Mozart. I was not the only one looking pained. I'm not sure if the out of tune violin, the lack of technical proficiency, or the fact that they were all playing at such a pace that I figured they had to catch a train right after the show was the highlight, but I did get to sit down in a pretty church for an hour.

Saw the five level nightclub by the Charles Bridge which is so trendy that it has a hired half naked woman that dances on top of a spotlight as a decoration, I was suitably impressed. My normal pre-Grenada haunts largely consisted of used furniture tossed into abandoned warehouses to hear undiscovered bands... which is also nifty and doesn't involve having to wear nice shoes, but it was still cool.

Drank out of the Piss sculpture previously mentioned, half of which was to disturb my friends, and the other half of which is because buying water in Europe is freaking expensive, there aren't any drinking fountains, and half the water you do buy is carbonated mineral water. Ick. And incidentally, I didn't contract any parasites from the sculpture (to my knowledge) and the water tasted better than the 5 dollar stuff, so go nuts.

Went to a brewery at a monastery where I ate goulash soup out of a bread bowl. Mmm... On the food front, also went to a little creperie that has to die for caramel pear crepes.

Walked around the Jewish Quarter marveling at the architecture (which you do in pretty much every part of Prague) and had a guy in a superhero outfit wander by me. I love Prague.

Continued wandering around Old Town and Mala Strana because I've rarely seen anything prettier.

Talked to a patient who knew WAY more English than we thought when we were discussing his case, who then said he liked English because we have limericks and the Czech don't, and said that he was scared because of his cancer. Aw.

Saw ears get drained. Nummy.

Walked through the palace again, and on the way down, wandered through the oldest vineyards in Prague.

And now?? Heading for Vienna! Can't believe how nuts my life is right now!

Happy 4th!

From Berlin!

Which one might think means it's just another July 4th since the whole 'our holidays aren't everyone's holidays' thing, but then the skies exploded with celebratory fireworks, which made for a wonderful (wunderbar) surprise.

Exhausting, but fantastic three days. Berlin is incredible! A baroque palace, the Ishtar Gate, Reichstag, Jewish museum, tv tower, Berlin Wall, Döner, etc etc etc. I think I've walked 30 miles, and I can't remember the last time I've been so tired, but words can't describe it. So rather than trying on a keyboard where I don't recognize a good portion of the key positions, I think I'll bedbound it so I'm not dead for the train to Prague tomorrow.