week ein

14/01

I am so happy to finally be in Germany! My plane arrived in Frankfurt this morning, and got to Bonn late this afternoon. My host mom Birgit and her friend picked me up and we drove to her home in an area of town called “Hoholz.” Her house is so awesome- it is 250 years old and has a lot of traditional German architecture and decorations inside. She is also not a regular host mom, she’s a cool host mom; she told me that she just goes dancing with her friends and does pilates and paints for fun (goals).

My Genetics class also started today. It is livestreamed from College Station, so we have class at 8:45 PM due to the time difference. Since nobody knows how to navigate the bus system yet, a cab picked us up for class, which also may have been the most high class thing that has ever happened to me. 

15/01

Last night, I couldn’t sleep, so I bought a ticket on the overnight train to Poland in a few weeks to visit Auschwitz, which has been on my bucket list forever.

The highlight of today was definitely touring the Haus der Geshichte (The House of History), a museum that details the history of Germany since after WWII. It was very interesting because I didn’t know much about the history of Germany, but learning about it made me excited to visit Berlin and really sparked my interest in visiting other cities in East Germany. 

Some of the aspects of the tour hit home because of my family’s history, too. My mom was born and raised in the Soviet Union, and some of the brief stories she has shared with me about it were very similar to what the people of East Germany also had lived through too after the war.

16/01

Today we did my two favorite things on a trip to Mayschoss: hiking and drinking wein!!! We hiked through a vineyard up a hill, where we learned about the process of making wine. All the plants were brown since it is freezing every day, but the vineyard was still beautiful nonetheless. One fact that I found funny was that each plant has a little tag that releases pheromones to protect against insects eating the grapes. When the male insects smell the pheromones, they get overwhelmed and can’t stop doing their mating dance until they starve to death. 

At the top of the hill, there were ruins of an old medieval fortress, and we enjoyed the view of the valley with a glass of Riesling. I had never tried Riesling before, but I learned that it is a dry, white wine from the Rhine valley. It was quite amazing. We continued on a tour of the weinkeller (wine cellar), and I have never had the pleasure of seeing so many huge barrels of wine. After, we went even further underground and got to drink 3 more glasses of different wines and eat a porkchop with potatoes, for educational purposes of course. 

17/01

            This morning, we had our first Deutsch lesson, which is exciting even though people here speak English. I struggle with making the “ghhh” and “tggrr“ sounds, but hopefully I will improve soon. 

            Something that I and the other people on my program have had to adjust to is how Germans use heat and water sparingly because they are so expensive. While I take having a dryer back home for granted, we were told that we “might maybe be able to dry our clothes in the school dryer in an emergency” and  some host families even make their student set a timer in the shower to keep it under 5 minutes.

            Also, the more I learn about my host mom, she cooler she is. She told me that back in the 70’s, she was a total hippie and went to a lot of concerts from artists like Pink Floyd and The Rolling Stones. Jealous!!!

18/01

At 7 am SHARP (Germans are very particular about being on time), our bus left for Aachen. We got our first introduction to enmodes, a biotechnology company that we will be working with this semester. We learned more about the existing RAS-Q technology and how we will be working on a project that will help them continue developing a long-term lung support device. I am so excited to learn so much about the development and design process of medical technology this semester. 

This evening, we had a welcome party with our host families and students in other programs from different universities. An evening with bier, trivia, friends, and traditional German food is one that cannot go wrong!

19-20/01

This weekend, I did something I haven’t had a chance to do all week…sleep! I also hiked up to Schloss Drachenburg, a castle on stop of one of the hills that make up the Siebengebirge (Seven Mountains), which was the perfect because the sun finally came out. Besides that, it has been such an awesome time to reflect on how amazing this week has been. I never thought I’d have so much fun with a group of strangers I met 6 days ago, but being here is nothing short of a dream!