Week 4 (aka I'm Too Lazy To Think Of A Title)

It's been exactly a month since our arrival in Bonn! I haven't posted in a while so this is gonna be a long one. I'll start with the end of last week: we got to meet one of the mayors of Bonn at a reception in the town hall on Wednesday, which was pretty neat because I remember seeing that building on the first day and thinking it was too fancy for us to go in it. On Thursday morning, everybody got dressed up and we walked across the bridge to see the Weiberfastnacht parade. It was raining pretty much the whole time, which made it very cold to be in a polar bear costume for hours. It was also really crowded, I got pelted in the face by candy bars a couple of times, and I'm pretty sure someone spilled a beer on me. Writing it down makes it seem kind of miserable, but somehow I managed to have a lot of fun. I don't know if I would have been able to handle four straight days of it, though, so I'm glad I traveled over the weekend. A group of us took the (5 hour overnight, but still better than a bus) train to Munich and we had a grand old time. I got to travel with people I hadn't traveled with before, which was cool, and stayed in a public hostel room, which was interesting. On Friday we arrived at like 8 in the morning and couldn't check into our hotel until 3, so we dropped off our bags, got breakfast, and joined a free walking tour of the city. Part of the group stuck it out for the full three hours, but some of us snuck out about halfway through to get food. I do not regret that decision. Food > everything else, always. After we checked in, we showered and relaxed for a bit then went to the Augustiner restaurant/bar, where I had the German equivalent of mac and cheese along with the required authentic German beer. Supposedly the beer in Munich is special, but it all kind of tastes the same to me. The next day we took the train to Fussen to see the castles, which were beautiful and magical and I would live there in a heartbeat if I could. Fussen is really close to the German/Austrian border, so we got to see a bit of the Alps, which were amazing. I need to plan a trip to see them up close. Saturday night we ate at this place that had a spinning circular table and explored the city some more. Sunday morning we visited the Dachau concentration camp. I'm not really sure how to put the experience into words, but it was really depressing and powerful and I cried at one point. It's something I think everyone should experience at least once. Later that day we ate at the Hofbrauhaus, which is huge and the epitome of every German stereotype I can think of. Lots of sausage and beer and accordion music. This post is getting really long so I'll hurry it up...Sunday night was the Super Bowl so we went into Munich to find a bar that was playing it, and I fell asleep. Monday morning we came home, where the Karneval crowd was still going strong, so I got to experience a little more of that. From Tuesday on, I was pretty much playing catch-up on school stuff. We have a 211 test on Monday and then we're off to Vienna. It's been an amazing month, and I can't wait for the next three!