Week 12: Full Days, Half Goodbyes

St. Mark's Church, Zagreb, Croatia

Week 11 moved fast, but it didn’t feel empty. It felt dense. The kind of week where your days are filled from the moment you wake up, and by the time you finally sit down at night, everything you saw and heard starts catching up with you at once. This was our long study tour with the class, split between Zagreb, Croatia, and Munich, Germany, and it required full attention throughout.

Zagreb felt muted in color and tone, in a way that made it easy to focus. Gray streets, soft light, trams cutting through the city at regular intervals. It is Croatia’s capital, but it does not lean into spectacle. It feels functional, lived in, and steady. Nothing demanded attention, which somehow made everything more noticeable.

Sitting in medical spaces, there felt serious and unpolished. Offices that looked used, not staged. Doctors speaking plainly about their work. During my GP visit, I sat in the corner of a small exam room, listening more than watching. The rhythm of patients coming in and out, the familiarity between doctor and patient, and the lack of urgency. This is where healthcare in Croatia felt most real to me, not dramatic, just consistent. Trust is built over time.

In between sessions, the city stayed quiet. Cafés were full but not loud. People lingered without rushing. Walking back to the hotel in the evening, the streets felt calm rather than empty. Zagreb felt like a place designed for routine, which made it a fitting setting for learning about a healthcare system built around accessibility and continuity.

The Museum of Broken Relationships sat tucked into the older part of the city, its stone streets narrowing as you approached. Inside, it was hushed. White walls, glass cases, short paragraphs you had to stand close to read. Some stories were almost nothing. Others stopped me longer than I expected. It was the kind of space where everyone moved slowly, even without being told to.

Munich shifted the atmosphere immediately. Bigger streets, heavier traffic, louder voices. As one of Germany’s largest cities, it felt more outward-facing and more social. There was more color and more motion. Beer gardens spilling into sidewalks, long wooden tables packed tight, plates clinking, conversations overlapping. Tradition did not feel preserved behind glass. It felt active and shared.

The pretzel-making workshop took place in a warm room that smelled like dough and salt, part of a local effort to teach traditional Bavarian food-making. Flour covered the tables. Instructions were shouted over laughter. Twisting the dough took more focus than I expected. My hands were tired by the end, and the pretzel came out uneven, but eating it fresh and warm felt strangely satisfying. It was one of the few moments that week where time slowed down without trying to.

The academic sessions in Munich carried more weight. Learning about the German healthcare system and forensic psychiatry meant grappling with topics such as ethics, mental illness, and legal responsibility. The rooms were quiet and focused. The conversations were dense and sometimes uncomfortable. The kind that makes you sit still longer than usual. Walking back outside afterward, the contrast between the heaviness of the discussion and the normal life happening around us felt sharp.

One night after dinner, we went to Springfest, Munich’s seasonal fair that mirrors the energy of Oktoberfest. Bright lights, loud music, the smell of fried food, and beer in the air. It was chaotic in a way that felt earned after the week we had. Standing shoulder to shoulder with classmates, tired and overstimulated, laughing anyway. It was messy, unplanned, and exactly right.

The last day blurred together. A museum filled with old beer steins and narrow staircases, suitcases rolling over cobblestones, airport lights too bright. By the time I landed back in Copenhagen on Friday evening, my body felt heavy. Everything caught up with me at once.

I feel like I did not see enough of either place, especially Munich. It felt like leaving mid-thought. But that might be what stays with me most about Week 11. Not a sense of completion, but immersion. Being fully inside something for a short amount of time and walking away changed by it.

It was exhausting.

And it was worth it.

The pretzels my friends and I made in Munich, Germany!