I arrived in Germany a little over a month ago with a sore lower back after the long plane flight. I figured this was normal after sitting in a cramped space for so long and thought I could manage the pain with yoga, stretching, and Mari’s massages. For the first two weeks after our arrival, I spent over an hour each morning doing exercises to relieve the pain enough to get through the day’s activities. Unfortunately, the pain seemed to be getting worse and by the time the school’s health insurance kicked in on August 1, I was feeling fairly crippled. I asked around at the school about doctors in the area and everyone assured me that the local practice in the small town of Haimhausen was great.
I went to the clinic without an appointment during their open visitation hours, paid 10 Euros co-pay, and waited just 15 minutes to see a young female doctor. She checked me out, asked some questions, did some manipulations, and wrote me a prescription for pain medication and physical therapy. I walked across the street from the doctor’s office to the pharmacy, paid 5 Euros co-pay and got the prescription for pain medication filled in 2 minutes. Then I walked next door to the clinic for physical therapy and made 6 appointments to fill my physical therapy prescription. The whole experience from the walk to the doctor’s office to the physical therapy clinic and back to our apartment took just an hour. I was feeling pretty excited about the convenience and ease of the system.
Three days later, however, when I had my first physical therapy treatment, I experienced a bit of culture shock. The receptionist took me back to a treatment room and had me take my top off to lay on a ‘fango pack’ (a pad filled with heated, crushed lava rock) to warm up the muscles. She covered me with a sheet and left the room. If felt my whole body relax into the heating pad. Twenty minutes later the doctor arrived in the room, shook my hand, told me his name, and asked me to stand up. Since I was covered only in a sheet, I wasn’t quite sure what to do--hold the sheet over my chest or let it drop when I stood? I figured it must be a cultural thing, so I just stood up. Then he told me to drop my shorts. (Of course we were speaking German.) Again this kind of direct command seemed a bit abrupt in comparison to the manner of American doctors. I noticed the doctor’s accent and darker skin and knew he wasn’t native German, either, so I figured it might be the way things worked in his culture. After looking at my back, having me bend over, and walk, he asked me to get back on the table and positioned me on my side. I had no idea what was about to happen next and did as I was asked to do.
In the next moment, he leaned over the table put his knee on one side of my thighs, wrapped his arms around my upper body and brutally cracked my spine in several places. I was taken completely by surprise, as I’d never been adjusted before and he hadn’t warned me about what was to come. When he had me roll onto my belly to adjust another part of my back, I thought I’d try to connect with him to make the experience a bit less shocking, so I asked where he was from. His answer did little to ease my discomfort. “I’m from Palestine,” he responded. “And you’re from America, right?” Gulp. I felt completely vulnerable lying on the table as he was popping vertebrae. “Yes,” I responded hesitantly. As he took my head in his hands to adjust the atlas (first vertebrae), he said, “Well, Americans must be tortured.” Then he quickly twisted my head in his hands and adjusted the atlas as I gasped in shock. I think he must have laughed all the way home about his little joke. As I walked away from the clinic, I already felt 100% better. The next morning, I had terribly sore muscles as if I’d been working out too hard, but the sharp pain in my lower back was gone. Relief washed over me. The Palestinian doctor in the German clinic wasn’t a quack after all. Actually, my back is now feeling great, and the last few prescribed treatments have been pleasant massages. What started as a torture session has ended in a spa treatment.
we watched the people go by on all different bikes. Most people were just out for a sight seeing ride but others were going to work in their suit and tie and some were really hard core training kids who flew by at lightning speed. Another thing we noticed while sitting there was the carrying capacity of the bike. If you have a bike, you have a basket, there's no doubt about it. And in your basket, you (of course) have stuff. Now just what kind of stuff we were looking for? Below is a list of all the things you can carry on a bike. (Things we have actually seen.)
