The Omaha of Germany

I've decided that Wuerzburg is the Omaha of Germany (though it's not Omaha's sister city...that would be Braunschweig). Wuerzberg is a nice, small town that most tourists don't visit (and I'll admit I hadn't heard of it prior to seeing it on my itinerary), but that turns out to be really fun and interesting. For example, did you know that Wuerzberg is the birthplace of 11 Nobel prize winners, including Roentgen, the discoverer of x-rays? I did not.

Anyway, today has been a jam-packed, fun-filled day. We started off in the OR, and I got to see cases I haven't been exposed to in years (shoulder replacement! bunion reconstruction!) as well as scrub in on a more common pediatric case (excision of osteochondroma, a benign cartilage growth). We had a nice lunch, then toured the molecular biology lab, and then gave our talks.

Throughout the day, Anja, a wonderful medical student, was our guide. There's the three of us in the bottom picture above. Thanks, Anja!

In the early evening, we went to Rothenberg, a medieval walled city, that dates to the 1300s.

There, we had a guided tour by the town executioner, who told us lots of fun facts about the middle ages. Did you know that being an executioner was a hereditary occupation? I did not. I did, however, know the German word for executioner, since we once read a book in German class by the Swiss playwright Friedrich Duerrenmatt called "Der Richter und sein Henker", "The Judge and his Executioner".

In the middle picture we are following the executioner through the cobbled streets.

After the tour, we had dinner in a lovely restaurant. To reserve our table there was a small china plate with the hotel's coat of arms, the date, number of people in our party, the time, and our host's name. There he is with it in the picture at the top. Thanks, Dr. Noeth!