Sunshine Has Magical Powers - Week 10

Bonn, Germany

March 19th - 26th

I've always found the week after Spring Break to be a difficult moment. You realize this marks the half way point in your semester and it's time to kick things into high gear, while also realizing that another year has come and gone. Then you begin to recollect on all of the great memories you've collected during this school year and remind yourself that despite the difficult times ahead, you've had some great times and it'll all be worth it in the end.

Working hard or hardly working...the world my never know

As tradition, the moment you step back into the classroom after a break, each of your professors greets you with, "Hi, hope you're break was nice, here's a test and you have homework due this week." If you're lucky they'll even make more than one homework assignment due in the same week for the same class. Let's just say, I have encountered this unfortunate series of events. Lots of homework and studying later, and I've finished a week full of busy work to come toward two tests. Yay...





A side from the hectic week, the weekend was wonderful. As this weekend marked the Big Event back at A&M, we decided upon participating as well, despite the fact that we are abroad. Our event was known as the International Big Event that AiB has helped us to set up. Different groups went around Bonn and helped the people with different projects. My group got to go to a senior home and help plant a garden. We planted flowers, pulled weeds, dug holes, planted trees, moved rocks, and most importantly, had a fun time doing it. The people of the senior home were very sweet and served us barbeque with pasta salad, sauerkraut, and potato salad for lunch. All day the sun was shining and warming us up. It was a perfect spring day to be outside and soak up the suns rays. What a long winter it has been.

This whole week revolved around enjoying the sun and the beauty that is spring. I finally get to actually experience a real spring and not the three days of nice weather we get in Texas, right before the heat sets in and your sweating constantly. Flowers are starting to bloom everywhere and the cheery blossom trees are incredible. The sun has decided to make an appearance every day this week and there was absolutely no rain. I was able to run several times this week, enjoying the beauty of the nature around me. Astrid took me running in a new place this weekend as well. We went to a forest behind the house and ended up traveling up these really steep hills but once you were at the top, everything leveled out and there was nothing but huge trees and the sounds of nature. No more hustle and bustle of the city below. One of my favorite smells in the world is the smell of trees, usually pine, in a forest. I haven't been able to be immersed in nature like this for a while and it was nice to be able to smell that smell again, and get lost in thought as I ran through the forest with Astrid at my side. Despite the desolate feel we had being in the forest there was civilization around us like the Uniklinik, which is a hospital I will visit next week to shadow an anesthesiologist for a day. Overall this was a good week in terms of weather and the start of spring, but a bad week when it comes to school. Oh well, just have to keep pushing forward and make the best of what comes to me.

Pictures from my many runs