Biosciences Bonn: HIKE THE MOON ?

To celebrate Easter Monday, I went and saw WALK THE MOON in Cologne!!!! Izzie, Lexie, and I venture out to Cologne around 5pm (so about 4 hours after I got back from the airport...) to find dinner and drinks and make our way to the little hole-in-the wall venue WTM was playing at, because, apparently, they aren’t super big in Germany. We showed up right as the opening act, Flor, another great unknown band, was starting, and thought we were going to be completely out of luck in finding a good place to stand. Incidentally, the only bathrooms in the place (we had more than a little to drink at dinner. heh.) were RIGHT NEXT TO THE STAGE, so we shimmied our way to the bathroom and hung out at the right side of the stage the whole night. It was awesome. We didn’t have the best view or the best sound quality, but we could see the entire stage and all the members of the band. We even made friends with the stage manager, who invited us to the show the next weekend in the UK!! I got his number and he said he would put us on the VIP list next show we came to — SO FREAKING COOL!!!! While it was too expensive to get to the UK that next weekend, I'm definitely going to try to make it to their Dallas show this summer! The setlist was amazing: the band played a bunch of their new songs but played just as many of their old hits! “Shut Up and Dance,” “Anna Sun,” “Tightrope,” “Shiver Shiver,” “Portugal,” and “Different Colors” were some of the songs that really got me listening to their music, and it was amazing to hear them live.

WE MET THE BAND Y’ALL. I convinced my sleepy cohorts that fangirling around the tourbus for an extra hour or so would be worth it, and I was right. It took a little longer than I thought it would for the band to start coming out, but they finally did and I now have a EU-UK Tour t-shirt signed by the WHOLE BAND and got to hug the lead singer and the awesome guitarist who pointed at us all night and made sure we had a great time even way over to the right. The band was super chill. We also met some cool girls from all around Europe who had been following the group during their Easter break, becoming friends in the process. Ever since my first big concert (Imagine Dragons 6 years ago) I’ve fallen in love with the atmosphere of a tiny standing room venue and the friends you make who share your love of live music and the performers on stage. It’s over a week later and I still get concert high when WALK THE MOON comes on Spotify.

Naturally, the next day we had a super early meeting time for an excursion to visit the Hildegard von Bingen museum. Hildegard was a nun a few hundred years ago who was, in modern terms, quite a feminist. Nuns at the time were mainly around to pray. Not much else. Very quiet, boring lifestyle. Hildegard, on the other hand, wanted to preach and share the revelations revealed to her in dreams. She started her own women’s monastery and traveled all around Europe spreading religion. We also walked around the garden outside of the museum filled with plants she used to “treat” various illnesses of the time. The descriptions were all in German so Brother Jeremy translated and taught us about all the “healing properties” of the greenery. Brother Jeremy also sang us a religious song from Hildegard’s time. Video below!

The weather finally showed signs of spring and actually got into the 70s by saturday!!! Let me tell you, breaking out the 2 pairs of shorts I brought specifically for this last month in Europe was fantastic, and hiking in the Seven Hills with nothing but a light jacket was exhilarating. I spent all of Friday and Saturday exploring the hiking trails and castles near Bonn.

Class ended relatively early on Friday, so Brynn, Mitchell, and I set out on an adventure! I downloaded Komoot, which is an outdoorsy app that lets you record and follow hiking trails, and we found an 8 mile hike that took us nearly 5 hours. We saw castles, ruins of castles, plenty of types of trees, and basically had a blast. My favorite part of Friday was finding an old castle up on a hill that you really can’t see from below because of the tall trees that surround it. We scaled the castle all and climbed up to the highest point to some excellent views of the beautiful countryside and city and river that were surprisingly far away. As we climbed down we laughed at all the stares we got from the rest of the people at the castle, and as we left we learned why… We passed a sign that we’d missed on the way in (because we scaled the wall rather than walking around to the actual entrance) that basically said “LIFE DANGER: CLIMBING ON CASTLE WALLS IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN.” Well, whoops. The pictures and stares were worth it though, as I’m pretty used to getting weird looks from the Germans by now.

Saturday was great too. I met up with Mitchell and Corey for what I thought was going to be a sushi buffet, but ended up being a Chinese buffet with a small selection of sushi. It was still pretty good for the price, though I was really hoping for more sushi. Afterwards I set off for another long hike a little farther inland than we went yesterday. This hike was a lot more diverse than the one we took Saturday. There were pine trees during the first part and multiple levels of trails on the hills. A tall rock formation jutted out from the top of a hill near the beginning of my hike, and of course I was only too happy to climb on it and take in the awesome views. I love climbing on rocks and going on trails that look more like forest than paved paths, and I loved it. I found another castle too, but was careful to look for signs before I climbed anything. As I neared the peak of my hiking trail, I saw a flight of stairs leading around the mountain, I was sure to the top. But I hate stairs. I looked around and saw a bunch of kids climbing down the mountain in a more woodsy area and decided that looked like much more fun. I slipped on pine needles all the way up and had to climb another rock formation to get to the top, but it was tons of fun. I wasn’t sure where I was going, and when I popped my head up from the rocks I heard someone laugh. Apparently I popped my head up in the middle of someone’s cutesy kissing pictures with the mountains in the background. Lol.

On the way to the end of the trail I had a lot more flat ground that actually looked kinda like Texas. It was brown and dry and less fun to walk. One super cool/unnerving thing I pwas a To celebrate Easter Monday, I went and saw WALK THE MOON in Cologne!!!! Izzie, Lexie, and I ventured off to Cologne around 5pm (4 hours after I got home from the airport) to get a drink and make our way to the little hole-in-the wall venue they were playing at, because, apparently, they aren’t super big in Germany. We showed up right as the opening act, Flor, also a great unknown band, was starting, and thought we were going to be completely out of luck in finding a good place to stand. Incidentally, the only bathrooms in the place (we had more than a little to drink at dinner. heh.) were RIGHT NEXT TO THE STAGE, so we shimmied our way to the bathroom and hung out at the right side of the stage the whole night. It was awesome. We didn’t have the best view or the best sound but we could see the entire stage and all the members of the band. We even made friends with the stage manager, who invited us to the show the next weekend in the UK!! I got his number and he said he would put us on the VIP list next show we came to — SO FREAKING COOL!!!! (Side note: it was too expensive to go to the UK that weekend so I’m going to try to make it to their show in Dallas this summer!) The setlist was amazing: the band played a bunch of their new songs but played just as many of their old hits! “Shut Up and Dance,” “Anna Sun,” “Tightrope,” “Shiver Shiver,” “Portugal,” and “Different Colors” were some of the songs that really got me listening to their music and it was amazing to hear them live.

WE MET THE BAND Y’ALL. I convinced my sleepy cohorts that fangirling around the tourbus for an extra hour or so would be worth it, and I was right. It took a little longer than I thought it would for the band to start coming out, but they finally did and I now have a EU-UK Tour t-shirt signed by the WHOLE BAND and got to hug the lead singer and the awesome guitarist who pointed at us all night and made sure we had a great time even way over to the right. The band was super chill. We also met some cool girls from all around Europe who had been following the group during their Easter break and had become friends throughout the whole thing. Ever since my first big concert (Imagine Dragons 6 years ago) I’ve fallen head over heels for the atmosphere of a tiny standing room venue and the friends you make based on your shared love of live music and performers on stage. It’s over a week later and I still get concert high when WALK THE MOON comes on Spotify.

Naturally, the next day we had a super early meeting time for an excursion to visit the Hildegard von Bingen museum. Hildegard was a German nun a few hundred years ago who was, in modern terms, quite a feminist. Nuns at the time were mainly around to pray. Not much else. Very quiet, boring lifestyle. Hildegard, on the other hand, wanted to preach and share the revelations God had revealed to her in dreams. She started her own women’s monastery and traveled all around Europe spreading her visions. We also walked around the garden outside of the museum filled with plants she used to “treat” various illnesses of the time. The descriptions were all in German, so Brother Jeremy translated and taught us about all the “healing properties” of the greenery. Brother Jeremy also sang us a religious song from Hildegard’s time. Video below!

This week in class we continued learning about cardiac physiology. It’s interesting and is super helpful for our enmodes project, which ends at the end of next week. Yikes. It feels like we still have a lot to do for it, but Brynn and my other teammates keep assuring me that we’re pretty much done. Maybe I don’t feel prepared because I don’t know/understand all the pieces of the puzzle, but I guess feeling overwhelmed is just part of the project. Brynn, Corey, and I focused on the anatomy of inserting stuff and getting it back out again, while the rest of our group worked on the puncturing and securing procedure. Their part covers more machinery and engineering stuff that I know nothing about. I’m used to knowing all the details before presenting, but I guess for bigger projects with lots of specifications and stuff I’ll have to learn to trust the others in my group to know their stuff while I know mine.

The weather finally showed signs of spring and actually got into the 70s by saturday!!! Let me tell you, it was fantastic to break out the 2 pairs of shorts I brought specifically for this last month in Europe, and hiking in the Seven Hills with nothing but a light jacket was exhilarating. I spent all of Friday and Saturday exploring the hiking trails and castles near Bonn.

Class ended relatively early on Friday, so Brynn, Mitchell, and I set out on an adventure! I downloaded Komoot, an outdoorsy app that lets you record and follow hiking trails, and we found an 8 mile hike that took us nearly 5 hours. We saw castles, ruins of castles, plenty of types of trees, and basically had a blast. My favorite part of Friday was finding an old castle up on a hill that you really can’t see from below because of the tall trees that surround it. We scaled the castle wall and climbed up to the highest point to some excellent views of the beautiful countryside and city and river that were surprisingly far away. As we climbed down we laughed at all the stares we got from the rest of the people at the castle, and as we left we learned why… A sign we’d missed on the way in (because we scaled the wall rather than walking around to the actual entrance) basically said “LIFE DANGER: CLIMBING ON CASTLE WALLS IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN.” Well, whoops. The pictures and stares were worth it though, as I’m pretty used to getting weird looks from the Germans by now.

Saturday was great too. I met up with Mitchell and Corey for what I thought was going to be a sushi buffet, but ended up being a Chinese buffet with a small selection of sushi. It was still pretty good for the price, though I was really hoping for more sushi. Afterwards I set off for another long hike a little farther away from the river than we went yesterday. This hike was a lot more diverse than the one we took Saturday. There were pine trees during the first part and multiple levels of trails on the hills. A tall rock formation jutted out from the top of a hill near the beginning of my hike, and, of course, I was only too happy to climb all over it and take in the awesome views it gave. I love climbing on rocks and going on trails that look more like forest than paved paths, and I chilled up there for a few minutes soaking up the sun. I found another castle too, but was careful to look for signs before I climbed anything. As I neared the peak of my hiking trail, I saw a flight of stairs leading around the mountain, I was sure to some viewing point at the top. But I hate stairs. I looked around and saw a bunch of kids climbing down the mountain in a more woodsy area and decided that looked like much more fun. I slipped on pine needles all the way up and had to climb another rock formation to get to the top, but it was a challenge and I had a great time. I wasn’t really sure where I was going, and when I popped my head ruined someone’s cutesy kissing pictures with the mountains in the background. Lol.

On the way to the end of the trail I had a lot more flat ground that actually looked kinda like Texas. It was brown and dry and less fun to walk. One super cool/unnerving thing I passed by was a dead tree absolutely swarming with ants, so much so it sounded like rain, even though it was simply the thousands of ants crawling over the tree and it’s dead leaves. Yikes. I also found a very cool stone wall covered in Ivy. It surrounded a monastery that featured a pond with the stations of the cross around it, multiple fountains, and a really pretty open, stone chapel surrounded by trees that were just beginning to bloom. It was gorgeous, but I hurried through to make it to the bus stop in time to catch the only bus for the hour and headed home.

Sunday I stayed home with Brynn and Sonja and worked on my pharmacology presentation that I was scheduled to do the next day. Unfortunately, because technology hates me, my laptop decided it was going to take a vacation and stopped working on me around 9pm, even though I still had half of my presentation to finish. This thing has been acting up for nearly two weeks. Some days it won’t work unless it’s plugged in. Other days it works but the battery doesn’t register how much charge there is, or it thinks it’s charging even when there’s no cord in sight. That night it just decided it wasn’t going to charge even after it died. It was aggravating to the max, and I went to bed frustrated and worried about my incomplete presentation. My next week started much less relaxed than I’d hoped.

In two days I hiked nearly 17 miles and worked my legs harder than I have since spring break. I’ve decided that when I settle down it’s gonna be somewhere with hills and trees and greenery with extreme adventure potential. I am definitely happiest when I’m at a concert or in the woods, and since I can’t live like a groupie my whole life I’ll settle for the trees.

Our view for WALK THE MOON

FANGIRLS

THIS IS NICK THE LEAD SINGER OF WALK THE MOON WOW FANGIRLING HARD

Mystical door

I think benches make artsy pictures

I constantly picked my feet up and down while taking this photo so ants wouldn't be able to crawl on my shoes. Was kinda paranoid for a few minutes after that.