Cathedrals and Waffles and "Ducks," Oh My

Week Two! I'm liking this whole Europe thing. Everything is so close together and old (in a good way) and there is bread everywhere! On Friday we visited Aachen, Germany and learned about their cathedral and Charlemagne. Being in places like that is sort of surreal to me because I'll remember things from history classes and it's like, oh yeah, that happened right where you're standing. I was never super excited about history but being in the physical locations where stuff went down is pretty neat. After the tours we went to enmodes and this guy Ralf told us about the oxygenator design project in a very deep voice. Honestly I may have missed some of it because he was so calming, but it sounds like it will be a pretty interesting (and probably stressful) semester. I get the feeling I'm going to hate bubbles by the end of it.

After Aachen, I went on my first out-of-Germany trip to Brussels, Belgium. I absolutely love Belgium, and here's why: for breakfast on Saturday I had a waffle with three layers of chocolate and strawberries and whipped cream, for lunch I had fries (just fries), and after dinner I had another waffle. That weekend was probably the most intense concentration of carbohydrates I have ever consumed. It was the best. My favorite place was the Waffle Factory, where they play rap music to enjoy with your waffles and the guy behind the counter sings along. There were also a ton of chocolate shops, and I got a souvenir for my sisters but I don't know if it will last four months...I could talk about food forever but I'll wrap it up. Also the old buildings were pretty.

Yesterday we went to Cologne and saw another cathedral and got to walk on the roof, which was pretty cool (figuratively and literally). The views were great and we got a free meal, which I'm always excited about. Today I got to spend some time with my host family. They told me we were going to "feed the ducks," but we ended up chucking bread at a swarm of ravenous seagulls. It was slightly terrifying, but then we walked along the Rhine and around Bonn for a while and it was all good. I taught them the word "seagull" for future reference.