(First thing I should note is that I have done a really poor job of keeping up with my blog posts, so this is me reminding myself to write more.)
This past week has been one of the most memorable seven days I've ever had. Allow me to recap for all of my anxious readers.
My birthday was on February 1st where I transitioned from being a teenager into a full-blown, 20-year-old adult (at least I think that's how it works). I missed seeing all my good friends and family from back home and in College Station, but my host family had a small celebration for me which I really appreciated. I tried watching the Super Bowl but discovered that trying to stay awake until 3 to watch 2 teams I honestly don't care about is extremely difficult. I instead did the European thing and resorted to reading the Twitter updates in the morning.
On Monday, I attempted to explain Groundhog's Day to my host brother. As my birthday is on Groundhog's Day Eve, I have always felt a special connection to this sacred holiday. However, my host brother was not impressed with the fact that Americans observe a holiday where we listen to weather predictions from an overweight groundhog in Pennsylvania. We'll see what happens when I am prepared for six more weeks of winter and he is not. Later on Monday, we had some Karneval prep at the AIB, learning the German cheers and drinking beer. I'm definitely starting to get into the Karneval spirit, as were the 6 very drunk, middle-aged people on my train last night dressed up like pumpkins (?).
Of course, on Tuesday we left for Vienna very early in the morning. After checking into our hotel, Dr. Schnabel, who looked conspicuously like Dr. Wasser, gave us a tour of the city, followed by a tour of some nifty catacombs. I also ate schnitzel for the first time and overall had a very Austrian day. Wednesday began with a visit to the Spanish Horse Riding School, and then we got to go wherever we wanted. A group of us went to the Vienna zoo which might have been the best zoo I've ever visited, and I would consider myself something of a zoo connoisseur. Although a bit pricey, I took lots of great pictures (follow @harry_emery for examples), smelled lots of smells, and observed lots of animals in their semi-natural habitat. We also stopped by the large palace near the zoo which was really massive and neat. For dinner, I had another very Austrian meal at a pub in the Naschmarkt, followed by a visit to the Vienna City Hall for some gluhwein. On Thursday, we saw some extremely realistic/interesting/creepy wax models at the medical school in Vienna and went to a great string quartet concert in the evening. We wrapped everything up on Friday by seeing some even creepier wax models of various diseases and by visiting the large natural history museum. All in all, Vienna is a beautiful city with so much to do, and I would love to come back one day and see everything I missed this time around.
After Vienna, many of us took a train to Budapest for the weekend. We stayed at an awesome hostel right in the middle of town, although getting to it was a bit of a struggle. On Saturday, we walked around Budapest a bit seeing Heroes Square and shopping in a seedy flea market. We of course stopped at one of the famous thermal baths which was probably my favorite part of the whole trip. In the afternoon, we took a free walking tour of the city where I took some great pictures (follow @harry_emery for examples). On Sunday, we visited the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts which had a couple of excellent temporary exhibits. One was a massive (and crowded) exhibit of Rembrandt and other famous Dutch artists. The other was for the modern German artist Immendorff of whom I had never heard before. His paintings were honestly quite strange, but I enjoyed them very much (I don't have any of Immendorff's art on my Instagram, but follow @harry_emery for other great works of art). In the afternoon we visited St. Stephen's Basilica and the Hungarian Parliament Building lit up at night. Some takeaways from Budapest: Hungarian is an incomprehensible language to English speakers, Budapest is cold in the winter, and Budapest is probably the prettiest city I have even visited.
To wrap things up with a bit of introspection, on Sunday night when we returned to Bonn, I felt a sense of coming home to a place that I am familiar with. After traveling all week, it was nice to return to a city where I know the bus routes and can find a cheap place to eat. I am really starting to settle in to life here in Germany, and I am hoping that I can begin to understand and speak the language a bit better. Looking ahead, I am super excited about Karneval this weekend here in the Rhineland and super not excited about our signals test on Wednesday.
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