Karneval baby

This week, we were lucky enough to have a 5 day weekend, meaning we only had three days of actual class. We finally got our groups for enmodes and the specific problem that we are going to present at the end of the semester. This is both very exciting and terrifying. My group already started sketching out the plan of what we are designing and it is all hand on deck. On Wednesday, I had my physiology test which included an insane amount of material, and since I spent the weekend in Italy, I did not feel as prepared as I should have, but I still felt pretty good after it.

The reason we had a 5 day weekend was because it was KARNEVAL!! We had been hearing so much about this holiday and I was so excited to finally be a part of it. On Thursday we got the chance to actually be IN the parade, instead of just watching it go by. It was so fun seeing hundreds of children and adults all dressed up in the most random of costumes and everyone was having a great time.
Since you can only "Karneval" so much, I decided to go to Amsterdam on Friday and Saturday so that I could really enjoy Rose Monday. Amsterdam is by far the most 21st century city in the world. You could hear dozens of languages in a span of just 5 minutes, everyone was just being themselves, and it felt freeing. On the first day I just walked around a couple parks and read my book and it was extremely relaxing being by myself and doing whatever I wanted to do. That night, the friends I went with and I met again at our hostel and had some dinner and then explored some of the city. The next day we woke up pretty early, had some breakfast and then went to the Van Gogh museum, which was sooo amazing. We spent about 3 hours in the museum and it was not nearly as big as other museums that I have been to. After the museum we only had a couple hours until our train left we just went to a park, relaxed for a bit and then had lunch on the way to the train. Since I was only in Amsterdam for a day and a half, I will definitely try to come back before the semester ends.

On Sunday I just laid in bed all day and watched hours of Netflix.

Monday. Rose Monday. Rose Montag. What an incredible day. Woke up at 7am, left for Cologne by 8:30, and started the biggest party of the year. It was crowded, cold, windy, and raining, but none of that stopped us from having fun.