Missing blue skies

Today it was in the 30s and sleeting but when I FaceTimed my friend, it was sunny and 70s in ATX. I am so jealous but thankfully I am getting used to the cold. It was our second week here in Germany and our first week of classes. I started my intermediate German class and was super excited to be learning new things instead of having review! My host mom and I speak more German to each other now. I was sad I missed her due to her job but she left me delicious food so all is forgiven. I am settling in and am starting to be more comfortable around the house. I have been playing a bit of piano and doing things I've been wanting to do. Unfortunately I am getting worse at public transportation. I forgot to look at the direction of the bus and was late to class. But I hope after this week I will improve and that's all I can ask for. Pharmacology starts up next week which is exciting and our other classes have been going smoothly. History of medicine is my favorite class! So interesting. Mats is making our intercultural lectures fun and informative. The Enmodes project I can tell will be kicking into gear soon. We missed the WOKI sneak preview so we'll have to try next time but other than that we had a good week and ended early on Friday. Which helped because I travelled!

Ana asked if I wanted to go to Maastricht so I decided to be spontaneous and go with a group of our friends. The Netherlands was beautiful and even though it was raining more, it was a little warmer. We took a bus and got even better at the different types of transport here while answering some personal questions to get closer. The bus driver actually complained to us that he was having to speak English in Germany and that we needed to speak German; he was very rude and it was an odd but enlightening experience to be an outsider. Once we got there we had an amazing 3 course meal for 20 Euros along the main square. That night we window shopped and discussed what we saw in the abstract sculptures before heading to the hostel. We checked for bed bugs! It was actually a nice place and had a salsa night Friday. The next day we explored the city and got the best fries to enjoy while we admired 3 wonderful cathedrals. After, we went to a cathedral turned bookstore and I purchased some books to get back into reading which I've meant to do for a while. Then we went to the natural history museum which was very cool and we learned more about the history of Maastricht but I found myself comparing it to the one in NY...Since we were tired we headed back to the hostel for a game of pool before napping but I ended up cracking my book instead. After enjoying amazing pizza across the river we did some more sightseeing before heading back for bed. People came and went from our room so we had to adjust to hostel life. In the morning we had amazing waffles from PNKY and got to experience the difference in service between the cultures. In America, they are more accommodating so they'll get better tips. We walked to Fort Sint Pieter and explored the old limestone caves that they turned into a tourist attraction by drawing on the walls. Everything is Europe has so much history, you can't go wrong doing anything. We even experienced total blackness for a bit to see what it'd be like without lights. Then we went back to go home and had to get ready to go back to the normal flow. It's been fun and I can't wait until next weekend!