week 11

Not much happened this week. This was the first week back in Bonn which was relaxing. I did try to run on Tuesday to start preparing for the marathon in two weeks, but the next day I began feeling sick so that was the only chance I had.

Over the past weekend, we had our own German Big Event which was a nice experience. We volunteered with an organization that helped Serbian refugees. First, we carried boxes of donated items from storage to the area where people were separating the clothes by gender and age. Once we got most of the boxes out of storage, we began to help with the categorizing of items for men, women, children, and babies. We worked on that until about 3:30 pm.

The next day, a few of us went on an excursion to the Neanderthal museum, and to the location where the first Neanderthal man was found. First, we went to the Neanderthal museum where we learned about when, where, and how long ago Neanderthal men and women lived. It was interesting learning about their lives and how we could learn so much from so little. There was one exhibit that had grains of sand falling in a pile and it mentioned that if each grain was a decade, humanity would only last a few seconds, whereas the time from the first lifeform would be over 200 days. It really placed things in perspective. Another exhibit had an area to use a drill in the same fashion of the Neanderthal people. I soon got the hang of the device and made a whole in a piece of wood I was given. We then went on a hike to see the ancient animals that were recreated by two German brothers during the second world war by mixing genes of certain animals. Although there were only three, it was incredible to see them. The most memorable was the European bull which was significantly smaller than the bulls we are used to seeing (about up to my chest). Finally, we went to the location of the discovery of the first Neanderthal man. It was cool seeing all the modern art and the little bits of information printed on some of the metal blocks on the ground. The path was most impressive because it was a timeline beginning at the existence of the first human-like beings to the modern inventions and discoveries, like Neil Armstrong on the moon and the first airplane.

After the visit, I went back to AIB to study with Kendrick and Kyle until Madeleine came to give us a review session for the following week.