Bonn feels like an entirely different town this week. It was its usual cold self the first few days, but since then, the weather has been beautiful. The sun is out (what???) and I can even leave my coat unzipped when I walk around (wow!). All of the Bonners seem happier too. I really had no idea this many people lived here! All of the restaurants have set up tables outside, and they've been filled with people chatting and laughing. The ice cream places have all opened up too. On Saturday I walked past Bonn's best ice cream place, which supposedly has the 5th best ice cream in the world. The line was out the door! I definitely like spring Bonn way more than winter Bonn.
Something that characterizes springtime for me is the Big Event. I've been a Big Event staff assistant for the past two years in College Station. My involvement with that was the first thing that made me feel that I had a place at A&M, so naturally it's very special to me. Being a staff assistant is a pretty big (but rewarding) time commitment. It's always my favorite day of the spring semester because you see all your work come together into a wonderful service project that impacts thousands of residents and students. This year, I was able to participate as a volunteer for the first time ever, and it ended up being a wonderful day. We started off the day at the old AIB, eating sandwiches and hanging out. The directors said a few words and we watched a brief video that I got from the Big Event Outreach Execs. After that, I was lucky enough to say a few things about Big Event and then participate in leading a yell practice with Kyle and my Viz friend Ben Laney. I kind of felt like I peaked getting to be up there even though I didn't really know what I was doing (yell leaders must have so much fun!). Doing all the yells and my wildcat for the first time since last semester made me miss Aggie traditions so much, even though usually I don't really think about them. I think that after this trip I'm going to have a newfound appreciation for our traditions and the bonds that hold us together as Aggies. We spent the day sorting donated clothing at a distribution center for refugees and homeless people, which are two groups that I'm really happy we were able to help. It sounds monotonous, but I love sorting things and I had a really happy time spending all those hours with my friends. We even made the Bonn newspaper, as you can see in Nicole's snapchat below.
One of the highlights of my week was seeing the new Beauty and the Beast at the movie theater. I love Emma Watson, musicals, Disney, and feminism, so basically I've been looking forward to this movie for years. I was expecting to be disappointed because I was looking forward to it so much, but I thought the movie was absolutely wonderful and perfect. It rocked my world. Part of the movie takes place in an area in Montmartre where we were standing two weeks ago, and the beast's castle looked a lot like Versailles. It finally hit me that I've seen some of the most iconic and beautiful places in the world and that for the rest of my life, I'll recognize things in movies and art because of this trip. So somehow going to the movies was a super meaningful experience for me this week.
Schoolwise, this week was a bittersweet return to normalcy after our two weeks of traveling. The bitter part was studying for our physiology lab final on Wednesday, and the sweet part was returning to our routine and reuniting with the entire group. My lab final didn't go as well as I had hoped, but that's alright. Next time I'll know how to prepare and will hopefully do much better. Another development is that my host mom is in Portugal for the next few weeks and Sarahi and I have to cook for ourselves. It really makes me appreciate her cooking for us, because it's a lot of effort and takes time to figure out the instructions. We've had some good laughs trying to figure all of that out! Anyway, it's great to be back with the whole group again. I've enjoyed my time spent hanging out at Alexa's- on Wednesday we made burgers and on Thursday Ethan made bacon. We also got to celebrate Ethan's 20th birthday on Saturday night, which was great. Bonn might not be as cool as the places I've been to recently, but it's still great to be back.
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