Woche Fünf

Blog Post of Week 5: New Feelings and More New Experiences

February 20, 2018

Guten Abend!

It’s now been 5 weeks since I’ve been here in Germany and this study abroad is Finally starting to feel like less abroad and more study. Next week, I have 3 exams: physiology, physiology lab, and German, and I feel a bit overwhelmed. I guess I shouldn’t be complaining since the engineering students have felt this way since week 1 but here I am. I knew this was a long time coming, though!

On Friday, we celebrated Galentine’s Day, and I had Lexie and she had me. I guess you could say we’re the perfect match, and she nailed the gift giving. From her, I received the prettiest flowers, the yummiest chocolate, and the fruitiest face mask. It was a lot of fun as you can see in the blurry pictures.

During the weekend, I went to the Black Forest region to go hiking with Kate, Corey, Mitchell and IBK. First of all, this was the dream team. I had the best time with these people and I felt like we had luck on our side the whole time because it snowed, our rental car didn’t get stuck in the parking lot due to this snow, and everything just seemed to work out perfectly.  It was funny because the bus driver we had taking us to the train station made us all get off the bus at one point to help push a car out of the snow, and he repeatedly stopped to help other drivers in their fight against mother nature. We felt like we were in good hands going up the narrow winding hills with this MVP as our driver.

Once we got into Triberg, we hiked to the waterfall there and it was gorgeous. The scenery was just amazing because of the white snow covering the trees and ground and it was such a sight to see! We hiked about 8 miles and ended up having a snowball fight in this huge hilly field with one small house at the bottom, and we created forts and everything! The boys might say they won, but I’d say there was no clear winner.

The next day was even better as we went cross country skiing and I had never done anything like that in my life! The smallest hills were so fun to ski down and I would get scared once I started going fast down them because I never learned how to stop. Many times, I would stop by landing on the ground and bruising a couple of places on my body, but I’m proud to say I did not fall the most (cough IBK and Kate cough).

On a more serious note relating to this past week, I learned about the passing of my old friend, Matthew Gaikema. It was heartbreaking to find out about and even more heart breaking to find out about the reason why. Ill treasure his friendship forever. It’s difficult to hear about bad things that happen back home when you’re enjoying yourself in a different place, like I am here in Germany. Things like this remind you that you’re not really living in reality right now and when you get back, things will be different. I still feel that my life is changing for the better, though, and I’m hopeful for the rest of this journey to help me grow.

Thank you for reading once again and I hope you enjoy the pictures!

Now I must study.

Bis Spater!