Author: Sarah DeVries

It’s been such an amazing three weeks traveling across Europe. I’ve experienced and done more things than I can even remember (seriously the profs make our groups recount what we did every 4-5 days or so and we can hardly remember without looking at our itinerary). Sometimes it’s even hard to remember what we did one day ago because we do so much! We’ve been flooded with new memories, experiences, and friends, and it’s been the best time ever.

While I’ve had the best trip in Europe, I am really looking forward to being back in America. I’ve missed so many things about our culture that we take for granted until we leave. Some specific cultural things I’ve missed are free water, free restrooms, pizza that’s actually sliced for you, venmo (at restaurants they give you one check the majority of the time and it’s always difficult keeping track of who you owe in euros), American fast food restaurants (taco bell), English, and more.

It’s been such a great trip, but it’ll feel good to be back 🙂

Sarah

Yesterday we visited two businesses in Germany- Gentex and Dynajet! Dynajet is a company that makes long lasting, high pressure water jetting systems. It was interesting to hear about the culture of the business and different business and engineering strategies they have.

After a German buffet dinner at our hotel we had a group meeting to discuss the businesses we visited. I learned how to do a SWOT analysis for businesses and realized that this type of analysis could work for many different organizations (for example, hospitals!)

My group analyzed Dynajet as a company, and this is what we came up with:

Strengths:

1. The company has a very passionate and charismatic leader.
2. They don’t have many competitors (one was mentioned)
3. They have many different models of water jetting systems to accommodate different needs

Weaknesses/ threats

1. It’s a small company so if a lot of people get sick or they receive too many orders, they may not be able to keep up with the demand.

Opportunities:

1. There are much older and dirtier buildings in Europe that need more cleaning/restoration.
2. There are a lot of people seen cleaning in the streets, so we could assume there would be need for a jetting system.

Overall another great day in Germany, and excited to keep learning and experiencing more new things!!

Sarah

Bonjour from Paris! My assigned topic for the trip was the Catacombs! After an amazing time going up the Eiffel tower that morning, we had the option to go see the catacombs. The majority of us went because it sounded really interesting. Professor Brouwer said “it’s the most unusual tourist spot,” and it really is.

We successfully navigated our way there, and then went down into the catacombs. We had to walk down many stairs and through low (for me haha) underground tunnels to get to where the remains were. I have to say seeing the remains of over two million bodies arranged artistically was a pretty strange experience. The bones were stacked on all sides of the pathways and formed some sculpture-ish things other areas.

As the only nursing student on this trip, I did find some extra things interesting about the catacombs. I thought it was cool seeing real different parts of bones and parts of the skull, and I enjoyed sharing with others what different bones were as well. Also, as I was reading information signs, I learned that the catacombs gave researchers a ton of information about the general health of the population in Paris from the Merovingian era all the way to the end of the 19th century. Infections and diseases that were found common to the area were arthritis, enthesopathy, leprosy, and syphillis. Dental analyses show abscesses, cavities, and more that were indicators of malnutrition and various deficiencies for many people. Lesions in the bones suggest overuse in manual labor, and fractures and dislocations reveal difficult living and working situations.

It was really interesting discovering more about the historical ways of life and health in Paris through these remains!

Sarah