The week started with a bomb threat in Bonn Hauptbanhof that left Dany, Bri, and me stuck in the city center for a few hours after studying for 211. Of course, nothing actually happened, but it was a pretty crazy experience that left all of us feeling like we're still in the US!
We toured two museums with Dr. Wasser this week. The museum of anesthesiology with Dr. Stoeckel was super cool, especially considering how much work has been put into his museum and seeing his curated collection. The iron lung was particularly interesting to me because my grandfather on my mom's side had polio as a kid and lived in an iron lung for a while. The history museum tour was long but it was interesting to see a more comprehensive history of Germany rather than the typical Holocaust history lesson where that's the only part of Germany shown. Obviously it's an important part, but there's a lot of German history both before and after the Holocaust, and it's nice to learn about because I know they have a relatively strong culture, but I didn't know much about it before living here.
Moving on from the more academic reflection, we went out to a couple hookah bars in Bonn this week and it was a pretty hectic night for me at least-- gotta be more careful with those mini wine bottles from the kiosks; they may be cheap and relatively small, but they're still wine lmao. Enrique and I went out for his birthday and went back to the second bar because we didn't get to finish our drinks the first time (they were really good drinks), then we went to Bonnsch, then KFC for some spicy wings because OH MY GOD I miss spicy food. I was a little sick after Cologne, but thankfully I felt better before Amsterdam because that was a doozy. We woke up early, slept for a few hours on the train, and went straight to a coffee shop at like 10 AM before wandering around the city for 3 hours looking for a market and a restaurant. We found the market and kept walking for a while before Dany, Bri, and I got tiny waffles that were *chef's kiss*. Eventually we rallied the group and went to a restaurant called Happy Tosti where we got even more *chef's kiss* sandwiches and met up with Katrina and Cody's friends Matt and John. After this, we walked to the museum district before realizing that we were all exhausted and wanted to drop our bags off, so we took Cody's stuff while he kept walking around with Matt and John and we went to the hostel, which was farther than we expected and required two different transit passes. I was basically Enrique's wallet since he can't do anything but Venmo people while he doesn't have his wallet, but I don't mind. It was a good idea to nap a little bit and hang out at the hostel before going out, because that night was crazy. I truly cannot believe how much happened (or how many miles we walked!) in one night. We went to the Anne Frank museum in the afternoon with the whole group, then the group split up because some of us wanted coffee and some wanted dinner and drinks, but we all met up again after a couple hours. The Red Light District was unlike anything I've ever seen before and I can't say it was the most comfortable I've ever been, but it sure was interesting. I wish I'd taken more pictures and videos of the whole trip, but obviously it wasn't a real option at night and honestly I don't think I'm in any danger of forgetting what happened. We ended up taking an Uber back to the hostel at night and then, for some God-forsaken reason, drank a little bit more. I watched a couple episodes of Avatar before bed, then we woke up in the late morning and went to breakfast at a restaurant called Brownies and Downies, where some of their staff members had Down syndrome, and I thought it was a really cool concept to give people an opportunity to work who otherwise might not be able to, and the food was really good. We went to a museum of modern art before we had to go home and unfortunately couldn't get tickets to the Van Gogh museum because we didn't buy tickets early enough, but that's alright.
Leaving Amsterdam was sad because I think we all would've liked to stay another night, but I don't think it was lacking in experiences in any capacity, and I wouldn't be surprised if we made time for another trip later in the semester.
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