post #3

Personal:

We’re starting to venture more and more out of Bonn, which is good because time is going by really quickly this semester. I went to Cologne a couple times last week and got to explore the city a good amount. This weekend some of us are going to Amsterdam and then next week to Vienna. Im really looking forward to venturing out of my newly created comfort zone in Bonn and see even more different cities and people. I want travel as much as I can while I have this opportunity but also need to remind myself every once in a while to spend time on school and with my host family.

AIB:

This last week we took a group trip to Cologne (or Köln). I really like having the ability here to just sit on a train for 25 minutes and then step out into a new city. On the train, our group, as usual, was by far the loudest. The guy next to me told it had been a while since he’d heard American accents. The fact that we speak in a different language everywhere we go probably makes us seem even louder. After arriving and marveling at the overwhelming size and beautiful architecture of the cathedral for a bit, we got to tour an old Gestapo prison. It was definitely one the most disturbing places I’ve visited. Actually being in the basement prison cells where so much evil once was, gave a much more emotional perspective than just reading or hearing about it. The most emotional part of it for me was reading the notes which prisoners had carved onto walls. I thought it was interesting how many of the prisoner’s notes focused only on the importance of their loved ones’ well-being as opposed to writing about only themselves and their own terrible present situations. Many were very touching and surprisingly poetic.