Deutschland so far

My first month in Germany has been a blast! I have made some pretty cool friends and gotten to know my host parents fairly well.  So far I have met two out of my three host siblings (Tobias and Ulrieke) and they were very welcoming/chill.  So I’m pretty sure the third brother (Simon) will be just as cool as his siblings.  I definitely need to plan a trip to Cologne to hang out with them.  My roommate is chill as well...so that was a relief.  The first week included a tour around Bonn, a tour of the Mayschoss winery followed by some wine tasting, and…last but not least…the Untegrund!  It was at this latter event that I discovered my roommate is a dancing god. 

In the second week of my German adventure we had a tour around a post-war German history museum by Dr. Wasser, followed by a visit to Aachen where we walked around a beautiful church and met with a representative for Enmodes for our major project.  Both the post-war museum and the Enmodes presentation were interesting.  It was also during this week that the Quad Squad was born at the one and only Billa-Bonn!  At the end of the Aachen excursion, a small group of us headed to the town of Maastricht in the Netherlands for the weekend.  It was a nice, peaceful looking town with a very cool cave and a not so impressive fort (it was used once…and they lost). 

The third week included an all day visit to Cologne where we walked around and saw the city’s spectacular cathedral.  Although we did not get to go inside the cathedral, we took an elevator to a vantage point near the top of the cathedral. The view was awesome, and we could see some parts of Bonn.  The rest of that week was spent doing routine school things…going to class, ping pong, and studying.

The next week consisted of a visit to Bayer in Leverkusen followed by a trip to Bonn’s City Hall.  The Bayer excursion was not what I expected.  I thought we would learn more about the drugs Bayer deals with as well as more about pharmacy in general.  Instead all the guide seemed to talk about was the world’s potential overpopulation problem and how we need to create more farmable land in the future.  The very next day we went to the City Hall in Bonn to be officially welcomed by the Mayor.  Gunner and Sarah’s birthdays were also this week so we went to the Quiet Man and had a great time celebrating.  On Thursday we experienced Karnaval in Bonn…and it was awesome!!  Blake, Ryan, and I had the most ridiculous/not warm at all costumes so we were supa cold.  We did have umbrella hats though so our heads were dry while our bodies were soaked and freezing…but it was definitely worth it as we had an awesome time yelling camella!