A Hike through the Siebengebirge

The Siebengebirge is a cluster of 40 hills just southeast of our town, Bonn. We took an excursion with other students from the AIB internation study abroad program. Penn State-ers, LMU students and even some of the Texas A&M Visualization kids we never see! One Sunday we hopped on a train and started our ascent.

The view from Drachenfels

Trees like this don't fit in Texas

You can see at the top of the hill the Drachenfels ruins.

We first went up to the top where both the Hotel Petersburg is (a modernized castle) and the ruins of Drachenfels, which was slighted by the Swedes. Slighted as in destroyed. But now there's a restaurant and a tram to take you up the 321 meters to the summit. It was a very nice day, and turned out to get nicer as the day went on. We hiked along to another mountain all through a forest that reminded me of home (or more rather of Colorado and New Mexico).

Except for the ruins, they aren't in my backyard

A beautiful hike that reminded me almost of my own backyard. There even was a path that we crossed of donkeys, and a few folk riding horses also were visible on this trip. Eventually though, as we kept on throwing the Frisbee back and forth and conversing with the other students we so rarely see in our Biosciences program, it came to an end. We ended in a town called Oberdollendorf, coincidentally where Kristen lives! We were treated to a gorgeous flamekuchen, which is 'flame cake' or more like a thin, delicious, Mediterranean pizza without sauce. Other than that, the trip was simple yet awesome. 

Andrew and I then visited our professors house and got some gelato! Turns out our professor was living in a house and doing a timeshare kind of approach, and the house owner is an architect of sorts. A very avant-garde modern house, complete with a Zen backyard, pond-pool thing with a slide, and the coolest library style ladder loft closet... things. But it was creepy seeing the lair of my professor, where within the grading is and my sorrow lives.

Other than that, here are some more of my photographer-like photos!

From Drachenfels

Some of the nice little fields we passed by

Felt like this cute farmhouse was too much to resist

Because the panorama function is the best reason to buy a digital camera