Latest additions

I got around to try my 2 new aquisitions from one of the bookshops over here. I gave the Cooking one a try and turned out 3-4 good recipes untill now, which have been tasted and approved by my room mate and myself, and hoping to try some Photoshop tricks this weekend if I find some time.
On the list of things that I would like to aquire next, top place is taken by a fancy and expensive hammock which can only complete my Caribbean experience. Hopefully I will find more time to hang around in it, but I have visions of myself staying in it and watching a movie or reading a book. After all it is a bit too hot to have outside still! More pics with that if and when I aquire the fore mentioned object of my affection.

Sky-diving impressions

It has not started off as my original idea, but I have had embraced it quickly. I mean how could I not? It sounded really well. Scary, loaded with adrenaline, something to tell the grandchildren about (provided one lives to tell the tale:))))

The idea was basically to go to Miami, and jump off a plane at 14.500 feet. Since it's the first jump, it would be a tandem. A tandem with you, the innocent scared first time jumper and a very experienced (one hopes!:) skydiver.

Booked in advance, didn't think too much about it, and finally the weeks moved on and the day came. Left Grand Cayman, as there are no skydiving operators here, and taking advantage of a rare long weekend that I didn't work, and a willing Hungarian travel companion, off we went for 3 days in Miami.

Miami is great this time of the year....sunny and bright, and yet milder (around 20-22C daytime), and quite chilly at evening. We even ended up renting a convertible, just because we could:) and off we went, together with one of the greatest inventions imaginable, a very talkative GPS, to explore.

We even went to an indoor climbing wall on Saturday, to start the thrill, and I remembered just how much I missed it, while my travel companion did excellent on his first climbing indoor experience.

And then, before we know it, Sunday, the D-day came!!

Miami is a small paradise for yachts and air crafts alike. There are small airports galore, and at least a couple of skydiver operators. We went about 25 km away from Miami, in a field in the middle of nowhere, but which contained lots of air crafts of all sizes. I thought so often of my vet friends Ioana and Ovidiu which are the probably the ones that have inspired the whole thrill of it all, and who would have undoubtedly jumped before me from that plane!

Then we signed a very large contract, in which we basicaly agreed that we know we are about to jump off a plane and in case of an accident, neither myself (!) or any of my relatives would sue the company,

we were then given the suits, the harness, the instructions, and before we knew it, we were going on board a small plane, very basic, no seats obviously, tighly bumped in together. I was designated a quite large instructor that would be my tandem buddy, and kudos to all the staff, they were all so cool and cracking jokes about the whole situation, when everybody else was understandably quite nervous about the situation...and then we took off.

There was no door of the aircraft, but a plastic see through-door they used to cover the exit and which allowed one to see the increasing void underneath us. At 1000 feet I was already thinking Oh my God, Oh my God, this is so high....and I knew we still have 14 times more to go up....but the view was amazing.

The next big thing, the instructors finally hooked us up and we were strapped in very closely together,...and then the door opened. This is when an unbelieveble amount of adrenaline came onto my blood stream, as I realised there is no turning back and I am about to do this for real. From the chilling down mode, everybody started rushing in, and they all wanted to jump off as soon as possible.

I was the third in the line up....and all of a sudden they all started jumping. Seeing the first couple jump off was the scariest moment yet. The void sucked them off in a mere second, as if they were not there at all. It was like you see in the movies with people falling off. They were just gone. I closed my eyes as I couldn't bear to see Miklos leaping, being sucked into the vacuum and having this image on my retina... 1 second later they jumped as well and we were heading off to the exit as well.You have a buddy attached to your back, but you get to see the void very well. And that is scary again. There is no time to think thou. All together, you jump. It's very bad for the first moments untill some balance is aquired, and then there it is.

You free fall. For a minute. Seems a lot, but really is not. The speed is amazing, the view and the sensation is like nothing else. To make things even more thrilling, the instructor does with you a couple of spins, which have sent me screaming my head off, but just for the fun of it.

Then the instructor shows you on the altimeter that the 4500 feet limit is there, and one of you has to pull off the parachute.

He did it in my case, which they do with most people, and then we slowed down. 7-8 minutes followed, amazing thrill of being suspended in the air and seeing it all from above, and then a very good landing....and there it was, before we knew it, it was all done.

The post jump glow of adrenalin is something to be lived to be understood, .... and then we wanted to do it again:)

My first Saturday of the year

Still rested and with fond memories of the glorious New Year's Eve, I started with my first (dreaded) Saturday of the year.
As usually, it starts bright and early at 7 o'clock and it has potential to go on until the next day at 8.30 am when you pass over the phone to the next vet in charge.
Zooming thru the morning rounds, it was 2 minutes past 8 am and there were already 2 early patients waiting in the reception area ready to be seen.
And then it went on and on. I kept seeing people and patients till 2.30 pm. By the end of the session I was mumbling and I personally couldn't understand what I was trying to comunicate with the clients. But that's another issue. Of course, as it happends, in such long hours, one gets to see everything, ranging from sheer drama (road traffic accidents, blood, shock, serious neglect) to sheer nonsence (somebody waited for an hour to see me in order to tell me how her nearly one year dog is shaking her head in a cobra the snake-like fashion the minute she tries to lay down, only this morning. Physical exam was unremarkable,the dog was great, its ears were great, I send them home with the magical words monitoring and partially crying, partially laughing within myself).
Anyway, with the ear hematoma I had to solve next and the afternoon rounds, here I was, ready to go home at 5.30 pm. Which I did...knowing very well I am on call and anything can happen, but secretly wishing it will be quiet, I mean, I had already seen half of George Town that day already...!

So I had time (how God is ironic at times:) to dress up, and actually show for a lovely dinner invitation. Friends around, sparkling conversation;) and I actually had time to eat the salmon prepared by the lovely hungarian, (God is also merciful) and so I was enjoying the dinner and the people around me when....
the unavoidable happens and the phone rings.
I fled the warm dinner within 5 minutes, as it was an emergency, some body's dog had eaten a whole box of chocolates that afternoon while the owner was missing....and for you, non-veterinarian, you must know that chocolate is toxic to our canine friends.

And turns out, the owner brings along not one, but 2 (!) Labradors, that were alone with the offending box of now-gone chocolate.
We spent 3 hours together. Step one: making them vomit. We didn't know how much time had passed since ingestion, and even which one, so it was double trouble; since we don't have here for some reason that magical injection with apomorphine that makes them sick within minutes from the injection without fail (aargh, why not?! bloody regulations) I had to resort to the good old ways. So me and the owner were soaked , first peroxide, then a really saturated salty solution that we were administering orally to 2 very resentful doggies.

Peroxide did nothing, and salty water did the trick in one of them. The other one, stubborn as a mule. N-o-t-h-i-n-g. One of my colleagues has a trick thou, which I used succesfully as my last resort. A single IV full dose of cefazolin, and antibiotic that makes them usually sick if given fast IV. Which I did, which the dog did. Turned out she wasn't even guilty and only the other one had eaten the chocs.

Step two: giving them charcoal orally to absorb the potential remaining chocolate. The owners yellow shirt turned black, I was black, the dogs were annoyed, I was resigned by then knowing I won't make it back to the dinner....

Step three: IV catheters and starting them on IV fluids.
Step four: running a chemistry panel making sure all is Ok. Well, the innocent one was OK, the other one has a few values messed up, but not massively. I hoped the IV fluids will do the trick.

Step five: adieu to the owner (who happend at least to be a very nice and cooperative owner, kudos to him), writing my bill, and off I go, nearly midnight.

The night still had one surprise in store...(ha ha)...at 4.30 am the phone rang. A dog was giving birth and the owner was scared and wondering if the delivery was going well. I asked how much time had passed since the last puppy and she said, few minutes. Ok, I said, call me back in 2 hours if another puppy is not emerging. (Oh, please God, please God, make it alright and make her not call me back...zzzzzzzzz)

The phone didn't ring till next morning around 8.30,with another case (the dog's delivery went very well) when I was quite happy to say "yes, sure, bring it to the clinic" while I was driving myself towards there but only to drop that bloody phone off.....

...and continue with a quiet and sunny relaxing Carribean Sunday of doing almost nothing and soothing my nerves:)))) and pointed with an adventure of diving right outside 7 Mile Beach till underneath the before mentioned yacht so see it's anchor and sheer size from underneath.

Oh, how we have fun as vets:)))

Pictures at last...and more to come

It took some time, and lots of trials and tribulations with an otherwise very friendly tool, Picasa and finally here is the link: http://picasaweb.google.com/turcoaz . I plan to make this my virtual space for posting my pics for the future, in a very careful selection that is.

Sziget fest 2008

10-18 Aug, a week of fun!
If you're looking for a holiday to relax and rest, than surely Sziget festival is not the place to go! The festival takes place on an island on the Danube and this year reached it's maximum number of visitors, more than 385 000 peoples, most of them Hungarians and French.

The usual Sziget fest day starts with drinking your coffee as you stand in line for showers, which takes about 20 minutes of standing in the hot hot sun. The water should be hot but the boilers are no match for the huge filthy croud.
:))


Then u can visit Budapest, or go to the supermarket to buy food, or stay on the island where there are many things to experience, like drawing, making your own earings or clothing from recycled materials, body painting, bunjee jumping, climbing, visit the luminarium or different exhibitions, shopping and so on.



Starting 3:00 p.m. there are live performances to go to, on more than 10 different stages, so there's plenty to choose from and no way to see everything you'd like. Among others, we saw Alanis Morisette, Goran Bregovic and REM. After 00:30, the best party is at Roma tent, where everybody's dancing like crazy on Gipsy rhythms, performed mostly by East European Bands.

After that, you can either dance all night (you've got many discotheques to choose from) or go to sleep..


..home sweet home!
To conclude, I definitely recommend it to all party lovers out there ;)

Post hurricane

From the category "all is well when ends well" so was hurricane Gustav, at least as the Cayman Islands are concerned. Everybody was super prepared, and all activity has ceased during the storm. Winds of up to 70 km/h, some rain, water level rising quite a lot, but in the end, all finished without consequence and the sun is out again. And so are the usual invited visitors, like this huuuge male crab from the above picture.

Pre-Gustav...the preparations

The dreaded hurricane watch flags are out.....

Everybody is in the midst of preparations, especially making sure windows are protected....


Until all of the houses end up looking like that...

Some people have taken and left their cars to the very few higher ground places on the island...

Even small planes make no exception....


And now we are all waiting for the storm!

Meet Molly the beige female, a Humane Society dog that I am currently fostering and the unknown choc lab mix, a 3 legged from the neighborhood that is currently sleeping more often then not in front of my house. And we are all in for the hurricane:)

Gustav...the perfect storm?

It started on Tuesday. At work. One of the computers was opened with a satellite image of a storm over Haiti. "What is that, a hurricane, haha" I said, passing by. "Maybe", my boss said quite seriously. "well now... what's it called? Gustav?"

I didn't understand nor took it too seriously. Yes, the hurricane season was opened on 1st of June. Yes, 4 years ago there was Ivan. Al thou the island has been 100% rebuilt after the 2004 grade 5 hurricane, I have seen plenty of pictures, on books and private collections. What force is enough to bring a huge fridge from inside a normal, big villa and smack it in 2 in the middle of the yard, 100 m away? What takes a jeep and brings it in the middle of the pool?

Well... still these stories seemed far away. Not this year, it is one in 200 years of that magnitude. I still hope that. But, as Gustav kept bouncing back and forth from tropical storm to hurricane status, and slowly progressing towards us, the good inhabitants of Cayman Islands became prepared.

It is very unusual for an European that has not experienced anything like this before.
All the houses seem to have their eyes closed. With hurricane shutters, or for the cheaper versions, with pieces of wood hammered across. Everybody got dozens of cans and water and candles. Some cars, and even 2 small plains, have been safely parked across the few, rare, higher places of the island. Everything is shutting.

Even us...the hospital is empty. The 4 full time residents have been fostered. Not far away, the Humane Society shelter is also trying hard to evict the animals. I have one of them, a big dog called Molly. We're only doing very big emergencies for the days to come.

It's right now across Jamaica, moving slowly (which is bad) and has been quite unpredictable. One can only meditate thou on the modern technology available...100 years ago such hurricanes were deadly and unexpected.

I...am quiet. Took the dogs to the beach tonight, watched a fantastic sunset. The quiet before the storm. Nothing announced Gustav's closeness...

And yet, as I was safely tucked in tonight in front of the computer, all of a sudden, the more then normal winds have turned into very serious winds. More then I remember them in a terrible night on the ridge of Fagaras (that is my personal worse). And a rush of rain, beyond any torential rain I have experienced before.

And it is still in Jamaica, and these small storms are only the messengers....
Brrrr.... Keeping you posted provided the net doesn't break down, which it will eventually together with the water and electricity, which will be shut down even just for safety measures.

It is still 18 hours away...

Memories

Ioana's loss brought back memories. And they were not great memories.

Memories from University. The famous Uni from Bucharest, where our horse vet chief surgeon, still preached about the benefits of firing horse tendons, when the rest of Europe had already banished it by law and classified it as animal cruelty.

The time when we were sneaking in as students trying to give a very dehydrated horse, lodged in the large animal hospital, more then the prescribed 1 L of IV fluids. One whole litre!!!

I could dig back dozens of such memories. I could also dig back the endless amount of unnecessary information, from the 60's if not sooner, that we had to memorize as students.

I could remember the times when I watched in amazement how, in the small animal clinic surgery, the reputed ortho surgeon repairs a fracture without gloves. "I can't feel the structures just the same with gloves" was the running excuse. Hello??? This is not like wearing a condom, optional! Performing surgical acts with sterile gloves on is mandatory nowadays!

Or speaking on his mobile during surgery, closes the phone and then goes back into surgery. For the next surgery, the same instruments were sprayed with alchool a few times, and reused again without blinking. And all these in the main teaching institution, that should set a good example to everybody else.

I used to feel guilty for not spending time in the university's clinics and see "practice". Another "rebel" vet colleague, who is probably abroad as well now, told me once "I don't want to hang around, just in case I get some bad habits". Too right!

Still, while a student, I never really comprehend the full extend of the lack of professionalism and diagnostic errors that occur in veterinary practice in Romania. I had a vague idea, thinking that even for the most reputed clinician, lacking lab tests, X-rays, cages to keep animals hospitalized, etc., life would be pretty impossible.

And then I finally graduated, and found an opportunity to work abroad in a vet practice abroad. It was in Cyprus, the influence was very British in the practice...and that's when everything started for me personally; it wasn't anything by any stretch of imagination extraordinary, just a regular small animal practice at European standards. I learned in the first year there more about small animal practice then in the whole years spent in the university. It wasn't easy, but before every new surgery I would see the next day, I got books at home and red in advance. And by books, I mean updated, large, reputed small animal textbooks,....not the leaflet i received in university as my small animal surgery book.

After a year and a half spent abroad, I decided to return and practice in Romania. That's when it hit me, the huge gap between what could be and what really is happening.

I watched my colleagues doing surgeries on half awake animals (full deep anesthesia is very dangerous). I watched everybody taking surgical instruments off the shelf, rinsing them in alcohol, if that much, and getting to surgery. I watched very simple and basic ideas of surgery being slayed, just as plain skin closure techniques, that in view of most Romanian vets, need to be done with the thickest suture available and as tight as possible "to hold well".

I also saw the other side, of being employed in a small animal practice and getting a salary of 400$ monthly...and sometimes not getting that at all.

I saw, in 2007!, 2 great value products being used on animals...tarantula venom that is meant to help in localising the abscesses, and moth ball powder sticked onto fresh wounds to keep parasites away. I saw many medieval concepts. I also saw it's a battle to change the old ways, and certainly, should I ever feel like changing the ways and opening a practice in Romania, it would have to be either on my own, or together with some other open minded other vets with some years of experience of practising abroad.

Because a sad reality is...Ioana speaks about referring the cases. Well, my sad Romanian conclusion is ...apart from 2 places I could think of where I would refer my animal in Romania, (and both of them away from Bucharest), all else is silence. One is a vet that moved out from Israel, and has a practice in Arad. The other one is our very own Ricky, that despite just having started the practice 6 months ago, is growing it into a nicely equipped practice, and compensates with his solid theory knowledge all else. They both lack something essential thou...a serious Romanian lab for accurate hormone dosing, biopsies, cultures. I mean, seriously. Where would you sent a thyroid panel in Romania?? And mostly, how many Romanian vets would see the necessity of the exam?

Anyway, sad but true, the romanian reality in vet medicine is very sad. I think there are some very big hearted people out there. But the lack of proper training, the "books are written from books" concept and the complete lack of basic equipment leads to some serious errors.... and I hardly see things changing anytime soon.

FOR ALL THE VET WANNABES OUT THERE!!

OK, so I have 2 things to write about, and I have no idea why the hell I am writing now, a bit more than 24 hours away from my private pilot exam, with about 1000 pg left to review. BUT I am in the same time excited and pissed off.

The single good thing that happened to me lately is that today I was accepted to the EAZWV Summer School. Ovidiu too. Of course the rest of the students accepted are either German, Swiss, or anyway German speaking. The courses will be in Germany. So more German…joy… not that is bad…I just wanted to hear some English for a change. Or French…French would be nice too.

Now for the pissed off part. I don’t know if I should write this in English or in Romanian, so that all the “language impaired” Romanian vets could read this.

My dog died last Sunday (Dona, for the ones who knew her), and it was mostly because of poor (or totally inexistent) medical training or professionalism. Partly because the owners (me included) reacted waaaaay to slow to the symptoms.

To make a long story short: at one moment or another (I was in Vienna and my parents couldn’t tell me exactly when) Dona started to show a mild apathy (my parents thought is was because of the heat). It continued to develop into moderate apathy and inapetence (?!nu stiu daca exista cuvantu in engleza), up to a point, after about 2 weeks or so, when the situation aggravated. I urged my parents to take her to a vet (suggesting to go to the faculty).

Well, they finally took her to a so called vet, recommended to them by an aunt. I have no idea what kind of clinical exam that vet performed, but the diagnosis was warm infestation and treatment was of course antihelmintics (don’t know which one…). Apparently, after that Dona eliminated some parasites (again, don’t know which kind or how many).

However, after a few more days, Dona’s state was getting worse. She stopped eating. No defecation, no drinking, no nothing. My mom tried to force feed her, but Dona vomited on the spot all that was given to her.

So they tried their luck to a second vet. This one had a more elaborate diagnosis: chronic bronchopneumonia. Injected her with some fluids and drugs (couldn't find out what they were)., and sent my folks home with the following treatment (please sit down while you read): PROPOLIS TINCTURE!!!! That was all...

Guess what... a few days passed and the dog got worse and worse. My folks went to the countryside, took Dona with them, and found a third vet in Ramnicu Valcea. The vet they found was a very well intentioned nice man, but his knowledge was a big zero. He is a 3^rd age formerly cattle vet, recently reoriented on small animals. He spent 4 hours examining her, searching and trying to understand what is wrong with her. But how?! Using med books dating back from the 60’s?! Reading on the medicine packages?! With only a stethoscope and a thermometer?! He dismissed from the start the possibility of doing some blood work, stating that he doesn’t trust blood analysis in animals (!!!!) He refused to place an IV line, allegedly because Dona had a heart problem and he was afraid that he would stress the heart even more, and the veins were too small anyway!! What he actually heard was the stress tachycardia she always had at the vet. But she was too weakened to react; she couldn’t even raise her head. So he injected her according to my father 8 times, out of which 2x20ml IM!! The treatment was purely symptomatic, and that is I think what kept her alive a few more hours till I arrived.

When I found out about this odyssey I literally rushed the 1100 km back to Romania (thank you, Adrian!), 2 days before schedule, and found her in a heart breaking state. I took her to Bucharest, and because it was Sunday, and there was nobody at the vet school (at it was 6 a.m. anyway), I took her home, made a quick exam (she was subfebrile, bradicardic, weak arrhythmic pulse, pale-slight cyanotic mucosa, severely dehydrated and some neurological symptoms: late pain reaction in her extremities, no support reflex in either feet). She still had some strength in her left and she wagged her tail. I placed 2 catheters (call me paranoid, but I learned that when shock is suspected or anticipated both fore feet should be catheterized). I had only some 5% glucose left in the house, until I went to the pharmacy to buy a whole list of drugs.

I asked myself what may have caused this all? I reached absolutely no conclusion. Heart was of course weakened, but still ok, lungs were indeed mittelgradig verschärft vesiculär (raluri umede moderate?!-> edema?), but all the symptoms were consistent with her not having eaten for 3 weeks. And the neuro symptoms? She had 5 kg instead of 7-8kg. What the hell caused that in the first place?! Poisoning? A chronic condition? Both??! She was actually developing signs of shock. So I came up with a treatment plan for the next day until I could get her to a real doctor. This involved all sorts of IV fluids (from ringer and glucose to dextran and HES. Ovidiu helped me with the doses and combinations. I even started considering finding a blood donor dog) + electrolytes and vitamins; ranitidine; minimum dose of furosemid or spironolactone and even a urinal catheter, because she had no urine output in days & renal function must have been a mess; I also wanted to use a human urinal catheter as a naso-gastric tube, for artificial feeding. This was the “support” part of the treatment. On VIN I found that in the case of septic patients is safest to use a combination Ampicillin+2^nd/3^rd generation cephalosporine (they’re plenty for human use). I found cefoxitine. As for an antiinflamatory I couldn’t find anything injectable at the pharmacies around me. I started making a quick check up with a chart with vital parameters every hour. I tried my best to make out of my bedroom an improvised ICU. I know, basic treatment. Nothing fancy. I didn't want to risk making any more damage. But is guess it should have been enough for one day, until we had access to some blood/urine tests, ultrasound or eventually Rx, to find out more and set a diagnostic…

After 1.5h on the glucose she seemed to be a bit more energetic (but it can be of course my sick mind after 30h of not sleeping trying to convince itself that Dona was going to live). After I returned from the pharmacy ready to start with the aforementioned treatment, she became more and more agitated. She developed abdominal spasms and eliminated a dark reddish-brown, viscous paste (fecals, blood, intestinal mucosa?...), with a putrid smell, and in great quantities for such a small dog. She relaxed immediately. For one more hour she just stood still, probably tired from the spasms. But she started having them again, this time not eliminating anything, and she died in my arms, without being able to do anything.

So, for all the Romanian vet wannabes out there: YOU ARE NOT DOING MEDICINE!! YOU JUST ARE PLAYING DOCTOR! BADLY!!

The lack of knowledge is unacceptable, and nobody should blame that on the lack of money, the fucked up university, the lack of equipment, or the stars in the sky. Good books actually DO exist, information IS really there, if you can spare some time to find it and learn it. Lives can actually be saved, and you don’t need some fancy equipment to make an assessment. And when you’re over your head, don’t send the owner home with some pills and pray that everything will be all right. REFER! There are other doctors who know what they are doing!! And YES! Modern medical technologies REALLY DO EXIST FOR ANIMALS TOO!! Nobody will ask a neighborhood vet to perform a phacoemulsification or a TPLO, but taking a shitty blood sample won’t kill you! Might kill the patient if you don’t!

I am so sorry there is no malpraxis law in Romania…

PS I know, I made a long story even longer.

[in work]

...and this is how we spent 4 days in Lepzig PART 2

Leipzig…a quiet, little German town where campings are ridiculously expensive and young lads walk around in the middle of the night, day, morning, (or through the whole day for that matter) drinking their brains out on the streets. Yeah, I know, it was some sort of a holiday, but nevertheless, it was interesting to see so many totally wasted people on the streets.

For tight-student budget reasons we stayed in a camping, in tents. In times like these, you get to appreciate the quality of your tent and sleeping bags. After 4 nights in the tent, at 5ºC, you start to feel your true age :)

The venue of the conference was Westin Hotel, 5 minutes walk from the wonderful Leipzig Zoo. I have to admit I was really impressed by the organization and I was also extremely happy the presentations were very interesting and some of them opened my eyes on some issues.

By the way…did you know that one of the easiest ways to draw blood samples from wild animals with minimum handling time is by using a certain SPF bred tick? Of course, you get limited amount of blood, but it’s enough, say, for a TBC on spot ELISA test.

I also learned some very cool tricks about handling and common procedures and surgery in amphibians. For example a simple way to inject a frog i.m. is catching the frog with the hand covered in a latex glove, than simply wrap the glove around the frog…Also some interesting points in using endoscopy on small exotic animals, from amphibians and reptiles to birds.…Or how to easily extract diseased molars in Malayan tapirs…

The examples could go on, but to sum it up the sessions were focused mainly on great apes, tuberculosis, and than free topics divided on amphibians & reptiles, birds, and even more free topics…So the amount of scientific information I got from these two days and a half was amazing.

Also fun was that we received a magic name tag that gave us access to some wonderful things, such as the hotel’s 4 star restaurant, and to the Leipzig Zoo, at any hour. Imagine taking a walk, in perfect silence, almost alone, at nighttime, in what is considered to be one of the best zoos in Europe (if not the best…). You will see no fences; only vegetation, water ditches and nicely hidden, high voltage electric fences keep the animals away from the visitors. I seriously don’t approve zoos, but this one stroke me as being the only one I’ve seen so far with no stereotypical behavior from the animals. Enclosure design and the enrichment variation were simply extraordinary.

Another thing I’m grateful for is having the opportunity to eat twice a day at the hotel…Ovidiu, I’m sure you approve! Considering the limited to inexistent cooking possibilities at the camping, this was a heaven sent. Actually, if I come to think about it, I would’ve eaten there no matter how much food I had with me :) Ahhhh….those were good days…

Anyway, coming back to reality, things couldn’t have gone better! At the end we were all invited to a farewell party at the zoo, were we got to get wild and “jiggy with it”. And everybody got so surprisingly wild and jiggy, that at the end, the lounge staff had to throw out (politely of course) the crazy party vets…

So, after all the lecture sessions were finished, the parties over, the last 4 star meal eaten, last contact exchange made, it was time to pack and go home…In my case in Vienna, in Ovidiu’s case, in Bucharest.

In the mean time we are looking forward for the next year congress in Holland : ) LET THE PARTY START!!

THE END

...and this is how we spent 4 days in Lepzig PART 1

Ovidiu was waiting for the EAZWV congress for months…he was almost too excited (even for him). I have to admit I wasn’t…Still under the influence of my “middle study crisis”, I guess…And the thought of spending 150 euros on 2 days and a half of boring lectures was quite appalling…But I’m glad I didn’t back out.

So the story begins…

We made the long journey to Leipzig with Ovidiu’s poor car…I’m saying “poor” because it was filled up to the extent that one more jar of pickles would’ve produced an implosion... To cut the costs we decided to take two friends of Ovidiu’s who were trying to make a cheap, short holiday, so their luggage added up…so we had 5 huge rucksacks (5 because a lady always carries a bit more attire…), 1 huge paraglider (took up half the trunk), tons of food, 2 tents, sleeping bags, mum’s cookies, home made “pasca”, veggie “drob”, etc etc etc…You can imagine…

So…we were happily driving along (actually I was happily driving along) the Olt river, just about to cross the bridge in Calimanesti, where I stopped. Because all the cars in front of me stopped, for one reason or another. It was enough reason for me to stop, but unfortunately for a chick in a Ford behind me it wasn’t…And that’s how all 4 of us, together with the 5 rucksacks, 1 paraglider and mum’s cookies were literally squashed between the Ford and an Italian-registered Mercedes…

(Oh, this is another reason for calling Ovidiu’s car poor)

And the fun part of the story begins…listen to the guy in the Mercedes screaming his lungs out at you; call daddy; go to the police; give declarations; call daddy again; blow in the alcoholmeter; call daddy once more; draw little cars on the police report; realize in total desperation that the trunk wouldn’t close and that it’s 2^nd day of Easter so no opened services; start to consider jumping in the Olt as a good option…Ovidiu was on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

Our salvation was to tie the trunk with boot laces, and drive back to Ocnele Mari, my country-side village, about 20 km from there. With a desperate puppy face I gathered some friends, neighbors, relatives, all great guys who somehow after 3 hours of beating the crap out of the hinges, breaking it into pieces and making a whole new one, managed to make the trunk properly close…Ok, maybe properly is not a good choice of words, but let’s say that now we could pass the border :) …

And we went on…passed the Hungarian border at about 2 a.m., all of us with abnormally huge, totally innocent looking eyes and smiles on our faces, and with the hearts pounding out of our chests…and FREEDOM!!

The rest of the road was thank God uneventful. We made a stop in Vienna for 2 nights, eat at Vegetasia, went to the Opera, and drove along into the unknown…

End of part 1…

<-C'mon, Ovidiu, it's gonna be ok! -Go away and let me be woman!!!!