CHAPTER II

This is going to be quite the adventure. I can already tell! After arriving in Frankfurt and taking a bus to Bonn, I met my host mom, Regina. We had communicated a bit over email, but just the formalities so I didn’t know exactly what to expect. She is delightful – and, I am finding out, very blunt! The whole car ride up to the village she was pointing out the sights, explaining the transportation, telling us everything she loved about Bonn. It's wonderful that she is so welcoming and willing to show us what we need to know. I am living in a village about 30 minutes away (by bus) from the center city. The quieter village has been a nice contrast from the main station, shops, and busy streets.

After this past week, I feel quite acquainted with the city. The first night, Regina showed us the main city squares, how to navigate the public buses, and accompanied us on a stroll along the Rhine. We have since received a couple other city tours with the program, so I have gained a fairly good sense of where I am in downtown Bonn. If all else fails, I can orient myself from the Rhine, main station, Bonn University, or the main church. Regina also took Lois (my roommate) and I on a walk through the forest close to our village; the cold does not dissuade her at all. She hoped that “it would not be boring, but should it be that was our problem and not hers.” The main stop along the hike was an outlook over the Rhine and city; I must go back on a clearer day to see Cologne and hike to the castle ruins.

There has been so much to absorb in over the last week: new sites, new friends, new language, and new classes. I think the abundance of information is tiring, but I am enjoying all of it.

Random takeaways from the past week:

Germans eat a lot of bread.

Personal traveling is quite the adventure and will likely not go as planned, but seeing Bruges, Belgium was still so fun.

There are so many cathedrals and fancy buildings; I hope I won’t stop being amazed by the architecture.

I keep underestimating how many layers I should wear to keep warm.

Not knowing the foreign language can make situations more complicated than they needed to be.