Monday began with a loud bang on the door. Mitchell bursted into our room "Ya'll get up, we need to go". About two weeks before, we collectively decided it was a good idea to fly in from Budapest Monday since we did not have class until later in morning. Madeline and I scrambled to get out of bed. Things were being shoved into coat pockets and waistbands to avoid over weight luggage fees. I threw my hair into a top knot that was as frazzled as my mindset. With adrenaline coursing through all of our veins, we sprinted down the stairs, hastily placed the keys in the mailbox, and bolted through the door. It was 4:00 when we faced our first major challenge of finding the shuttle to the airport. To make things worse, the bus schedules were in a completely foreign language. Luckily, Mitchell had done some research and guided us to the stop, or so we thought. We stood in the cold as people who's Sunday had yet to end stumbled by. Around the corned came a bus that read "AIRPORT SHUTTLE" in bold orange letters across the top. A wave of relief passed over us. The bus turned the corner. Everyone frantically took off following it. Sprinting with a rolling suitcase is not an easy task. With every bump in the road or curb I had to hop my suitcase went flying in the air. One passerby decided to encourage us. She drunkly yelled in a British accent, "Run! You can make it! Run! Run! Faster!". Finally, we made it. "Tickets please" commanded a short, round man at the door of the bus. We explained that we were ticketless and the next challenge arose, "You can buy tickets, only in Forint and only in cash". Luckily, I had pulled out money from an ATM earlier in the week and we were able to make it onto the bus. We made it to the airport and were guided into a warehouse on the side of the airport. The tickets we booked were with Wizz air. As broke students wanting to travel as much as possible, we are going to purchase the cheapest tickets. Even if it means boarding the plane from a warehouse. An uneventful flight later, we landed in Dortmund. Our next challenge arose in transporting ourselves from the airport to the train station located 30 minutes away. And to make things extra challenging, we had 45 minutes to do it, and traffic was blocked up. We hopped in a taxi and by some miracle made it on time. Finally, we arrived in Bonn. It was only 10:00. It seemed like we had already been awake for a full day by the time we sat down for class. The last and largest challenge was staying attentive after 3 hours of sleep and full morning of travel. Needless to say, I was thankful when I finally crawled into bed that night.
The next morning, we had an intercultural workshop. After the workshop, Madeline and I had to take our host dog, Jamie. We briefly walked around the neighborhood then went home for lunch. After lunch, we studied for 211 then headed to class. Once classes were over, we had dinner with our host family then continued to study for 211. Wednesday was our first dreaded 211 test so most of Tuesday was spent cramming and praying for a miracle.
Dreaded Wednesday began with the exam. It was not fun. To make the situation better, we had a full day of classes ahead of us. The only thing that kept us going was knowing Karneval was fast approaching. Once classes got out, a group of us went to the pop-up costume shop in front of the post office. After bumping into about a million people and walking around aimlessly for an hour, Madeline and I decided to buy bright blue wigs, neon yellow skirts, and bright pink shirts. We skipped home, excited for the weekend coming ahead.
Thursday, Madeline and I woke up early. We painted our faces in bright rainbow makeup and put on our costumes. In an effort to prevent myself from freezing, I was wearing three pairs of pants, four shirts, and two pairs of socks. We grabbed some orange juice, a piece of bread and headed out the door. We met up with the rest of the group at the AIB. They offered us juice, sodas and the preferred Karneval pastries, Berliners. We made a very chilly walk to the other side of the Rhine where we would be watching the parade. It was incredible to see how much everyone genuinely loved and enjoyed this special holiday. People of all ages were dressed from head to toe in costumes resembling everything from Indians to unicorns. Some of the costumes made me uncomfortable. Particularly the ones in which people were mocking other cultures. In the US that definitely would not have been accepted, but here it is a norm. Besides the cultural appropriation, Karneval was enjoyable
Friday and Saturday, Madeline and I barely left the house. With all the chaos that occurred on Thursday we decided to take a few days for ourselves. Friday, we took to hang out with our host family, catch up on our Netflix shows and sleep. Saturday we took to catch up on our school work and prepare for the week ahead. Saturday night, Madeline and I decided to reward our hard work y going to a popular nightclub, Untergrund. There we made new friends, danced, and shouted Karneval songs at the top of our lungs.
Sunday, we woke up and made our way to the train station so we could head to Cologne. We learned during our first stay in Cologne the importance of location when choosing an airbnb. This time I was much more attentive to where the airbnb was in relation to where we would be going. We arrived at a beautifully decorated apartment owned by a man named Felix. This was the first time I rented a single room instead of an apartment. We rang the bell to be let upstairs. While waiting, up walked four very tall, attractive German guys. The tallest walked right past us, up to the door and said "you are all from Texas" then proceeded to open the door. Both confused and captivated, we followed him to the apartment. There we met Felix and were shown to our room. After about 20 minutes, my phone lit up with a message from my cousin, Kendall. She studied abroad in Germany for a year then moved back here on a scholarship to earn her masters. The last time I saw her was when we spontaneously ran into each other at the World War II memorial in Washington D.C.. Neither of us live there and neither of us knew the other was even in the area at that time. Anyway, I got to spend the majority of the afternoon walking around Karneval and catching up with her. Later that night, Emily, Katie, Madeline and I grabbed some dinner then went to a few bars to celebrate Karneval. We first walked into a bar that definitely was not for our age group. The crowd was definitely 40+ but, we happened to meet a very nice woman who we spoke with a bit about our travels and experiences abroad. At the end of our conversation, she happily recommended us to an area that was more our age. We tried out the new place, had a lot of fun then headed home for the night.
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