Biosciences Bonn: WHOOP for the 3 A’s & Bingen

It’s PULLOUT DAY (the one day of the school year that sophomores get to whoop. It’s an Aggie thing ;) )!! WHOOOOOOP! WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP! There were 13 Aggies on the study abroad program that were sophomores who could whoop today. Kyle and I left the apartment at 7:30, and the entire way to the Hofgarten, everyone just gave us confused looks because of our redass whooping! We got to the Hofgarten at 8:19 (A-A-A WHOOP)!! ß okay. I’m done w/ that or else I’ll never finish this blog post! We had a group excursion to Bingen & Andernach today. In Bingen, we visited the Museum am Strom, which focused a lot on the life of the St. Hildegard of Bingen but also some Roman surgical instruments! Afterwards, we had a fun little scavenger hunt for different sorts of plants in the garden outside of the museum. We relaxed in front of the museum and took some pullout day photos while we waited for 1:00 to come around to have lunch. Lunch was actually quite disappointing :\ without a doubt, it was a high-class restaurant. They brought out several plates of different appetizers for us to try; at the end of it all though, we learned that these appetizers were actually the entrees! The best thing about the restaurant was the tulip that they had for decoration! It tasted amazing! (JK! About it being the best thing at the restaurant, that is). I lost a game of “What are the odds” with my friend, Kenneth. In short, this is a game where you dare another person to do something. That person will select a number, and on the count of three, both people will say a number from zero to that selected number. If both persons say the same number, then the person who is dared will have to do the deed. PUES. Kenneth asked me “What are the odds you eat that tulip?” I said 20, so…....1, 2, 3…SEVENTEEN! We both yelled the same number. WELP. I lost and couldn’t back out at that point. I grabbed the tulip and checked to see that Dr. Wasser wasn’t looking……and GULP! I started chewing…it was quite odd, but lemme tell ya, it was the best tulip I’ve ever eaten haha jkjk! I swallowed it and acted like nothing happened! Onward with the day! We traveled to Andernach, another German city, where we got gelato (paid for by the AIB) and visited the Johann-Winter Museum of Medical History. The museum was actually inside of someone’s house! The whole thing was very neat; it was a brief overview of the history of medicine. We saw Dr. Schnabel’s costume from the era of the Bubonic Plague, a miniature replica of the Hotel Dieu, and another “Iron Man” machine (2/5 in the world that we’ve seen so far!) among many other medical devices and contraptions. Back to Bonn & back to classes! Whoop!! After classes on Wednesday, our circuits & signals professor (and amiga), Madeleine, took us on a class excursion to the Arithmeum! What is this you may ask? It’s a museum of history of arithmetic!! Pretty neat place and pretty neat name! If I’m being honest, I had no idea what this museum was about…..I actually thought it had to do with arrhythmias of the heart…cus arithmeum….ya feel?? Anyway! This museum displayed the first calculators ever built that did simple math and subtraction to the modern day TI-84s, etc. The older calculators were very intricate and nicely designed! I wouldn’t mind having one of those in my living room (mainly for decoration but I guess I could also use it if I got bored). Later that night, we had a BONNfire with the other students, continued our night at the club N8schicht , and ended it at the good ole AIB! Study study study! & it’s Friday! Amsterdam, here we go! Raju, Amran, Kyle, and I were the four going to Amsterdam this weekend. We had heard great things about this city, both the nightlife and daytime scenery! We were excited. The train that we took there had several connections, so we couldn’t just sleep for 4 hours nonstop. Soon enough though, we made it! My oh my! Amsterdam was beautiful! The lakes and canals were a sight to see. All of the buildings leaned against once another! We dropped our stuff off at our hostel before heading out to get dinner and explore the city. We walked past the infamous Red Light District. For those who don’t know what the Red Light District is, it’s an area of a city for legalized prostitution! We walked through a few alleyways that were about 6 feet wide; the entire alley was illuminated in red. On either side of you, you would see several 8 foot windows, some of which had a curtain covering the interior. For the windows that weren’t covered by a curtain, you wouldn’t see much until you were literally right next to it. Then, you would see a woman just standing there in lingerie, seductively looking out at everyone, trying to sell herself. Honestly, it was quite an odd experience. In this day and age, there’s so much debate and controversy over gender equality and how “women are not objects” (ß which I completely agree with) that when I walked through the Red Light District, I couldn’t help but think to myself “these women are all literally objects that men pay for.” Again, I don’t agree with the concept of objectifying women at all, but as I walked through this, every prostitute was just selling their bodies to whoever would pay. As odd as this was, this was definitely a must-visit if you’re in the city of Amsterdam; it’s just a central part of the culture that really helps to define the city and nightlife! The next day, a guide took us around the city for a tour! Amsterdam at night is an extremely unique place, but in the day, it is completely different! And so beautiful! We passed by the Red Light District again, and even in the day, the women are still working! We learned that there is a big church in the center of the Red Light District, and on the other side of the street are the windows full of women. The guide told us that a couple of centuries ago, sailors would purchase the services of these women. Prior to setting out for the seas, they would go to the church and pay the church to help repent their sins because of the fact that they might die out at sea and be unable to have their sins forgiven. As time passed, the church started condoning the use of the Red Light District strictly so that they would make profit! How odd huh? We ended the tour on the western side of the city, near the Anne Frank House. We had reserved our tickets for Sunday, but one of our friends told us to try the pancakes in that area, so we did. They were so tasty! Maybe we need to go back again tomorrow.. After this, we booked it back to the central train station so that we could catch a canal tour around the city! It lasted about an hour and we were able to see a lot of the city from a canal point of view! The weather was great, and the city of Amsterdam is just beautiful! Afterwards, we went back to the hostel to change before going out for the night. We made it to the Heineken Experience Museum and learned a lot about the history of Heineken and how it’s made. Looking back on it, I realized that we forgot to eat dinner before going out to the pubcrawl. OOPS. I can’t say that this was the best pubcrawl I’ve been to, but getting back was definitely a struggle. On the way back at 1:30 in the morning, we stopped by this sweets store. While we were waiting for them to finish our orders, my friend, Amran, decided to use his fingers to get a sample of the sample food decorations for the public to see. Kyle and I just stared at him….the manager also stared at him. Quite embarrassing, but whatevaaa. We got our desserts and got out off there ASAP! After finishing that, we each bought pizza from Domino’s before finally calling it a night. We went to visit the Van Gogh Museum the next morning, which was a neat must-visit place that showed us a lot about Van Gogh’s life and his artwork. Sadly, the infamous painting “The Starry Night” was nowhere to be found (it’s sitting at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City). Next: The Anne Frank House!! We showed them our tickets, and they said “this ticket was for yesterday..” WELP. We dun goofed! I guess that we had planned to go to the museums on Saturday so that we could party Saturday night and sleep in that morning…..in either case, we decided to wait until it was open entry for everyone since the Anne Frank House is undoubtedly one of the biggest places to visits in Amsterdam. I knew a lot about Anne Frank prior to this museum visit. The secret Annex was really small, and I could see why it was difficult for the Frank family to silently stay there all day. Afterwards, we found the popular “Fault in Our Stars” bench. We actually kicked a couple off of the bench (OKAY. They were just chilling there, and we asked if we could get a photo on the bench real quick, but they got pissed and left.). Anything for the ‘gram right? Our last stop before leaving Amsterdam was the iAmsterdam letters. It was PACKED with people, but we got a quick photo and then made our way for the train station. Sadly, we didn’t make it back in time to catch our train……luckily, there was one other route to get home that the train conductors helped us with. Around 1AM, we arrived in Bonn. I decided to catch the 1:35 bus so that I could get back home as early as possible; Kyle and Amran decided to get some Mickey D’s and catch the 2:35 bus. On the way back, SURPRISE! I fell asleep again haha….this time I woke up 3 stops after I got off, so I waited for a whole other loop and went home with Kyle and Amran on the 2:35 bus haha! So much for getting home earlier…all in all though! This weekend was great. I really loved Amsterdam and would definitely go again!

WHOOP!!