I fail at blogging....

I promise that I am still alive, and I've been working on blogs, however I haven't finished any yet... I promise to try and finish some this weekend while on the trains to and from Prague.  So posts to come: Berlin and Guben Germany, Padua, Venice, Milan, Lake Como, Cinque Terre, and Florence Italy, Liverpool and London UK, and then Prague! Oh and maybe a preview post for my three week travel!

I'll Always Have Paris

So after my first weekend traveling in Europe it is time for our first field trip: Paris, the City of Lights.


Due to the train schedules, and our class schedules, we had to take the morning trains to Paris.  I treated myself to the high speed train from Líege (our local train hub in Belgium) which left an hour later than the other trains, and got me to Paris an hour before everyone else!  This train was very cool, it's top speed was > 175 mph, which the man at the train station told me was faster than the takeoff speed of a Boeing 737!
We arrived in Paris at 11 am, and walked to our hostel, which sounds easier than it was! It only took us about an hour and a half to walk from Gare du Nord train station to our hostel in the 14th Arrondismont! We dropped off our bags, and immediately headed to the metro to go to the Pasteur Institute.
The Pasteur Institute is named after Louis Pasteur, a famous 19th Century French scientist.  Pasteur is responsible for discovering stereochemistry (how molecules with the same structure can have different effects on polarized light, the germ theory of disease, the process of pasteurization is named for him because of his work on fermentation and purification of beer. Pasteur also is famous for his work in immunology and vaccination because he formulated vaccines for both rabies and anthrax.  The institute was opened in 1887, and Pasteur and his wife actually lived in the apartment we toured, for the last seven years of his life.
After the Pasteur Institute we headed straight to the Eiffel Tower. As my first major European Icon of this trip I have to summarize my twenty-two years of expectations into one word: wow.  First off, I completely had the scale of the tower off.  I knew it was a tower, and it had a restaurant on the first level, it I didn't realize how BIG it was! I can just imagine how the people felt arriving at the 1889 World's Exposition and seeing this gigantic structure.  We of course took our load of pictures at the famous site, including one of me in my Baylor Student Foundation jersey!  

Me in my StuFu Jersey at the Eiffel Tower!

Next, most of the Baylor group embarked on one of the best ways to see Paris: The Lights of Paris Fat Tire Bike Tour.  This tour set out from the Tour Eiffel, and for the next four hours, we peddled our way though Paris, and finished the evening off with a Seine River Cruise.

After a good night of sleep, we set off to explore Versailles Palace and gardens.  Wow Louis XIV and Louis XVI really know how to decorate! The rooms were so ornate, I can't imagine someone living in such luxury. Although while we were there there was a rather unattractive exhibition of some distracting Japanese manga art. We then walked around the gardens after touring the palace, and decided that we want to have the ultimate night game of hide and seek there!
After Versailles, my group split up, and Greg, Jonathan, and I met up with some other people for the afternoon.  We walked down the Champs Élysées to the Arc d'Triumph and had our first brush with a celebrity: The Mr. Jackson (as in either Tito or Jermane, we only know it wasn't Michael, or Randy Jackson). So we're bad at spotting celebs, allegedly none other than the Miley Cyrus was in Paris the same time as us.
Finally we headed over to visit the Moulin Rouge, and have dinner. I would love to tell you about the beautiful little Parisian Café that I had dinner consisting of escargot and chocolate mousse, however, our tour guide for the day, a former foreign exchange student to Texas, took us to Buffalo Bill's, where they serve "Southwest on a Plate", in other words the waiters wore western shirts and cowboy hats, and the decor reminded me of some western theme park, complete with wooden Native American sculpture. However, I cannot speak ill of this place, they did a bang up job on my first (and thus far last) bacon cheeseburger of the trip.
The next morning we arose particularly early, 8am, in order to go brave the museums.  What was nice was that because it was the first Sunday of the month, most of the museums were free! We began with the Louvre, having only to stand in line for 30 minutes, and began with ancient sculptures, and kept wandering though the 18 miles of corridors and galleries. Some of my favorite works included: "Le Pandemonium" by John Martin, Winged Victory, "La Liberté guidant le peuple" by Eugéne Delacroix, and "Spartacus" by Denis Foyathier.  So after 5 or so hours exploring the Louvre, my group split up, aka the girls left to go shop, and the guys decided to go see Musee d'Orsay, the Impressionist museum across the river from the Louvre.  We really enjoyed this, however when their main exhibition was on Van Gogh, and the weekend before we had been to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, it lost it's "wow, it's a Van Gogh" effect.  

"Le Pandemonium"

That evening we met up with the girls at the Champ de Mars, the park right behind the Tour Eiffel, and we had a picnic, and spent the evening playing cards, taking pictures, sharing adventure stories, haggling with gypsies, oh and making human pyramids.
The next morning we woke up and headed back to Maastricht, which was a very uneventful trip, thank goodness, because it was time for classes to start back up again!

To catch up... And I'm already behind

If there's one thing that I severely underestimated about this semester in Europe, it would be the pace of my days.  Here's a breakdown of my schedule: I wake up at 7:00, for 7:30 breakfast downstairs in the dorm restaurant.  Then we start class at 8am with Dr. Abell teaching Epidemiology, then Dr. Baker teaches Pathophysiology from 9:30-10:50.  Then I get a break for an hour, go to lunch, then comes one of my most interesting classes: Clinical Decision Making.  CDM is team taught by Drs. Baker and Abell, and we learn everything from how to take a History and Physical, to calculating actually the odds of you having a disease after having a positive test result (which is interesting bc most of our diagnostic tests aren't as accurate as you'd think!) CDM runs from 1:15-3:15, and then on Tuesdays and Thrusdays from 3:30-5:30, I take my class through the Center for European Studies here in Maastricht, and take Modernism and Beyond, which basically is a 20th Century British and European Literature Course.  My professor is Dr. Karl Syndrom.  Karl is actually German, and absolutely hilarious!  The class I think will be good, provided I get all the readings done for it!  After Modernism comes dinner, and then on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, after dinner we have History of Medicine with Dr. Baker.  So I'm in class from 8 am until about 8:30pm (5:30 on Thursdays)!
Not that I'm complaining at all. The classes are really stimulating, and VERY applicable to medicine, and I'm learning a lot.  This semester's schedule I feel like is 3 days of what my med school schedule will be: 24/7 going non-stop.

The First Weekend

After surviving our first few days of classes, learning Maastricht, and getting to know our classmates, it was time for another first: first weekend trip.  This first weekend, we decided to stick close to our "home" here (sorry mom, if me calling this place home offends you!) and visit Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and then Brussels.
My travel group this weekend consisted of: Nathan (my roommate here in Maastricht), Jonathan, Greg, Brittany, Lauren, and Adi.

Amsterdam- We arrived to our very first hostel in Europe: The Hans Brinker Budget Hotel. Let's just leave it like this: Their entire marketing plan was that this is "The Worst Hotel in the World" They even have a book about this philosophy of hospitality.  We ended up going out that night to experience Amsterdam nightlife.  We went to a few bars, had a couple drinks, and explored the city.  We walked over to the red light district to see how that was, and it was way different than I imagined. After that we decided to go back to our hostel and get some sleep.  The next morning we woke up early and went to the Van Gogh Museum, which was surprisingly close to our hostel since we walked all over the Cetrum of Amsterdam the previous night.  The paintings here were gorgeous, and not all by Van Gogh.  Next we decided to walk across town to find a burger place an employee of the Van Gogh recommended to us (we never found it) so we ate a a bakery and headed to the Ann Frank House, however, because we had our backpacks, we had to split up into two groups, so someone could stay and watch the bags outside.  Unfortunately, we judged when the best time to get back in line was, and the 2nd group entered before the 1st group was done, so I stayed outside with the bags, and took a nice nap in the sun (which made it's 1st appearance since arriving in the Netherlands).  So I didn't get to do Anne Frank House, but I might go up for a day trip sometime to see it!  After the Anne Frank House, it was time to go to the train station, via Dam Square, to get on the train to Rotterdam!
Rotterdam- I'm not sure whose idea it was to put Rotterdam on our itinerary, but it was a great idea!  We found this great hostel operated by the backpackers information bureau in Rotterdam, and it actually was only 10 euro a night! (a bargain compared to the 26 euro I paid in Amsterdam!) What's funny though is that the hostel is a 126 bed dorm (which is HUGE!) normally dorms in hostels are like 8-12 people, not this one!  But Rotterdam is really a very "American" feeling city, it had a big downtown area that feels very metropolitan, with pedestrian only streets that have bars, cafes, restaurants, and all kids of stuff!  We went out to a couple of restaurants and bars that a very nice German lady we met on the train who lived outside of Rotterdam recommended to us! (Funny story: She knew about Baylor, because she lived in the states for 7 years working as a neuroscientist at Emory and University of Pittsburgh, and interviewed at UTHSC-SA!) The next morning we went out and explored the Museum van Boijmans Beuningen, a museum dedicated to mainly 15-18 century Dutch art.  It was actually better than I thought it was going to be, not being a fan of the Dutch Masters... Then after the museum, we headed to the Euromast, which is the tallest tower in the Netherlands, at 185m tall.  You actually could go rappelling off the side of the Euromast, however you had to have a reservation beforehand if you want to do it! But we rode the elevator up the Euromast, and it was an AMAZING view!  You could see all the way to The Hague, 25km away!  This also gave us a good view of the port of Rotterdam, which apparently is one of the busiest ports in the world!
Brussels-
On to Brussels! I believe that I could move there, and be totally happy.  In fact, I'd want to live in the place that we stayed in Brussels.  We found a residence that rented apartments for 30 euro a person, and so we rented two apartments for the seven of us!  It was so nice, the apartments were 2 minutes from St. Catherine's Cathedral and 10 minutes from Grand Place, the heart of "touristy Brussels."We had bought some wine while in Amsterdam, and decided to have some before venturing out to find dinner, so we opened up the wine, and had a lovely drink before dinner, with the windows open, and listening to Herbie Hancock Jazz on the stereo (it was the only CD that was in the room we agreed on, being we aren't a big fan of the top 30 US College Fight Songs, esp because Boomer Sooner and the UT fight songs were on there and not Baylors!)  We all were feeling very continental relaxing in our apartment in Brussels, drinking wine, and listening to Jazz.  We went out and had an AMAZING dinner, I sat down next to a man and struck up a nice conversation with him, because I heard his accent, and I asked him where he was from, he had us guess, and I guessed right!  He was a New Zealander, who had been living in London for the past 18 years.  What's even more amazing was that he mistook us for Canadians!  When we told him that we were from Texas, he about fell out of his chair!  So maybe my accent isn't that bad!  We had a very interesting conversation about the healthcare systems in Europe, Austro-Asia, and the States, and the welfare structures of these countries, and also about the European Grand Prix Formula 1 car race that was the next day (the reason why he was in Brussels!).  The next day we went to the Belgian Comic Strip Museum, which was interesting, but I was a little disappointed that it was mostly in French, and our translation book that we carried around didn't have much translated.  But the exhibits on Tin Tin (the national hero of Belgium pretty sure!) and the Smurfs were cool!  Then after that we headed to the Grand Place, and saw Mannikin Pis, a little fountain of a boy peeing three blocks from the Grand Place.  It was really kind of funny, and smaller than I had imagined.  But hey, when in Brussels, you have to go see Mannikin Pis...
Finally after all of this non-stop action, it was time to head back to Maastricht!  We had to get ready for more classes, and adventures within the city that would go on during the week, since the Inkomen activities (new student welcome) were still going on!

It's Finally Here!

Let's get a few things straight: I love it here.  The place is gorgeous, my cohorts are great, dutch is a hilarious language, and the people I've met are nice.
OK so I hinted that getting here was a slight adventure...

After we got off of our all night plane ride, we finally arrive in Amsterdam Schipol Airport.  This airport has a big shopping area/train station connected to it, right after you leave the arrivals area.  So we were supposed to depart on a bus right after the plane landed, but due to traffic (which is apparently constant in the Netherlands) the bus was running late.  So Drs. Baker and Abell let us go grab some breakfast and wander.  I was with Leah, and we wandered around for about 15 minutes and headed back to where the group was to meet.  When we were near, we saw that it was just Drs. Baker and Abell with all the luggage carts there, so Leah decided she needed to go to the bathroom, and grab a coffee from the espresso bar near it.  After this 10 min detour, we head back to the meeting area, and lo and behold: everyone was gone.  Leah begins to worry, and I simply go "oh they probably left us because we took our bags with us, guess we should go look for them, and if worse comes to worse, we have our eurail passes and can just buy a train ticket to Maastricht."  Luckily, our TA, Audrey, reminded Dr. Baker to do a head count and check names on the busses, and they realized that Leah and I were missing.  So Dr. Baker found us at the meeting point, and all is good.  Needless to say, I now have a reputation for being the one who wanders off and goes missing (even though Leah was with me she has dodged this rep!)
So we take the bus ride to Maastricht, which is about two and a half hours, and finally arrive!  Despite all my jet lag, I am thrilled to be here!  We took a brief tour of the "mall" which is really a short walk from the Guesthouse (dorm) that we're staying at.  Interesting fact about the Netherlands: they don't take credit cards at grocery stores, only cash, so you have to be sure to have enough!

Syelexyz Bookstore

Gate to the Masstricht University Library

I really love the city of Maastricht, it's a really old city, but they have modernized old buildings, like the church that was emptied when Maastricht was conquered by Napoleon, and now the city has renovated it into a new bookstore (which the NYT called the Most Beautiful Bookstore in the World). And then the University itself is beautiful, with the School of Economics and Business used to be an old monestary that they renovated.  The buildings literally blend 14th, 15th, and 16th century buildings with 21st Century ones in ways that are unique, and the university extensively remodels all the buildings they have to have ultra-modern interiors and amenities.
Today was the first day of classes here, and I really think I'm going to enjoy them!  My class days (Tues, Wed, and Thurs) start very early, with required breakfast at 7:30 am, with my first class, Epidemiology with Dr. Abell, starting at 8am.  Then I have Pathophysiology with Dr. Baker from 9:30-10:50, followed by a break for lunch.  Then at 1:15 I start back up with the one team taught course here: Clinical Decision Making. That goes till 3:30 when on Tuesdays and Thursdays I have my one class through the Maastricht Center for European Studies, Modernism and Beyond, a survey of British and Continental Literature.  Then we have dinner, and on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I finish the evening with History of Medicine from 6:30-8:30.   So that means that Thursday evening at 5:30 until Monday night, I have free to travel! 
Plans for this weekend: My roommate Nathan, and four others of us are going off on a whirlwind orientation of our region.  Thursday night and Friday in Amsterdam, Friday night and Saturday in Rotterdam, Saturday Night and Sunday in Brussels, Belgium, all to come back to Maastricht Sunday evening to enjoy the activities for Inkomen, which is the marking of the start of term for the University of Maastricht new students.  It sort of makes me homesick, seeing these students, because here in the Netherlands, most of the students we've seen out in town are members of fraternity and sorority type groups, and they are all wearing rugby style shirts while being about town doing activities, much like my Student Foundation Jersey... I wonder if I tied my jersey around myself and hopped on a bike, if people would notice that I wasn't a Uni Maas student... probably so, simply because of my lack of skills on a bike!  The streets here are a little crazy for me to be riding... I much prefer to ride off street, or on Baylor's campus where the streets are all blocked to cars!
Well it's time for me to go get some sleep... I have class early tomorrow!

Despite my best efforts, I made it!

Hey there!!  It's 11pm here in good old Maastricht! Just wanted to let yall know I made it safely, in spite of almost being left behind in the Amsterdam airport (funny story, will tell later) sorry for being brief, but I'm tired!

I Leave so soon!!

It's hard to believe that in less than 24 hours I will be leaving for three months... I just got back from a couple days down in Waco yesterday.  I got to see almost everyone that I wanted to see (except for Rick, Josh, Lindsey, and Callie!), and fill out a permit for one of my classes to count for both my medical humanities major and biology minor! And now I'm TRYING to actually pack my stuff... so far all I have done is make some very nice piles on the guest bed, a checklist, and completely trash my room...

All the piles on the guest bed! 

And what's best about this is that I really haven't even thought about what clothes I really want/need to bring... I on my insanely detailed checklist I did slide into generalities here, with the ever ambiguous check off item of "shirts and t-shirts."  It's hard to decide what I'll feel like wearing in September or October, especially when I'm currently living in a place where the temperature is around 100° and the high in Maastricht today is only 81°.
I realize that this semester is going to be a lot of hard work, but also a lot of fun.  I'm making headway through my summer reading (my first since high school!) and enjoying it, even the hard to understand stuff!
I'm really excited for dinner tonight. My family is taking me out to a fun asian fusion/sushi place in Midtown Oklahoma City called Pachinko Parlor... Mom and Dad have been and said it's really good and fun!  And Megan and Eileen Wilson are joining us for dinner!  Megan was going on the trip as my group's TA, but she got accepted to OU School of Medicine, so she just started classes!

What Will Make You Happy

So for those of you who don't know, my sister Katelynn is getting married in December, and she and her fiancé, Ryan, are in required pre-marital counseling.  One of their assignments for counseling that I found interesting is this: what material things, physical possessions, do you have in order to be content?  What kind of car, how many bedroom house, where do you want to vacation, and how often?  This got me thinking, in addition to one of my med school essay prompts "what are your goals for your future in medicine" that really, I haven't set any life goals, other than to be happy, healthy, and a doctor.  So I'm now setting down, "on paper," my goals, my sort of bucket list.
 This is in no particular order, it's just what I want to put it down to see what I want.  These all don't have to happen all at the same time, but I want to be able to do all of these.  Some of these are experiences, some of these are physical possessions, some are just achievements...

1. A successful medical practice, which allows me freedom to live without financial stress
2. To go on at least one medical mission trip every other year
3. At least one dog, and a big dog, not a little one... bonus if it can catch a frisbee
4. Go scuba diving at least once per year
5. A salt water fish tank... I miss ours from the old house, and I think mom would put one in the new house if she could figure out where...
6. To own a vacation house with a palm tree in the yard... preferably with a sand yard to go with it
7. House big enough to entertain and have friends and family visit... even if it is Katelynn's baseball team of kids...
8. Own one impractical car... Like a car I only drive on days when it's sunny and I want to go fast.
9. Have a happy family... maybe even with a couple kids...
10. Visit Australia, Africa, South America, Asia, and Europe (Basically go to all continents but Antarctica...)
11.  Go to New Zealand
12. Scuba Dive the Great Barrier Reef
13. Go to the Summer Olympics
14. Have a house with a Library full of books
15. Run a half marathon (possibly the Student Foundation Bearathon!)
16. Become Fluent in Spanish
17. Be able to take my parents on a long, exotic vacation
18. Write a book

Countdown to departure is now T-Minus 37 days, 18hours, and 20-ish minutes until I leave for Maastricht! (not that I'm counting...)
I"m really getting excited, I've ordered all my books, and they're arriving in the mail, and most excitingly: my backpack came in the mail yesterday.  Now only a few things stand between me and my European Semester abroad: 1. My MCAT.  I take it (again) on Aug 12, ten days before departure... 2. My Med School Applications (haven't quite submitted those yet- will do this week!) and 3. Planning where all I want to go!
I discovered a cool way to plot out where I "dream" of going while Im over there: google maps.  I made my own map and I dropped pins on all the places I wanted to go! that way I could visually see where all I think I want to visit! I think it's pretty neat.  I need to talk to some of my friends who have gone on a Maastricht trip to get more recommendations on places to visit, hostels, etc... just one more thing for the to-do list!

View Mark's Maastricht Trip Planning in a larger map
I'm also getting excited for my classes.  I'm half way through reading one of my summer books Complications by Atul Gwande.  I've read Dr. Gwande's book Better for one of Dr. Attas' classes, and I enjoyed it, and I definitely am liking Complications as well.  Its interesting reading about cases that Dr. Gwande has treated, and then finding some very similar ones that I've seen working in the Emergency Room this summer.
It's an interesting point right now... I can feel the summer coming to an end, and school getting ready to start up, but then I feel like it's an eternity away. I guess now Its time to go back to studying!