Spring Break: From the Best to the Worst Part: London

Once we arrived in London, the first thing we did was look for an ATM in order to get money. I decided to only pull out 100 pounds, hoping they would last me for four days. The problem was that from those 100 pounds, half were going for the hostel. After retrieving money, we decided to look for an information booth in order to get a city map and try to localize our hostel. This time we felt so good that we were able to ask for information in English. When the information lady told us where we had to go, we asked her for walking directions. The lady was shocked to hear us asking this since the hostel was three miles away, maybe even more. Me and Paula had discussed this before. Since we were trying to save money, we were going to try to find this place walking. After all, we had practically walked about the same distance or even more in Paris. I have to admit the experience of having to walk so much was not bad at all because we got to see London's night life. Yes, we got tired, but it was a price to pay in order to see London at night. However, I was not amused by what I saw. After approximately two months and a half of seeing such beautiful architecture over here, going back to seeing buildings just like those back home in America was not exciting. To top that off, this place was full of places similar to the ones we have in the USA, so it was just like if we were back home. There was one difference, though. People in London drive backwards, that is, they drive on the left side of the road and the steering wheel is on the right side. It was hard to cross the road since I was used to looking always to the left for coming traffic. After a while, I just gave up and decided to look both ways. After walking for like 2 hours and having cramps in our legs, we finally reached our destination. The hostel was gigantic and beautiful, but we had to stay with other 26 people in the same room. That worried me because I was afraid my belongings were going to get stolen, but they ended up being safe. That night, we only planned our next day and then completely knocked out. The next day, we decided to start our day with a free tour of London. We saw the house of the queen, who was actually there when we were there, and then went to go see the house of the prince. After that, the tour guy showed us other important houses around. I really enjoyed this tour because the guy gave us a lot of history and purposes of many traditions aside of being funny. After the tour, our next destination was the Eye of London. The view up there was simply fantastic. We were able to see many important places in London such as the Big Ben from up there, a sight I will never forget. Even better, once we got down, we decided to visit the aquarium. I enjoy looking at animals and learning more about them. In this aquarium, we learned about many groups in England and around the world who are trying to save turtles, sea horses, and mantle rays from becoming extinct. Once we were done looking around, we decided to look for China Town in London. This place was relatively small compared to other China Towns, but we did enjoy a delicious dinner along with one of the best pastries I have ever had, a mango cake. After going souvenir shopping, we decided we had walked a lot (we did not use the bus at all) so we decided to go back to the hostel and rest for the next day. On Friday, we decided to make it our museum day. First, we went to the "Great British Museum", which is basically a historical museum of the whole world. You practically need a whole week in order to enjoy this museum. We had decided to spent only about two hours there, but by the time those two hours ended, we had not even seen half of the first floor. We decided to leave in order to go to the "National History Museum". This place was not as big as the "British Museum", but it still took us a while to see what they had. It was basically a museum of the history of London, and personally, I did not enjoy it as much. Then we decided to go to St. Paul's Cathedral, but did not go in since they had a fee of 18 pounds to go in. I am still satisfied I was able to see it from the outside and take pictures. Our last stop was the Tower Bridge, one of the most famous bridges in the world. We didn't only get to cross it, but we got to climb one of its towers and learn about the history of this bridge. Just knowing how it works mechanically amazes me since back then, they didn't have the same technology we have today. Once we were back at the hostel, we decided to eat there and just chill. I had a typical Londonish plate, fish and chips, and a Londonish beer. It was probably the best meal I had in the entire trip since it was warm and we got to sit down and just relax. The next day, we first went to Abbey Rd., a road made famous by the Beatles. Then, we saw our final museum destination, the "Museum of Science". Again, this place was huge, so we really had to decided carefully what we wanted to see since we had limited time due to us leaving back to Bonn that afternoon. We saw several things, but we decided to dedicate most of our time in the fourth floor, the floor where they had the history and science of medicine. I was able to see many things I have learned so far in my history of medicine class, but what I liked the most was the section of veterinary medicine history. Even though it was the smaller section out of all the medicine part, I believe I spent the most time there just reading every sign and trying to imagine how life was back then for veterinarians. This place made me be glad that veterinarian medicine has advanced so much. After spending a good amount of time in that museum, we started heading back to the train station, but not without first stopping at a big market in where I tried Brazilian food and bought my England flag for my collection. Once we arrived at the train station, I felt a great relief because I thought this whole week of torture was over. Not torture because I did not enjoy it, but torture because we literally walked all over three different cities with hardly enough money. Regardless of that, it made me learn a really valuable lesson. We are blessed to be able to have means of transportation whenever we needed and to have the guarantee that we will be having a good warm meal at least twice per day. There are people out there that do not have all these, but they still manage to go around and be happy. We should enjoy our lifes more instead of going around complaining about every single problem we have that is most likely not a big deal. I was excited to finally go back to London, but our trip back was not that enjoyable. First of all, we were leaving London at 7pm and not arriving at Bonn until 8am. This 13 hour trip ment that we had to change trains not just once nor three times, but like five times. This ment that we hardly got any sleep since we had to be paying attention for our stops. During the time in between, we had to wait a good while in the cold. At one of the stops, an old guy was nice enough to allow us to stay inside one of the trains while our train arrived. I thank God for that since it was snowing in that city, the station was closed, and we were going to need to wait for four hour. To make my trip even worse, during our stop at Brussels, my laptop bag got stolen with my laptop and important documents inside. I put it down next to me in order to eat, thinking it was safe since I could see it, but (this is my theory) during a moment of distraction, someone managed to take it from my side. I have no words to describe how I felt. Once back at Bonn, all I could think about was how glad I was to be back after such a horrible night. But I did learn another valuable lesson at the end. Never pick a train trip that has so many changes even though it is way cheaper and also, if you do not have to, do not remove your bags simply to eat!

London and Les Mis!

"Master of the House" from Les Mis at Queens Theatre

So this year instead of going to a warm beach with sand and sun I got the chance to go to London and Scotland! It was incredible and exciting and so nice to be in countries that spoke English! I also got to spend the break with Max and his brother and sister, Zach and Ashton which was really fun! This blog's just gonna talk about London for now though. Forewarning: The pictures in the blog probably won't be the best  cause the wind in England the entire time we were there seemed to be blowing about 100 miles an hour.

Day 1: Spring break started off a little dicey after Zach and Ashton's flight delayed a day because of snow but it was still a fun day!

Borough Market for Raspberries and a sandwich: I hit jackpot at the market. I'm not sure if you know this but raspberries are pretty much my favourite thing in the whole world and while we were at the market there was a vendor selling raspberries for something like a pound for a huge container of them! 30 minutes later plus 1 container gone equalled one very happy me :)

Trafalgar Square: The classic plaza with all the lions? yeah that's this one. The cool thing is that they don't get mad at you for climbing on the statues!

Camden Town: This place was probably the most eclectic out of all the places we went to but it was tons of fun to people watch! Full of tattoo parlours and emo/goth stuff, you can bet there were a lot of character out and about. Also if you get the chance look up Cyber dog. It's a store there and hands down it was top 5 weirdest stores I've ever been in. There are no words, you'll just have to look it up!

Covent Gardens: This area was really nice

Bens cookies: A shout out to them for having the most delicious peanut butter cookies EVER!

Day2: 

Buckingham Palace: Size wise it's a little bit anticlimactic from what you expect but still gorgeous!

Westminister Abbey: definitely pretty, but I'm still a little cathedraled out

London tower Bridge: This is the one that the hung the Olympic rings off of!

Trafalger Square again:

Pies for Lunch: And by pies, I mean meat pies. With a side of creamed peas and potatoes it was a English classic! 

Covent Gardens Again

Rugby Game at a pub: I've decided this is a must do if you're in London. I never realized how big Rugby is over there. The pub was crammed full of fans!

Day 3: 

Tower of London Tour: One of the top things of London. The museum was cool and interactive, we go to see the ravens and beef eaters, AND we got a glimpse at the crown jewels. All around a great experience!

 

Hyde Park: okay seriously, it sounds crazy but this one probably my favourite in London. A picture says a thousand words: 

Yes, that is a squirrel crawling up my leg! :)

Les Mis!: Probably what I was looking forward to the most before coming to London and it wasn't a let down at all! The play was great and the actor and their voices were top notch. Plus its always cool to get to see a play in its original theatre!

And we finished with some late night pizza from Pizza Express!

Day 4:

Bath: Ruins of ancient Roman baths. These are the only hot springs in England, Unforutately you're not allowed to go in them anymore...

Stonehenge: This was awesome! It's probably wouldn't have been quite as cool if it weren't for the fact that it's surrounded by nothing. you drive and drive and all you see is farmland and plains and then all of a sudden out of nowhere pops Stonehenge! Magnificent!

Windsor Castle: This is where the queen spends most of her time. The grounds were super pretty and after a tour of the inside I'd say the castle was too! Each room was over the top fancy beyond anything I've ever seen!

The next morning we set off for Scotland AKA my all time favourite country so far during this trip! But that's for another time. For now let's just say I WILL be going back someday, no excuses.  I know I've built it up a lot but not without reason, just trust me!:)

It's all Greek to Me

I spent the second half of Spring Break in Athens, Greece where we toured the center of another great ancient civilization.  The day we arrived we took it pretty easy and just walked around the suburb of Athens that we were staying in.  We shopped a little, got a gyro, took some pictures of the Mediterranean, and climbed some cool rocks on a pier.   We ended the night at a seafood restaurant where we were all shocked when our fish showed up with heads, eyes, scales, and everything still attached.  Some were more brave than others in trying the fresh fish and in the end I was proud of myself for making it through my bowl of fried shrimp that still had its head feet attached.

 

On day two we made our way to the center of Athens to begin touring some more ruins!  We began with a walk through the national garden which had a small "zoo" with lots of birds and some goats.  Then we made our way to tour the Temple of the Olympian Zeus and Hadrian's Gate before climbing to see the Theater of Herodes and finally the Acropolis!!  We did another Rick Steves audio guide of the Acropolis and Parthenon.  On our way down there were lots of stray dogs and for some reason they started to follow us even though we hadn't fed or pet them!  It was hilarious because they followed us for "forever and a mile."  After lunch we went to the Monastiraki market for some souvenir shopping.  Before we got on the tram home though we saw a demonstration in front of the parliament building so we made sure to get out of there pretty quick.

 

Day three was supposed to be a beach day but the weather did not cooperate and it was cold and cloudy so instead we got some gelato and relaxed outside with the nice weather (it was nice outside but just too cold for the beach).

 

On our last day we headed back into Athens to see the Old Olympic Stadium, the Ancient Agora, and the Archeological Museum.  After seeing those we climbed to the highest point in Athens, the top of Lycabettus hill, and got some incredible shots of the city.

 

 

 

I had a great Spring Break visiting Rome and Athens and loved being able to walk through so much history!

Welcome to London Town!

Arriving at Liverpool Street Station in London was like stepping into a Harry Potter Movie. The station was HUGE and everyone was bustling around on the wrong side of the road/walkways. Accents and foreign languages were being flown around the room. We wandered our way to the ticket center and had a nice British fellow assist us in finding our hostel. We immediately made our way to a pub for a good Fish N' Chips and British Stout. After wandering around and finding the famous George's Pub, we called it an early night and went to bed. Starting the next morning, I looked out at breakfast and saw it was snowing... hard. Its almost April, right? What is this blasphemy?! We hiked to the London Eye in the snowy-rain; shivering in line. We got a beautiful view of Big Ben, Parliament, and the Thames River. Afterwards we faced the cold and walked across the Westminster Bridge, and took photos with Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and then walked to the garden in front of Buckingham palace (the name escapes me). We fed the squirrels and had them crawl all over us. We walked to Buckingham Palace, but sadly we missed the Queen. We made our way to get tea and strawberry tarts and watch it snow. We went back to the hostel and ate dinner. The next morning we made our way about and hour out of town to go see the Harry Potter Set Tour. We spent four hours touring the set, taking photos of the costumes, makeup, wigs and anything else we could see. For the four Harry Potter geeks, this was the highlight of our weekend. We made our (long) way back to the airport and took our late night flight home. Stay tuned for stories from Paris, as I leave in 30 minutes!

When in Rome

For Spring Break I went to see the centers of two ancient civilizations: Rome and Athens and this blog will cover the first half of that trip.  Our journey began very early in the morning March 9th when we all left to go to the train station at 2am.  A couple trains later we arrived at the Dusseldorf International Airport.  From there we looked around for our check in gate and when we couldn't find it asked an airport worker only to find out that we were at the wrong airport.  We were 45 minutes from the right airport and our flight stopped boarding in an hour. So, without panicking, the eight of us loaded into two taxis and sped off for Weese Airport like we were in the Amazing Race.  We ended up making it on our flight just in time (with several big bumps when we arrived at the new airport) but deciding that we would never use RyanAir again because the pain they put us through was not worth the cheap ticket price.

When we finally made it to Rome we were all relieved and decided to walk around the city center by the train station and look around.  During our meandering we stumbled upon a basilica whose interior (second picture) no one would have every guessed from looking at it's exterior (first picture)

Later on that day we went on to tour the Colosseum, and see the Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain, all of which were incredible.  Rome is now one of my favorite places I've been to because of how the beauty of the city can be seen by just strolling through the streets.  When we were at the Colosseum we had an interesting run in with a representative from a Houston news station.  We had taken out our Texas A&M flag to take a picture and were approached and asked if we would meet her on Tuesday to be interviewed (more on this later)!

 

Day two began with a trip to the Roman Forum where we walked through while listening to our Rick Steves audio guide.  Next to the forum was a small church with an even smaller prison, Mamertine prison, beneath it were it is believed that Paul and Peter were imprisoned and where Peter wrote 2 Timothy.  We then moved on to see the Pantheon and were amazed by architecture and extravagance of the famous dome.  We ended the day with a trip to what we termed the "Cat Colosseum" because it is an area of ruins that is still being excavated but has dozens of cats that live there (which are all taken care of and vaccinated). 

The third day we visited Vatican City for the first time and toured St. Peter's Cathedral (we couldn't tour the Sistine Chapel because it was closed for the meeting of the conclave).  Inside the cathedral was some of the most extravagant statues and paintings and architecture that I have ever seen.  Afterwards we wandered around some more and found a "park" with an incredible view of the city and took lots of photos.

 

On our final day in Rome we returned to Vatican City to be interviewed by KPRC (a Houston news channel).  We talked and took pictures with our new BFF Bill Balleza, the news anchor, and they asked us to return with them that night to watch for smoke after the first vote of the conclave.  When we went back the smoke was black but we had a fun time talking to Bill and even talked to a couple other aggies that we found! Our interview can be seen here: http://www.click2houston.com/news/Texas-A-M-students-take-trip-to-conclave/-/1735978/19289132/-/format/rsss_2.0/-/11h1x3j/-/index.html

 

Overall our time in Rome was an absolute blast and I can't wait to go back with my family in a few months so that they can experience this gorgeous city that is full of so much history.  And even though we missed the white smoke by less than 12 hours the trip was totally worth it and I have tons of great memories!



8 cities in 10 days

Spring Break was definitely the best and most chill ten days I’ve had since I’ve been here in Europe. It was so great to relax and have time off from school. I’m so exhausted after all the traveling but it was so worth it.

Right after school got out on Friday, Justin and I had to catch a bus that would take us to the Cologne airport for our flight which left around 4:30. But I forgot my suitcase at home and had to rush back on the bus to get it. Well there isn’t a lot of rushing involved with buses here; especially to my house. Because my house is so far away on the bus, I almost made us late to the airport. But right when I got home I grabbed my bags and walked right back out the door to catch the next bus that left to Hauptbahnhof. The entire time I was on the bus to and from home, Justin was waiting at Haptbahnhof watching the clock and making sure we didn’t miss our bus. If it wasn’t for him we would have been in quite the pickle. To make matters worse, the airport workers were on strike so we weren’t sure if our flight had been cancelled or delayed.

Once I got to Hauptbahnhof, we hopped a bus to the airport and learned that our flight had in fact not been delayed. We were pretty relieved about this but the security and customs line was outrageous. We waited in line for probably close to two hours (this could be way off I can’t remember) or what felt like two hours and then got our stuff through security. We took RyanAir to Barcelona and I soon realized that once boarding for the plane begins, it’s a rush to see who gets the best seats. The reason for this is because there are no assigned seats. It was madness, that’s for sure.

We arrived safely in Barcelona and made our way to our hostel (which was awesome) to be greeted by a guy named Valle. He helped run the place and was one of Justin’s old friends. He made us feel right at home. When we walked in we also saw Paula and Carlos who were staying in the same hostel as well. So it was nice to see familiar faces.

That night, we all went on a “pub crawl” as they would call it but in Barcelona it was different. Our guide, whose name was Paulina, took us to two bars and then a nightclub called “Werk it”. Paulina was a crazy chick who got from place to place on rollerblades. She wore a sailor’s hat and a big fur jacket. It seemed like she knew everyone and both of the bars she took us to were awesome. The nightclub we went to later was Barcelona’s attempt at a German nightclub. That’s the vibe I was getting because they were play German house music and the name was very German. The music was great and the place was a blast.

The next day, we got off to a sort of late start but we hit the beach because it was such a beautiful day. On the walk around Las Ramblas, we saw so many signs for tapas but we wanted to find the best tapas place. Tapas are a Spanish dish that are served all over Spain and include a wide variety of different appetizers. We also heard the paella in this area was also amazing. On our walk we soaked up the Spanish sun and came across some markets. I got some cool stuff for some friends as well as a necklace for myself. Later, we ate at a restaurant and people watched for a couple hours and then made it to the beach. The water was so beautiful but too cold to swim in. It was a very chill day.

Later that night we went to a nightclub called Razzmatazz which Justin had told me about. I heard from quite a few people that it was the place to go in Barcelona because it had 5 different floors with all kinds of music. Justin and I showed up around 12:30, thinking we were kind of late but when we arrived the club looked closed. We were pretty confused and so we met some people that were just as confused and tried figuring out what the deal was. All of the doors were locked and more and more people showed up. After walking around the premises a couple times, four bouncers opened the door and told us to stand in line. It was already 1 am at this point. Justin and I waited in line and overheard some British girls come up behind us. They were yelling at each other but in a playful way and we couldn’t help but chime in. We met all four of them and they came from Manchester, Whales, and Ireland. All of their accents were pretty strong but that didn’t stop us from talking to them. They asked us where we came from and how we liked Barca. We continued to talk and hang out with them after we got inside. It costed 17 euros to get inside but once inside the venue was massive. It didn’t pick up until about 1:30 or 2 am but by that time it was packed with people.

The music they played varied from minimal house, to rock, and to techno music. After walking through all the rooms, Justin and I took a seat on the balcony and watched the live band that had showed up. They were pretty good. Around 5:30 am we decided it was time to go home. As we were leaving the line out the door was crazy. People in Spain go hard! Unfortunately, we didn’t get to say goodbye to our British friends but we were hopeful that we would see them again.

The next two days in Barca we spent seeing the city and going on an awesome Gondola ride that overlooked the city. Of course we hit up the beach a couple more times before we left for Madrid on Tuesday.

We arrived in Madrid and met up with my good friend Yael who is studying there. Instead of staying in a hostel, we stayed at her host family's apartment. Her host senora didn't speak any english so it was a bit difficult to communicate with her but we managed. Yael took us to the Museo del Prado, to the Madrid park, and to a really cool historical city called Toledo.
One of the nights I was almost really unlucky because this one girl almost stole my wallet but I caught her. I noticed my purse had been opened and I immediately looked up at her and said, "You took my wallet!" Which of course she disagreed to and so I made sure I looked through my purse one more time to make sure I wasn't imagining things. And I definitely wasn't but by the time I looked back up she was already taking off through the crowd. I told Justin she took my wallet and he went after her and got it back from her. Thank goodness...that could have ended up being a terrible night. Some advice when going to Madrid: don't go to the club called Kapital if you want to get mugged. Also, make sure you have a tight grip on your bag.
The next day we took off to Florence where the weather continued to be great. While in Florence we saw the Duomo and even got to sit in at a service they were having on a Sunday.
We tasted the original italian gelato, which was fabulous. Mostly we went and explored on walks and went on day trips to the beach in Viareggio. On St. Patrick's day we went to Pisa and got to see the leaning tower lit up green!

By the end of spring break we were super worn out and were in need of a few recovery days. Overall, it was a great 10 days that I got to spent with great company :)

I'm a teen again!!

I know it has been a while. But when you are on the move a lot and come back to exams time just slips on by. With that said... it is 1:30 in the morning when it is the still darkness of the night and time is still zooming on by.

Today, was a nice day... I will say I rather enjoyed it. Today was my host sister's birthday and she turned an amazing number 17 today.. She is no longer identified as 16... (Ann Rand's Anthem.. get it??)To celebrate for her birthday, she invited all of her friends to eat dinner and go to the movies afterwards. There we a lot of teenage girls. I felt young again.  I hung out and worked on my poor German and somehow managed to find myself reading an excerpt from Fifty Shades of Grey...

Yes...

Anyways afterwards I decided to go to the movies with them and I invited my good friend Philipp whom is very awesome and rather tall. My host sister and her friends wanted to watch the movie Spring Breakers and me just tagging along really didn't care as to what I was going to see. I mean it was in German... I wouldn't understand anything they are saying. IT WAS the MOST confusing movie I have ever seen. Totally unpredictable. When I watch the beginning I was like that chick is going to die etc... and next thing I know I am watching this drug lord guy and 3 girls playing a Brittany Spears song on piano and singing to it... LOST.
If you were there and you heard that one chick say " I'm so confused", that was me... And I wasn't the only one too. My German friend was also lost and he speaks German. It was a good laugh though... I guess you can say I got my money's worth.

Convert your units!

So as a member of the Corps, normally I keep my hair at 6 inches with white walls with all the variation a week can give me, which isn't much different than what I did in high school. While traveling, I decided to let my hair grow out and see how I liked long hair. This weekend I decided I don't, and got my haircut today and asked for my usual 6 on top with a 5 on the side.

I forgot to convert from inches to centimeters.

For those of you who don't have the conversion factor memorized, one inches is about 2.5 cm. So now I'm rockin a 2 more or less all around. For me that isn't a big deal, I've done it before, but it was unexpected. So for those of you planning to come to Europe in the future, convert your units!

We've already been here 10 weeks?!?

     Since spring break, I have been pretty busy with school … I’m almost officially home free for Easter break. Only one quiz stands in my way. There are a few of us going to Paris this weekend. I can’t wait! We just need to make sure we have everything figured out; it seems like we booked it ages ago, so it would be terrible to forget anything.

     Time is really moving fast now, and I’m starting to miss home a little bit more. But I can’t believe that we have exactly two weeks until departure day! I am excited to go home, but at the same time I think I might miss Bonn a little :) 

Only 6 Weeks Left!

       Well this past week has been stressful to say the least. We had a virology quiz, a virology project, a physiology lab midterm, and thank God our biochem test got moved to today! Thankfully everything went well (minus biochem, since we don't know our grades yet....) All I can say is I am SOO glad it's over! Although I just realized that we only have 6 weeks of class left, and still have two more tests plus finals in both physiology AND biochem...and how we're supposed to cover that much material in that time period is still beyond me...
     Anyways, I do have to mention that I went to Palm Sunday Mass here yesterday, and it was quite interesting. For starters, the church was PACKED, I'm talking, I had to sit in one of the crappy side pews that is right behind a massive pillar. (aka I can't see anything...cool) And on normal Sundays there's literally 15 people there... yay for "Chreasters"...Secondly, because I sat in the crappy pews, the priest didn't bother coming over to bless anyone in our aisle with Holy water. (It's strange that he only did the main aisle, because at home the priest will go everywhere to make sure everyone is blessed.) Thirdly, (and most importantly) they don't have palms here.... Instead I was literally greeted with a branch from a bush. I am still baffled, because they still call it "Palm Sunday," but they clearly do not hand out palm leaves like we have at home. And they're huge too, I not kidding when I say it was literally a part of a bush! (Unless of course, its due to the fact that Germany is FREEZING cold, and palm trees know better than to attempt life here....haha)
     Since I haven't be able to catch a break this week either, (biochem test today, virology homework due wednesday, and a biochem quiz wednesday), it is needless to say that I am STOKED for this weekend! Jordan, Allison, Kristen, Colin, Robert, and I are going to Münich and Garmisch for Easter weekend! I'm not quite sure what all we're doing yet, but anything has got to be better than school right about now... (even though I'll probably still have to take some time out over the weekend to study for physiology, since, oh yeah, we have that test right after Easter.....yay.) BUT I'm still super excited. Plus, Laura, Nicole, and I just booked a weekend trip to Alghero, Italy for the weekend before Berlin! I am sooo excited to finally get to go to the beach, and what better place to go than Italy?! (Although this does mean that diet season has officially started...so long croissants, it was nice eatin' ya!) So while school has picked up immensely, I do have several exciting trips to look forward to! (And you can't forget our week we're going to spend in Berlin!) Unfortunately, I just feel like I always have so much to do, and never enough time....
    Oh well, that's all for now!

Another Week!

It's been another cold week here in Bonn, Germany! Gosh I'm so ready for Texas weather! This whole past week has been filled with working on our current computer programming project so I do have anything that interesting to talk about besides the fact I've spent 35 plus hours staring at a computer screen trying to program. It's getting to that point of the trip where I am starting to be ready to head home. I miss a lot of things from back home. Michael and I are headed to Barcelona Thursday for Easter so that should be a ton of fun! Hopefully we can catch some sun while hanging out on the beach all day because I can guarantee you we won't be catching any sun here in Bonn!
Tchuss!

The Quotidian

More than anything, this is a casual post. Being more than half way into this program is a bittersweet feeling. I'm excited to see my little monsters. Oops, sisters, I meant sisters. They are the sunshine to my days. And lately, there's been a lot of that missing. Literally. Thankfully, they sneak away my older brother's iPad enough times to FaceTime with me frequently. With an iFamily, it's also easy to chat with them all of the time. Not to mention, my mother's morning and night time essays she sends. In them, she puts a thousand and one blessings and emojis. She's lovely.

As for a school report, everything seems to be going grand. This past Friday was our Neuroanatomy final. I really loved that class. Dr. Pine is a wonderful lady who's sole purpose was that we gain enough knowledge to apply it to our quotidian lifestyles. She didn't make us memorize 110 tracks that we'd easily forget by the following week. Nope. Instead, she helped us better inform ourselves by reading published articles, having group discussions, presentations, and such. She also had a loving, motherly aura to her persona that made her a joy to be around. I'm going to miss her a lot. On a bright note, I will see her again in College Station!

This upcoming week will be a little less stressful with another class done. My load will be lighter, and I truly cannot wait for our Thursday departure to the wonderful city of Paris. I know there are mixed opinions about it, and I don't take sides. I've never been, so my own opinion will be made this weekend. The best part is that I will have a chance to spend it with two of the people I care the most about, my best friend Stephiee (who is basically a sister to me, forreal) and Jorge. (: His familiar face will quench the longing I have for home. He's a different kind of home, and I miss him. I'll stop now before I get any cheesier.

Guess that wraps up this week's updates! Have a great week everyone! Hopeful wishes for this very holy week and everything else!

Peace, Love, and Bear Hugs,

Chessy.

Back Home

 We're over half way done with our trip and it has been a while since I have seen my family and friends. It would be great to be able to spend a couple days with them. Its been a while since I have seen my little brothers and wish them the best back home with school.  I'm thankful for the constant contact that i have been in with my family. I miss them and hope everything's going good in the states. It would also be great to have the chance to spend a few days at my farm, deer lease, or on the water with my good buddies from back home.  Sitting around the fire in the middle of nowhere or cruising across the lake searching for bedded bass this time of year would be amazing. My brother, his buddies and all my buddies keep teasing me by sending me a bunch of fishing pictures! I also missed the Houston rodeo this year and have seen status's and tweets about it  daily to remind me. This will be the first time in my life I have gone four months without fishing, some sort of hunting, the rodeo and my family and friends. It will make my dad and I's big fishing trip to Padre that much sweeter this May! Even though I miss everyone back home I know this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to be in Europe and the experience is second to none. It has been great over here but I could definitely go for some Texas weather for a few days. I look forward to the rest of my time in Europe and to getting back home.

Spring Break: From the Best to the Worst Part: Paris

After Barcelona, I was excited to see what else this trip had to offer us. I did not want to leave Barcelona though, but I was positive I was going to have more fun experiences the rest of the week. God was I wrong! We arrived in Paris Monday around 1pm. First thing we did was to look for the information booth in order to ask how to get to our hostel. I can't say the lady was mean to us because she really did help us and didn't show any signs she didn't want to, but the way she helped us was so cold. It was as if she didn't mind helping but if you gave her the option on either helping us or not, she would choose not to help us. We bought a ticket that would allow us to take the train to the center of Paris and from there, as long as we would't exit, we could take the tram to our hostel. Well, which train to take was our first challenge. Even though some trains are labeled with the same number, they have different destinations. We were so confused at first, but using signs, I was able to ask a French guy that was standing near us. I have to say it was a little akward asking without knowing French but I had to do it. Once we arrived at the terminal where we were going to grab the tram, we started following everyone since they were all going to the same location. There was a big sign saying "Sortie" above us, but we didn't know what it meant. Now we do. It means EXIT! We accidently exited the terminal and had to buy another ticket in order to go back in. Once we finally got to the hostel, they made us wait almost two hours just to get our room. We were hungry, so we decided to buy some things from the market while we waited forever. For the rest of the day, we just walked around to get to know the area around us, went to stores, and saw the Moulin Rouge. Even though its not my thing, I have to admit it look awesome during the night.
The next day it snowed! I usually like snow, but ever since I arrived here in Europe, I started hating it. It has snowed often in Bonn, Germany and I thought that for Spring Break, I was going to have a break from that weather. To make things worse, French people do not really now how to drive in snow. Just in our way to the bus stop, we literally saw about five accidents with the drivers standing outside the cars shouting at each other. To make things even more worse, the hop-on-hop-off bus we booked for our days in Paris got canceled. We had made all our plans depending on those buses and know our stay in Paris was ruined. If we wanted to see things, we were either going to buy a bus ticket or walk everywhere. Here is the thing...we didn't have a lot of money. Therefore, we decided to walk everywhere. Oh my God was it tiring. When I left Bonn, I was afraid I wasn't going to work out but I was so wrong. We literally walked all Paris. Our first stops were the arch of triumph and the eiffel tower. By that point I felt like giving up, but we did not. After the eiffel tower, we decided to eat at a cafe, where I had a Diabolo Menthe, a limonade with mint syrup that my host mom had recommended me. The waiter looked at me weird because the drink was not in the menu, but according to my host mom, every place has it. You just need to know about in order to order it. After eating, we walked to Notre Dame Cathedral and were able to go in for free. That church is beautiful and what I liked the most was that they had an altar of La Virgen de Guadalupe, our lady of Mexico. After the cathedral, I wanted to go to Saint Chapelle because they have the crown of thorns Jesus wore, but the line was huge and I had to pay 10 euros to go in. After there, I had to make one more stop for the day. I decided to spend a little bit of money in order to go see the Stade de France. This is the stadium where the France national team usually plays all their home games. This is the stadium where Zinedine Zidane raised the world cup in 1998. This is the stadium that has been home to many soccer legends such as Deschamps. After admiring the stadium, I decided to go see what was around. I found myself with a big market with a lot of cheap things. What I liked the most is that I was able to buy five pane schokolade for 1.25 euros. This was a great deal, specially since that bread has a special meaning to me. It was the first thing I had for breakfast here in Europe and my host mom bought it exclusively for me, since it is typical French.
The next day, Wednesday, we didn't have a lot of time. Our train to London left at five, so we had to hurry and see what we wanted to see as fast as possible. We decided to go to the Louvre museum first since we wanted to see the Mona Lisa and we were scarred there was going to be lots of people. That place was gigantic. In order to see everything, we needed a whole day or even more. For that reason we decided to just focus in what we wanted to see. What I liked the most were the paintings from the resonance era. I couldn't stop looking at them and taking pictures. By the time we got out, it was already 2pm and we wanted to be at the train station by 4pm, so we decided to just call it a day and go pick up our stuff from the hostel in order to head to the train station. Once in the train station, we saw a sign in the first floor saying our train was retarded. To us, that ment our train was delayed, so we decided to just chill until they showed in which gate our train was going to be. Lucky us, we decided to ask like around 4:45pm if the train was going to stop in the first floor. The guy we asked told us we had to go upstairs. When we went upstairs, there was a sign saying the train was on time. We tried to rush into customs, but it took us a good while getting our passports stamped. The customs lady that stamped my passport kept asking me things as if I was some sort of terrorist. Once we passed customs, we started walking towards our gate when we suddenly heard "Attention passegers, train #1904 destination to London is about to leave". As soon as I heard that, I felt my blood pressure drop all the way to the floor. That was our train! When I looked up to tell Paula, she wasn't there anymore. She was way ahead running as fast as she could to catch the train. I wanted to run too, but I couldn't. I had the suitcase plus my big laptop back with me. Up to now, I still don't know how I did it, but I manage to carry the suitcase and catch up with Paula. We were able to barely catch our train, but I have to say sometimes I wish we would of stayed in Paris instead.

Cats in Rome, Dogs in Athens

In Rome, we discovered the Cat Coliseum. In Athens though, there were dogs... Everywhere! Especially in the popular tourist areas. These weren't dogs on leashes or even dogs that had homes. Each one a stray but none of them looked like they lacked food or had diseases. They would just lie on the ground in front of the famous ruins or even inside the exhibits themselves, obviously waiting for some oblivious tourist to give them some food. But being from A&M, our group of Aggies didn't fall for their food begging tricks (mostly because we had no food to begin with). Yet even though we had no food, we still managed to make some new doggy friends. Our group of eight college students were adopted into a pack of five stray dogs.

We first met our furry friends atop the beautiful Acropolis. After seeing the ruins of the Parthenon and the amazing views from the peak of the hill that is in the center of the entire city, we walked alongside two of these dogs while trying to find an entrance to the Ancient Agora. We walked down a hill only to find that it was closed for the day. Our two dog friends had been following some cats and had just finished chasing them into hiding. We both started making our way back up the hill to the Acropolis; the humans because we were lost if we didn't turn back, and the dogs because that was where all the people and excitement was. I believe that it was in that moment that these two dogs figured we were part of their pack. We went down the hill with them, the cats disappeared, and now we were going back up the hill with them. Therefore, we must have also been chasing the cat and therefore, we must be friends.

When we reached the top of the hill, three more "friends" joined our group. The pack was now complete, five dogs, eight humans. All of the dogs seemed friendly enough. They didn't get to close to us or bark at us, their tails were wagging and they seemed happy to be with us. At first the humans had no problem with our new friends. But then the first raid happened.

As we walked down the other side of the Acropolis, a couple came strolling up the hill towards us. The woman was carrying a bag of chips and the man was carrying a sandwich. All five dogs ran up to them and started barking. Not biting or attacking, just barking. The girl instantly drops her chips but the dogs didn't even care. They just kept barking until the people speed walked away and then they fell right back in beside us, leaving the couple and the chips untouched. We continue walking down the hill and a small yellow car comes up behind us. We move out of the way but the dogs apparently hate, and I mean hate, anything with a motor on it. Three of them instantly start chasing and barking at the car. At first the car slows down, confused, but as the dogs do not relent, the car decides to speed away. The three dogs pursue with amazing speed and agility. They went for a good 200 meters before they realized that they were getting to far away from us. They soon came back to us and fell into step beside us.

The next raid was of the victims own doing. One of our companions wandered up to a man on the side of the road and the man begins to clap at the dog. The dog then begins barking at the man, which brings up three more barking dogs. Eventually, he learns that if he stops clapping, they will leave him alone. And so our journey continues.

At this point, we, the humans, were starting to become a little concerned about our own safety with our new found brotherhood. We began to plan on how to get away from the dogs, but every time we turned or even reversed the direction we were walking, the dogs would follow. So, we began to split into groups of two, one boy and one girl each. Our idea was that they would only follow one group and then soon lose interest with so few humans around. We were correct in that they couldn't follow us all but incorrect in them losing interest. They continued to all follow Robert and Allison, both of whom were enjoying the entire situation and might have wanted to adopt some of the dogs themselves. After approximately a mile of walking, we found a stair case that the dogs didn't seem to want to go down. We took refuge at the bottom of the steps and waited. Until we see one that we had lost a while back turn around the corner of the building, see us, and start to come down the stairs. Luckily there was a second way away from the stairs instead of going back up them. We took off that way, closed a gate behind us, and never saw the dogs again.

I felt bad for leaving our new friends after they had been kind enough to accept us into their pack and try to teach us how to get food from humans and chase cars and mopeds. Maybe, when I go back to Athens, I will find my friends again. Or maybe I will just adopt one of their cousins in America when I go back.

Athens was a beautiful city full of ancient ruins that will blow your mind to think about something so big and intricate being made so long ago. The beach and the sea are also a great site to see, but I would go when it is a little bit warmer. Europe as a whole seems to be at a much higher altitude than Texas. A lesson that is quickly learned when you go to the beach in 50 degree weather only wearing a speedo.

Beobachtungen

I don't really have anything exciting to mention this week, so here's just a few random observations I've thought of since being here:

1) McDonald's in America needs to take lessons from McDonald's in Europe.

2) Scarves are not just a fashion statement.

3) Germans like their pudding/yogurt/quark.

4) Public transportation is the greatest thing since sliced bread (as long as you know where you're
going!)

5) The wind chill can ruin a seemingly nice day.

6) Dogs can go anywhere poeple can!

7) So. Over. Secondhand. Smoke.

8) Bakeries with display windows=awesome and horrible at the same time.

9) I won't ever take restrooms, refills, or ketchup packets for granted again.

10) The population of Bonn grows exponentially on sunny days.

That's it for now, tschuss!

SB2013 yeah yeaaaaaa

So after a long and stressful week of school we finally got to embark on our spring break journey!! A week of history and culture in two ancient cities, Rome and Athens. The second my pharmacology test was over I was so ready to get on that plane for Rome....maybe a little too excited...we should have double checked our airports....
Yep, after taking a bus and train at 2:00 in the morning we finally made it to the Dusseldorf airport but we couldn't find our check in. So I walked over to someone who looked like he could help me and I asked where the check in for RyanAir (super cheap airline in europe) was and he gave me a blank expression and told me I was in the wrong airport. My heart sank and I panicked for a second. We had an hour and a half before our flight and we were at the wrong airport??!! After a split second of decisions all 8 of us packed ourselves into taxis and headed for an airport 95 km away. Thankfully we boarded our flight with a minute to spare!
Once we got to Rome I was hoping things would get better and they sure did. We found our hostel very easily and just had to walk across the street for a good italian lunch. We met up with one of the guys girlfriends and we started to explore the city. There really is no way to describe Rome. I fell in love with it the second we started exploring. Around every corner there's something new to see. Ruins are sprinkled throughout the city and sometimes it felt like I was walking around Ancient Rome in its prime. Saturday we spent most of our time at the Colosseum, then went to get gelato and dinner by the Pantheon. When the sun goes down in Rome it's definitely not the same as when the sun goes down in Amsterdam. Rome took on a romantic feel and all of the buildings lit up with a new sparkle. On our way back to the hostel we made a wish at the Trevi Fountain and walked the Spanish Steps. By the time the night was over it was definitely time for sleep (we'd all been up for almost 36 hours by then).
Sunday had even more adventures!! We grabbed a quick bite to eat in the morning and set off for the area around the Roman Forum. Thankfully we had downloaded the Rick Steves Europe application on our iphones the night before. Thanks to his free app we were able to listen to a guided audio tour during our walk in the Forum. Super helpful!! Without the audio it could've just been a giant pile of ruins with some random arches... But instead we were able to imagine and experience what once was the glorious Roman Empire. After the Forum we visited the Temple of the Unknown Soldier and the Pantheon (which we had a lunch picnic by). And before our bus ride home we even visited something the citizens of Rome have named the Cat Colosseum. So basically the city of Rome pays for stray cats to get vaccinated and they end up living in a ruin (which looked like a small square version of the Colosseum) in the middle of the city. So we spent some time finding and naming cats. And of course one of them had to be named Russel Crowe!! Grabbed another gelato before heading home for the night :)
On monday we decided to spend some time in the Vatican City since the first day of the Conclave was on Tuesday. I thought it was going to be packed on Tuesday so I thought it made sense to do touristy things Monday and then just relax in the Vatican on Tuesday (turns out I was wrong but I'll get to that). The entire place is gorgeous, the square, the church, the fountains, all of it!! We waited in a small line before heading into St. Peter's Basilica. The second I walked in my mouth dropped. Every time someone mentions the Vatican, they always say go to the Sistine Chapel (we couldn't get in because they were prepping for Conclave) but I have no idea why no one ever mentions St. Peter's!! From floor to ceiling it was brilliantly decorated with gold, bronze and marble covering every inch. I can't even begin to imagine what the Sistine Chapel looks like if no one ever mentions St. Peter's. I'll have to come back! After sending some letters from the special Vatican Post office we went searching for a late lunch. We grabbed a sandwich and started looking for a park that was on our map. We didn't ever find that park but we found something even better!! A little look out that where you could see practically all of Rome!! We sat up there for a couple hours just enjoying the view and each others company.
Tuesday: First day of Conclave!!
So before this trip began I spent a lot of my time researching papal elections....I'd say that I now know more about this age old tradition than most Catholics. I can basically walk anyone through how it works and I even called that the next pope was going to be from South America based on the information I'd gathered! All I wanted to find out was whether we'd be able to see the Sistine Chapel or not but then it turned into a statistics game of when the conclave would even start and when we might see white smoke. At first it was a little stressful thinking that the cardinals were going to take over the Vatican while we were there but then it turned into a once in a lifetime experience (except I kind of want to do it again..so maybe twice in a lifetime?? haha). Earlier that week, at the Colosseum we were taking a picture with our A&M flag. After we finally got the photo right a lady walked up to us and introduced herself as Debbie Strauss from NBC news. Turns out she thought it would be cool to have an interview with us in the Vatican when the Conclave started since her network was stationed in Houston (only about an hour away from College Station). We were all ecstatic and agreed to meet Tuesday at 1 pm. So the day was finally here and we made it on time. We met Bill, the main reporter and we had a small interview on our opinions of the resignation and why we were here, normal interviewing stuff. They were so nice to us and we even got a picture with Bill and our flag. Once the interview was done he gave us 50 euros for gelato. SO NICE!! We ended up spending the money on a bus ticket to the airport but owell. Sometimes you have to be practical.. After our good byes we decided to head to our look out spot on the top of Rome for a makeshift picnic. We only left the Vatican because it was not nearly as busy as I thought it was going to be. People really didn't start showing up until 6 and the smoke was going to show at 7:30!! But that gave us a chance to have a good lunch and say good bye to Rome at our look out spot and even head back to the hostel to warm up (it started raining and I think a cold front started to blow in). We relaxed at the hostel and were thinking about heading back to the Vatican around 6:30 but when I got back I had an email from Debbie! Bill and her loved our interview so much that they invited us back for another one during the smoke! So we rushed over to the Vatican to meet them at 6 and waited for almost 2 hours before we finally saw the first smoke signal from the tiny chimney on the Sistine Chapel. Of course, it was black, even though all of us wanted it to be white so badly. By the end of the conclave we'd had some great conversation with each other, Bill, the camera guy, and a couple other aggies we met while waiting. Overall it was an amazing experience. Before coming to Germany I never could have imagined this happening to our group.
Next stop Athens!!
The flight to Athens was flawless compared to our adventure on the way to Rome. The was no weight limit for carry-ons (as long as it was the right size) which was super helpful because I purchased some souvenirs. Most of our first day in Athens was spent exploring our neighborhood area of Glyfada, about 45 minute tram ride from Athens. Apparently the area we stayed in was the posh area of Athens ( I was just thankful for not having to put a down payment on a towel... we had on-suite bathrooms!! That's what I call luxury.) We wandered down the bay and the sea was gorgeous in the setting sun. We relaxed on the rocks by the harbor and had some time to breath and relax. We wrapped up the night with dinner on the beach. The man who checked us in at the hotel suggested we eat at some of the restaurants by the water because it was authentic Grecian seafood. I really didn't expect seafood in Greece to be different than seafood in other countries. I mean, it's fish right? Well I actually ordered a Greek salad (I wanted to eat that and yogurt in Greece, those were my goals) but my other friends decided to go for some fish or shrimp. They brought out my salad and I was very pleased with my choice especially when our waiter started to bring out everyone else's meal....lightly fried everything. There were little fish and big fish and shrimp and everyone of them was just lightly fried, heads and tails still intact. At first, my friends were taken aback but then they went for it and it actually wasn't that bad. I even got to try a whole fish too!! And I have to say, the head was the best part! So with that experience behind us we headed for the hotel and prepped for a day trip to Athens while watching the new pope give his blessing to the millions of people in St. Peter's square....missed it by 12 hours!! But he was from South America! Knew it!
On Thursday we headed for Athens on the tram. I guess I really didn't know what downtown Athens was going to look like. When I think of Greece I imagine islands like Santorini with the pretty blue roofs all on a hill lining the pristine sea. Athens was nothing like that, of course, but to me it was a mix between Santorini and China. Yes, it reminded me a little of China. The grocery stores were exactly alike, it kind of smelt the same and the city had the same lay out of Harbin (the city I visited this past summer). But on the other hand if you looked from a high place (the Acropolis) your only view is a sea of white buildings stretching from the sea to the mountains. The city had kind of an elegance about it that you can't appreciate from ground level. So once we got there I really wasn't sure where to head first. We walked through the National Gardens on our way to the Temple of Olympian Zeus then wrapped around to find the Acropolis. On our way up to the Acropolis we visited the Theatre of Dionysus (the oldest theatre in the world). Then we started the trek up to the ancient city (while listening to Rick Steves tell us stories of the Athenians of course). Everything was huge and impressive. It's a crazy thought that we were walking on so much history. We saw the Parthenon, the Erectheum, and the Temple of Athena Nike. We could also see the entire city of Athens!! Once we were done we decided to try to squeeze in a visit to the Ancient Agora but we couldn't find the entrance. So we started to look for food but on the way down the hill we were followed by more and more stray dogs (did I mention there are stray dogs everywhere in Athens?? Another reason it reminds me of China). After about 20 minutes we had a nice pack of 5 dogs all just wandering around us. I wasn't really intimidated until they started barking at people and cars around us...but never us...it was the strangest thing. That freaked me out a little so I decided to just walk away from the group, I'm looking back now and that was probably the worst decision ever. Either way, I made my decision and started walking very fast in front of our group in no particular direction; I just didn't want to be next to these random dogs anymore. About 30 minutes later we're all in front of the New Acropolis Museum ( I thought it would be a safe place) and we had lost track of the dogs. I think about it now and it's actually really funny that these dogs "adopted" us into their gang but that day I was kind of freaking out. But we found a gyro place and grabbed some lunch and headed to the flea markets on Monastiriki Street!! Got some good deals and saw lots of pretty things. On our way back to the tram to head home we witnessed a mini demonstration in front of the Parliament building. I was really hoping to avoid any type of assemblies while I was in Greece but this one seemed peaceful so I calmed down a little. Once we got home we had some pie (not pizza) at a restaurant down the street from our hotel and talked there for most of the night.
Friday was an attempted beach day but it didn't go so well. It was a little colder than we were expecting but we made the best of it!! Until it started drizzling...then we went back to the hotel and decided to take naps. After we woke up from our naps the sun was out and we decided to grab some gelato and head for the rocks we visited the first day. We played some frisbee and just laid out on the rocks and relaxed and watched the sun set over the bay. We enjoyed some dinner and I headed for bed early that night.
We decided to spend our last day in Athens again because there were still some things we hadn't seen. Once we arrived we stopped by the oldest olympic stadium (revamped for the first modern olympic games in 1896) and made our way to the Ancient Agora. Since this was the same path to the Acropolis I was really hoping we weren't going to run into anymore dogs and thankfully, we didn't. We toured the marketplace/meeting point of ancient Athens and took pictures of the Temple of Hephaestus and the Stoa which were both still in pretty good condition for being built in 6th century BC. Once we were done exploring we headed to Mount Lycabettus (the tallest point in Athens) and grabbed a really late lunch along the way. We finally found a path that looked like it was going up so we started our trek. Once we were up there it was totally worth having a late lunch and being slightly lost. The view was even better than at the Acropolis. It was the perfect 360 degree view of Athens and a great way to end our trip!!
By the end of our break the flight back to Bonn was welcomed by all of us (we even got food on the plane back). There's something about Germany that just feels like home and I was definitely excited to sleep in my bed again. This trip was what I had hoped for and more!!

Spring Break Mixup

I planned my spring break with two other friends from A&M who happen to be studying abroad as well. Since their spring break isn't for a couple more weeks, I figured I'd come down and visit them in Spain where they are studying.  After copying down their address, I booked my round trip ticket to Barcelona.  By the time spring break rolled around I could not wait to leave the harsh German winter for the warm greetings of coastal Spain.  When I arrived in the Barcelona airport, I received a call from my friend, Matt, whom I had planned on meeting in the airport.  We decided to meet outside terminal one after I reacquired my luggage.  After waiting a solid half hour for my luggage to make its way from the plane to the claim, I made it to the terminal one greeting area.  For three hours, me and Matt traded whereabouts in lame attempts to locate one another.  We tried meeting at different terminals, various restaurants, and eventually the airport train station.  We could not find each other anywhere.  Eventually my phone ran out of minutes and his phone died, so I was on my own.  Address in hand, I proceeded to the train station window where I flashed the man behind the counter an inquiring look and passed him the address I was trying to get to as to avoid attempts at verbal communication.  He got the message.  After glancing at the paper for merely a second, the man looked up at me, smirked, and told me the address is in Madrid.  It finally hit me.  I don't know what I was thinking when I booked the flight, but I had absent mindedly planned a trip to the wrong city in Spain...  Not one of my finer moments.  To compensate for my inability to plan a vacation, I had to take a train from the Barcelona airport to the Barcelona main train station and from there get a bullet train to Madrid.  It wasn't the best start to spring break '13. I eventually made it to Madrid and contacted Matt using a payphone. Regardless of the self-induced inconveniences, all was well in the end and I had an awesome time checking out the sites and closely examining the night life.  Moral of the story, don't fly to the wrong city.

The Rain in Spain

The Rain in Spain

A thought popped into my head while flying out of Spain on Sunday: That if it were raining – but it wasn't on my last day there – said rain would not land mainly on any plane. This is because, looking out of the little oval window, you can see white peaks of snowy mountains with steep slopes and deep valleys or earth-toned hills dotted with brick-orange Spanish houses, so amongst the land that is Spain, there not at all that much plane. The sun was rising, and the beautiful panorama embodied my feeling of gratefulness for a perfect week in such a cliché way that I had to scoff at these thoughts smiling. The journey there had been the antithesis of this amazing good-bye to this Iberian land

Friday of last week, everyone was leaving to spend Spring Break in places like Italy, Greece, or France. The AIB was filled with eager doctors and engineers ready to eat up Europe in handfuls, going to as many as nine different popular cities in the nine days that made up our vacation time. I however, would leave on Sunday. I said my good byes to the group after class, wishing them my best, and then I went home to wait for my turn to travel in two days time. The weekend in Bonn was one of the most fun, however, knowing that on Monday, a torturous systems & signals class didn’t wait for me, but some paeya and a sangria. Friday and Saturday went by quickly, and Sunday morning was the start of an unforgettable 'adventure'. Tania and I booked our flights to Barcelona with Ryan Air – the cheapest airline known to Europe. To Barcelona and back for 60 Euros. But, to misquote Uncle Ben, with great savings comes great frustration. Having left the house running to catch the bus, Tania and I forgot to check in to the flight, so when we got to the Ryan-Air booth we were surprised with an technically-on-time-but-still-considered-late check-in fee that doubled the price of the whole flight. Fine, we paid it. A 130 euro round trip flight is still pretty cheap. Walking away from the booth, we muttered about how we should have checked in earlier, how we couldn't have known, that retrospective sight is always 20-20 etc, we were naive to think that the worst was behind us. After going through airport security, we boarded our plane half an hour early. And the plane separated from the terminal and rolled for a while down the runway. Inside, we were excited to take off and begin our spring break. But queue the pilot in a mumbled voice, “We are having some technical difficulties with the aircraft... [mumble mumble]... sit tight [mumble]... engineer to take a look [mumble mumble]... it won't take long...[mumbled German]... thank you.” Looking at Tania, I told myself that the situation was not that bad, and that we'd be in Spain in no-time. After an hour of waiting, the pilot makes an announcement again. The engineer never showed up but he has reset the system and everything seems to be okay; we will take off soon. Pushing aside thoughts of the dangers of flying in a faulty plane, I kept high hopes of finally starting the trip. Nope! seems it was a joke because an hour after that we were still in the grounded airplane, and then the noise of the air conditioning stopped, signaling the beginning of a new kind of torture. The pilot's voice once more sounded through the plane's crackling speakers; he let us know that we would be brought back to the terminal to get on another plane that was being brought either from Ireland or Finland (I couldn't tell). But still, the plain remained unmoving. Having Tania next to me was the only thing that kept me sane, even if to the people around us we looked like escaped mental patients - making outlandish noises and speaking mixed English, German, and Spanish to keep ourselves entertained. Another hour passed before we were allowed back in the terminal. I was still wearing a smile, knowing that we would complain and at the very least get our 'late check-in' charge refunded. Like a bad joke, as we entered the terminal a man handed us a 5 Euro voucher to be used inside the airport. Really?! 5 Euros? for 5 hours inside a cage with wings and no air conditioning? I stopped smiling and directed myself to the Ryan-air counter. We were told that we would be allowed to skip security on our way back to the terminal; knowing that to be a lie made me more upset. And to break the camel's back, we found nobody at the counter. The whole of the Ryan-air staff had gone home. We called the service number, and nobody answered, but a machine asking to call again tomorrow, during business hours. I let out my anger on a Bonn-Koln airport employee who sincerely did not deserve it, arguing with him that the airport itself should not let things like this happen on its grounds. The excuse that everyone seemed to give me, that Ryan-air was cheap, so I should not expect more from them had gotten old long before this poor employee mentioned the words. I exploded my frustration on him, and even after he apologized, I would say that it wasn't alright. Tania pulled me away and giggled, knowing it is a rare thing to see me angry at all. We hadn't eaten since  before we chased down the bus at 11am and it was now 5pm. We found a Maredo stake house without thinking of touching the filthy 5 euro bribe. I wanted to buy Tania something good to eat, and get myself a beer to calm down. After the waitress took our order and brought me a beer, and we got a salad we noticed that we might have to skip desert because our new plane was scheduled for 630, and we didn't want to be late for boarding since there was a possibility of not sitting together anymore. After our salads, an hour passed before we heard from our waitress again. She had forgotten to put in the order. We left still empty-stomached, for our gate. We had guessed that we needed to pass through security again, but when we got to the ticket check at the start of security and presented our ticket stubs - since the tickets had been torn when we entered our faulty plane 5 hours before - we were told that we couldnt pass. We were exhausted. We asked the guy at the info booth, who we now knew by name, to see what he could do, and after a phone call, he got us across the ticket-checking part of security. When we got to our terminal again, worried that we might be late for boarding, we found that the plane was not even there. Only after another hour did we get to board (730pm) and take off to Barcelona.

Ive written enough for this blog already, so I might finish the story of my awesome spring break with my girlfriend Tania on the next one.

Tschööö...!

Ich Kenne Nichts

It's been a while since I wrote my last blog, I've been busy. Since Vienna, I've had three tests since then, Signals, Physiology, and Neuro. I don't think I did well in any of them. There are just so many distractions. I've lived in this foreign country for just 2 months, and I still find myself exhausted when I get home because it wears me out to try to absorb everything I see, all the time. Aside from the tests, the 2 weeks after Vienna have been great. The sun has finally come out and the warmth of spring is rejuvenating. I've gotten to enjoy playing Frisbee, eating cheap ice cream, and going to the Rheinaue Park which is HUGE! I went to the park with my new girlfriend Tania. She is awesome, and there are so many perks in having a German girlfriend. I feel more and more like Germany is a home for me more than just a temporary living site. We also had our last German class, and I will miss surprising Claudia, our German teacher with phrases I learned from Tania. My favorite was her reaction when I said 'Das ist doch Käse' which litterally translates to 'that is surely cheese', but means that something is crazy false. We visited Bayer today which was fun, but I was really concentrating on studying for my Neuro test I had scheduled immediately after we came back. Still, I got a lot out of the tour. It was also nice for the AIB to give us a bunch of treats later that day, even if it was only to bribe us to write good mid-term evaluations. I had no problem doing just that since - and I have said it many times before - I am having the time of my life here. 

Witty Title About Spring Break

This years spring break was without a doubt one of the most memorable spring breaks I have ever had. Not only was it because of the places that I went, but also the people I went with and the characters that I meet along the way.

From the very beginning I could tell it was going to be a very unique experience, we all stayed up till around 2 a.m. Saturday morning and then made our way to Bonn central station to catch the earliest train possible to Dusseldorf. Everything was going great minus all of us being rather tired until we got to the main airport in Dusseldorf and couldn't seem to find our flight anywhere. Turns out we went to the wrong airport and we had to make a mad dash to a taxi in order to get to the other airport 45 minutes across town. After participating in this mini amazing race we rushed ourselves through security and onto the plane with literally only minutes to spare, only to find that Ryanair is the worst airline known to mankind. Sounds like a great start to our trip right? Well despite everything being so chaotic we finally got to Rome and breathed a sigh of relief as the beautiful Italian sun shone down on us. And since we were in Rome first things first we got Italian pasta for lunch

Rome was by far the most interesting city I have had the chance to visit. With all its rich history and ruins scattered around the city it felt like you could walk down the street and travel back into empirical Rome. Also the night life was a wild a crazy thing to experience after we had done all the mature cultural things in the day, like visiting the Colosseum and the Pantheon. During one of these nights after some dinner wine I thought it would be a really cool idea to get my palm read by one of the many fortune tellers on the side of the road. The lady told me that I would have a long life, 2 major careers in life, 2 bad relationships until my true love came around and then it would last for life, and that we would have 2 kids together. It seems that I really like the number 2 in my life. Of course being a man of science I decided to test the gypsy woman's predictions by going to a second palm reader and seeing if I'd get the same result. Surprisingly the man said almost the exact same thing that the first lady told me with a few slight changes. He told me that I was good at sports and go on to play the piano in the future, also he insisted that I would have 3 kids and not 2. So naturally after spending 20 euros total on this experiment I felt inclined to pass on my knowledge and read everyone'd hands at the bar later that night. I'm sorry to say that some of my friends had grimmer futures than I and I broke the news as gently as I could to them.

One thing that was by far the coolest was the fact that we were in Rome during Sede vecante (Time of the empty Throne). Our last full day of being in Rome was when the conclave meet and cast the first vote to decide on who was to be the leader of the entire worlds Catholics. It was even more exciting due to the fact that at the Colosseum while we were taking a picture with our Aggie flag we were recognized by the local Houston news team who happened to be there at the same time. So during the day of the first vote we got interviewed by KPRC local Houston news and got airtime back home. So even though we only got to see black smoke and missed out on the election of the Pope it was still an awesome experience to be apart of.

Planes, Pickpockets, and Papacy: Welcome to Italy

Spring break consisted of me visiting the beautiful ruins of the greatest cities in the Roman and Greek civilizations. But first we had to get there. Being my father's son, I always look for the best deal on everything I buy. So when the flight out of Dusseldorf was 100 euro cheaper than the one out of Bonn, my group and I decided we should fly out of there. So we took our trim from Bonn to the Dusseldorf airport at 3 in the morning (2 hour train ride gets us there 2 hours before our flight at 7). We arrived at the airport at 5 and were in the checkin area around 515... only to have our hearts drop into our toes. We were at the wrong airport. Something that doesn't actually happen in real life, right? Only in the movies? But no, we had arrived 90 kilometers away from our airport. So with no other options, we jump in the nearest taxicab, tell him we need to be at the other airport ASAP, and speed away on the empty morning autobahns of lovely Dusseldorf. 45 minutes and 150 euros later, we arrived at the other Dusseldorf airport, which we later learned was on the border between Germany and Holland and that it might have been illegal to call it Dusseldorf by German laws, but we made it to the airport (then there was just some massive baggage fees and some rude flight attendants, but I guess that's what you get when you fly cheap)!

We arrive in Rome, sunny beautiful Rome! Take a bus to the center of the city, find our hotel, and wait for the CC (her one small train out of her small city was delayed twice). Having CC, who had been to Rome a few weeks back with her program, me, who had been to Rome 4 years ago, and Rick Steves, the master of travel, made it so that every place we went came with a story of what the place was, how it was built, and some interesting facts about the people who had once stood where our feet were now. We visited the Coliseum, the Roman Forum, the Pantheon, the Trevi Fountain, and the Spanish Steps, oo-ing and awe-ing at all the appropriate places. It wasn't until we visited the Cat Coliseum that it started to rain for the first time. So naturally, we ran for the nearest bus stop. But then, so was everyone else. The stop closest to us was so crowded that only half of our group could get on the first bus towards home. I was on the first bus and we were packed in there like sardines. There was nowhere to move or twist, you didn't even have to hold on because there was no where to fall. We got half way home when we stopped and the bus driver made us all get off, apparently we broke the bus. When the next bus arrived, it was already full, but we packed it even tighter and fit our half of the group in. That is where we found the other half of the group, they had gotten on this bus after we had left them behind at the last stop. The bus ride was hot and smelly but we made it back to our hotel in one piece. That was, until CC reached into her purse to find that her wallet had been stolen. We spent the rest of the afternoon calling companies, canceling cards, and comforting Carolanne.

CC departed for home the next morning and we went to Vatican City. We knew that the first day of the papal elections were the next day so we wanted to see Saint Peter's Basilica before they closed up shop. Unluckily for us, they had already closed the Sistine chapel for cleaning and closed off half of the Basilica already for a church service the next morning including the the pieta of Jesus and Mary. But at least we got to go inside the church and just bask in its enormity and beauty, even if it was from a little farther back. We spent the rest of the day on a hillside overlooking Rome, taking silly pictures and enjoying the view.

While taking a picture with a Texas A&M flag at the Coliseum on the first day, we were noticed by a news team from Houston in town to cover the papal elections. Since they knew we were Aggies and from Texas, they asked if they could interview us for the news back home. We agreed excitedly and met them on the morning the conclave convened. After one interview, they asked us to come back that night to get our reactions of the smoke. Although the smoke was black and we had to leave early the next morning, I was quoted as saying "the anticipation made it totally worth it." It was a very new and exciting experience, standing in a crowd of hundreds of people and hundreds of cameras, all there to watch a small bit of smoke come out of a chimney. Even though I am not catholic myself, I recognize that it is a very prominent religion and that the Vatican and the pope hold a lot of power to do a lot of good in the world. So being there and sharing it with all of those people was an experience that I will never forget.

Then of course, we missed the white smoke by less than 24 hours. Instead of being there in person, we watched it on Greek television just like the rest of the world. Greece though, is for a later blog.

Black Smoke

Well... our spring break trip started out kind of chaotic. We left the Bonn hbf at around 3 AM and arrived in Dusseldorf about 2 hours before our flight was scheduled to leave for Rome. We were a bit confused when we got there because we couldn't find any checkins for Ryanair. Little did we know that there are 2 different airports in Dusseldorf... So after two taxi rides of about 150 Euros each, a difficult check in, and running through the airport, we finally made it onto the plane. Let's just say, I am NEVER taking Ryanair again.

Rome was beautiful, and I can't wait to go back sometime in the near future. We met a reporter from NBC in Houston at the Colosseum because we were taking a group photo with our Aggie flag. She was so excited to meet us and invited us for an interview on Tuesday at the Vatican! That Monday, we met with Bill in front of St. Peter's Basilica for a short interview when the black smoke appeared for the first vote of the Conclave. Our video was on the 6pm news in Houston that night! We visited the Spanish Steps, the Colosseum, St. Peter's Basilica, a beautiful park that overlooked the entire city of Rome, the Trevi Fountain, and the Pantheon in the 4 days that we were there. We also ate gelato... a lot of gelato.

Next stop on our spring break adventure was Athens, which was a bit colder than we expected. Our hotel was across from the beach, which would have been a little better if the weather had been in our favor. We made the best of our time though, and we spent a little bit of time on the beach and the rocks off of the pier. In Athens, we went to the Acropolis, Ancient Agora, the National Archaeological Museum, and adopted a gang of stray dogs. When I say adopted, I mean a group of 4 dogs followed us and attacked every vehicle or person with food in sight. For some strange reason, they "liked us" and followed us for about an hour before we could ditch them.

Sadly, spring break is over... But I am happy to be back in Bonn! Next stop: London in 4 days!