Week One: Done

This week has been absolutely amazing! It's been nonstop and we've done so much that it kind of blows my mind. I can't even remember the last time I was running around so much. It's been 1000-1700 pretty much every day just because of all of the things we have to see and do. But, honestly, I love it. Everything here is so interesting I want to see everything physically possible and if I come home at the end of the day exhausted, that just means that I'll probably sleep very well that night.

I will say that I'm glad I came a few days early and got to meet up with an old friend in Stuttgart. It made it possible for me to have a more gradual introduction to German living. Her boyfriend, who is from Germany actually made me a traditional German dinner before I left. I tried everything, even the sauerkraut, and was surprised by how much my picky self enjoyed it all.

Meeting everyone from the program again and then meeting my host family Monday was super fun. My host mom, Astrid, and her daughter, Naja, are so sweet and their poodle is super adorable. I just saw their snake, who is being kept in a fridge to hibernate, tonight but still haven't been able to go out to see their horse. That will be fun, I'm sure. Astrid and Naja have been super helpful in getting me acquainted with Bonn's public transportation system, which is really the only way to get anywhere around the city. My commute to AIB is about 40 minutes, which is vastly different from living on campus and being able to get (almost) anywhere I needed within 20 minutes. But it's not as big a deal as I expected it to be since we don't have class or other activities until 1015 most days.

So far, we haven't had too many classes. Although, two of my classes are online, so those I've had to keep up with. We had our first genetics lecture live-stream on Monday night, which was kind of rough since we had just gotten into town. Lectures are supposed to be Monday and Wednesday evenings for us, but we missed Wednesday's class because of our trip to Mayschoß, where we all tried some really great wine and had a delicious dinner. Hopefully, we get the link to the video of the lecture we missed because we are supposed to and it still hasn't happened. But, besides genetics, we all also had our first German lessons and I thought it was fun. Our instructor, Frau Koch- or Hilde, as we've been allowed to call her- is funny and a great teacher. When I introduced myself to her in German, she said I have a great German accent and asked if I already knew the language. That kind of blew my mind because I haven't been learning German for even a month and I thought my accent was trash. 😂 But, even though I love learning German, it's clear that it's going to be difficult and confusing. It's so much different from English and more complicated than Spanish, so I'm not sure how proficient I'll be at the end of the semester but I'm trying to learn as much as possible. Anyway, this next week we'll all be really diving into class- especially physiology. We met with enmodes, the company we'll be working with for our physiology project, in Aachen on Friday and I'll say that it sounds like the semester will be challenging but that I'll be learning a lot. I'm excited to get started and look forward to our upcoming classes.

What is also exciting is our excursion to Cologne this Tuesday. We saw so much while we were in Aachen that I'm wondering where we'll be going to while in Cologne. Definitely the church, which I've been told is much larger than Aachen Cathedral. The church in Aachen was already so beautiful and had much more history than I expected (but, then again, this is Europe). I can't even imagine what Cologne's church will be like and don't want to spoil it by googling pictures.  Tomorrow, Monday, we'll have our first intercultural workshop, which will be led by our program director, Mats. I have no idea what we will be doing but I'm looking forward to it. Everything I learn about Germany is fascinating and I want to take advantage of every opportunity I can to experience the culture and history while I'm here. I already feel time passing by so quickly and I can't waste a second of it.

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Why do my posts end up so long?